Malawi are turning my head...

[Deleted member 149562]

See....you have stock for the two aquariums already sorted out in your head....you NEED to get the two aquariums to make your dreams come alive @Wills

Don't fight your dreams...chase them...capture them.....life is too short to regret not making dreams into reality later

 

[Wills]

See....you have stock for the two aquariums already sorted out in your head....you NEED to get the two aquariums to make your dreams come alive @Wills

Don't fight your dreams...chase them...capture them.....life is too short to regret not making dreams into reality later

Nice try but if I had 2 tanks it would either be 1 Mbuna and 1 Peacocks or 1 Mbuna and my original plan for this tank with a Nicaraguan Cichlid and Rainbow Fish.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Nice try but if I had 2 tanks it would either be 1 Mbuna and 1 Peacocks or 1 Mbuna and my original plan for this tank with a Nicaraguan Cichlid and Rainbow Fish.

If you can fit two.....get the racking and get 6....floor to ceiling on two walls (furniture can be put in the garage....giant beanbags on the floor to sit and gaze at the beautiful fishies)

Perfect

 

[Wills]

My goodness!

 

[GaryE]

You're working hard. I once saw a person trying to buy mbunas while a clerk kept saying the mix would lead to carnage. The customer was determined. It became clear the fish were being chosen because they matched the curtains in the person's house.

 

[Wills]

You're working hard. I once saw a person trying to buy mbunas while a clerk kept saying the mix would lead to carnage. The customer was determined. It became clear the fish were being chosen because they matched the curtains in the person's house.

Brilliant haha! It is such a hard call with this side of the hobby, its so muddy and so many people don't take into considerations I would argue most of us on this forum do with our tanks.

I'm having a hard time deciding if I agree with the ethics of the concept of an all male tank, I think I do but... you see so many people that do peacocks and then just throw random stuff in (I'm repeating myself now) but just trying to work out how to decide if I'm on board with stuff or not.

With the Mbuna, there are a bunch of amazing fish out there but finding the right ones without dull females, overly aggressive males, that don't clash and finally that you get excited about looking after is tough.

 

[GaryE]

For me, the reason I keep fish is to watch behaviour. I keep killies, so yes, I am a sucker for colour too. But behaviour comes first.

I'll never have an all male or all female tank, unless I've split the group to condition them for breeding. Those low colour mbuna females are interesting creatures, with more complex behaviour than the males.... It's males who are dull, with their endless crystal meth squabbling.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Brilliant haha! It is such a hard call with this side of the hobby, its so muddy and so many people don't take into considerations I would argue most of us on this forum do with our tanks.

I'm having a hard time deciding if I agree with the ethics of the concept of an all male tank, I think I do but... you see so many people that do peacocks and then just throw random stuff in (I'm repeating myself now) but just trying to work out how to decide if I'm on board with stuff or not.

With the Mbuna, there are a bunch of amazing fish out there but finding the right ones without dull females, overly aggressive males, that don't clash and finally that you get excited about looking after is tough.

This is why you need to live in the garage and turn the house over to aquariums @Wills

....or at the very least evict the chest of drawers to the garage and rack up half a dozen aquariums, each with your desired wishlist fishies with an aquarium or two spare incase the riotous behaviour gets out of hand and you need to place one or more fishies onto the naughty step

 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

Scaping for mbuna is fun, but everytime you remove a female either to collect fry or to strip fry so she doesn't starved to death, you have to rescape. Every new fish added, new scape.

Interesting. I've not found that to be true necessarily.

Second idea is
Metriaclima Fainzilberi Maison Reef
Chindongo Socolofi or Metriaclima Callainos Chitande
Metriaclima sp. Msobo "Magunga"
Labidichromis sp. Hongi Sweden Super Red

Which is probably a bit more aggressive

You don't have any of the really big hitters on there, and that looks like a nice line up to me!

not sure if keeping more than one Metriaclima species is a good idea

In general, more closely related species with be more aggressive to each other, and species that look more similar

Metriaclima sp. Msobo which is quite a similar fish to the Saulosi but a bit tougher

That's a brilliant substitution!

I'm hoping to have a group of small Tanganyikan Synodontis in there too to help with fry control

Fry control is a good idea. As I tend to do species-only tanks I don't have experience with this, but I've been told sometimes in mixed species tanks, they will be more likely to prey on the fry. Maybe.

My goodness!

Ah yes, Labeotropheus trewavasae! A lovely species with some very impressive coloration. Indeed IME, it's the best of what I think of as the "color shifters". They seem to change colors so quickly based on mood, threat, dominance interaction, etc. The males in particular can get larger - I've seen one that was maybe 16-17cm. But they are lovely! For me a 75gal is not where I would stick this species. Once the males get large, I would worry about it becoming the Thunderdome. But you may well have success where I would struggle in a 75.

