I just registered and wanted to say hello.

I'm not new to aquariums but is has been a while and I am new to African Cichlids. I have a few friends who are enthusiasts and I got bit by the bug.

I just setup my first tank:"

55 gallon
Penguin Emperor 350 filter
Aqueon 150 watt heater
Crushed coral and aragonite substrate

All juvenile fish:

6 Yellow Labs
4 Demasoni
4 Livingstonii
1 Venustus
1 Red Zebra
3 Synodontis Decorus

The tank came out really well and the fish seem to be thriving in all the caves, nooks and crannies.

I look forward to learning as much as I can from the wealth of knowledge here on the forum and will post some pics/videos soon.

Thanks for having such a cool forum available.

Joe

Welcome Omoplata!

Africans are great! So much fun to watch! Just wait till they mature and start to get really fun!

You are going to have trouble with a couple of your choices tho and soon.


These need to be kept in huge groups, of say at least 12. They are very co-species aggressive and one of them is going to go on a killing spree soon and knock off all the other Dems. You will be left with one. That is just the way they are. You need a large group so that the dominant one has too many to pick on to do much damage. With only 4, he is going to get the other 3. With Dems its either 12 or more or just 1.


These are Haps and these guys are going to get waaaay too big for your tank. They need a 75 or bigger. They will all get over 10.5" and 5 fish that big in a 55 is just not going to work

My advice is to return the Demasoni, Livingstonii, and Venustus and build on the other groups. Haps and Mbuna are not a good mix. Get yourself some more Red Zebras, say 3 more females if you have a male. You can tell male Reds by shining a flashlight on them. If they have a blue sheen to their fins its a good bet its a male. Its best with Mbuna to have 1 male to 2-4 females. If you have more than one male in a group they will fight for the females. You can then add another small group of Mbuna, a male and some females. Acei are really pretty fish, a nice purple with yellow fins and pretty mellow.

I know that they all get along great now, but they are young and as soon as they hit maturity at about 2.5-3" all heck is going to break loose in there. Better to fix it now when they are young than have disaster later.

Good luck!!

Thanks for the advice Cathy...that's why I'm here.

I'll see what I can do about an exchange...I'm glad you brought that all to my attention.

I'll keep you posted.

I see you're listed as being from the Hudson Valley. If you return those fish Cathy talked about I would recommend looking into Atlantis Tropical Fish Hatcheries in Gardiner (cichlids.net). They have a good selection and are cheaper than going to a local store since they normally deal in wholesale.

Thanks for the advice...I'll have to note that.

I actually purchase my fish from a great shop that has an excellent supplier. I called them this morning and they will happily exchange the 4 Stonni's and the Venustus for another breed. They are actually getting a bunch of Cichlids in this week so I am hoping to get a few Red Zebra's and Acei's.

Thanks again for the tips everyone...I appreciate it.


Joe

Just curious, what shop? Being from the Hudson Valley myself (poughkeepsie) always in the lookout for a new good local shop. For cichlids themselves I've generally used Atlantis because of their prices. For most other stuff (food, etc) I use Fishtopia in Fishkill.

Hudson Valley is a big area, but if you're near Poughkeepsie shoot me a PM. I have about 10 Ps. Acei juvies that are probably around 1", I'll check their size later if you're interested in some.

Wow man...I use Fishtopia for all my stuff, including fish. They are getting ready to move across the street - a much larger and better equipped shop.

You don't happen to have your Acei's on Craigslist do you? I may have emailed you about them. I'm in Beacon so I am right down the road from you.

I would DEFINITELY be interested in the Acei's...I'll PM you.

Joe

Hey Omoplata, welcome to ACF!!

I travel through your neck of the woods every now and then. Always enjoy the beautiful scenery you guys have over there!!

New York's Hudson Valley is a beautiful area...especially in the fall.

Welcome to ACF!

Glad you made your way over, that's a great avatar you have

Thanks for the compliment Heather. Avatar, compliments of Bing Image Search. ;)

I'm new here myself, but welcome anyway!

Been a while since I kept mbuna, but aceis are one of my favorites. I like the color of quality specimens and they are normally good citizens for a mbuna.

Solid advice above. I will say, though, especially in my first few years of fishkeeping I made an art of cycling a lot of different fish through my tanks that were destined to outgrow my setup and then simply trading them when the time came, which evolved into raising a lot of my own fry and trading them in as needed to keep my stocking levels sane. Works if you have a cooperative shop to deal with.

Kind of depends on how you want to approach the hobby, though. I'm a little less inclined to constantly tinker with everything than I used to be.

That definitely crossed my mind neutrino, but I made the decision to take the stonii's and the venustus back. I picked up two juvie Orange Zebras and another two young yellow labs. The guy at Fishtopia did an even exchange and even threw in two large lava rocks and some cichlid salt. That was pretty cool of him.

So the tank is looking good...more rocks and a few new additions and I think I'm where I want to be as far as population. I can't wait to see these Zebras and Acei's get a little bigger....really pretty colors.