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Ok folks,

I'm almost ready to start stocking my first African cichlid tank, but I'm still unsure of what to stock it with.

Right now it has a sand substrate, a couple corals to help raise the ph, a large decorative (for caves) broken pipe, a fake sand castle, and some shells. I plan on adding one more decorative piece (for caves) and some sort of fake plants.

I have two aquaclear 200s from another established tank now running on this one, half the water was from an already established tank, and about 5 pounds of substrate from an already esablished tank tank in open containers. I will obviously test to make sure the tank's water paramaters are good before adding any fish. The tank is 29 gallons.

I plan on adding 4 or 5 juvenile african cichlids of the same species. But I'm still not sure what to stock. I really like orange zebras, but heard they are pretty agressive. Would it be best to start with electric yellows? or is there another good species anyone could recommend?

The only other fish that I might add would be a pleco, but only if I get algae. However, this tank is in a room which gets very little light and I haven't found algae to be a problem with tanks in there for over a year.





[span class="edited"][Edited by SJinNJ 2004-07-27 18:45][/span]

Well, you could try the cichlid Neolamprologus brevis. It doesn't grow much more than 3", is peaceful, and is a shell dweller.

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And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

That all sounds good to me. Electric yellows are an easy and good choice, but you could go for another species if you wish. Personally I haven't found red zebbies to be all that aggressive but others have. Some other peaceful species I would recommend for a 29 gallon are pseudotropheus socolofi, pseudotropheus saulosi, iodetropheus sprengerae, and possibly labidochromis hongi. A species tank is perfect for a 29 too, I think you're going to be very happy with the set-up!

The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. - Oscar Wilde

Thanks for the info. I did a cruise through a couple LFSs today, and I am pretty sure tomorrow I'll start stocking if all the water parameters check out.