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New to the hobby, and here is where i stand...

694 Views 12 Replies 9 Participants Last post by  Floridagirl, 
D

sorry for the crappy phone pic..

back in Nov. i picked up this 75gal tank from a buddy (FOR FREE!!!) he already had it established for Malawi's. he had about 10 Electric Yellow Labs, an Electric Blue (i think, it died 2 days after transport) and a big guy he and i can't ID. Like i said about the Electric Blue i had all but one of the Yellows die. so i was left with one Yellow and the unidentified guy.

so after doing some more research i found that i should have cycled the tank a bit. after doing so and having my water parameters ok i searched out some new fish. i am lucky enough ( i guess) to live near "That Fish Place", so i went and brought home 4 new fish, a Bumblebee, a Maingano, a Colbat Blue, a Demasoni.

everyone was doing reall good, til my alge started to grow and i tried a lights out day and came home to a dead Demasoni. that sucked but i decided that i had too much blue in my tank anyways so i didn't get another. instead i went to my LFS and picked up some Red Zebra for cheap ($5 ea.). they are doing so well i then went and got more Bumblebees and Yellow Labs ( at the same price hahaha). i also got 2 plecos to help with the alge.

so after 3 months of having the tank this is where i stand:

4- Yellow Labs
4- Bumblebees
4- Red Zebras
1- Maingano
1- Colbalt Blue
1- Mystery fish (i posted in the forum for the id of this guy)
2- plecos

i'd like to bring both the Maingano and Colbalt Blue up to 4, and possibly get another species thinking a white fish of the malawi.

i do however really like a lot of the peacocks and haps, is there any way i could add one of my fav of these to my stock??[/img]
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Glaneon
I believe the normal rule is 4 species in a 4' tank
each male will want to take up about 1 sqft of floor space. So you have room for 4 males. You already have multiples of 3 species. I understand the desire for the extra mainganos, I recently starting stocking them too.

at this point you need to pick what you want to go with. I had 7 or 8 species in my 6' 125 and ended up with a few fish in the corners, etc. not good.

I would drop the bees, they get aggressive and BIG.

Get more mainganos and some cynotilapia afra 'hara' if you want some pretty 'white' males. the females will look like your cobalts, so I would drop those instead and get a 2 males and 6 or 7 females.

just an idea. :)
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F
We had to seperate our labs and zebras into different tanks. They would cross breed relentlessly.
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Glaneon
Let'm spit in the tank. Most won't make it.
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M
Your gonna want to try for more like 5 of each fish, 1 male with 4 females like Glaneon said, bumblebees need more females, so do maingano. More like 1 male with 7 females. Yellows and Red zebras do crossbreed so don't keep fry from either of the females. 1 of anything wouldn't be that good in my opinion unless it was an all male tank...just my opinions :thumb:
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M
Nice tank by the way! Not a big fan of gravel myself, but hey, its your tank! Rocks look great for mbuna tho :thumb: :thumb: :thumb: j
Great job =D>
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GTZ
I thought Maingano were ok with normal 1:4 stocking and it was Johannii that required 1:6/7?
I haven't kept them.
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DJRansome
Members have seemed to have a lot of trouble with maingano in a 55G and 1m:4f so lately people have been trying a 75G with 1m:7f like johannii.
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D
thanks for the info guys, i picked the Bee's cuz they were easy to find and cheap. i know they get big like up to 6" but we'll see how long that takes. the aggression on the other hand has been notice already with the bee's and the red's, i guess i'll have to get more to curb that. the cross breeding isn't a real concern for me cuz i wont be selling any. more maingano's and colbalts are on the way as well just got to save now. and if this community doesn't work out too well then i will have to set up my other 75g(i have just the tank).

@mattawan- hey i'm not a huge fan of the gravel either but it was already in the tank and established so i kept it. i like the PFS, maybe that will be next if i have to set the other tank up.
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Kanorin
GTZ said:
I thought Maingano were ok with normal 1:4 stocking and it was Johannii that required 1:6/7?
I haven't kept them.
Click to expand...
Some people have gotten 1m 4f to work. I couldn't get 1m4f to work because every time my male was breeding the other 2 females would be pushed up to the top corners of my tank. Some males are more rowdy than others - so it might work for some, but I feel more comfortable giving advice to stock on the conservative side.
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O
Johanni males for sure mean mofos...bought what was bagged as maingano at a fish auction a while ago, turned out they were all male johannis...at least I got my money's worth when I sold'em lol. Always fighting in my tank, causing chaos, and bigger than everything else too so they just looked like whales haha.
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Glaneon
doobie27 said:
thanks for the info guys, i picked the Bee's cuz they were easy to find and cheap. i know they get big like up to 6" but we'll see how long that takes.
Click to expand...
I was under the impression you're looking at more like 8-9"
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Floridagirl
My Maingano weren't that aggressive. I've heard conflicting stories, and think some are mistaking Johanni for Maingano.
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