To my eye, your Labidochromis sp. "Hongi" can be just as nice looking. They stay a bit smaller. And they will certainly be less of a handful to manage. But that's just to my taste. I have some friends who really like the most intense species. They like the energy. And I get it. It's the same reason why tetras just won't do it for me. Rift lake cichlids can offer far more behavioral excitement, IMO. Some I have just decided are perhaps too exciting for me.

Whatever you go with, I have no doubt you will do well. You've done an admirable amount of research!

 

[Wills]

You don't have any of the really big hitters on there, and that looks like a nice line up to me!

Thats interesting... I thought the Hongi and Maison Reef were super aggressive? I've seen videos of both 'acting up' to say the least but really really like the Maison Reef, but not at the exclusion of some other species.

In general, more closely related species with be more aggressive to each other, and species that look more similar

Definitely, I think I've got 4 Metraclimba species in my top 10 at the moment... I also need to understand more about how yellow/orange females interact with each other? Eg the L.Trewavasae and C.Saulosi together? Or the M.Msobo or the M.Estherae... though 2 of those 4 species get OB females that might help that situation? What do you think?

Ah yes, Labeotropheus trewavasae! A lovely species with some very impressive coloration. Indeed IME, it's the best of what I think of as the "color shifters". They seem to change colors so quickly based on mood, threat, dominance interaction, etc. The males in particular can get larger - I've seen one that was maybe 16-17cm. But they are lovely! For me a 75gal is not where I would stick this species. Once the males get large, I would worry about it becoming the Thunderdome. But you may well have success where I would struggle in a 75.

Thats really interesting! Thank you! I knew they got big but being quite slender I thought might be ok, I also didnt think they were that aggressive?? I was hoping just a small group of these if I did them so they stood out a bit more?

To my eye, your Labidochromis sp. "Hongi" can be just as nice looking. They stay a bit smaller. And they will certainly be less of a handful to manage. But that's just to my taste. I have some friends who really like the most intense species. They like the energy. And I get it. It's the same reason why tetras just won't do it for me. Rift lake cichlids can offer far more behavioral excitement, IMO. Some I have just decided are perhaps too exciting for me.

I want to try and stay on the calmer side of things but don't want to be confined to just the 'common' species like Saulosi, still like to find unusual options. I have some great Rift Lake places near me so want to take advantage of that if I can but sometimes some fish (and this is across the hobby) are just not kept because its hard!

Thank you so much for all this info really appreciate it! Seems we are a bit light on Malawi keepers on the forum atm.

Wills

 

[OnlyGenusCaps]

Seems we are a bit light on Malawi keepers on the forum atm.

Well, rift lake cichlids just aren't that hot right now. The buzz words seem to be "community", "planted", and "nano". Like all things, these trends ebb and flow. I think too, because there are still active forums specific to cichlids, some of those folks just interact there. I'm fortunate to be near enough (6.5 hr drive) to get to interact with the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association, which is a large and thriving group!

I have some great Rift Lake places near me so want to take advantage of that if I can

You should definitely do that! I'm of the opinion that the variability we see, even within species, from different locations in these fish may well also be present in behavioral traits as well. No reason we shouldn't think that is the case a priori anyhow. I've found that good fish stores, that know their cichlids can tell me "this batch of XXX are weirdly aggressive" or the opposite, and they are usually right. They see far more fish than any hobbyist will, and they get good at assessing that, even at the juvenile stages.

You had a number of questions about aggressivity of the fish you are looking at. So I waste a bunch of your time, I'll say my view might be a bit skewed. I've kept a few, and I associate with folks who keep things like Tropheus colonies from Tanganyika. One of my friends had a female that continually spit eggs, so he stripped her. Just 3 days after the fry hatched for him they were already murdering each other in a featureless container. They still had their yolks, mind you! And those weren't even considered the aggressive kind. I also had designs at one point on setting up a tank of Petrochromis. After speaking with some keepers, I came to realize now matter how much you try to spin it, those fish are absolute psychopaths!

I suppose my point is that it's all a bit what you get used to. Some mbuna are super docile, saulosi, acei, labs, etc. Most are mid ground and just need a bit of managing. The larger mid level ones become more challenging too, I suppose. The most challenging ones in my experience get named things like Tropheops, or Melanochromis. If you stay away from those two groups you should be okay in general. The thing to remember is that losses happen with these fish. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned they were concerned about cichlid keepers' regard for the welfare of their captives. The thing is to keep fish like this you must inure yourself, to at least some degree, to their nature. They themselves create their very own brutal existence. We mitigate, but can only do so much.

If you have those good LFS, run your lists by them and see what they think based on the fish that have been coming through. It's a fortunate resource you have.

