African cichlids question

[Luexiong2]

You know when you go to persmart and they list the care level on the fish tank like easy intermediate or adance. So my question is why are African cichlids listed under advance?

 

[Andrew McFadden]

They are actually pretty hardy. Its knowing how and what to put them with and water quality.

 

[Luexiong2]

They are actually pretty hardy. Its knowing how and what to put them with and water quality.

Really..I just thought as long as you hav a high balance Ph and as long you keep African cichlids together depending on size and male to female then it should be ok...just my assumption

 

[Andrew McFadden]

Really..I just thought as long as u hav a high balance Ph and as long u keep African cichlids together depending on size and male to female then it should be ok...just my assumption

Also at the store they only list them as "african" . You shouldn't mix the African rift lakes or the African river cichlids. And if your not careful I've seen sa/ca cichlids mixed in African tanks. Aggression of each one plays a role IMO. You wouldn't want to take an extremely aggressive one and put it with a peaceful one. It usually in the long run comes out bad when they mature. Tank size for each one plays a big role as well imo. Like haps should be in a 6' tank. Even some of the extremely aggressive ones that don't get all that big.

 

[Nolaboi]

Also at the store they only list them as "african" . You shouldn't mix the African rift lakes or the African river cichlids. And if your not careful I've seen sa/ca cichlids mixed in African tanks. Aggression of each one plays a role IMO. You wouldn't want to take an extremely aggressive one and put it with a peaceful one. It usually in the long run comes out bad when they mature. Tank size for each one plays a big role as well imo. Like haps should be in a 6' tank. Even some of the extremely aggressive ones that don't get all that big.

That is IMO

 

[Wy Renegade]

Really..I just thought as long as you have a high balance pH and as long you keep African cichlids together depending on size and male to female then it should be ok...just my assumption

Common mistake; "African cichlids" as Andrew pointed out includes both lake and river cichlids. Additionally, in lake cichlids you have Haps, Peacocks, and Mbuna and generally for beginners it is advised not to mix these. Additionally some Mbuna such as the auratus and the johanni are much more aggressive than other Mbuna and a single specimen of these species will dominate a tank and kill off other species. Keeping and breeding Africans requires much more than just a general knowledge of preferred temperature, pH and general water parameters, thus they are recommended for advanced aquarium keepers rather than novice aquarium keepers.

Unfortunately many people getting into cichlids or Africans without being aware of all of this and so they end up with tanks of mixed cichlids or mixed African which often go south over the course of the first couple years, if not the first six months.

 

[Guppygulp]

I did not know this thank you for posting this. I could have made a big mistake mixing my cichlids.

 

[Andrew McFadden]

These links may help y'all out
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/lake-malawi-mbuna-stocking-dcor-hardware/

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/lake-malawi-aquarium-stocking-cichlids/

 

[Nolaboi]

That is IMO

What is IMO

 

[Andrew McFadden]

What is IMO

In my opinion

 

[Nolaboi]

In my opinion

Thanks Andrew for the answer

 

[Luexiong2]

In my opinion

Funny about your text IMO. I just received a message saying that we are not allow to take shortcut when posting ,so does IMO violate our right. I know it is off topic.

 

[Luexiong2]

Common mistake; "African cichlids" as Andrew pointed out includes both lake and river cichlids. Additionally, in lake cichlids you have Haps, Peacocks, and Mbuna and generally for beginners it is advised not to mix these. Additionally some Mbuna such as the auratus and the johanni are much more aggressive than other Mbuna and a single specimen of these species will dominate a tank and kill off other species. Keeping and breeding Africans requires much more than just a general knowledge of preferred temperature, pH and general water parameters, thus they are recommended for advanced aquarium keepers rather than novice aquarium keepers.

Unfortunately many people getting into cichlids or Africans without being aware of all of this and so they end up with tanks of mixed cichlids or mixed African which often go south over the course of the first couple years, if not the first six months.

Wow this sound so complicated. I dot think I am going to raise African cichlids. Thanks for your info. I might have wasted a lot of money or no reasons.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Funny about your text IMO. I just received a message saying that we are not allow to take shortcut when posting ,so does IMO violate our right. I know it is off topic.

I understand were you are coming from and that it can be a bit confusing. Aquarium shortcuts such as IMO are included in the list of permitted aquarium talk shortcuts. Other shortcuts such as "u" in place of you are not permitted, as this is typical text-talk. Why/How do we make the distinction? It has to do with formatting recognized by the web community and a desire to have our threads be findable on the world-wide web. Text-talk type formates are not as easily picked up and identified by topic content and so posts/treads using high levels of text-talk don't get identified and reduce potential hits on the web. Since ultimately our goal is to ensure that people find our site via internet searches on the web, we try and limit the use of text-talk. Certainly it isn't a perfect system, but hopefully that helps you with your questions.

 

[Luexiong2]

I understand were you are coming from and that it can be a bit confusing. Aquarium shortcuts such as IMO are included in the list of permitted aquarium talk shortcuts. Other shortcuts such as "u" in place of you are not permitted, as this is typical text-talk. Why/How do we make the distinction? It has to do with formatting recognized by the web community and a desire to have our threads be findable on the world-wide web. Text-talk type formates are not as easily picked up and identified by topic content and so posts/treads using high levels of text-talk don't get identified and reduce potential hits on the web. Since ultimately our goal is to ensure that people find our site via internet searches on the web, we try and limit the use of text-talk. Certainly it isn't a perfect system, but hopefully that helps you with your questions.

Thank you I understood where you are coming from.