Stocking a Cichlid Tank

[The-Raven]

I'm in the process of moving my tropicals to a new tank and using my current 55 setup for cichlids - so it is already cycled.

Keeping that in mind, how many cichlids should I add at a time in order to keep them from killing each other? My goal is 15 or so... but I'm not about to go buy 15 fish at the same time, so what is a good schedule?

 

[CFC]

What kind of Cichlids do you want to keep. There are 5 distinct types of Cichlids (African riverine, African rift lake, Central American, South American and Asian) none of which should be intermixed with each other and all of which have completely different care needs.

Let us know which group of Cichlids you are interested in keeping so that your post can be moved to the appropriate forum where you are more likely to get the answers you need

 

[freddyk]

And to confuse it some more, even within the same location not all cichlids can be mixed - more often then not they shouldn't be!

CFC, I'd make that 6 distinct groups. Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika are as far apart as new and old worlds and shouldn't be mixed as a general rule.

Raven, by the sounds of it you might be thinking of mbuna. If this is the case, check out the pinned artical in the African section, it should answer your questions.

 

[The-Raven]

yes it's mbunas, however the pinned article says nothing as to how frequently you can add new fish. I know just dumping 15 new ones in there is not a good idea, so what should I do?

 

[gixer]

baring in mind you have a fully stocked tank at the moment (ie fully cycled filter)

and you only want to add 15 mbuna (probarbly all juveniles) i would deffinatly add them all in one go. there are good reason for this

unless you have left this tank running with no fish of course

 

[freddyk]

If the tank was fully fishlessly cycled then it should be able to handle them all, but if you're not quite sure if it can handle it, then it might better to err on the side of safety.

If you want to stock gradually it's ok, they don't grow so fast that you can't string it out.

You can add them a few at a time. If you wanted 5 each of 3 species then you can add them one species at a time. If one is reputably more aggressive then the others add the less aggressive ones first.

 

[keane]

After I had set up and cycled my 55 I went out and bought nigh on 20 Mbuna and put them all in straight away.

Had absolutely no problems at all .

steve

 

[The-Raven]

well now that I read these responses i'm a bit disappointed in my LFS, seeing as how they never really have more than 12 mbunas at any time, unless I want to completely buy out their stock - which I don't want to because I don't necessarily want the species they have - I'm kind of forced to do it gradually. Whenever I look in their mbuna tank I can usually pick out 3-4 that look cool enough to want to take home.

 

[Ferris]

Thats OK, just make sure you add new fish in groups and not singularly. A single new fish will get seriously stressed by inquistive tank mates. Adding a few at once spreads the agression around.