New Mbuna Tank

**Northerly** · 07-17-2012, 03:42 PM

Originally Posted by IanR29

They are mixed for a reason and if you can help it, i would stay away form them. stick to a website if you need to live livefishdirect.com or davesfish.com. its almost like going to walmart and picking from their mix african cichlid tank, Almost. The woman at petsmart, granted they arent the most knowledgable about any of the animals there, told me that they are normally the "mutts" or unwanted by the distributor. the distibutor knows somehting that others dont about why they are in there.

Exactly :)

**Lady10Godiva** · 07-22-2012, 04:58 PM

My tank is cycled! Going to do a near 100% waterchange and go look at fish. I hope the store has enough for us....I know some people stock mbunas 100%after fishless cycling, but we are hoping to do it half and half with a redecorating in between.

**Lady10Godiva** · 07-22-2012, 10:12 PM

We got 4 yellow labs and 4 yellow tailed acei today. We had to leave the first store we tried because a lot of their cichlids were flashing and the fish manager wasnt there to figure out what was going on. The store we left has rusties and although they looked fine we wanted to make sure we got more that one species today.

**Northerly** · 07-23-2012, 02:37 AM

A stocking i would suggest if you plan on continuing with 4 of each species would be 4 maingano, 4 red zebra, and 4 rusty or one other species at your local shop that are similar in temperament. Thats 5 seperate groups of 4 leaving you with a grand total of 20 fish, which would put you at an appropriate stocking level to begin with, and could be tweaked easily as the fish mature.

**Lady10Godiva** · 07-23-2012, 02:54 AM

We are wanting to get rusties and red zebras but I wanted to get the zebras last because out of what we were looking at they were the most agressive.

**Northerly** · 07-23-2012, 02:06 PM

Yeah zebras are hardy and grow quickly and will be fairly aggressive, i wouldnt expect to see a ton of problems from them though. Honestly in a 42" tank you could omit them completely, keeping in mind that these fish get to 5-6" and they grow pretty quickly over the first 6-8 months.

**junkers12** · 07-28-2012, 02:40 AM

I know my red zebras that I only bought 3 months ago have gotten pretty big and they are the fastest growing fish. Although my baby yellows are growing very fast too. I love once the fish get settled in to the tank how bright the colors get.

**Lady10Godiva** · 07-28-2012, 03:48 AM

I was pretty surprised that the yellow tailed aceis that I bought looked so much better in my tank than in the store. They looked better right out of the bag! I do have black sand so maybe that is the trick.