Chris’ African/mbuna Journal

[chr15_8]

well the planted tank is not happening now. i have been planning this tank for about 3 weeks now.

Type of setup ?
mbuna

Tank ?
40 UK Gallons (185 litres/48 US Gallons

Filtration ?
Eheim Pro 2224 (700 lph)
Eheim Ecco 2232 (400 lph)
I will be constructing and Under Gravel Jet. Each jet will be around 570 lph and there will be 6 jets (around 3400 lph)

Lighting ?
A twin 36w standard fitting (plus 30w tube & t5 compact ready if i want/need them)

Substrate?
Argos play sand – 2 inches above the egg crate min.

Decor?
Slate (from a mixture of lfs and garden centre)

Water chemistry ?
Still need a test kit
about 25 degrees c

Maintenance ?
about a 20% water change each week
Clean 1 filter every other week (as i have 2 filters it will work out around once a month)

Feeding?
Cichlid pellet
Pea’s, Cucumber, Lettice
The European Shrimp Mix (homemade food)
each of these twice a week leaving 1 day a week for a few live brine shrimp

Fish ?
Labidochromis caeruleus 2m+2f
pseudotropheus salousi 1m+3f
metriaclima callainos 1m+3f

the egg crate/filter grid has came. i also bought the the pipe for the ugj last night. so tommorow i will be buying the ‘playsand’ constructing and fitting the ugj and egg crate. On sunday i will be buying rocks (hopefully)

i have about 6-7 shrimp left in the tank thank i need to do somethink with untill tuesday when the move to my cousins tank.

nothing else to add i think
all constructive advise welcome as im sure it will be helpfull!

thanks for reading
chris

[aquaholic85]

Hey Chris nice to see a fellow munba keeper, any way i do have a suggestion about your tank..
Labidochromis caeruleus and pseudotropheus salousi are both awesome fish, but putting in the same tank isn’t gonna work to well see salousi females are just as yellow at the caeruleus and things can get all messed up with interbreeding. salousi are great for species tanks though if you are going with the blue and yellow look do as i did. Ps. Demasoni and your yellow labs. though a 40g tank is small for any cichlid. be sure to do your research. soulsi alone will be fine in your 40g maybe a group of 12 would be good be sure not to over stock. Your cichlids WILL BREED in time as i know. so plan on controling your stock and avoid species that will interbreed. go to http://www.cichlid-forum.com for more info.. if you have any questions don’t hesitate to leave msg…

[chr15_8]

hi thanks for the reply

my tank works out just under 50 us gallons? (40 uk)

i had a quick look at Ps. Demasoni just now but im going out in a second so will continue my research and finish the post

chris

[chr15_8]

ok
i got back about 2 hours ago. i finished of my ugj system. cut all the egg crate/filter grid.

tommorow im going to glue some sand onto the pipe work so it will blend in.

about the stocking and fish. i was told of another forum there were a good choice. whoever after thininking about what you said about the Labidochromis caeruleus and pseudotropheus salousi females interbreeding im going to go with your advice. (i dont want interbreeding at all).

i was told to aim for the 12 mark with 3 species so could i go for

Labidochromis caeruleus 2m+2f
Pseudotropheus demasoni
metriaclima callainos 1m+3f

2 questions
1)would the above be ok?
2)what male to female ration should i aim for?

thanks
chris

[L777]

Chris,
from my brief experience with mbunas (<2yrs), the P. salousi made much friendlier tank-mates than the P. demasoni, although the demasoni were definitely a stunning blue (only get that with the grown male(s?) of the salousi, and sort of a black/blue negative to the demasoni's blue/black). Ditto to the interbreeding concerns.

Don’t know if that’s useful at all :roll: but it’s pretty much the sum of my relevant mbuna experience!

[aquaholic85]

well one thing is, you can do what ever, but an under gravel filter is gonna end up being a pain, because these cichlids dig, jus like the rest of them. the egg crate is a good idea and all but fish aren’t going to move the rocks, some ppl. like the crate but if you stack your rocks in away that the gravel isn’t supporting tottally don’t even bother. get your foundation rocks close to the bottom glass and you should be fine. the thing with demasoni is that you either go with one or a dozen or more, see these fish are very tettorial and if you have less than a dozen or so they are gonna kill each other off. i kno so take my word for it. i have like 20 or so and they are doing good. 12 sounds like a bit to much, but it’s a general guide line for these fish. Demasoni and labs are very very very hard to sex at young ages so obtaining m/f ratio is difficult. labs ratio doesn’t really matter but later on with the demasoni you may need to weed out some of exta males.
you can try something else besides mbuna tho, shell dwellers, stay small and are coolest lil fish and they stay mostly to the bottom and your size tank would be great for them. most mbuna get pretty large so you need to think long term and not cute lil baby fish.
if your gonna stick with mbuna with your tank, i would jus go with demasoni and labs maybe 12 demasoni and 4-6 labs. or go with a variety of diff. fish and research the size of grown adults.
breeding fish is cool and all but sometimes you need to set up a tank for yourself and just enjoy it. an all male peacock tank is popular but they are a tangynikan fish, or however you spell it,

telling ya go to cichlid-forum.com and see whats up, plenty of advice and all info you need. but look into that shell dwellers, they have quite interesting behavior. so loose the UG filter and good luck.