 

[Wills]

Well, rift lake cichlids just aren't that hot right now. The buzz words seem to be "community", "planted", and "nano". Like all things, these trends ebb and flow. I think too, because there are still active forums specific to cichlids, some of those folks just interact there. I'm fortunate to be near enough (6.5 hr drive) to get to interact with the Greater Chicago Cichlid Association, which is a large and thriving group!



You should definitely do that! I'm of the opinion that the variability we see, even within species, from different locations in these fish may well also be present in behavioral traits as well. No reason we shouldn't think that is the case a priori anyhow. I've found that good fish stores, that know their cichlids can tell me "this batch of XXX are weirdly aggressive" or the opposite, and they are usually right. They see far more fish than any hobbyist will, and they get good at assessing that, even at the juvenile stages.

You had a number of questions about aggressivity of the fish you are looking at. So I waste a bunch of your time, I'll say my view might be a bit skewed. I've kept a few, and I associate with folks who keep things like Tropheus colonies from Tanganyika. One of my friends had a female that continually spit eggs, so he stripped her. Just 3 days after the fry hatched for him they were already murdering each other in a featureless container. They still had their yolks, mind you! And those weren't even considered the aggressive kind. I also had designs at one point on setting up a tank of Petrochromis. After speaking with some keepers, I came to realize now matter how much you try to spin it, those fish are absolute psychopaths!

I suppose my point is that it's all a bit what you get used to. Some mbuna are super docile, saulosi, acei, labs, etc. Most are mid ground and just need a bit of managing. The larger mid level ones become more challenging too, I suppose. The most challenging ones in my experience get named things like Tropheops, or Melanochromis. If you stay away from those two groups you should be okay in general. The thing to remember is that losses happen with these fish. Someone earlier in this thread mentioned they were concerned about cichlid keepers' regard for the welfare of their captives. The thing is to keep fish like this you must inure yourself, to at least some degree, to their nature. They themselves create their very own brutal existence. We mitigate, but can only do so much.

If you have those good LFS, run your lists by them and see what they think based on the fish that have been coming through. It's a fortunate resource you have.

That is very true, all the YouTube channels I can find with really detailed stuff is at least 8/9 years old and abandoned channels. There are one or two but debatable ways of keeping them, mixing Peacocks and Mbuna etc but it seems to work for them, but perhaps they havent come across Malawi bloat yet... I can imagine if one or two bigger channels really focused on it they would take off which is interesting. Especially Mbuna with the hardscaping side of things and also the 'hunt' of finding the right species etc - though I suppose they are harder to fit into the time frames people use for content.

Interesting what you say about the Tanganyikans I did consider them at one point for this tank, fascinating behaviour! I've always liked Petrochromis too - especially the Yellow Moshi!

Definitely need to hunt out some people to go and talk to - so many questions and as above with the popularity the articles online are so sparse or out of date its really surprising! There is one Melanochromis I fancy... which is meant to be the calmest and most manageable one called the Maingano.

 

[GaryE]

Here, Malawis were everytthing til about 2000. Where I was then, we had twice a year mega auctions with about 900 lots - all day marathons. The first one, in the 90s, had about 300 bags of malawis, mostly mbuna. The last one I attended before the pandemic, and before I moved had at most 25. But shrimp? Millions of them.

I thought there was a comeback brewing, but It seems to have lost steam. I think it's happening with all Cichlids, as people simply don't have space. Shrimp moved a lot of new fishkeepers into planted tanks and crusty crustaceans. The cost of living and the drop in living standards over the past 20 years has made larger tanks expensive, and small tanks and small fish are in. In the new local club, we have about 30 members and maybe 4 or 5 with Cichlids. One peacock keeper, no mbuna.

The experienced Cichlid keepers got bored with them. The newcomers couldn't invest. there used to be a progression - peoples' first cichlids were mbuna, and then they expanded. Now, experienced community tank keepers sometimes try mbuna as they move along.

 

[Wills]

That's interesting - do you think keeping Malawi with just one tank is quite challenging? It feels like the side of the hobby that will most likely lead to a fish house/room...

@wasmewasntit I've seen a small rack on Facebook near me... quite tempted for back up purposes

 

[GaryE]

I know that my rent when I kept Malawis was a fraction of what my daughters have to pay for housing not even close to what I could get in quality. And once we bought, the mortgage was a fraction of what they pay now, even adjusted for inflation. My salary back then was about what they earn now, in terms of numbers, but in terms of buying power, housing and energy are many many times more expensive now. We could have hobbies and be in clubs.
The first house we bought was about 20% of what it would cost now, and salaries are the same.
It's hard for younger hobbyists to commit to the tank sizes they would need. I think has had a serious impact on the Cichlid hobby.