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just wanted to add.
since you have a 75, the eyebiter can stay if he is the only one (but not really advised). you should really concentrate on larger groups of the same fish. you may have to have 20 fish in there to have enought to spread aggression around. i would say scrap all your fish except the comp. get three groups of mbuna. about 6 or 7 of each kind, 2 males and the rest females. shop around and see what is available to you. dont trust what the lfs says...period. i have visited a zillion lfs and only a couple have given me good advice. those are horrible odds of finding good info. i simply ask questions that i know the answer to to test them out. they usually fail. for example; how many kenyi can i put in a 29g tank. if they say any at all, they fail.
i ask if 3 demasoni will work in a 55g and if they say yes, they fail again. then i dont ask them anymore q's because i know that they dont know what is going on.
a group of 6 yellow labs, 8 acei and 6 red zebras would kick butt and have good odds of succeeding, even with the compressicep, as long as they arent small enough for him to eat.

No problem Wish-ga, but I'll make a new thread so we can leave this one alone.

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

JB can you post pix?
when I did a search on hongi only one pic and v small. Search on crabro didn't yield anything.

Can I see pix of the fish and your tank/setup? Sounds great.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~ My fish blow kisses at me all day long ~~~

No, no actual deaths, no biting....just a really mean relentless electric yellow..who probably would have killed if left in that situation too long....now with all the other fish...he doesnt show that type of aggression anymore. My verbage was misunderstood....he "will" kill not did kill. Sorry to disappoint...no need to respond.

Last edited by songbird1963 at 21-Jan-2005 13:16

your original post made it sound like you had some issues with dying fish.

Not a biggie....but when people start making their own assumptions on the fish I purchase such as assuming they are all juvis just to start preaching and talking about the money I spend (which by the way I have plenty of) it ticked me off. I guess you assumed that I would put juvis in with a 7 inch Eyebiter? Just because I asked for advice doesnt mean I'm clueless. I don't always do things by the book in life and in fish keeping and it seems to work out just fine. When I fuss too much (like in the beginning) fish start dying. Which by the way...I havent had a death or a disease in over a year so I must be doing something right. I even have Africans and South Amercians mixed together. OMG Imagine that!...not one death, and fins look pristine.

I appreciate all of your knowledge and advice..I asked for it. I just didnt appreciate the sermon. Amen.

P.S. Songbird, sorry if we all browbeated you a bit, didn't want to make you feel like you were doing something wrong. Just that there are tried and true ways of doing things. It's exciting that you're getting into malawis, they are great fish and I'm sure you'll end up with a workable tank one way or the other.

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

My tank's around 80 gallons. The crabro don't really shoal too much, except the females sometimes if the males are getting a bit feisty.

It is a bit of a strange choice as a shoal because there are other species in there which are much more peaceful (the yellow lab, the socolofi) and would probably fare well as a shoal with the other aggressive types, but I just love the look of those stripes and the almost solid black males, makes for great contrast with the other fish.

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

just beginning, what size tank do you have those fish in? that sounds like a cool tank. do the crabro shoal or are they pretty much loners? i want a group of them but feel my tanks are too small.

I think this dead horse has been beaten enough. Thanks for all your help. Happy fish keeping to all.

Why don't you make it a massive species tank say with just eyebiter's or something that would be awesome

I agree with acei, as usual . And I have a similar set-up, a large group of crabro (11), a smaller group of hongi (5) and then a few loners (2 socolofi, 1 electric yellow, 1 johannii). It works brilliantly. There is aggression but it is very minor, certainly no deaths or even injuries apart from the odd nipped fin. And the loners really stand out, particularly the johannii who is more or less king of the tank (maybe not so much now that the dominant male crabro has grown up). I can also assure you that there is an enormous difference between a group of juvis who have only been together a short time and a group of adults in a long-term set-up.

I'm sure you'll find something that works for you . As acei said, though, you might be able to find it sooner and with less wastage of money and fish if you follow our advice!

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

(just learned a lot from this thread)

Oh, crap. Time to find new homes for bunches of my cichlids...

no need to get riled up. i was merely suggesting some options for success. you dont have to listen, but you asked.
if your fish are working out, then by all means stick with that. just know that juvinile african cichlids are a lot different than adult african cichlids. they may all get along fine for now, but wait until they reach adulthood. just my $.02. i wish you all the luck in the world. i have been where you are now (as noted in my long post) and wish somebody would have set me straight before i spent hundreds of dollars in fish that either wound up dead or i had to get rid of. it is easy to become attached to these critters for sure.

"experience is gained by poor judgement, good judgement is gained by experience"-unknown

Hi I'm not trying to be insulting or mean, but if you just go to the fish store and pick out any which african that looks cool or interesting why even ask for advice?

