New Malawi Setup

[vegemite]

I've just finished setting up my 120cm 300L tank for Malawi Mbuna. I've built a polystyrene 3D background with caves and added a small mountain of rock almost reaching to the surface. Coral sand substrate. AquaOne 1200lph and 750lph canisters. 2 x 30w fluoro lights - Philips Aqua Sky daylight and Sera Blue Actinic. Really happy with the way it looks. Currently waiting till Wednesday for the big fill as I want to make sure the background has bonded properly (wouldn't want to imagine the damage if it popped).

Question - I want 4 species only (5-6 of each). MUST HAVE Demasoni. MUST HAVE Yellow Labs but I want suggestions for the other two. Thinking of the colour combinations available - Would like Red and Light Blue. What have you seen in NZ that would fit the bill ??(The less common the better)

[ryanjury]

Sounds like you have your setup well thought out and have a good setup, have you got any pics yet? Might also be a better idea for a mod to move this to the cichlids section..

Dem's and yellows will look awesome together, try to get a few demasoni (recommendation is around 10-12) as they're agro and tend to wipe each other out in smaller numbers..

AS for red or light blue.. For your light blue you could add cobalt blue's or any number of blue peacocks, (fryeri, royal blues, chilumba etc) and for your red its pretty hard to get red africans best you can get is maybe red empress (very hard to get at the moment) or maleri red and even then they're not all red. And also you should only have one species of female peacock in there to avoid hybrids. Maybe go for something common like red zeb's they're more orange though, or if you want a different tank you could stick some red rainbows in there..

[jim r]

There are a few people experienced in malawi cichlids on this site unfortunately I am a beginner in Africans so my suggestion would be to surf the site and maybe trying to pm a couple of these people.

[herefishiefishie]

Maybe your best bet is to place an add in the trader asking for Malawi cichlids. When you get a few offers, place up a post in the cichlid section asking which of these will best go together.

It is really hit & miss when mixing & matching cichlid species. Demasoni & yellows will work well. The demasoni bred in my set up, but stopped the others so to speak. Red zebs maybe fine, conflict in interests can occur. Peacocks are more on the docile side & like fryeri only the males show colour.

In setting up african tanks as a mixed look. You are best to start with the docile end, ie; yellows & peacocks & get them established & a bit of growth. Then look at something like demasoni later.

Are you looking to breed, or just after a fancy set up? If fancy, you could go a colony of demasoni & yellows & mix & match males of other species of different looks & species.

Frenchy

[vegemite]

Good ideas - I want to stay away from the Peacocks and Haps though (diets not really compatible). Hopefully there is enough rock to placate the fun little killing machines. I'll take the tip and go for 10 demasoni as the main feature gang. I'll try to get some pics up this week. Keep the suggestions coming...

[vegemite]

Thanks Ryanjury this probably does belong on the cichlid section (noobs huh - what are you going to do?) :oops:

[smidey]

i have africans together as listed on my sig below & they give a good colour contrast. however i don't reccomend adding the giraffes as i have done as i got a really nasty one.

[herefishiefishie]

If you feed your fish a spirulina based flake as the main part of the diet, you can mix & match cichlid species easy enough. All africans will eat it. Then buy a couple of other products like an African pellet/flake & something like frozen mysis shrimp.

If you feed spirulina flake first the demasoni will get to that first anyway. All I feed all my african's is a mixture of what I mentioned above in a few forms.

You will find that Electric yellows are omnivores too.

Be good to see the pics, good luck & keep us posted.

Frenchy

[vegemite]

Thanks Frenchy I really appreciate that. Pics coming Wednesday (fingers crossed) along with the water. Everything I read says don't mix mbuna with haps or peacocks due to diet and agro levels - but it sounds (and looks) like most malawi freaks in here do so without too much trouble. Malawicichlidhomepage make it sound like the equivalent of devil worship. Then again the discus afficianados would have you believe that adding gravel to a tank will make the 'kings' go belly up but I created an awesome planted discus community that I kept for three years without a problem (til I caught on to this idea). I reckon the mbuna have as much personality of any fish behind glass - unlike discus that look awesome but...

waiting for a furious response from discus keepers :evil:

[vegemite]

Pics are up now (in the cichlid section) titled the anxious fill. Thanks Chaz

[herefishiefishie]

But the funny thing is if you mix peacocks, the males fight amongst each other. And cross breed.

If you mix just mbunas, those of similar colours will fight & cross breed.

There are tricks to doing mixed tanks. Then again can just depend on the mood of the fish involved. :roll:

The main thing is to add the more docile species first or have them slightly bigger.

& be careful with large predators, ie; Venustus.

Frenchy

[vegemite]

Thanks hff, for that reason I'm only going to go with 3 or 4 species of Mbuna - as I said above - Demasoni, Yellow Labs and 1 other. There doesn't seem to be a huge choice (in NZ at least). I guess my other choices are Red Zebras, Socolofi or Red Tops. Any of these seem different enough to avoid the dreaded orgy. As you said - Yellows first in, Demasoni last. Looking forward to it. :bounce: