[Umbrella-Corp]

Hey guys

I have a 55gal (4ft) tank, and I was just wondering how many more cichlids I could keep in there.

So far, I have.

1x Electric Blue
1x Electric Yellow
1x Johanni
1x Strawberry peacock

What I was thinking of adding.

1x Electric Yellow
1x Red Jewel
1x Peacock

Would that be to much?

Thanks A lot.

 

[DJRansome]

Are they all male? You might want to go with either peacocks or mbuna. Is the electric blue a hap? Eight to ten fish should work with all-male. You would not want two Labidochromis caeruleus though. One male fish of each species and no look-alikes is usually the plan.

 

[Umbrella-Corp]

Not sure about there gender, Don't Peacocks and mbuna mix well?
As you can probably tell by now, I'm new to this.
thanks for your time.

Edit: Electric blue is a hap.

 

[DJRansome]

Peacocks and haps on average are likely to be less aggressive than mbuna. This is part of why peacocks/haps are often chosen for an all-male tank over mbuna. In a 55G tank (which is small for all-male but it has been done) you might want to avoid fish that mature at more than 6" like the fryeri.

Read the all-male article in the Library for additional information. When you choose to have one of each species, usually males are chosen for their color.

If females are present each male will want to choose and defend a territory of one square foot or greater. So with females, you would want to limit to three males.

Without females to inspire competition territories are less important.

 

[GoofBoy]

Welcome to the hobby!

I think most everyone starts out with Africans the way you have, myself included, pick one of this and one of that. Works great with a fish for 6-8 months until they get sexually mature then all [email protected] breaks loose, some fish die, and you trade the nasty fish in and get another pretty fish, rinse and repeat. You end up getting sick and dead fish doing this and IME this approach can be very frustrating

If you go all male you can get a very pretty tank - hap/peacocks is definitely the way to try all male, it can be work and I would strongly suggest at least a 10 gallon tank on hand in case one of the boys goes hyper-dominant or is getting picked on.

Another approach is to go breeding groups.

The idea is you buy approximately 8 young fish of each of 3 species for a 55 and grow them up together. You don't get the variety, but you do get to see breeding behavior and any troublemakers find a new home at the Local Fish Store (LFS) once they become a problem.

There is a link to cookie cutter suggestions for a 55 gallon tank here. The numbers they show are for final stocking of sexually mature adults. The caveat being I would not get anything that is highly or extremely aggressive in the profile section or gets larger than 6in or so.

Good Luck.

 

[Umbrella-Corp]

Hey all, thanks for the answers, I'm certainly learning.
I think I might just turn this into "umbrellas question topic"
Would it be alright to treat my Cichlids with a couple of earth worms
every now and then? would it hurt them in anyway? I thought it would be
a good protein boost...
cheers

 

[GoofBoy]

Hey all, thanks for the answers, I'm certainly learning.
I think I might just turn this into "umbrellas question topic"
Would it be alright to treat my Cichlids with a couple of earth worms
every now and then? would it hurt them in anyway? I thought it would be
a good protein boost...
cheers

Please don't feed them anything that doesn't naturally occur in the water. Since Malawi cichlids are prone to bloat, a simpler diet lower in protein is always safer.

The amount of protein they get from good quality pellets is more than enough.

Good Luck.