Peacocks more often than not are not good tank mates for mbunas. And putting three or two(I don't know if you still have the one from before) red peacocks together is a recipe for trouble in itself. When, if the eyebiter stops attacking the peacocks and hasn't killed them, they will probably turn on themselves especially if all identical males. It is "usually" unwise to mix identical male peacocks together. It may work for some, but definitely not most.

The thing about cichlids are that they can be unpredictable and won't think twice about killing tankmates. Don't be to surprised if you end with dead fish, it happens to everyone. People give out advice in order to prevent these problems in other people tanks, but some times it is better to lesson on your own and we all have. It seems fustrating to both parties.

You should just keep it strictly cichlids. Take the danios out

this is an interesting thread for sure...
just some notes: the peacocks will be dead shortly. they will not thrive in a mbuna tank (and compressiceps!)
what do you want from this tank? do you want great colors? great variety, or a peaceful mix?
if you want one of every kind of mbuna, you will have to overcrowd like crazy and expect a few deaths here and there. if you get a group of acei and a couple other loner mbuna you should be alright. it has worked for me for a long time now in my 55g. i have 9 acei, one red zebra, one demasoni and one yellow lab. i will tell you why this tank works so well for me. the acei are a shoaling fish that dont have territories. they will not compete for space in the tank. the demasoni is territorial, but he doesnt have a female to get him riled up. also, there are no other fish in the tank that resemble him, so he ignores every fish. the red zebra is the most aggressive, is territorial, but has no mate and she has 11 other fish to chase and gets bored of it easily. now she barely chases at all. the yellow lab has no mates, he is territorial, but hides alot(like they normally do) and only rarely chases acei out of his hole. again, there are so many acei that they hate chasing them. if you center your tank around one type of fish and add a few loners it can work ok. you still have to know the temperments of your fish that you chose. you cant keep a demasoni with a saulosi for example. the demasoni will kill it because it looks like one of his own kind. the peacock thing has been beat to death. too many people claim they can keep mbuna and peacocks together, but i seriously dont think so. the peacocks are so much more timid that mbuna.
i had a baenschi male that i picked up at the lfs. i figured he may be a good addition to my male peacock/hap tank. he picked on everybody so bad, nearly killed my mbenji and shredded a few others. i took him out and put him in my mbuna tank(again, mostly acei) and they shredded him to death in one hour. i put him in and it looked ok, when i returned later, he was floating!!!
i also had a trio of jacobfriebergi peacocks in with my kenyi(mistake), yellow labs. the mbuna just wouldnt let him have any breathing room. they kicked his butt until he just freaked out and terrorized everybody. i wount up re-doing the whole tank. got rid of all the fish (except the male lab, which i still have) and researched more until i found a setup that would work. tank size has a lot to do with it. the larger the tank, the more you can fudge the rules. with smaller tanks(55g is small for africans), things get more sensitive.
i am sorry you have all these problems. it shouldnt be this way. some fish i have learned to stay away from with smaller tanks;auratus, kenyi, crabro(bumblebee), elongatus, haps, demasoni & fryeri. to name most that you can buy at some certain big box stores.
please ask more questions and post results.

First, I just want to address something, just because you can doesn't mean you should. 2 years of having fish together isn't that large of a time span for most cichlid keepers.

Haps/peacocks definately shouldn't be kept together with mbuna. Just because you get one person agreeing with what you want to do, doesn't mean it's best. I doubt raising those two types together would allow either to achieve peak health and color. 99% of all African keepers I know, and that it quite a few, say to keep them separate. Some of them have been keeping fish for 30 years. Also, book knowledge is there for a reason. It is just as valid as any experience you may have had if not more so because it was probably done to prove a point.

Mr. Cichlid is right in saying what these sites should be for is to show a person how to properly stock a tank with fish they'd like. That doesn't mean tell the person what they want is ok, all the time. Research should be done.

An auratus is not a community fish I'm afraid...I'm assuming it's a juvi now, but in time it'll be worse than the electric yellow. I'd take it back. Also, as others have mentioned, you should really decide between a hap/peacock tank and an mbuna tank. They really aren't compatible. The mbuna are far too aggressive for a start, and need to be crowded most of the time to deal with that aggression. Peacocks and haps are more peaceful and should definitely not be crowded. There is also the diet issue, mbuna being herbivores and haps/peacocks omnivores (some piscivores).

Even if you really want to give it a try with the mixed tank, you should still replace the auratus before it grows up. Try to keep all the fish of similar temperament. Watch the blue zebra too, especially if it is a male. They tend to become hyper-aggressive, especially without their harem of girls around.



Last edited by just beginning at 10-Jan-2005 20:26

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

2 Pro aquatics 200
And yes i do LOTS of water changes...

I've really had enough bickering, everyone has a different opinion, ours is just very different in this case

and the fish in the lake thing is what i believe.

Do you really think your tank raised fish are near as aggressive and territorial as they are in the lake?
true their behaviours are similar to wild fish but they simply can't be compared.
And thats simply a fact.