Author Topic: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas  (Read 415 times)

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Offline BrayN

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120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« on: January 17, 2012, 09:00:35 AM »
I haven't started this tank yet so I'm looking for ideas. I already have a few Africans in a smaller tank but decided to change my big one to Cichlids.

What kinds should I look for and how many is my limit for this tank? The tank measurements are 60x18x26. I will be running a canister filter and a 4x80w t5 HO fixture.

Thanks!

Offline Gerry

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #1 on: January 17, 2012, 11:07:36 AM »
I can't help as I'm not an African cichlids person, but this sounds cool so good luck with it. Some of the African guys should be on soon to help you

Offline blob

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #2 on: January 17, 2012, 05:03:19 PM »
i can partly help you,
what africans do u currently have?
what is your filter model?
is your tank long or high?

Offline BrayN

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #3 on: January 17, 2012, 05:08:12 PM »
I honestly can't say what type I have currently :-\ I'll try to get a couple decent pics to see if you might be able to help me identify them.

Offline BrayN

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #4 on: January 17, 2012, 06:53:46 PM »
These are the best I could do. Sorry for the poor quality,  they refuse to hold still...

 

 

 

Offline fnesr

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2012, 10:45:48 PM »
Looks like you have Malawi's. There's three main types of African cichlid based on the rift lakes Lake Malawi, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. There are also other Africans outside these three lakes but you are unlikely to run across them too often in the hobby on the most part. As a general rule you don't want to combine fish from differing lakes, so being as you have Malawi's you are best to stick with other Malawi. The lakes are vast and there are heaps of differing species, this means there are also specific groups of fish even within each lake. Based on your pics I'd say you are best going with "Mbuna" which is a group of Malawi species that live in the rocky areas of the lake. Mbuna are all fairly aggressive and are dense in population in the lake, for this reason you want to have the tank stocked fairly heavily (moderately overstocked) and it's best to provide decor with many caves, tunnels and hiding spots. The idea is to stock the tank heavily enough so that there's so much activity, running in to different fish etc. that none are specifically singled out to be targets of bullying. The orange fish in your last picture (Red Zebra) I have found is particularly bad for harassing others if you don't have enough tankmates and/or hiding spots.

There's a good range of species you can get within the Mbuna group and they are highly common at most fish stores etc. Actually they probably make up the majority of African cichlid around in the hobby so you wont be bored or too limited with the options. They are highly active and colourful also so a 120gal tank will be impressive and entertaining to keep. People actually say a Mbuna African set-up is as close as you can go to a SW aquarium without actually having a SW aquarium as far as colour is concerned. The behavior between the fish in any large African set-up is awesome as well.

It is difficult to say a specific number of fish in 120gal other then to say quite a lot. As long as you stick within the Mbuna group it would probably be best to buy groups of fish 4 or 6 at a time as you get the tank going and step up that as you go asking about adding another group or not. There are differing preferences amongst some species for ratio male to female etc. but this is too wide to offer you specific advice as there are too many differing species and general factors like what other tankmates (or pairs) you have, the personal availability to you where you are getting the fish and sexing them etc.. I don't think you'd go too wrong though in 120gal if you start with your current fish, add a group 4-6 fish and then go from there as long as you stick to only Mbuna.

You may want to look at running more filtration as cichlids are messy eaters and produce a lot of waste. This depends a bit on your current canister filter but with a Malawi set-up stocked well in my opinion you would want to be turning over 10 times the tanks water volume or more per hour through a decent amount of filter media. Malawi also tolerate (could be argued enjoy) a fair degree of water current so you could run powerheads/internal filtration or Hang on style filters also if you wished to achieve a high turnover and more filtration. It is possible to run lower then what I'm recommending but maintenance will be higher on the tank and because the fish like a fair amount of decor, rocks etc. you can have problems with dead-spots in the tank if you don't have decent water movement and turnover.



Offline BrayN

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2012, 07:31:31 AM »
Wow!! Thanks for all of the info and identification fnesr!

   There is another fish in the tank but I couldn't get a clear shot of it. It has a different shape to the body and head than the others do. The colors are have almost a camouflage look to it...

I have seen in other tanks that people have, that they over stock for the Africans. I've seen 30+ in 75g tanks. I was told to put 10-12 in my 29g. This leads me to assume ( and I know what happens when we assume) that I can have 60-70+ in this tank...? Is that reasonable, or more/less??

Offline blob

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2012, 03:39:17 PM »
60-70 sound ok for a 120g, im getting about 30 in my 48g :), i think the black and white striped one is a kenyi

Offline BrayN

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #8 on: January 18, 2012, 06:18:18 PM »
Ok,  so here is a vid of the small tank. I thought it might give a better view of the fish than the blurry pics ::)

Excuse the algae on the rocks. I had been using 2 lights and algae was going nuts. Cut down to just the one bulb with a pinkish tint and most of the algae went away.

 http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid1222.photobucket.com/albums/dd494/Brnj81/MVI_2380.mp4

Offline Gerry

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #9 on: January 18, 2012, 09:31:24 PM »
Nice tank  O0

Offline fnesr

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #10 on: January 18, 2012, 10:03:30 PM »
That's no problem.  It does depend a fair bit on specific fish but you are probably not far off guessing you could have 60 or so in a tank that large provided you had it set-up well with enough caves/differing sections and good filtration.

Having a guess at your description of the other fish you have looking sort of camouflage you may have a Venustus..

(image taken from google) -



..or a Livingstonii..

(image taken from google) -



Both of those can both grow quite large, about 10-12 inches for a male.



Offline altaaffe

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #11 on: January 19, 2012, 08:39:08 AM »
As fnesr has said above, you have got Malawis and form the photos, I can only see Mbuna.  Yellow Lab, Acei (the dark blue with yellow fins) as said, a red zebra and the other looks similar to some hybrids I have where an elongatus bred with other inmates but looks predominantly zebra.

On the stocking question, the idea is to spread the aggression around by cramming a few more fish in there than you normally would in a set-up.  It's then a balance thing for you, the more you have the bigger the water changes you have to do.  I have a 180g Mbuna tank that has around 50 Mbuna a Venustus and an Ahli.  The last 2 are there to hunt fry because the Mbuna will breed like rabbits if they're happy with the water conditions.

Try to keep it to the types of mbuna you already have in the tank and just increase their numbers. 

Offline BrayN

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2012, 08:47:02 AM »
Is there a bottom dwelling type of fish that would be ok with these Cichlids?

Offline OinKY

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2012, 09:00:46 AM »
Number of Synodontis catfish species that are native to the Rift Lakes and compatible with cichlids.
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Offline blob

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Re: 120g african Cichlids stocking ideas
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2012, 10:52:45 PM »
u could try clown loaches, mine are fine so far, but i haven't got all of my fishies yet cause most of the shops are out of stock of the "nice coloured fishies" but ig to 8 electric yellows and 4 yellow tail acies in there