[gatorbaiter]

Hey everyone

I got 120g that was a reef tank for years. I got bored with it, sold all the corals and i am planning to turn it into a malawi tank. I am new to the cichlid hobby and still not sure yet what types of species i will have as there are so many types to choose from. I still got a alot of reading and researching to do on this site. But there is one general question i already have. I want the fishes to look as colorful as possible obviously like everyone does, so when i stock my tank do i try and get a male and some females of each species or do i do an all male tank with 1 male from each species or get serveral juveniles of each species and let one turn into a dominant male? I wish i could be more specific as far as what types of cichlids i would like to have but i just have not decided. I was just curious if there was a so called "rule of thumb" about stocking.

Any opinions are appreciated
Thanks

 

[mattawan_cichlid]

All male tanks will look good, but take a lot of work. All tanks will take a lot of work, but all males will require lots of returns of fish and what not, unless you buy them fully matured. Most Malawians will look slightly better surrounded by females, but will still look good alone.

 

[DJRansome]

Welcome to Cichlid-forum!

What are the dimensions of your 120G? Length is most important for the territorial Lake Malawi cichlids.

There is a good article about all-male tanks in the library that will give you information about that. If I could have only one tank it would be mixed gender mbuna. But that might be because demasoni are my favorite and a large flock of them is something to see.

For a 48" tank to get an idea and depending on the species you choose, you could do four species with 1m:4f of each. I had five species in my 72" tank and felt that was plenty full.

 

[gatorbaiter]

hey djransome

my dimension to my 120 are 48x24x24. I am sort of leaning toward the male with females idea. It would be pretty cool at some point to have them breed. From different post i have read, sexing juveniles is next to impossible. When i do stock my tank, i would like to start out with small juvies and watch them grow, but since u can't sex them, i might not be getting the male to females ratio. I guess as they mature i could take out the other fish (males) and just keep tweaking it till i get the ratio i want. Then again i could just buy mature male and females and go from there.

Thanks for the input

 

[DJRansome]

If you want colorful as possible, look at the mbuna monomorphic species. There are also some dimorphic species with both males and females colorful.

Have you taken a look at the cookie cutter tanks in the Library for 48" tanks?

Also I liked to browse through the Old World gallery in the Profiles section to get an overview of appearances without clicking on each profile.

Yes we often (usually) buy double the juveniles we need and remove males as they mature.