Any advice for Mbunas!

[MckeelRussell]

Hi I have a 55 gallon tank and a 15 gallon quarantine. I'm posting a pick of my tank, I know pretty much everything about mbunas I need to, but I want personal advice on decor and Ideas to add more caves without breaking the bank.

I also want to know if anyone has had success with planted tanks and mbuna besides anubias and java moss that I dont need to anything but use root tabs for.

I have 15 mbuna 9 in my 55 and 6 in my QT that I just got from livefishdirect.com. I also have 1 marble sailfin pleco 1 rubberlip, and 1 ropefish.

Dont criticize my stocking or tank size, I Will have a 75 gallon by december.

All advice appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[garfy]

Your tank looks fine to me

 

[MckeelRussell]

why thank you garfy.
But I have never been happy producing something "fine"
I'm in the process of removing fake plants and adding real ones, I still have the one on the far right to remove in addition to the fake bonsai behind the fake hollowed out log.
At first I was fine with fake deco... but then I came to my senses.

I just wish mbuna liked plants as much as caves. Well they do like plants, to eat.

 

[Jess1ca]

I haven't had success with any plants with mine, not even anubias! They either dig it up or as they got bigger, took giant chunks out of it. I tried java moss and it was devoured in seconds haha. I had an onion plant that they left alone for a really long time but I woke up one morning and they had trimmed it right down to the bulb. I have Cichlid stones and bought a bunch of slate that I siliconed together to form structures. They like the slate structures better than the stones, not sure why?!

 

[Convict2161]

They will more then likely tear them up. If you look at my albums I had 40+ Anubias and java ferns glued to driftwood,rocks,slate and planted and once they matured that was the end of those. And it wrecked havoc on my filtration. I had to tear what was left out. I like it better actually now then when it was planted.

 

[Wyomingite]

Live plants = shredded plants in my mbuna tanks.

Tank looks pretty good. If yer concerned with not having enough hidin' places, ya can cut PVC to varying lengths and silicone it crosswise several pipes high, then cover it with rocks to hide the PVC. Ya can also stack notched clay flower pots, again usin' silicone to stabilize 'em, and then stack rocks 'round 'em. Both methods significantly increase hidin' places without takin' up as much water volume as all rocks, and the weight increase is considerably less.

I typically keep 12-18 mbuna in a 55. I don't know how the ropefish will fare once the mbuna grow up a bit, and IME plecos end up with shredded fins when kept with mbuna.

WYite

 

[Convict2161]

One question, is that the only filter your running on that tank? It looks small.

 

[Andrew McFadden]

+ another I like it
I didn't have any luck with real or fake plants. I would think they would eat the rope fish thinking it was a worm. That's all I got to now good luck


Edit what fish did you get?

 

[lamby]

i have bits of texas holey rock for my lil cichlids they seem to love it with a few peices of limestone rock aswell and iv never had problems with my cichlids/mbuna they chase some of the fish here and their but are usualy happy and i had a real nice peice of drift wood in their with a lil bit of softer wood and they left my plants alone till we had a 5 day power out and all my plants dies