Wy Renegade
Aquarium Advice Addict
Nice job on the set-up and the stand. I would eliminate the driftwood - with mbuna, they tend to do better and breed better with a higher pH, driftwood will tend to lower that pH as is breaks down. Not that that one little piece will have a huge impact on the pH in that large of a tank, but it will have some. I always mix calcium carbonate gravel into the gravel for my substrate, it will help raise the pH, crushed coral or crushed oyster shell will do the same thing, but the oyster shell (available from any good livestock store) will have to be buried beneath the gravel as it tends to float. I also would add a lot more rock on the back wall, it will allow those that hang close to the rockwork to take more advantage of the water column. If will also provide more hiding spaces for fry once the adults start breeding. If you have plenty of rockwork, fry will occasionally survive to adulthood within the tank. Just an FYI, sand isn't any more natural for mbuna than gravel is. The substrate of Lake Malawi is a mixture of boulders, gravel, and sand, so it is really a matter of which substrate you prefer, the fish do just fine with any of the three or a combination.