Over Stocking Africans.....

[Scott MacAdam]

Well, I have read quite a few times that when keeping a African Tank, you should actually overstock(according to the inch rule) to have a prosperous tank....

the ideas behind this is that the dominant (or bully) fish will not be able to single out any one fish, provided you have good hiding spots.... Thus no fish gets overly bullied, and thus your fish don't die off one by one..... does anyone else consciously do this when buying African Cichlids? I'm planning on setting up a tank soon and I hope to get my stock straightened out soon so can someone give me an example here?

I plan on making a lot of DIY caves and such in the back wall, and possibly a slate structure in the center but I'm still unsure of tank size....

so exactly how much of an overstock is this we are dealing with .... like full stock plus a quarter or a half??? how big of a difference is this?


example.... ( with the 1inch per gallon rule)

assuming i get a 55gallon for this, that is 55 inches of fish to start....

assuming i get roughly 6 inch fish..... thats 9 fish comfortably....

but if i were to over stock..... whats the ratio to go by, and how many should I have extra or total?

 

[Scott MacAdam]

thinking back on this..... am I insane?

Does 9, six inch fish seem a bit excessive to anyone for 55Gs?

 

[MikeD67]

im int he same boat as you as far as looking for answers to staring my 55 gal african tank but what people have told me is in a 55gal tank you can safely house 12 - 16 Cichlids everything i have read about there natural habitat says they live in very populated areas and as long as your tank has good filtration i believe u can go 12- 16 if not maybe 20 in a 55 gal. Also i think the amount of hiding spots will make a diff too.

 

[MEePStER]

in a 55 gallon i wouldn't go over 15 fish with the stock 12 fish preferably, i would stay in the 4-5 inch range also for a 55 gallon although it would be ok to put a few fish over 5 inches but nothing over 6 inches

 

[adambrum]

As a rough guide most people have a 50-55g tank stocked with 12-15 cichlid plus a couple of bottom fish.

My tank is way over this limit and will need a bigger tank but what does help my tank is some of the species i have are the smallest mbuna such as afra and long pelvics which max out at 3".

Dont forget overstocking also means over filtering normally cichlid tank use twice what you normally use.

Now a little home work for you, one of your next questions will be about stocking which is the hard bit first time around there are a lot of species that just dont work but helps at hand there is some very knolagable people on here willing to help but if you know what species are avalable to you it really does help in sorting a stocking that will work.

 

[Scott MacAdam]

So the overstocking theory is a good one to go by! thats good.... not so good for my wallet though! hahahaha! o well thanks for the info everyone!

what types of Africans would you suggest for stocking any tank, as I'm not yet sure of the size.... although I believe I would like to keep fish in the 3-6inch range overall...

I already have 2 Africans in separate tanks... so I think when I go through with this set-up the will be in together.... one is a yellow Lab, The other I forget the common name.... umm scientific starts with "Mel" and I think the second part of the scientific name starts with a "M" as well.... maybe you can Id him???

I've had it about 3 years.... this is kinda bad pictures because he was just maturing and changing colors around this time... started black and bright green/yellow with a bit of white, then hit maturity and turned jet black for like a month, now he is black with a beige line down the lateral line.....

 

[adambrum]

Stocking i would advice mbuna which are the rock dwelling species from lake malawi and there what most topics on here are about.

Theres over 400 species so i would see whats available to you but to make life easy keep away from fish with horizontal stripes there the melanochromis species which are the most aggressive.

What type of tank is it going to be are you a bit of a purist or just for aesthetics

The tank really needs to be about 4ftx16"x16" min

oops only read half a post there the pic you have at a guess i would say the first one looks like a meanochromis joanjohnae
and the second a melanochromis chipokae female

 

[Scott MacAdam]

"keep away from fish with horizontal stripes there the melanochromis species which are the most aggressive."


HAHAHAHAHA! THATS THE BUGGER!!!

melanochromis!


will that fish give me huge problems? I will avoid any others but honestly he seems pretty harmless in the tank I have him in now.....

As a last resort I put him in a community.... hasn't caused a problem since day one.... lol!

hasn't even eaten any of my little zebra danios!

anyway it's a long story how he got there but in the end I dropped him in there for a minute to fix the tank he came from... and nothing happened.... I was expecting Havoc... he seemed fine, so I left him.... It's been a year now.....

Also as a Side note, what kind of bottom feeders will be ok in the mix...?
I wouldn't want a group of corries in there if they will get eaten

 

[adambrum]

He might be ok you can always remove him later

Bottom fish are ,most of the synodontis family and bristle nose thats about it others do work some times but its a risk keep to these and there no problem.

Corries just wont like the water mbuna need which is hard and a ph of 7.5-8.5 with about 8.2 being ideal

 

[Scott MacAdam]

yeah thats true..... Thanks again!

any other suggestions?

 

[adambrum]

Take a note pad to the shops and see what fish you can get, keep away from the big chain shops and mixed malawi tanks.

Once you have a list we can work out a stocking list

 

[Scott MacAdam]

hahahaha! that won't be necessary... you see all I have for a fish resource here is Walmart....(unfortunately)

so anyone familiar with their regular stocking as far as Africans goes can help out here! thanks a lot!

 

[adambrum]

from most posts about walmart you will end up with hybrids or really poor quality what about trying local breeders.

Thats all from me tonight beds a calling

 

[Scott MacAdam]

Well, You see, there are no local breeders that I know of... I live in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada.... There is not much here to go on!!! and although I would like to have some options here, I don't really.....

 

[MEePStER]

the top shot looks like a male melanochromis auratus thats just turning black, i have 3, 1m 2 f and my male has just started to transform into his black colouration

the bottom one looks like a female melanochromis chipokae like adambrum said