any more questions jus post

[L777]

aquaholic,
when I kept cichlids (mostly mbuna types), it seemed like I could never get the tank past the brown algae stage. I changed the water at least 80% weekly (usually more), and didn’t overfeed. Having cichlids meant no plants (they’d tear them out or tear them up) to soak up the organics and such. I’ve noticed a lot of other people’s cichlid tanks end up brown-coated as well. BN plecos helped a bit. I think the high pH hard water (my tap at the time was naturally suited to Africans without further conditioning) contributed to the problem. The tank was a 55 gallon with piled slate and cleaned field rock, some gravel on the bottom for the fish to dig around in, and a pair of large power filters hanging on the back.

Have you encountered this also? Is there a good solution that doesn’t involve expensive revolving use of disposable sorbent media?
—
My demasoni experience matches your advice — I had two plus a half dozen salousi’s, the first male salousi to get bigger than the rest beat them all up, especially the salousi’s that tried to turn blue.

[chr15_8]

thanks

i might not go for the Demasoni then. i would like to go for 3 different spieces but if its best not then i wont.

ugj – its not a undergravel filter. its a system of jets to produce water circulation around the bottam of the tank. therefore keeping the sand clean and water movement for the cichlids

im a member on the cichlid-forum.com but the few questions ive asked have had very few replys.

also ive talked to my lfs and they said that i can exchange any of my cichlids for the same type (eg Demasoni to a different Demasoni) as long as its in good condition and i have a reson

[aquaholic85]

chris i would go with the solousi, with your size tank, your still gonna have the blue and yellow look, i would stay away from the zebras, merticall whatever it is. they end up being sort of aggressive and can become quite large. if you want to go with a thrid fish, find an OB type, calicoish colors.

L777 at first i did have the algae problem and it was super pain to deal with. I feed my fish once day and limit the light to just a few hours, when i get home till i go to bed. I also have a BN pleco and she does a pretty good job with the algea. Idk if my water is to hard or light isn’t strong enough but have had no algea problems for months. so try decrease the light and limit feedings once a day.

POST”EM FOLKS

[chr15_8]

so i should only have the one species in the tank?

i see where your coming from but tbh i would like at least 2 different types to add abit of difference. i also prefer the yellow labs more than the salousi.

so could í have the yellow labs + a different species?

sorry to be awkward but im trying to think of other was/more possabilites

chris

[aquaholic85]

sure dude, labs, and by the way i told you some wrong info. Peacocks are from lake malawi like mbuna, you can try an all male peacock with some labs, it’s gonna look bad ass

[ste12000]

@chr15_8 wrote:

im a member on the cichlid-forum.com but the few questions ive asked have had very few replys.

Stick with us Chris…. Were not ignorant like other forum users lol :wink: Did you go of the idea for the planted tank?? also have you scrapped the fishroom idea? iv not spoke to you for a while, so not sure where your upto. Good luck regardless of what project you do…

[chr15_8]

im going to ge this up and cycling then i will choose my fish (while its cycling)

ste
yea i went of the planted idea but i keep looking at planted tank pictures making me want to switch back. ive never kept cichlids before so thought id go with them.

i still want to do the fishhouse but dad isnt too sure still (hopefully he will and ill do it during next summer (gets dark quickly ive had about 30 mins tonight wher ei could see the bottam of the garden). ive got about 5 pages of my finial design (with prices, cutting list, insulation, pictures, lots of numbers, tank display, electric, air system etc, i had the prices from about 4 differnt companys for the wood etc) si i’ll keep them for next year (hopefully)

so hows yours? i see youve got more fry/fish

chris

[ste12000]

Yeah mate iv got a load of new stuff and sold a ton of the older fry to make space, im turning over a lot of fish in a fairly short time so i am really chuffed.. Ill post an updated thread about changes to my stock soon. Good luck with the tank, iv never kept Malawi’s before so ill leave you in the good hands of aquaholic85..If you ever keep discus with dwarf cichlids and tetras then im your man…

[chr15_8]

well today i didnt get out of bed till 11ish.

i started to brake up the slate which didnt turn out as i planned. turned out alot smaller but to be honest im glad as i like the look of the smaller bits. ive only used about 3 rocks (ony about 1/2 the rock due to the size and shape of the broken of pieces) and ive got 9!

the rock is about half way there at least so not much to go

i also went to a fish shop (took about an hour) to buy a pump the most suitable pump was an eheim which they wanter £90 ($180) so i bought a pond pump for £35ish ($70). its quite noisy and will have to be turned off at night (i could hear it in the living room about 15ft away when the tv was turned off) the jets are very powerfull and im glad i only got the 2400lph one instead of the recommend 3500lph pump.

sand i almost all washed used 2 out of the 3 bags and will use a max of half the last bag

ive put 4 under water leds in that was in my previous tank. ive put them behind the rock so at night/dark they glow though.

ive got a few photos but will post when ive finished the rockwork.

chris

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