Adding mbuna

[Ian14]

I have a 120 gallon mbuna tank that's be running for about 3 months now and I had it stocked with 42 mbuna
I lost 9 about month ago due to a disease outbreak after I added a couple fish from bluegrass aquatics that I'm guessing had some kind of illness because a few days later 4 of the fish(acei) died as well as 5 others. I put medications in and they seem to be all right now. although one fish does appear to have cloudy eye/ pop eye maybe and I'm currently treating for it.

Once the tank is stabilized and all fish are healthy of course, I want to add a few more
Right now there are

6 yellow elecrtics
6 red zebra
4 white tail acei
5 albino socolofi
8 cyno hara
2 yellow fin mbamba
3 syno mult catfish

Once I'm sure everyone in the tank is healthy I want to add some more mbuna.

I was thinking of adding another five socolofi, how do regular and albino socolofi do together?
Also thinking about adding some fuelleborni marmalades, or regular fuelleborni. Which one is better?
And maybe some rustys or mainganos

What do you think of this?
Don't want to add so many different species I'd probably just pick one or two from the above
Filtration shouldn't be a problem, fx6 xp4 and f306
Lots of rocks
60 x 18 x 24

 

[FrankoQ]

in my case, the regular socolofi occasionally chases the albino one.
This socolofi thinks he is the king of the tank.
the albino never chases anyone.

 

[snowman17]

You should add some p.polit or johanni nice looking fish, or since you have a big take maybe the dreaded auratus can't beat there black and gold coloring.

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[Ian14]

I was thinking about mainganos. That would be some blue

 

[snowman17]

That would work too less aggressive also

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[Ian14]

Would they still breed with a tank with that many mbuna and species?

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[molliwopp]

Yeah they will still breed. The breeder i bought my rusties from kept one xlarge tank with all kinds of different species and had fry for sale from most. I would imagine his male to female ratio was selected for breeding purposes with one male of each with however many females but then im taking a guess at this.

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[Ian14]

All the fish I got from live fish direct. I asked for that kind of made to feel ratio but they couldn't guarantee it or anything

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[molliwopp]

Thats common as you probably know most are hard to sex when small. I was lucky with both my rusties and my ngara mdoka species tanks because both turned out ok 3:5 peacocks and 3:7 rusties. Removed 2 peacock males but kept the rusties as theyre easier going. But my next one ill be buying more than i want to keep to garantee my desired ratio and to choose the most striking male.

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[Ian14]

Wouldn't all the fish eat the eggs and fry as soon as they lay?

 

[molliwopp]

Yeah they will eat the fry. They dont get chance to eat the eggs. Remove the holding female if you want to keep the fry. One or 2 could possibly survive if theres enough cover but its very unlikely.

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[Ian14]

Ok. Any tips on noticing if a female is holding?

 

[molliwopp]

Yeah its quite easy to tell, extended jaw like they have something in their mouth and they usually stop eating. Google holding female cichlid.

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[Ian14]

Ok. I plan on swapping out the gravel substrate for pfs and then adding some rock

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[molliwopp]

Good! A mbuna without sand and rocks is an unhappy cichlid. The bad thing is rocks can be extremely expensive, more than youd think. Looking around garden stores for rocks rather than lfs would be a better option.

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[Ian14]

I've gotten rocks from the back yard in the stream. Am I better of with really big rocks rocks or just a bunch of small medium ones

 

[molliwopp]

Cool, a Mixture of both would be good just try and create gaps for them to get through with escape routes to get away from pursuing from tank mates.

Obviously making sure theyre clean, how clean is the stream? porous rocks will leech things into the water which can be a mixed blessing.

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[Ian14]

Not really sure. It starts about a mile up the road with collected rain water

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