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do african cichlids like current in the tank?

Hi,
Someone who specializes in the Rift Fish could give you a
specific answer. However, in general, the body shape of
the fish gives you clues to the type of environment that
they frequent.

Zebras, for instance are a schooling fish with a
streamlined body. Aways on the go, they prefer
some currents to play around in.
If you have a fish like a Discus or
even an Angel, they have huge wide bodies and would never
be able to hold their own in fast flowing waters, they'd
get blown away as their body shape would act like a sail.
Same with a fish with a body like an Oscar, they would
prefer water with very little current and places to sit
and wait for something to come swimming by.
Rift Fish live in large lakes and while some live in
areas where streams feed into the lake, others live in
areas where there would be little or no currents.

Check the books for your specific species and see where
they live within the lake and then model your tank to
favor that environment.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

http://www.wetpetz.com/index.html


This site should give you all the background info. on the fish you have.

from my 2yrs of experience they pretty mush ignore current unless you have a male who is in the mood. Now I only have Mbuna and smaller haps(peacocks) so the larger haps might be different since they are open water swimmers. I also know nothing about tangs but am sure they must be similar.

By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates-
I happen to have become a philosopher

thanks for the replies.that wetpetz site is great.
i just bought the fluval fx5,puts out 600-900 gph.
depending on how much media you use.thats why i was asking
about current also got power head.
;-)

First step in answering this question is to ask about the nature of the fish's wild habitat ... do the Rift Lakes have currents flowing through them naturally?

The Rift Lakes are pretty unusual habitats. First of all, they're not connected to extensive river networks. Much of the water exchange that takes place in these lakes is via rainfall and evaporation. It's because of this that they have high concentrations of dissolved minerals, thus pushing up the pH and hardness - the minerals that dissolve out of the rocks submerged beneath the water tend to stay in the lakes because they don't have major outflows carrying the minerals out. Compare with the Amazon River and its associated system of feeder rivers, which drains vast qwuantities of water into the sea, with much of that water passing through areas that are mineral deficient in any case.

However, the Rift Lakes are large enough to have tides. Which is one source of water movement within the lakes. Weather also drives some water movement - Ad Konings in the Cichlid Room describes having to take shelter in a bay during one Tanganyikan collecting trip because the waters became rather choppy and continued progress in a small boat was risky. This article]http://www.cichlidae.com/article.php?id=147[/link] by Pam Chin also describes the features of the two principal lakes of interest, Malawi and Tanganyika, quite succinctly. [link=This article also notes that the lakes can become choppy with the weather - when the southerly gale, called the mwera, blows down Lake Tanganyika (which don't forget has its greatest elongation in the north-south direction) the resulting waves can be six feet high! As Mary Bailey says in the latter of those two articles I've linked above, the lakes are large enough to be classified as inland seas size wize, and only differ from true inland seas in having a mineral content that depends upon minerals other than sodium chloride. Incidentally you can get an idea of the size of the Rift Lakes in that latter article quite easily by taking a look at Mary Bailey's photo of the ferry vessel Mtendere that operates on the lake - that ship is the size of a full-blown ocean-going ferry (see how tiny the people are next to it?) and a lake that can support the operation of a ship that size is a BIG lake ...

So, there IS water movement in the Rift Lakes. However, it's restricted to the uppermost layers of water. Below about 300 feet, the water of Lake Tanganyika is stagnant and bereft of oxygen, so you won't find any deep abyssal type fishes living at depth. Which is a pity in one respect, though the diversity of the lakes is sufficient even without such oddities! However, Lake Tanganyika is DEEP - the mean depth is 570 metres (1,870 feet) and the deepest part of the lake is 1,470 metres (4,823 feet) ... at those kind of depths in the oceans, you start to encounter weird bioluminescent fishes and giant squid! Lake Malawi isn't quite as deep in terms of mean depth, but does have a deep basin at the northern end of the lake (similar to Lake Tanganyika) - the mean depth is 292 metres, deepest point is 705 metres.

So, there is hardly any turnover of water masses in Lake Tanganyika, and likewise, Lake Malawi probably has anoxic depths (certainly any water below about 300 metres is going to be anoxic) because what currents ARE present in the lakes only affect the top 100 metres of water at most, and usually only have a significant effect upon the topmost 50 metres of water.

However, given what has been said above, the upper layers of water DO experience movement, and so, the fishes that live in it experience currents to a greater or lesser degree. Therefore, one can epxect Rift Lake Cichlids to appreciate at least some water movement. However, there are limits to this - they won't require the kind of output that would be appropriate for a marine aquarium (which needs water movement that at least attempts to simulate the vast water movements of the oceans) but a good quality filter system with a decent flow rate will be required not just to provide the fishes with some current - it will be needed because in the hard, alkaline waters that Rift Lake Cichlids need, ammonia and other nitrogen cycle wastes are more toxic to the fishes living in that water than they would be in soft, acidic waters. The reason for this is that ammonia exists in an equilibrium between free ammonia molecules, NH3, and ammonium hydroxide, NH4-OH. In acidic water, the balance shifts toward increased numbers of ammonium hydroxide molecules, which are slightly less toxic than molecules of free ammonia, and which are also metabolised more easily by filter bacteria. In alkaline water, the balance shifts toward free ammonia molecules, which are more toxic and slightly harder to metabolise directly by the bacteria. To facilitate the metabolism of ammonia by the filter bacteria, a greater flow rate and greater oxygenation level is required, which of course means that the fishes will have greater currents in the aquarium. Remember however that the fishes live in an environment in the wild that sees significant water movement at least intermittently due to weather in the water layers in which they live - therefore they would likely be happier in an aquarium with a good quality power filter moving significant volumes of water around than in a stagnant one.

Hopefully this lengthy explanation will clarify a few issues.

[Edited for broken tags]

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

wow!
thanxs
Calilasseia

"do african cichlids like current in the tank?"

Mine all do - 11 tanks all with internal filters in, in my 6x2x2 community tank they gather at certain times of the day and shoal in the current.
I like to think it's their version of going for a jog

We also work on the theory that if fry are used to swimming in a current then they grow into stronger more resilient fish, for this reason we have tiny fluval 1's in with our tiny fry and they love it.