Hello, I'm New, And I'd Like Some Advice.

[grewanham]

Hi there guys,

I am just getting into the hobby of fish keeping, but i wish to become a breeder eventually. I am a young Icthyologist but have never studied freshwater fish in detail (I have always dealt with marine species).

We have set up our tropical tank, and i would like to begin keeping Cichlids of some variety, preferably Malawis, and learn to look after them with a view to eventually breeding the same fish. I don't want ones that are particularly easy to look after or breed, i am looking for something more intermediate.

It would also be nice if i could put other fish in the same tank, as i think it's too big to be wasted on just one species (150 L). the Cichlids would be my mian concern with the breeding plan, but it would be nice to have others there for aesthetic reasons. I am coming to you for advice, as i have found it very hard to find information on the web without already knowing species Latin names.

What do you guys think? Do you have any species suggestions, for me to research? Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[malakye]

Hi and welcome, they are a really friendly helpful bunch on here so I am sure you will like it. Sorry I can't offer you any advice on cichlids and tankmates but there is a section for them and I am sure you will find loads of great advice there.

 

[chefrossco]

hay grew,

malawis are pretty intermediate fish to start with. i think if i was u id be thinking more on the lines of angels, the good thing with angels is that they can live with most other community fish, i had a tank of a pair living with guppies! i know this is kinda frowned upon but i never had any problems-they were good for the guppy poulation control.

convicts cichlids arent too bad - can be tempramental,

parrot cichlids- NOT BLOOD PARROTS- they are a hybrid and near imposible to breed because the males are mostly infertile, although my girl continueously lays eggs!

keyhole cichlids are pretty cool, very chilled out for cichlids

and thats about as far as my cichlid knowlage goes - sorry , but hope i have helped a little.

 

[waterdrop]

And don't forget to read the pinned articles and learn about fishless cycling just like the other beginners here. Its a great experience to have real hands-on learning about the realities of biofilters and what the test feedback is like when raising the correct species of bacteria!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Miss Wiggle]

hi there and welcome to the forum

we'll get onto breeding in a moment but as waterdrop mentioned above the first important thing to work out when you're new to keeping freshwater fish is how to prepar ehte tank for fish correctkly. now this process is the same for all freshwater fish and takes a couple of weeks so this gives plenty of time for you to research what species you want and so on. it's called fishless cycling and it's the process of cultivating the bacteria which will consume the fish's waste products thus keeping the water clear and toxin free. There's a link in my sig called 'fishless cycling' and one called 'whats cycling'. Have a read of both of these and they will give you all the knowledge you need to start working on this.

Have a read and then post back with any questions that you might have.

Now onto Malawi's and african cichlids, the thing with these is the require water with a very high pH, somewhere around 8.0+. This limits the other fish that can be kept with them to other african rift lake species and the odd plec/catfish of other species which will be tolerant of those conditions. I think that malawi's would present a good challenge to you as an 'intermediate' fish/community as in addition to the standard fishkeeping stuff there are also a few other factors to research and learn about, these are summarised below

1 - pH, as above this needs to be raised and kept steady so that's a challenge
2 - filtration, these are mucky fish and require fast flowing water with lots of filtration capacity, you can do this with a big shop bought filter but people will sometimes look into sumps and such like which would be another good challenge for you
3 - stocking, these are also mostly agressive fish (although varying levels of agression) and as such you need to pick your species very carefully and overstock the tank to spread agression out between all the fish so no one fish gets picked on. for a beginner dealing with an overstocked tank this has it's own challenges with ensuring water quality is kept high and maintenance is always done.

so yes if those are the fish that you like then there are definately some challenges there but the challenges are by no means insurmountable so you should be able to do it sucessfully.

there are also lots of african cichlids which have interesting breeding techniques such as mouthbrooders which I'm sure would be very enjoyable for you.

for more advice on which species to pick you should head over to the african cichlid section of this forum and they will guide you in the right direction, but for now have a good read through the beginners pinned topics and make sure you have a good basic grasp of the tropical aquarium before you get into the in depth stuff

 

[pica_nuttalli]

150 L is about 40 gallons, which is right at the bottom range for a Rift Lake Tank. Since its a fairly small tank, you might have trouble with breeding (any sort of) cichlids in a community setting just due to the violent parenting habits of the fish. I would recommend that you focus on the various types of dwarf cichlids, whether the Tanganyikan shell dwellers or the S. American Dwarves. Since you sound like you have experience with delicate systems, breeding these sort of fish shouldn't pose too much of a problem and you can look forward to selling them off to your local fish store. I've found that its quite difficult to sell off fry from larger, aggressive or prolific cichlids, so you'll want to keep in mind what your local market is like when picking out a fish to breed. That said, mbuna like yellow labs seem to sell well everywhere so its not like you don't have a fair bit of freedom in your choices.

If you're really set on a Rift Lake Tank, then I would immediately start reading in that forum and not bother with asking for recommendations here in Beginners. Although it would not be remiss to read the links in Miss Wiggle's signature!

Look at me waffle. I could do that all day.