My Ideas on a 125-150 gallon tank, your ideas please.

1176 Views 5 Replies 3 Participants Last post by Fogelhund, Jun 6, 2008

Regulatorocks

Discussion Starter · Jun 5, 2008

i want to upgrade to a 6ft long tank soon, i have maintained my 46 bowfront for quite some time and have seen a few of my little guys grow up.

I am following a few guidelines when building this tank.
1) I dont want alot of rambunctious Mbuna, i will probably return my cobalt blue and socolofi. However, i do want Acei and Labs.

2) I dont want a million different species in this tank. I think a more wild looking approach would be to have a handful of species with multiple members. I want to have a large number of two species (yellow labs and Acei), that will have breeding pairs and schools. These two species will serve the background kind of role in the tank, as the schooling grunt or perch in the wild. How many are appropriate for a 150 gallon. I was hoping 8-10 of each, what do you guys think??

3) I want a few showcase haps, namely Venustus, Compressisseps, Phenochilus, maybe a few others. I am dead set on a small breeding pair of Venustus, with one male and 2-3 females. Is it possible to add any other haps to this mix. I also want to throw in a few electras, maybe a random male hap/peacock or two down the road.

So, would 3 sets of breeding pairs/colonies (labs, acei, venustus) work well with several loners? What are the chances of a lone compressiceps or Fryeri Male getting along with the breeding groups? Would the chances of crossbreeding be slim with these species? I am hoping that 150 gallons is enough room to accomplish this.

Any ideas or thoughts are glady appreciated. Even better, if anybody has any pictures of the aforementioned combinations please feel free to post them up. i would be interested to see a yellow lab/acei only tank.

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Gibbs

· #2 · Jun 5, 2008

I think that what you are thinking is very achievable.
I think you are spot on with tour labs and acei they will be fine
A breeding colony of Venustus should work 1M/3F
A Dimi. Compressissep a Pheno and a few other different looking haps/peacocks will be good

It sounds like you know a thing or two about keeping fish so get the ball rolling and show us pics when it's all done :thumb:

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Regulatorocks

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 5, 2008

yea i dont want many breeding pairs because i definately dont want cross breeding.

i forgot to add that i will be throwing in my 4 inch M. Callainos. He's a little beast but hes surprisingly not too aggressive towards other males all he cares about is food.

i want to base this tank's stock list on a saltwater reef or something similar. You know when you visit aquariums or watch on the discovery channel, in the wild environments tend to be made up of schools with several lone showcase fish patrolling above. I used to study Atlantic and Pacific fishes and i want to base my stock list on something like this. In the following picture French Grunts are shown, which yellow labs kind of remind me of. i want schooling fish to serve the background, and then have several showcase fish that 'overlook' the whole tank.

any other showcase cichlids i should look at that i can add a solitary male? Will these solitary males try to mate with the female Acei and Venustus?

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Fogelhund

· #4 · Jun 5, 2008

The Labs and acei will be fine in your aquarium, in the eight to ten range that you've suggested.

In my experiences, getting three large Male Haps to be at their potential in a 6ft aquarium is optimistic. Sometimes it works, but most often someone isn't going to be at their potential. If you are going to keep D. compressiceps, N. venestus and P. phenochilus, I would recommend getting three females of each... at least. Ideally, I would go with just two of these species, given the numbers you desire for Labs and acei. The single males are likely to try and breed with other females, in particular a male D. comp. A single male D. comp is likely to try and breed with anything, including the Labs and acei.

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Regulatorocks

Discussion Starter · #5 · Jun 5, 2008

yea maybe i will leave out the male comp D. what about adding a single female compressiseps instead. i used to be more interested in this fish but i could live without it.

i like showfish that are large, colorful, and somewhat peaceful. my only exception is the venustus, but i dont mind if hes king of the tank.

is there any other species like P. Electrus? i was thinking about adding the blue variety in as well.

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Fogelhund

· #6 · Jun 6, 2008

Female D. comps aren't very colourful, but that is your call. P. electra are fairly closely related to P. phenochilus... I wouldn't mix them. Better mixes would be something such as C. borleyi or C. azereus.

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