Yellow Lab In A 10 Gal

[Steven A]

I was in my lfs and I viewed a tank that consisted of yellow labs, brillient adults. They wre about 3-4 inches long. Any way they were in a tank that must be approcimalty 5 gals MAX. There was about 6 yellow labs in there. I asked a employee what tank size they needed and I was informed that a 5 gal for a pair would be ok. I just wanted to know if a 14 gal would be fine for a pair. Or is this to small?

Some reading on not suggests that they need much bigger this is only due to there aggressive behaviour. But they wouldnt be there aggressive with just two would they?

I personally think that they would most deffinatly be fine in a 14 gal tank alone but just wanted to check?

 

[dskidmore]

These guys can get pretty large as adults, and benifit from good rocky aquascaping. You may want to consider a much larger tank for them.

 

[TankGirl]

I would not consider keeping a pair of yellow labs (or even a single one) in anything smaller than a 20g. These fish usually get about 3-4" these days, and they require space, and as dskidmore mentioned, rocks.

For mbuna it is usually a better idea to keep a trio, male and two females, so the male does not stress out a single female while she is holding. She will hold eggs for several weeks, not eating, and this is hard on her. If there are a couple more females it takes the pressure off her.

The conditions at the LFS are almost always not the recommended tank conditions, since they do not stay there for very long.

 

[thanew]

yeah, nothing smaller than a 20g.. they need some space to swim as they like to chase each other IME, also they do require places to dwell, whether it be in some driftwood, rockscape or terracotta pots.

as for being aggressive I haven't witnessed any of mine being aggressive at all, not even towards my ADFs

-thane

 

[Fishyfanatic]

Yellow labs prefer to be in numbers, kind of a school Cichlid (not really schooling, but similar). To keep 4 or 5 of them I wouldn't put them in anything under 55 gal. Actually, I wouldn't put any African in a tank smaller than 55 gal except for Shell dwellers. But that's all just a matter of preference. It's mainly because they like to dart around and once they acheive their larger size, they definately need a larger tank. Anyone who says they will do fine in a 5 gal tank doesn't know what they are talking about.