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I'm planning on buying an 80 gallon tank. I would like to put in it about 12-15 tiger barbs and some Electric Yellow Cichlid. Is it feasible ?

I read taht these cichlid are about the most docile of the afriquans ones. and that Barbs are good for a large range of water condition. whats your opinion ?

also how many yellow cichlid can I put in a 80 gallon tank, 47 inch wide about 25 deep.

thanks in advance !

You can put quite a bit, they don't get too big and get along pretty good with others of their own species. From when I first got into fish keeping, I was into Latin American/Asian fish, but I transitioned into liking the African Cichlids. I wish I would have started there, would have saved me a lot of time and money

I say forgot about the barbs and just go for the yellows. There is another peaceful cichlid you could add with the yellows. That is pseudotropheus acei. I got both in the same 90 gallon tank and they get along great, completely ignore each other. Another fish you could add is a small type of synodotis. Synodotis are from the same lakes the African cichlids are from. They get along just fine in my tank.

I'm assuming you haven't bought your tank yet. I say definitely go for sand instead of gravel. It looks more impressive. I'd recommend going for fiji pink sand or other sand types like that. There are the cheap sands they sell at petsmart and petco, I'm not entirely sure about that sand though. Just get the more expensive sand, you will wish you had in the end. Changing substrate is a pain. I currently got natural gravel in my 90. I'd change it, but money conditions aren't the best currently plus its going to be a big hassal to remove it. And maybe get a hyrdo korlia. The only thing that it does is make a water current. I've got a single hydro 3 in the tank. One of my yellow electric likes to swim by it.

For aquarium decorations. Obviously go with the kind of stuff you like, but I say go for rock type decorations.

Well I wanted to mix both since Barbs are fun to watch and I was planning on cycling the tank with them.

Im gonna buy the tnak tuesday or friday. But havent a clue as to what substrat im gonnna use. Sand does look nice. But I'm still kinda confuse on how you can clean it lol. I know you vacum small gravel, but what about sand.

Those gravel vacs, I use the same thing for fiji pink sand in a 20 gallon tank I have. I'm sure some tiny miro pieces of the sand gets sucked away each time, but it stays in the tank since it is a larger grain sand except maybe any tiny micro pieces.Also another thing you could get is mayalsian trumpet snails. They will bury themselves in the sand and shift it around and they probably eat stuff in the sand such as left over food. However when the light is off though, they will be all over the sides of the glass and top of the sand. If you don't to mess with sand, you always go with gravel.

As for mixing barbs and the yellow. It MIGHT work out, or might not. Those tiger barbs are fin nippers. The yellow is probably not going to tolerate that and it will win. Also check out pseudotropheus acei. They are found on this website. They are very active swimmers and shoalers. They will most of the time following each other, at least the ones I have in the 90 do. They are males too since I think they got the egg spot on them.