Help Me Stock!

[HappyGeorge]

Some nice looking fish there. I have been away from the forums for a while but just had a major removal of about 150kg of rockwork for an annual clean down and removal of 14 juve Cyno Afra Red tops to the LFS, currently accrueing credit with them in readiness for building a nano marine tank. My tank is a 100G it has mix of mbunas and 3 haps and 5 Syno multis, I have never had any aggression problems although always avoided Auratus and Demasoni. I'm not sure I agree with the height of tank issue that gets frequently mentioned, I think the issue is more that people don't put enough rock work in the tank and don't pile it high enough, they put a few lumps of rock in a line 8 inches high along back of tank and wonder why the fish don't use the entire tank? My mbuna stick to the rocky areas but the rocks piled high and they can get from end to end without feeling exposed. Currently have breeding Cyno Afras, Yellow Labs and Perlmutts in the tank so I assume they are happy. I know some people dont like lava rock as they say that with mbuna being fast fish they risk injuring themselves on the rough edges as they dart around (they say the same of slate). I have a cement DIY background in my tank which is rough and never had any injuries I could attribute to it, let us know if you experience any or if it's theory that gets repeated and repeated without any evidence.
Also noticed you have a gravel substrate, I know its not critical but mine do love the fine play sand I have in my tank, regularly taking great mouthfuls and spitting it about, my scolofi likes building little hollows under rocks (rocks are on base so poor blighter hasn't realised he cant get under them) and my big male Red top is a major sand mover, he also gets stroppy with the odd shells I have deposited in there and swims about with them in his mouth or throws them about when I move them into his favourite spawning area (nothing quite as funny as a stroppy fish).

Good Luck and good start

 

[Mystil]

I personally would buy alot more rock and possibly convert to sand. Personal preference with the substate.

With Mbuna you will need to overstock with fish due to their aggression in the tank which means you will need to have very good filtration. what is your filtration at the moment?

I had a Vision 260 recently which had two Eheim 2217's running on it. The whole of the back of the tank was covered in rock (you could not see the back piece of glass at all) and the stocking was a follows:
4 Kingsizei
2 Fellabornia (mine are very placid)
5 Yellow labs
4 Polits
5 maingano
2 Bristlenose plecs

I personally like to have trio's of fish at the very least (1male, 2females). Some people do have all male tanks and they seem to take work to get the right males who get on.

Just be careful when you add more fish because the fish you bought have already sorted out their pecking order you will probably find when you go to add more fish they will get hammered by the fish already in the tank. I personally try to to add more than 6 fish at a time to an established tank and move all the rocks about so there are no established territory.

It depends what you want really or what is available to you. An all male tank or a mixture of sexes.

I will message you about a very good forum which deals with malawi if that is any help. They can at least answer some of your questions even if they cannot provide the fish.

 

[c-dub]

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