I meant to say 75 gallon+ tank
also it’s a horrible idea to mix mid water Africans and rock dweller Africans also kribensis aren’t African chiclids in the sense something like a pet smart Malawi chiclid hybrid would be. Kribs are peaceful fish and should never be mixed with other “African chiclids”
Okay. I know this is an old thread, but since it's been resurrected there is incomplete or just plain bad info that has been posted, and with a clear conscience I can't let it stand at that.
First, the average mbuna species run 4" to 6", true. But mbuna are diverse and encompass genera and species that the average hobbyist has likely never heard of. A 29 gallon isn't sufficient for any mbuna, even for the so-called "dwarf" mbuna species such as
Chindongo demasonii,
Chindongo saulosi ,
Metriaclima lanisticola, and a few others which stay in the neighborhood of 3" or so as adults. There's just not enough real estate to allow non-dominant fish to escape when being chased by more dominant fish. I will hold that 55 gallons is the
minimum for Malawi mbuna, most peacocks, Malawi haps, and most Victorians as well. The largest mbuna, such as the
Pseudotropheus spp. referred to commercially as acei,
Metriaclima crabro and certain local variants of
Labeotropheus trewavasae can easily reach 7" and can likely hit 8". With fish that reach this size, which include a few mbuna and a fair number of haps, a 75 or larger is a better option. Active mid-water fish should be housed in a 6 foot tank or larger to allow swimming room. Some RVs appropriate for a 29 gallon are a pair of the rock dwelling substrate spawners and the shellies from Lake Tanganyika. A few of the smaller species of peacocks can be kept comfortably as a breeding group of a male and 4 or 5 females in a 40 gallon breeder, but nothing smaller and I don't advise it without doing your homework first.
Overstocking Rift Valley cichlids isn't a myth. It's been standard practice in the hobby for decades. Honestly, I've never heard this refuted before. Some species don't need to be over-stocked but with others, mainly mbuna and Victorian rock dwellers, you will end up with a single dominant male unless you do. If there are not enough fish in the tank to disperse aggression, it won't be long before the dominant male kills the other fish, either directly or more likely from stressing the non-dominant fish to a point where they die from reduced immunity and secondary diseases. Males are hard on females if the female isn't ready to breed, hard on females that are holding because they recently bred, and hard on submissive males. Over-stocking prevents a few non-dominant fish from being harassed literally to death by offering so many targets that the dominant fish doesn't hit any one fish again and again without that fish getting a break to recuperate.
Firemouths are Central American cichlids from Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, and orange chromides are Asian fish from Sri Lanka and the Indian sub-continent. Neither has any place in an RV tank, nor with each other for that matter. Mixing mid water and rock-dwelling cichlids isn't necessarily bad, and in a large enough tank can make an attractive display. You did get the part about kribs not being Rift Valley cichlids and that they shouldn't be housed with RV species right.
WYite
