Yellow lab mistake?

[simonjw]

I have a video of my yellow lab holding and a video of the fry:

YouTube

hi think ive made a mistake told to put all fish in at once to stop aggresion
ive orderd 8 labs, 8 blue dolphine and 6 red fin borelyi tank about 30 gallons set up two weeks
one cat fish in for a week. and your tank is brill.
regards
si

 

[capester]

That is a massive input into a New Tank! It isn't advisable but because your tank is a fair size you should be able to get away with it with very frequent water changes and a close eye on the quality. It might be worth putting some live bacteria of some kind in your filter to give it a kick start as well. Good luck!

 

[Davo86]

Hi, yes big mistake i'm afraid

Firstly mbuna need a minimum of a 4ft tank (around 75USG) to reduce aggression; your stocking is what you would keep in a 75G+
In a 30G I personally wouldn't keep mbuna as the tank is too small but if you were to stock one you would be looking at maybe 4-6 Labs tops

Also the tank isn't cycled so your going to have one hard job preventing these fish from dieing due to ammonia poisoning, there is no bacteria built up in the tank so isn't going to be stable and mass problems are guaranteed.

 

[capester]

My bad, for some reason I thought 35 gallons was a large tank (I deal in Litres). The tank is too small for keeping any quantity of rifts really. Maybe some Tang shelldwellers may be ok? Anything the size/ aggression of labs is a no-no really and you wouldn't see them at their best even with very good filteration. If you want cichlids then go for the dwarf varieties or just a pair/ trio of some of the bigger species but I would recommend trying something else.

 

[reignofcheese]

A 30 gallon is fine for a group of 4 to 6 yellow labs, but the other fish would of course need to be removed.

For a 30 gallons you do still have some alternatives, Especially from Tanganyika, including shell dwellers, julidochromis transcriptis, Altolamprologus Compressiceps, and Paracyprichromis nigripinnis, not to mention a small group of brichardi. From Malawi Textilis is perfect if you can find it, or you can do a species tank of just Demasoni.

Anyway, there are some options but it will need to pretty much be a species tank (you can get a way with a bristlenose plec, or 3 or 4 synodontis petricola with them.

With cichlids it is a good idea to stock at once, but that also requires a fishless cycle first. Will your place take back your fish and give you credit to use at a later date? This way you can get the cycle done first, and then spend the credit.