Excited to be back in the hobby

[drbooda]

Hi. My name is Rich. I live in central PA. I had several FW tanks in the early and mid 90's, mostly with S.A. cichlids. I enjoyed arowanas too. Well, now I have decided to get back into the hobby. I started a 10 g tank for my kids a couple months ago and they love it.
So, I set up a 150 g acrylic tank about 3 weeks ago. It has a wet-dry filter. Tank was pretty messed up but a little TLC and much better. Soon, I will take to sanding and polishing the outside that has crazing, so a little blurry. Inside is nice.
I'm planning on an African cichlid tank. Mostly Malawi but want to keep some Haps as well. I'm using sand as substrate, a lot of rock and drift wood for hiding spots and will attempt live plants. I have about 10 so far.
The tank is weeks away from being done cycling, but very anxious about getting some fish. Can't wait!
Has anyone kept Peacocks with Mbuna without stressing out the Peacocks?
Thanks.
Rich

 

[verbal]

Welcome to the forum. Hope you can make in down for the Jan meeting.

If you want to keep Peacocks and mbuna the best idea is to plan around the peacocks. A couple of mbuna that work very well with peacocks are yellow labs and rusties. Cynotilapia might also work. Mainganos seem to work also, but if you got johaniis instead it could be a disaster.

Stay away from the more aggressive mbunas like Labeotropheous, Melanochromis, Kenyii and bumblee bees.

 

[Tony]

Welcome to the forum! Sounds like the fish bug has bitten you again. :happy0180:

Jesse gave some great advice about mbuna. On the flip side, for peacocks, you're not going to want the less aggressive ones. Dwarfs (maylandi and kandeense) would not be good nor would some of the less aggressive stuartgranti. I'd go with a jacobfreibergi.

Are you looking to keep groups or males?

 

[jonclark96]

Welcome to the forum! Tony and Jesse are much better folks to give advice on Africans that I am.

 

[drbooda]

Thanks for the great advice. Not sure what I'm going to do. Would like some gals in the tank to keep my boys looking good! But I don't really want a lot of fry to be responsible for at this point and I'm not a big fan of diluting the gene pool by hybridization. Maybe some non-peacock Haps with the mbuna?
As far as an isolation tank, what do most people do? Put new fish in the isolation tank or directly to the main one if the new ones look healthy after examination? And, how long should they be quarantined? Also, what do you think about UV light?
Thanks again for the help.
Rich

 

[msjinkzd]

Hi and welcome! I am not a guru in what you are asking, fish wise, but I may be a neighbor! York, PA here

As for qt, I ALWAYS qt for a month of health. Lots of regular water changes and observation then treat if needed.

 

[turfboss]

Hi Rich - welcome to the forum - as you have already seen there are lots and lots of really knowledgeable folks here - so keeping asking and you will get all the info you need to get started again in the hobby.

Hope you can make our January meeting - we usually meet the second Saturday of each month - but in January it will be the third Sat of the month for this first meeting of 2013