FishProfiles.com Message Forums

I'm in agreement that giant danios are probably going to be your best choice, but also speaking from my own experiences consider yourself extremely luckly if anything survives for any extended period of time.

Your stocking level's not too bad, but you have some pretty aggressive fish in there. I'd be concerned about the demasoni and chipokae especially, chipokae are supposed to be about the most aggressive mbuna out there. Also, they are a melanochromis species and shouldn't really be kept with johannii. Your ratios are a bit off as well, mbuna really like to be kept in harems.

How long has this tank been running? I've found that over time, as the fish get more comfortable, they start to spend more time at the top of the tank. You could also try piling rocks up higher to make them feel more secure.

Failing that, I agree about the giant danios. Rainbowfish are another popular mbuna dither species as well.

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

get more acei. you wont be dissapointed. i have a group of 9 in my 55 and they stay at the top and look great.

on the actual stocking is:
1 common plec (10 inch)
5 yellow labs
2 demasoni
2 afra
2 johanni
2 acei (new)
2 cobalt zebra (new)
2 chipocae (new)

that's about it. I think I'll leave it as that. cause it's getting pretty crowded in there. But at worse I have a 55 gal and an other 90G that I are completly empty.



Last edited by braytag at 08-Jan-2005 20:51

I have 6 giant danios in my Malwai tank....they do great. Even with a large Eyebiter. The only thing I noticed is that if you have dark gravel ( I had them in a black gravel tank)....they look really dull. I moved them in to a natural gravel tank and couldnt believe the difference.

If anything, I might agree with the giant danio's. Supposidly they get up to 5 inches right? And fairly thick bodied, not to slender for an easy mouth full.

They too are fast, and can be a rough crowd. Might do ok with mbuna. They are a lot prettier then people give them credit for, specially under your typical fish store lighting.

Like Scorpion_fish I too have kept Gourami's with Malawi's. Albeit only an Electric Yellow (that was somewhat aggresive). They still survived, and lived a fruitful life.

Both Mbuna and Haps.
Zebras, Lombardois, Peacocks, Venustus, Red Empress, Jewels, Pindanis, Electric Yellows and several others that I can't remember at the moment.

Which malawis did you have that gourami with?

I'd recommend Gourami's for a top dweller. Had several in with my Malawi's and never had a problem (I had some nasty fish aswell in that tank).

have a 90G tank full of malawi. The problem is that they mostly stay at the bottom. so the top layer of the tank is empty.

I know they're not from the same echo system, but could I add angel fish, water parameter seems to be the same, they only problem I can see is that my Mbuna are a bit agressive, and I don't know if they're gonna tear the angels to shread.

Or is there any other fish you would recomment to populate the top layer of the tank?

I have about 12x 1-1.5inch yellow labs/johanni/acei...

Ph is about 7.7
ammonia at 0
nitrites at 0
(tank fully cycled)

I have 3x ac300
1x power head 302
and a fluval 404

so filtration wise I think I'm ok.

I second what john said about gaint danios. Despite what others my tell you, the gaints will work fine that tank. They can hold their own. On the danio subject, I would not try zebra danio though. My sunshine peacock eat one zebra danio, so then I gave the rest of my school to my friend where his mbunas killed another two. The zebras were fine in my tank and not getting picked on at all, untill one got ate. Cool fish those zebra are though.

So, what fish do you have then and quantities of each. If you do have Ps. Demasoni, I hope you have only 1 of them or 8+ because as they get older, they will kill each other off if there are too few. At least that has been most people's experience.

actually I beleive they're demasoni I don't know why I wrote that... must have been tired.

I was actually gonna try some as my next batch of fishes... I'll tell you how it went, thx.

A favorite with a lot of my friends who stock the upper regions of their larger Malawi tanks are tiger barbs. A large school 10+ will hold their own against as they semi-aggresive for tropicals and fairly fast.

Don't get angels. They're be torn to shreds quickly.

Last edited by chapman76 at 05-Jan-2005 10:06

just noticed you have acei allready listed, sorry about that. they should shoal and stay up at the top. mine allways did anyway.

how about yellow tailed Acei? pretty sure they are malawi. they shoal and frequent the top alot. very pretty fish and are comfortable with mbuna.

[link=click here]http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/Fishindx/ps_acei.htm" style="COLOR: #FFFFFF[/link]

After an unfortunate mishap, one of my harlequins managed to get into my mbuna tank..... It is not longer with us... I would recommend giant danios, they are large, fast and look really good (very tight schooler). A school of 12 would look awesome.

I use harlequin rasbora and cherry barbs as mid to top runners in my peacock tank, it is actually yellow labs and peacocks. While they are usually not as aggressive as other mbuna they totally ignore both of those species. I dont think an angel fish would make a good addition. You are going to run into territory problems and should you add more than one that pair up then breeding problems.

I would use a smallish cyprinid or tetra with contrasting colors to your mbuna. Just make sure they are large enough to not fit in their mouths.

Bdadawg