Community Tank To Malawi?

[leeroy]

i now have a tank setup with some lovely mixed african cichlid inhabitants which are getting on great, about 22 fish with the 3 feather fin cats in total. i'll get some pics when i get a new camera, plus i need some help with some i.d's.

anyhow....... im now looking at my 180ltr 3'4" community tank and finding it a bit lame and im thinking of a malawi makeover but is it a little to small??? id ideally like to have it as more of a species tank, something like Pseudotropheus saulosi.. around 10 of them...

what do you all reckon???

thanks
Lee

 

[KittyKat]

I would recommend 10-15 Pseudotropheus demasoni or one of the other dwarfs: realistically, the tank is a bit too small for average Malawis. Have you considered maybe a tank of shell dwellers?

 

[leeroy]

I would recommend 10-15 Pseudotropheus demasoni or one of the other dwarfs: realistically, the tank is a bit too small for average Malawis. Have you considered maybe a tank of shell dwellers?

i had origanally thought of Pseudotropheus demasoni but i liked the idea of keeping a small number of Pseudotropheus saulosi as the male and female are both lovely colours instead of the same..

what other 'dwarf' species are there

 

[dthoffsett]

P.saulosi would work just fine for your tank, you'd only be able to have 1 male though as they can be fairly aggressive.

 

[leeroy]

P.saulosi would work just fine for your tank, you'd only be able to have 1 male though as they can be fairly aggressive.

thanks dthoffsett. yeh i was doing a little more research on them last night and there are a few sites that list them as 'dwarf' as they appear to only get to around 4".

As i say i was hoping to go for around 10 fish in the tank so shall i go for 10 p.saulosi with only 1 male?

any thoughts?

 

[dthoffsett]

shall i go for 10 p.saulosi with only 1 male?

Sounds like a nice setup to me.

 

[leeroy]

think that its then... gotta try and rehome the community fish with some friends and then P. Saulosi tank here i come...

 

[KittyKat]

I would recommend 10-15 Pseudotropheus demasoni or one of the other dwarfs: realistically, the tank is a bit too small for average Malawis.

i had origanally thought of Pseudotropheus demasoni but i liked the idea of keeping a small number of Pseudotropheus saulosi as the male and female are both lovely colours instead of the same..

what other 'dwarf' species are there

Aye, they are lovely.. there are quite a few other species, but I was thinking along the lines of Cynotilapia afra "Cobue" and the like.

P.saulosi would work just fine for your tank, you'd only be able to have 1 male though as they can be fairly aggressive.

thanks dthoffsett. yeh i was doing a little more research on them last night and there are a few sites that list them as 'dwarf' as they appear to only get to around 4".

As i say i was hoping to go for around 10 fish in the tank so shall i go for 10 p.saulosi with only 1 male?

any thoughts?

Ditto one male only.

They are quite a bit larger then the "average" P. demasoni*, so I would advise start with only 6 and maybe take up to 8 total, depending on the individual temperaments and your set-up. If you can get babies, it might be worth getting a dozen and weeding out the weakest males and females as they grow, but I find that catching fish in a tank full of rock is a pain in the backside at best and you have to have someone ready to take them.

*IME, while the "adult" size of P. demasoni is 4 inches, only the alpha male and alpha female will grow that large at any one time.. most of the other fish will remain around 2-3 inches with the beta male possibly growing to about 3.5 inches if the tank is big enough, and rarely reaching full potential of 4 inches if enough females and food are present (unless alpha male is removed). Yes, I have experimented with this in different sized tank, different set-ups etc.

 

[leeroy]

thanks for the reply kat....

I've got 6-8 P. Saulosi due tomorrow but they cannot guarantee the m to f ratio although the have said they'll try to get only 1 male. If theres more i'll have to get rid and replace with females.