[daddycline]

hello all this is my first go at a ciclid tank and am just wondering what others would do with a 48-24-24 tank. I like mbuna's and will probalbly go that route what would be a good stocking list or a good mix of colours. thanks

 

[JoelRHale]

With a 4' tank you're looking at 4 species.

I would look at the cookie cutters and just add more to the numbers.

You could do: demasoni (black/neon blue), lab (yellow), rusty (burnt orange and lavender), and acei (midnight blue and yellow). You could also sub in a Metriaclima species in for your labs.

You could also sub maingano for demasoni if you wanted for the same colors.

 

[daddycline]

thanks, im gonna start looking up pics now, how many can i put in. never had a tank this big and am kinda excited, tank will have plenty of filter as i am planning on an fx5, or ehiem 2080 pro 3.

 

[JoelRHale]

Yeah, I'm definitely jealous of you! I have a 75 right now, plan on moving up the ladder in due time.

For a 55 gallon people say the max fish count is 20. So I'd assume since your tank is double the footprint you could do 40. But you can fudge the numbers with demasoni and rusty as they are both dwarf mbuna. But a healthy, properly stocked tank I could see: 12 dem, 10 rusty, 10 lab, and 8 acei.

Of course you want to buy more than that in the beginning to fix your m/f ratios and to make the tank look fuller as they grow out. Just make sure you go through an LFS that will trade with you for not only other fish but for supplies.

 

[PfunMo]

With that size tank, you do ahve a wide range of things you could so it depends a lot on you and what you want. An all-male tank can be very pretty and much more stable than a tank of male/female which will breed but also make more things to control or deal with. One major thing for new folks is the question of cross breeding. It really ruins the fish when they do this. I highly recommend the articles in the forum library. You can read until blind but this is one I recommend before choosing fish.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/haps_vs_mbuna.php

It give relative aggresion for different types and that is one thing the new person needs to know about. Make it easy to start and then wade into the tougher groups once you feel more confident?

 

[Chunkanese]

You have so many options. I would go through the mbuna species profile and see what you like, then check out the cookie cutter, or come back to us. If you dont plan on breeding or saving any fry you dont have to worry about cross breeding, just leave the fish and nature will 99% take its course. If you plan on maybe keeping fry than i would try to avoid cross breeding.

Let us know what you decide on!