Tropical Fish Forums

[maceman]

tank 40 gallon rio 180 internal and external filter tank running 18 months amonia o nitrite 0 nitrate 10 pH 7.8

1 hap ahli ,, 1 electric yellow,,3 syno multipunctatus,, 2 aulocurra nyasse,,2 haplochromis obliquidins sp 44,,,2 super vc 10,, 2 lambordi,, 2 johanniand 2 pseudotropheus crabro all fish are about 2inches big
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d f mason

[number6]

Right now, it looks pretty I am sure. Sounds similar to my first mbuna tank.

Be warned, it is also a powder keg and you're sitting on it having a smoke.
The crabo, for example, will reach 6 to 8 inches in a year with good care and would claim a 40g tank as his entire territory and kill any fish not smart enough to get out of his house.

One by one, the least aggressive fish will hide behind filter pipes, etc.
Cloudy eye, fin rot, Ich or just mysterious deaths tend to knock off these cichlids one by one as they all outgrow the tank. It's as if one fish has to die, to let the others continue growing to adulthood.

Your plan here should be to have a 10g tank with water and an extra heater and an understanding with your local fish shop to take the outcasts back in when they are hounded to the top corner or beaten soundly. You move the fish to the 10g, then phone the LFS to tell them you're bringing one back again.

If you don't have a removal process in place, the fish will die, and the results can be severe to the other fish in the tank. Illness, ammonia poisoning, etc can result.

I hope I haven't put you off these lovely fish or anything. I'm just hoping that I can save you the anguish of learning all of this the hard way, or buying tons of useless medications at the LFS...
which is one of the reasons your LFS employees will tell you the setup is fine
again... been there, done that as well.

Hope this helps.
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"Just don't look in my fish room honey... it's just better for all of us. "

[maceman]

OK thanks for the advice so would a 450 litre tank be OK for this lot
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d f mason

[number6]

[Gary]

The six foot tank will do wonders. I have a 125 gallon with 30 africans in it and and even though there is still a lot of aggression in it ( which I think is just natural for these fish) the tank as a whole gets along well. I have a female crabro and she only seems to be aggressive with the Lombardoi's. She's about five or six inches now. I have heard that the males are much more aggressive than the females.