Stocking

[oscarsrgr8t]

hi guys this is a post quoted from my brother "My partner and I are moving house soon and are getting ready to set up our 72x24x18 tank. Im after some stocking ideas for the 6 footer and some advice on how many cichlids i can have in there.

The tank has 2800 ltr an hour external canister filter a 11 watt uv light and a 2000 ltr an hour internal carbon filter with a heap of air flow.

Im going to put the cichlids from my 3 foot tank into the 6 foot and giving my siss the 3 foot. My custom 3 foot tank is to go under the 6 foot tank and shoud be ready to pick up on saturday, which im going to use as a quarantine/hospital tank.

Im not sure on my ghost knife fish and the cichlids going in together so i guess ill leave him in the 2 footer with my wife's black moor.This tank is also going under the 6ft tank.

The fish I have now which are going into the 6 ft once moved are: 1 Blue Dolphin - Cyrtocara moorii
1 electric blue Maingano - Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos
1 Venustus - Giraffe Hap
1 Nimbochromis livingstonii cichlid - Sleeper
2 electric yellow cichlid - Labidochromis caeruleus
1 Red Empress - Protomelas taeniolatus
1 Green Terror - Aequidens rivulatus
1 Melanochromis Auratus
1 Copadichromis moloto yellowfin
1 siamese algae eater
1 sail fin pleco.

All the cichlids are juveniles, and I have also ordered:
4 female electric yellows and 1 male Maingano juveniles.

So I have a total of 17 fish including the ordered fish. I was wondering if thats too many fish for a 6ft tank and the filtration set up, or if I can put more in there, would it be a good mix. "

 

[BiffMalawi]

I am not familiar with all those types but from first glance I think you should be able to add more.

I would research each of the fish as to aggression and other compatibility issues. You are getting more Yellow labs whichis good as they like to be in groups and 1/4 male to female ratios. Maybe some of the others need the same. I had a female Auratus and it killed everything it was in with. Granted all fish are individuals but they are more aggressive than the yellows.

I have a 70gal tank with 8 Yellow labs and 10 peacocks. Your tank is about 135gal and could certainly handle more fish(as long as some aren't big fish). I would do the research and then buy the ones you need to bring ratios up to optimum and try to match aggression levels. Overstocking can help control aggression as well. As long as you overfilter and do good regular maintenance.

 

[Boids-n-more]

Something i did notice is you have a mix of diets in your fish list. Your red terror is more of an meat type eater to where your yellow labs are vegitarian type eaters. your filtration sounds good but i would put a different media in the carbon filter besides the carbon.