Understanding The Cichlid World

[wegotcrabs]

What is the difference from a "Hap" and a "Mbuna" and a "Lab"? Are they mixable in aquariums or do they come from different lakes? Does anyone have any good websites or books that we could read up on and perhaps start to understand the Cichlid World. We have been to a million websites on the internet and we feel that each one says something different and they all seem to contradict one another, so we currently are flying by the seat of our pants. We have large investment into our fish and want to educate ourselves properly.

Also understanding water, like we know GH is the generl hardness and KH is the carbonate hardness but what the heck is DH? We also here alot about Co2 .... Is this easily explainable? or an idiots guide to proper fishkeeping?

 

[adambrum]

Just to give you a quick idea , There are 3 lakes in east africa where most cichlids come from i will just go into a bit of detail of one the lakes as its the one most people keep.

Lake malawi has 3 types of cichlid, haps, peacocks and mbuna same again i will give a bit of detail of the mbuna which is the most common.

Mbuna are the smallest of the lake species and come from the rocky areas with most species at about 4" these fish are aggressive in nature hence why we keep tanks overstocked and with a ratio of 1m-2 or more females.

The water is quite different to that of most tropical tanks as the ph should be near 8.0 with the high gh,kh keeping it more stable.

Book wise the best is anything by ad konings.

just to answer your questions

1. A hap is a type of cichlid from lake malawi, haplochromis
2. mbuna are the rock dwelling species
3. lab is a labidochromis a type of mbuna
4. dh , no idea
5. co2 this is more for planted tanks, cichlids and plants dont really mix to well, if they dont eat them they dig them up.

Well there a brief outline hope it helps a bit, as for the websites this one is one of the best i have found, someone always has the answer.

 

[clareriley]

just to add, people say there is a difference in labs from Mbuna because they can eat a high protine diet aswell as Haps/peacocks.
Mbuna are veg eaters
haps are high protine/meat eaters
labs can eat both so alot of people with haps/peacock tanks have labs in aswell.