[DanLong]

My African tank is now converting ammonia to nitrate overnight. I'm going to give it another week to let it settle in, then stock.

So the question is- should I put everything in at once, so that all the fish are new to each other and don't have time to establish territories? Or is it better to do a partial stocking, let it simmer, then add more fish later?

My concern with the all at once method is will adding 30-40 fish to a 125 gallon tank be too much bioload on the existing bacteria? We're looking at fish that are in the 3" range, maybe some a little bigger or smaller.

 

[DJRansome]

All at once. But 18 is a good number for all male and 25 for mixed gender. Especially if you are going with 3" fish to start...not like you have to stock extra juveniles so you get enough females.

 

[DanLong]

Ok so 18 males sounds good. Thanks!

 

[DanLong]

I put in an order at an online cichlid place today, ordered 11 male Haps/Peacocks. They will be here Weds. Going down to the LFS today to see if they still have that 2" Venustus and a couple other nice Peacocks they had last week when we were in there. I did a 35% water change today so all my parameters are looking good. Nitrates about 20ppm, ph 8.2.

Here's the list I ordered:
Ngara Flametail Peacock
Sunburst
Swallowtail
Aulonocara Sunshine Peacock Cichlid
Flavescent Peacock Cichlid
Firefish Peacock Cichlid
Albino Eureka Red
Azureus Cichlid
Ndiwe Fire Hap
Livingstonii