malawi or tanganyika

[ADFs]

I am going to be setting up a 55 gal african cichlid tank and I was wondering which was the best bet: Malawi, Tanganyika community, Tanganyika substrate spawners, or smaller less agressive mbuna species? In terms of appearance, and ease of choosing species that will live together relatively peacefully and even ease of breeding them?

 

[bound_for_obx]

If you are intrested in Tanganyikans, take a look at Brichardi or Daphodills and Julidochromus. I have had luck keeping them together and they are relitively easy to breed. Hope this helps

 

[Zezmo]

Last night at the Silicon Valley Aquarium Society (SVAS) they had a great speak about lake Malawi.

http://www.svas.info/

The title says peacock cichlids, but Steve Lundblad actually spoke about Lake Malawi in general. Including many slides of his visits to the lake. I tell you I had no idea that lake was so huge (350 miles long!). He really gave a great presentation about these popular fish. One of the things I really noticed is that most of the most spectacular looking fish from there are the ones that would look the plainest when buying the juveniles. If you download the July newsletter from that same page, it has a great article about these fish.

 

[Menagerie]

I have both types of tanks. It comes down to doing your homework ahead of time and deciding which bunch of fish look best to you. I have an 80 gallon Mbuna tank with various Ps. species, mostly mouth brooders. For awhile, there was breeding occuring often, but it has slowed down and the mother fish is not removed, so the young are usually eaten (I don't keep these guys for breeding, since the fry are "mutts"). In a 10 gallon tank, there are N multies and they breed readily. These are shell dwellers and have great behaviors, but should not be kept with larger fish. In the community Tang tank, there are julies, brichardi and used to be O golds. The O golds bred easily (shell dweller) and in the past I have had brichardi that would not stop breeding!
This is my favorite website for fish profiles: http://www.mongabay.com/fish/cichlids.htm

 

[ADFs]

Thanks for the advice, I think I will go round to my local fish place and have a look at what the've got, they have a very good cichlid section.

 

[mentallylost]

After seeing what they have, read on them before buying. And ask lots of questions. Many of us here have kept from both lakes.