[geotlyrae]

Just finished setting up and cycling my 46 gl bowfront aquarium. I'm ready to start stocking. Went to the 55gl cookie cutter section, and was going to follow their recommendations, with a couple less fish. Anyway, I was planning to stock with apprx 9 fish. Cookie cutter says to take 3 species. Lfs recommended adding 9 different fish from that same list, which made more sense, since I will have more color and 9 different species. Is there a drawback to that?? . Thanks for the replies..

Ps. I'm planning to have Yellow labs, Acei, Elongatus, Saulosi, etc. Also I plan to add 3 at a time.

 

[geotlyrae]

I also plan to add only juveniles..

 

[Chris2500DK]

With 9 fish of different species you're almost sure to get hybrids unless you get all males or all females. When you're looking to add yellow labs, acei and saulosi juveniles you have very little chance of sexing them before they're older.

I guess you can do it if you want a bunch of different coloured fish, just be prepared for hybrid fry and have a plan for them

 

[CichlidWhisperer]

If you do an all-male tank, you will fidn you need a few more fish than nine to keep the aggression down. Also, due to smaller tank size, I would aoid very aggressive fish such as the elongatus. Maybe do a bunch of smaller fish such as various labs and Cynotilapias (oviously my personal favorites.)

 

[cichlidaholic]

I wouldn't advise doing an all male tank with a tank that small.

Sometimes, having more colour and more different species can just lead to problems. Weeding out extra females can be difficult, as many females look just as nice as the male.

What are the dimensions of the tank?

 

[geotlyrae]

I wouldn't advise doing an all male tank with a tank that small.

Sometimes, having more colour and more different species can just lead to problems. Weeding out extra females can be difficult, as many females look just as nice as the male.

What are the dimensions of the tank?

The tank dimension is: 36x16x20 . Like I said, the tank has lots ot hiding places. Since I'm getting juveniles, I also believe that it will be impossible to have an all male tank. Not sure how to take care of the hybrid problem..
I'll try not to put any highly agressive fish in the tank..

 

[cichlidaholic]

The only way to protect against hybrids is by stocking the tank with a couple of breeding groups of suitable fish.

With those dimensions, the ever popular Ps. demasoni/Yellow lab combo would be ideal, and would also be a good stock for colour.

If you don't care about breeding at all and would rather just have several different species, just don't salvage any fry from the tank, since you won't be able to trust the parentage of them. Most will be eaten if left in the tank.

The main problem with doing this is that if you're going for colour and alot of different species, odds are you will wind up with more males than females (many species of females are quite drab, so you might not pick those) and the females will take a beating from the overabundance of males while they are holding eggs/fry in their mouths. You will also have to steer away from males that won't be suitable size and aggression wise for this tank long term. (Venustus, fuelleborni, trewavasae, just to name a few that need a larger tank...)

For long term success, I would recommend choosing two species that are compatible with this tank size and having larger groups of those two species. :thumb:

 

[geotlyrae]

If I would go that way, how many fish would I be able to stock?? and how many of each??