Help me out =)

[Unphased]

ok i have a 55 us gal tank that i am gonna turn to a mbuna tank. i wanna know what fish will be colorful and look good in the tank. spawning would be a plus as i could feed the lil kiddy fish to my oscar. can you use petrofied wood in an aquariam? i have tons of it and could use it if its ok. could someone give me a list of fish that will go good in this tank. plus how many of each ect.?

are undergravel filters not good for mbuna?

what about gravel depth? mines about inch and a half to 2 inchs.

 

[semper fi]

depends on the type of community you want to go with.

peaceful

l. caeruleus
i. sprengelae
p. acei
p. tropheus
p. esterae
p. callainos
p. saulosi
l. freibergi
c. afra

aggressive

m. auratus
m. chippokae
p. crabro
m. johanni
l. kennyi
p. minutus
p. elongatus

these are some of the species that you could look into. most mbuna are aggressive. overstocking the tank will help to lower the aggression. they are usually kept in groups of 3 females to each male. cichlids usually fall into one of the three groups

monogamous - find one mate. will not breed with any other fish other than its mate

open polygamous - will breed in a group and outside of the group.

harem polygamous - will select a group and only breed with that group. will not let any other male breed with his harem

some mbuna species can be sexed by a color morph between the two sexes. others will have to be vented.

undergravel filters (ugf) are not reccommended and are obsolete. mbuna are notorious diggers. mbuna when breeding will dig a birthing pit in the substrate where the mating will take place.

 

[Unphased]

thanks for the answer =)

which set of fish is the prettyist?

how come the people at the local fish store are all about UGF? whats the deal with that? ive got 2 55g and one 10 gal and the 55's have UGF. should i take it out for the mbuna?

 

[rob280783]

The Mbuna are gonna dig like crazy in the gravel so this might be problem with the UGF.
Also with the baby Mbuna as Oscar food, that might be difficult 'cos they'll probably eat all the fry themselves first!

 

[vantgE]

Pro for the ugf though is that the filter plates will spread out the wieght of the over the bottom, I bought eggc rate for 7 dollarss to do this, But you deffinately can't rely on it to do much filtering another thing is you need lot's of gravel vacing with a ugf, which means you may have to pull all the rocks out alot to clean

 

[rob280783]

One of the prettiest Mbuna in my opinion are Labidochromis Caeruleus. They're bright yellow and really stand out. Also they are ready spawners. All 3 of the females in my tank are carrying fry at the moment!

 

[Unphased]

cool

eh i dont mind pullin the crap out to vaccume. i just gotta figure out a way to do it so i dont have to add new water compleatly to the tank. if that made sence. what about petrified wood?

 

[semper fi]

with the ugf's you don't need to pull out everything to clean under the plates. disconnect the uptake tube, but the syphon hose, the smaller the better, into the hole as far as it will go to clean under them. you could remove the plates. if left in but not connected, the waste just gets trapped under them. this will cause your toxin levels to rise. ammonia comes from waste and rotting debris left in the tank. can lead to fish loss.

 

[Unphased]

the "ladys LFS" said that you shouldnt take the plates out cause there is a benificial bacteria that grows underthem. looks like a black slime she said. im going to start work on the tank today. i gotta vac it out and clean it up a lil bit. i cant deside if i should replace the little bity gravel with sand or not. i dont think im gonna cause this stuff looks really good under the light. oh well. thoughts anyone?

 

[Unphased]

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[Unphased]

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[semper fi]

the black clime under the plates is the decomposed matter. you cannot visually see the bacteria in the tank. you do have to vacuum under the plates. when i had a ugf i had a real problem with keeping the toxin levels down. once i removed the plates, i never had a problem again.

i would think that fine sand would just slip through the openings in the plates. just making more of a mess.

 

[Unphased]

where can i get the fish you recommended? i dont think the LFS have them. they have tanks marked assort. african cich. with diffrent fish in there swimmin around and stuff. is there a good site on the net to get them?

 

[a_ellis]

i use liveaquaria.com
i just got 6 electric yellow labs from them a month ago and the females are already carrying babies.
i would highly recommend their site
see my tank info below
their shipping is a flat rate of $24.99 which is really good compared to lots of others
i'm not sure if they ship outside the US

 

[semper fi]

you could also try www.aquariumfish.net or aquabid