I now pronounce you, Man and Fish

Hi ladies and gents.

My name is Kyle, 27 years old. I stay in Melkbosstrand, by the beach in Cape Town.

I have always enjoyed having fish around the house somewhere, I cannot remember my house being without a fish tank. But the time has come to really kick this into gear and take it to the next level. The little Jebo tank is not good enough, I need an upgrade, so I have been researching, googling, visiting LFS and have worked it all out.

My shopping list:
1200 x 450 x 450 with 10mm thick glass
Waterfall Filter on the right
Air Pump to a sponge filter and an air stone on the left
300w Seastar heater
Dark Gravel
Couple of rocks
Piece of driftwood
3 or 4 real plants

With all the little extras like the siphon filter and tubing, food, etc - I am looking at around R1500. I am hoping to start purchasing this weekend and get the tank running.

Quite a bargain I must say, Pet Adventure in Kenilworth might not be the most helpful store, but there range is pretty good and with a website like this, who even needs a salesman. I walked in their knowing what I want.

Seeing that thinking about this is occupying 97% of my day, you can understand that I am pretty hasty, but I have managed to keep calm until speaking to a few professionals.

My aim was to buy a pair of Convict Cichlids and breed them, but after what I have found, there aren't many other fish I could keep with them. I would love to have a shoal of about 20 neon/black Tetras, a few mixed Malawis and a few other species roaming the same tank as the Convict Cichlids, but from what I have read, the Convicts get pretty aggressive and the last thing I want is my new tank becoming Afghanistan. I also don't want to have to buy another tank when the Convicts start breeding.

Pet Adventure has a tank with what they call "Mixed Malawis". Could some of you experts shed some light on what I could mix with these Mixed Malawis? Maybe suggest some pretty looking exciting fish to have in the tank? I would really like to have a nice big shoal of smaller fish like the Tetras, but I don't want them to get munched. But I would also like the Malawis...

Aaarrgghhh - the confusion. HELP!

 

hi and welcome,from what i understand malawis are best kept with malawis,their water requirements and social habits do not lend themselves to community tanks.

 

Welcome to TASA

 

Welcome to the wet nut house mate....he,he

We generally Devide Malawis into 2 "Tyopes" - Mbuna and Utaku... Mbuna are what would generally make up the bulk of the fish you see offered for sale under "mixed malawis" - These guys are specialist algae grazers and occupy the first 1,5m depth along the lakeshore where the graze algae off the rocks - this is just a teeny tiny fraction of the lakes area,yet this has the highest concentration of fish found in all the Lake ... This had led to a lot of competiotion for food and breeding areas over melenia,leading to them becoming what we call "Hyper-agressive" Some males occupy an area of 1 square meter and anything that gets in there gets mangled or killed if it cant get away....

We keep them en masse in our tanks to cut down on this hyperagression - prevent them from establishing large territories...

Utaku on the other hand are open water predators like your large "Haps" (Haplochromides,Nimbochromis etc.) Large fish that generally prey on mbuna fry etc... Another are aof the utaku are the Peacock(Aulonocara) group... Very pretty fish! Although your utaku are generally not as agressive as a domminant male Mbuna,they are still cichlids and therefore quite agressive...

Furthermore,lake malawi has a very high p.h(Above 8) and quite a bit of salt in it - such"Hard" water is generally not suited to fish from other geographical regions of the earth,not even talking about the agression of the malawis...

So,rather research your malawis and their requirements a bit and stick to just them.... there are more than enough varieaties(900+ and counting - some with over 300 colour varieaties) to satisfy your need for pretty,colourfull fish....

 

Thanks for the welcome and for the replies.

@azurekoi - All the way through reading your response I was hoping to read a "But x species of Malawi's are compatible with such and such a fish". It is sad that they are aggressive, it would really be nice to have them along with others. I originally thought if I had a big enough tank, the Malawi's wouldn't try and demolish every other species of fish in it.

I guess in that case, I will be creating a kind of general tropical tank. I went today and bought everything I need, except for the creatures who will be inhabiting the tank. I got the tank (250 liter), 300w heater, waterfall type filter, air pump, sponge filter, air stone, 3 5kg bags of gravel, thermometer, live plants, a gravel siphon, tubing, styrofoam, ballast and a fluorescent tube all from Pet Adventure in Kenilworth. The staff don't seem extremely knowledgeable but they have a wide variety of products. My wife and I will be making a mess tonight setting everything up, should be fun. I am hoping to run the tank for at least two weeks before I purchase anything to live in it.

It is due to the advise and wise posts on this forum that I was able to work out what I needed and what will suffice, so for the members that read this, thank you very much. Expect to see me asking many questions and posting many photos.

 

Hai and Welcome KyleF - yep these guys are pretty brilliant with their advice! Remember once the tank is set up we would love some pics

Since your going to be good and waiting for the cycle start researching the fish you guys love and start building an idea of what you want and what will or wont work together.

