What do you want from a cichlid? I say species tanks are the way to go to get the most natural behavior possible, also fry usually happen easily if you dont have too many males and the best way to get fry i believe would be a single strong dominant male. Too many males can have just as much effect on female behavior aswell as aggression between males as the females seem to lose interest and get used to male company, where one single male would be more intreging for them. Also that particuoar male with show his true beautiful quickly whave 2 species specific tanks. A mdoka ngara peacock and a rusty cichlid tank. You would have to choose them carefully with that size tank and would recommend not getting cichlids that will get anything bigger than 4inches. Theres still quite afew options though, lots dwarf cichlids out there.
ive been thinking about salousi species tank as my next tank, one of the only cichlids where the female and males look completely different, with the females looking a nice golden color and the males look like demasoni with blue and black stripes which obviously makes them extremely easy to sex. But they tend to be very aggressive once theyve settled and theyre setting up territory.
Thought i would stick a picture of my rusty tank. 7Female : 3Male. Theyre truly lovly fish, intelligent, playful and quite tolerant of each other.
Most people will mix mbuna, where i think theyre better kept in groups surrounded by only their piers.
The rio 180 is 47gallons by the way but length is where an issue could arrise as its only 3.3ft long. I have rio 240 for peacocks which is 4ft and i wouldnt go any smaller for peacocks my rusty tank on the other hand is a fluval roma 200 and is the same length as the rio180 but the fluval is slightly taller which spacially is insignificant as my rusties tent to hug the rocks unless feeding. Theyre easily one of the most beautiful and colorful mbuna. My 3 males all look different depending on how theyre feeling and their place in the tank. The alpha and the beta male which have territories at each end of the tank and tolerate each other to some extent. Theyre both a deep brown/orange with a eye catching metalic purple blue belly along with a wonderful black stripe running the whole way across their dorsal fin. Telling males and females apart is hard when young but soon enough the males outgrow the females and it becomes obvious.
The internal filters in the juwels are actually quite good filters and are big for internals and have alot of space, i have a sponge filter, a fluval u4 with an eheim 2213 on my rusty tank and the juwel internals are definitely better biologically than the U4. I would run both without a second thought.
