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Wow, it's been a long time since I've been around this place. After several years of keeping a marine tank I want to give Cichlids a try. I don't know much about them in general though, so I was hoping to get some general stocking guidelines. I'll be stocking a standard 75 gallon tank. I'd like to stick with species that will allow me to keep the most fish in the tank. I'm looking for a variety of active fish that will get along with each other. Nothing that gets too big either, like mentioned I'd like a variety of smaller active fish.

Any tips would be appreciated, because I don't know much about cichlids. When I did freshwater it was tropical stuff, so I'm a bit lost with stocking and fish choices in general.

you could try angels, rams, apitogramas, keyholes, etc...
you could also try yellow labs, electric blues, etc...
most cichlids are territrial so you might have a bit of trouble, but if you had enough lateral and etc territorial boudaries (rocks, diftwood, plants, decorations, etc) then you could have more... my suggestion would be to first look through dwarf cichlids' profiles and find the ones you find atractive... then bring them back to the forum and we can help you...

there are so many choices... the sky (and your wallet) are the limits!

\\\\\\\"an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure\\\\\\\"

Well see I like the larger south and central american large cichilds and catfish because they got personality and i think its a lot more fun to watch and feed than the smaller ones i also been haveing that type of fish ever since i started to have fish. i just think that they are really funn and a breeding pair of fish are really cool looking and i always like a extra tank with other larger fish to eat up the babies. i know people dont like it when people do that but its just nature and its fun to watch.

well I hope that helps!!!!!!!!

Hey man, long time no see.

Are you against Rift Lake cichlids?

Cyprichromis leptosoma are active and the smaller types will be approriate for a 4' tank; some large Cyprichromis will do best in a 6' tank, so avoid these. They are active and, unlike almost all other cichlids, are schooling, so they are kind of like rainbowfish in cichlid form. They also are open-water, which is a space not used by most other cichlids, so they'll "fill out" the space not used by many other cichlids. These fish are uncommon and a school is pricy, but I imagine it would be totally worth it. If I got another 6' tank it'd have a huge school of Cyprichromis.

BTW, in case you go for them, IMO it's not a good idea to mix different types of Cyprichromis as they would easily hybridize and things would get messy.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

I'm not aganist anything at this point. Although I guess I'm more drawn towards Mbunas at this point. There seems to be a pretty nice variety of those avaliable. I'll certainly look into the Rift Lake stuff though. I was going to check out the LFS today to see what they have avaliable. Although if I find something I really like I'm not opposed to purchasing online. That was something I did before with my SW fish.

Would you suggest just stocking the tank with the leptosoma, or would I be able to keep other fish with them? From the few short profiles I've found it says a school of 8 or more is best, but that they do well with other fish because they swim higher and pretty much avoid them. I don't really know what the stocking limitations of this type of fish would be in the tank I have.

Thanks for the suggestions though. Right now I'm open to anything and just trying to figure out what my best bets are.

When I researched C. leptosoma years back for the fun of it, my plan was to keep them with Paracyprichromis nigripinnis. I am not extremely familiar with cichlids, but there are certainly other species you could keep Cyps with.

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The aquarist is one who must learn the ways of the biologist, the chemist, and the veterinarian.

Here is a small list of several cichlids I find attractive. Any advice or suggestions on these would be appreciated, or experience with them.

Labidochromis sp. "hongi' or 'Red Top Kimpuma'
Metriaclima estherae "Red Zebra"
Cynotilapia afra Jalo Reef 'Yellow Top'
Iodotropheus sprengerae 'Rusty'
Pseudotropheus sp. 'Polit' Lion's Cove

I had a 4'tank eith a school of cyps, two pairs of leleupi and a few multis with some bristlenose cats. All fish were breeding and apart from the occasional squabble between the leleupi and multis all got along well.

A great tank with lots of colour and movement and no problems at all. I would recommend especially the cyps as they are great fish

If your into smaller more active and fuller looking tanks i thinkt he previous posts are leading intot he right direction.

Cyps are deffinetly a great start. schooling and spawning in open water. Allways showing their fins trying to get the ladies.

If your into antics a nice shell dweller like Multis would deffinetly explode in a tank that size. more then likely can get multiple colonies to form. Its a colony fish that protects generation after generation living as a group. There are other shell dwellers like similies. these are a bit more agressive and bigger. territories are larger and more of a harem breeder. Think the multis would give you more of what your looking for...peace.

Put a nice rock pile in a corner and can have some rock dwellers like Julies.

here is a link to help ya out with most of these smaller species.
http://www.shelldwellers.com/
Out of the mentioned fish I am pretty sure the cyps are the largest at like 4 inches nonjumbo. There are also larger versions called jumbo. Also a tang killi that gets like 4-5 inches if i remember right. The multis get no more then 2 inches and the julies are torpedo shaped at about 3 inches. so you could pack a small army of these in a 75g tank. every spot would have movement but at the same time the fish would interact with themselves nicely but at the same tiem species be some what sepperated. no hybernizing or duals to the death.

I must warn though julies will attempt to predate on multi fry. Multies are also professional defenders. If a julie enters the territory the entire colony rise up and escort them back to the rocks.

Anyway hope this helps. Please take pics once ya get started. would love to see something liek this myself. I have been tempted to show my mbuna the 30g breeder and move the multis to the 75g. Ya they are they entertaining lol.