My 6ft Mbuna tank

[JFMBou]

G'day TFT's,
This is my first attempt at setting up a 6ft African Cichlid (Mbuna) tank. I have used local quarry rock and coral sand, the filtration is a 3ft sump/trickle set-up. The inhabitants are as follows; 6 Cynotilapia afra 'Cobue', 6 Iodotropheus Sprengarae 'Rusty Cichild', 5 Yellow Labs, 3Cobalt Zebras and 3 Ngara 'Yellow Tail'. They all seem to be very happy, the afras have already produced some fry and I have 2 Rusties that are pregnant. I've had near to no problems except for some brown algae which I've had help with on another TFT forum from WOODSY and YARRA2 (thanks again.) this amount of fish, is that OK? I was hoping for some more, perhaps 5 Red Zebras and some Williamsii 'Blue Lips', any feedback would be appreciated.
Regards, Uri

[mr_walker]

That rockwork looks awesome! Great tank.

[2LOUD2OLD]

thats a really nice looking tank

[JFMBou]

Thanks,
I suppose it's not too bad for a first ever attempt, however, I should've kept in mind the cave digging abilities of these fish. I love their constant re-arranging of the landscape but I think I'll have to remove what is now starting to look like excess coral sand, these fish are definitely no apprentices at landscaping or more accurately AQUA-scaping!

[yarra2]

I reckon that looks really good and unless you are in a hurry to change things I’d leave like it is for a while.

I don’t want to hi-jack your thread but I had a somewhat similar set up and got some great advice from people here on the forum and others before I changed things to where I’m reasonably satisfied. I originally wanted to keep both Africans and Americans in the same tank and this worked pretty well. A sort of neutral Ph75 kept both groups happy enough. But when I got another tank I decided to make the main one just for Malawis. There were two significant changes that I made that you might like to consider in the future. They are actually all linked together. Firstly I went to a really knowledgeable and interested dealer (Jamie at Evalife in Frankston) and selected a whole lot of limestone rocks. I then built them up (with other rocks) against the rear wall to make as many caves and hidey holes as I could. The limestone rocks help with keeping the Ph up. Next was the water quality. I went back to the dealer 3 weeks running for a complete test of the water, doing the water changes and adding the chemicals he suggested before both of us were satisfied (mainly before he was satisfied):)

Then I slowly started adding the fish I wanted. Mostly single males but a few pairs as well.

The final major thing I did was to pick up on a tip that Joz and others gave me to keep the sand clean. I re-arranged the rocks and caves so they were more grouped in the middle which allowed a constant water flow around the sides and front of the rocks, so that apart from an occasional light vacuuming the sand stays quite clean. I let the fish dig away as they will (and they do) and every so often roughly level it all out again. Realizing that if anything died in the back I wouldn’t be able to get at it so I got some Kuhli Loaches – 4 I think – that are the `clean up crew’. One mistake I made was to put in 15 baby Convicts (of which I had an over-supply) as feeder fish. Some of them made it down to the caves before being eaten and I now have 2 adult pairs in the tank that will be coming out.

Now the whole tank is virtually self-sufficient. I do a 50% water change every 2 weeks and add the standard chemicals – the water is crystal clear and the fish are going `gangbusters’. Most of the fry don’t survive within the community but if you look into the cave structure immediately after feeding time, there are mobs of baby fish and fry scuttling around in and out of the rocks. When the survivors get bigger they bravely come out of hiding and take their place in the community, so much so that I’m now having to seriously think about selling some of them off to prevent further over-crowding.

The basic stock in the tank are:
1xAstatotilapia Latifasciata: (Zebra Obliquidens)
4xKuhli Loach (Pangio kuhlii (http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile28.html))
3xLionhead (Steatocranus Casuarius (http://www.aqua-fish.net/show.php?h=lionheadcichlid)) plus fry
2xElongatus Mpanga (Pseudotropheus sp.Elongatus Mpanga) plus juvies & fry
4xLabidochromis hongi (male and 3 females) plus a baby or two
1xElectric Yellow (Labidochromis caeruleus)
2xMaingano (Melanochromis Maingano) (males)
3xBristlenose Catfish (Ancistrus temminckii and sp.) bred once but fry are gone
1xCobalt Zebra (M.Callainos)
2xMalawi Peacock (Aulonocara hansbaenschi) plus juvies and fry
1xLarge 3 spot Gourami (a real survivor!) and 5 Convicts

[JFMBou]

Thanks for your comments YARRA2, I appreciate ALL feedback!
I have found a great LFS in Hallam, TVs Aquatics, they've just moved from Upper-Ferntree Gully to this location. He's really helpful, extremely good in his pricing and knowledgeable as well.
All my water parameters are really good, I do a water change (30%) every 6 wks and truly they seem to thrive in this environment, my pH is 8.2 and I believe that this is mainly due to the 40kg of coral sand.
I have indeed notice some fry in amongst the rocks but if I want more to survive I'll have to add some more rocks! Now I'm thinking of setting up another tank but perhaps just a colony tank (which species, I don't know yet!)