 

Ja its a bugger when you cant keep all your favourites together it would make life so much better,but rest in the knowledge that you are lucky enough to live in area thats water is perfect for keeping a host of fish just as colourful and interesting as any malawi without the added hassle of having to tinker with the ph balance.

 

Hey and welcome KyleF

Don't worry about keeping Malawi's in one tank only....like Azure said there is quite a variety of them and because of their aggression you will always have a very busy tank , chasing,fighting, chasing....like your own soapy in a tank :bigsmile:

....that and MTS WILL kick in eventually

 

What are the possibilities of having a male and female Convict Cochlid and then 10 of the LPS mixed Malawi? The tank is 1.2m by 45cm x 45cm. Am I looking for trouble? Or would the male convict chase the others away from where ever the eggs are and not kill them?

 

hi Kylef the convicts is not so bad as they are made out to be with other chiclids they fine they chase the others around but don't really do any damage if you want ill donate a pair one thing's for sure there is all ways action with them
regards Leslie

 

Well, I took everything home last night and set it all up. It all went well. I ran out of time, so I wasn't able to sort out the gravel. When the tank was made, they used sellotape to hold the glass together - this sellotape was never removed, so it left horrible residue marks everywhere. My wife and I used nail polish remover to clean the residue on the outside, but we couldn't use it inside the tank. We were stuck. So...

(in the voice of Jeremy Clarkson) "Top Tip":
If you ever need to remove sellotape reside from the inside of a fish tank, get a roll of really thick sellotape and use that tape to remove the residue, like you would use a blob of prestik to remove other prestik off the wall. How she came up with it, I don't now, but it was brilliant. Takes a bit of time, but hey. Kudos to her.

I have a very large koi pond in the garden, so I filled the tank three quarters full with water from there and the rest from the tap. The water is being heated and filtered as I am typing this.

The only problem I had with the equipment I bought was that the pump is not strong enough to send air through the sponge filter and the air-stone. I might need another pump or perhaps just a duel outlet pump, but a definite power increase is needed.

Thanks Reaper. I would love to take you up on that offer. I will be looking to start adding fish next weekend, could we arrange something for then? Are the pair on offer still young?

I took a few pictures last night for you folk, bear in mind the lighting was terrible and it was from my BlackBerry, so not all that great. I put the camera on charge, so I will put better pictures up on Monday:

 

hi Kylef yes they young still just give me a shout when yo ready then we can make a plan for you to fetch them
take care
Leslie

 

Thanks @Reaper. I want to run the tank for this weekend and next week, so hopefully on Saturday I can make a plan and come through to you. Thanks for your kindness. Should I bring anything with (bag, etc)?

 

Update:

Tank has been running well for over a week now. Going to give it until Friday to have a good cycle, I moved a Puffer to the tank for a day, he seemed to love it.

I have more rocks to add, they are busy rinsing off in the koi pond. Dropped them in yesterday, will probably leave them till Wednesday/Thursday just to get them nice and clean and let the water work its magic. I took a photo of the tank last night for you guys and gals to see. Sorry about the quality, its from my Blackberry.



I am still hoping to get the pair of Convicts from Reaper, not sure what else to pu tin the tank. Then again, I am in no rush so lets see what happens...

 

Looking good Kyle. Unfortunately, atleast 2 of those plants aren't aquatic, the left one is Syngonium, which is quite a common house/garden plant, which will melt rapidly submerged. The right back is Acorus (gramineus) A rush that will stay alive, sometimes for months on end, in a submerged state, but will eventually suffer the same fate as the Syngonium. The pot in front of that is not clear enough to ID.
Best is to take them out, and plant them in the garden(both make good houseplants too) Then maybe ask on the forum for some Anubias, Java Fern, Vallisneria etc. which are all dirt easy to grow, and are quite common. Even some Cryptocoryne species would be great.
Kind regards

 

Thanks @Mzungu. I would never have even thought of getting the information on the plants. You have really opened my eyes to something new. Is it normal for LFS to sell house plants as aquatic plants? I feel cheated...
I will definitely find out about getting proper aquatic plants. I feel like phoning the LFS and giving them a piece of my mind!

 

It's a very common occurrence. The problem is, is that they have no clue what they are selling, they just order whats on the list. I think it suits them too... Because people buy the plants, watch them wither away, and go and buy new ones, thinking "that's just how it works", and the LFS just pockets. So, its the suppliers cheating manner, and the LFS(and the public's) ignorance that just perpetuates the problem. The only way out is to educate yourself...

 

Thanks for the advise Mzungu. I am going to LFS tomorrow with some knowledge. And pictures.

Update on the tank:

More rocks are in, the water has been cycling for two weeks now. Hopefully going to do some fish hunting on Saturday.

Here is a pic from last night, just did about a 10% water change. Gravel siphons are awesome tools. Again, my apologies for the bad quality. Blackberries are many things. Night time cameras are not one of them.



@Reaper - could we possibly make a plan for me to come around to your place on Saturday - if the convict pair are still available?