Surprised no one else asked(especially after saying you have 18 fish....)
They could/can easily work in a 90 but no way to say???
Is 18 too many for a 90 gal? I read everywhere to overstock an African cichlid tank and they get along pretty well. I do about a 20% water change every weekend and add cichlid salts to the new water. If I'm doing something wrong let me know and I will try to fix it as soon as I can. There weren't any new additions but they were living in two connected 30 gal buckets during the move for a week or so and they have been in their tank for about 2 weeks now.
Stocking in 90 gal
-2 Socolofi Cichlid (1 albino 1 male)
Bought them thinking they were different fish
-1 Bumblebee Cichlid
-1 Livingston's Cichlid
-1 Acei Cichlid
-1 Auratus Cichlid
-1 Red Fin Zebra Cichlid
-1 Cobalt Zebra Cichlid
-1 Red Zebra Cichlid
-1 Yellow Lab Cichlid
-1 Demasoni Cichlid
-1 Red Empress Cichlid
-1 Jacob Cichlid (jacobfreibergi)
-5x trying to identify. (Peacocks of some sort)
-3x Syno catfish (Syno Eupterus)
-1 Psycodelic Pleco (L 66)
I tried to get one of various breeds to limit breeding. The auratus is a bully but the rest of the fish get along nicely and just stay out of the auratus' way.
Whew, that will lead to problems. You've mixed aggressive and non aggressive species, you need to pick a direction. I would remove the peacocks or all the aggressive mbuna(which is most of those).
^^Sooo, this is kind of what I thought may be a possibility in the beginning.^^
Thanks TMRC!
You may infact be developing columnaris if these fish are more then just "at each other" all day.
Mbunas are known to do better over stocked and I think you did good with 1 only species to control breeding.
Some species cross breed is next to be detrermined also IMO?
Treat whole tank and get some good advice from fellow cichlid keepers here as to proper stocking!!
I am pretty sure you can easily have 18+ fish in your tank successfully...
Just not those 18.....