Where to put my fish?

[synergy]

I just recently got a bunch of fish from my older brother who is moving away. He gave me a 55 gal tank and a 33 gal. I got a bunch of fish from him
16 regal peacock Cichlids(8 male3-4 inches, 8 female2-3 inches),
5 blue zebra cichlids(biggest is 3 inches rest are around 2-3),
1 kennyi(1-2 inches)(sp?)
1 that i dont know what it is(3-4 inches)
1 electric yellow cichlid (4 inches)

Where should I put all these fish I currently have the bigger of the fish in the 33 gallon and I have the mid to little ones in a 30 gallon, I am getting the 55 gallon tank on Thursday and have no clue what fish to put in which tanks.

 

[Barney]

Can you put them back in the same tank they came from?

 

[ferret]

Let me just say, wow. That's a lot of cichlids. If you get them sorted right, you'll have a damn nice tank. I would actually suggest in this instance that you go post on cichlid-forum.com .. In the Malawi forum. Same post, if you're lucky (Not very hard to be) Fogulhund will reply. He'll be able to tell you EXACT where to put them all.

My immediate suggestion, without researching anything would be to keep the peacocks together in the biggest, the zebras together in the medium tank, and then the last 3 in the smallest tank

 

[madasafish]

Let me just say...

that that's a wonderful selection, but that all together in a 55, you will overload your biological filter (i.e. filtration won't be able to cope with waste in tank). IMHO, that's even a little but much for a 55 and a 33. 24 cichlids, all of which grow to at least 4 inches=at least 96 needed gallons, probably far more as the "1 inch per gallon" rule applies less and less to larger and larger fish. (PM me if you don't know about this loosely construed/interpreted rule).

Do some serious reseach if you can into these species on www.malawiciclids.com (you'll find info on the peacocks and electric yellow lab there). Then check out other sites... You'll find that some of the fish you have are reputed for bad attitudes! Kenyis and Zebras can be mighty aggressive if put in the wrong situation, with too few females or with too many fish which resemble them in shape, size and color. The Yellow Lab will prob. be alright by him/herself, as none of the other fish resemble him/her in color (perceived potential threat).

You're ID of the unknown fish might be helped by looking through the gena of Malawi cichlids on malawicichlids.com. If you can't find him/her there, post a pic and we'll do our best. If we can't, post it on cichlid-forum.com under African Cichlids, and they might be able to help.

HTH.