Small Cichlid

Will Cobolts eat feeders?

 

Mine went after the small tuffies but not the larger feeders.
Mind you, I didn't like feeding live as it is not all that good for them. But I did treat them once every couple of months.

 

I actually am just getting out of cichlids (ive been in that hobby for the past 7 years) to get into salt. to be honest with a 20 gallon you will be hard pressed to keep anything in it for very long. when it comes to cichlids, esp. Mbunas what matters is the footprint of the tank, not the volume. With plans to upgrade though, you should be ok for a little. the yellow labs are a good bet as they are probably the least aggressive. Id wait till you got a bigger tank for the cobalt, they can grow to 5-6" and can get rather aggressive. just remember, plenty of rockwork, caves, and hiding places. the electric blue (ahli) is pretty, but i would def. wait till you get a bigger tank. they are haplochromines and more of an open water cichlid. unless your lfs is labeling Kenyi mbunas as electric blues (unfortunetly its frequent they do this) and i would suggest you stay away from Kenyis (Metriaclima Lombardoi), they are extremely aggressive. Also id stay away from Melanochromis Auratus, also very aggressive. see if you can find some Pseudotropheus Salousi, they are dwarf Mbuna (max size 4"), mild tempered, females are bright yellow and males Bright blue. in a 20 gallon you can probably keep 5-6 in there with plenty of rockwork until you upgrade. i say 5-6 because its better to slightly overstock your tank with cichlids so any that are being picked on can "get lost" in the crowd. with two or three one can be singled out and killed, then the remaining two will go at it until only one is left. also for their diet i would not suggest live food ever. you want to try and keep their protein intake low so they dont get bloat. its ok to give them a treat once in a while, but id stick with more spirulina based foods. New life spectrum makes a great cichlid food, it will help with their colors and is very nutritious. hope this helps and goodluck.

 

I got like a 39 gallon tank now and i have one red tailed shark in it. What should i get to go with him? I have a ten gallon also so i was maybe thinking breeding them?

 

My kinda topic.

I love small cichlids, love'em love'em love'em.

BTW, no mbunas, haps, or peacocks. you cna go S.Amarican, but baahhhh, BORING!!!

My personal favorites are African shellies from lake tanganyika.

There are a ton of different way to design a small cichlid tank.

My personal all time favorites are multies (Lamp. multifasciatus).

Then there are the Brevis species, they get a lil "bigger".
The ocellatus, tiny lil guys. Gold's, blacks, or gold rims are just awesome.
Then there are the very fun Alt. Compressicep dwarfs. they max out at around 2.5/3in.

I like keeping any of the shellie species in harems/groups. Get anywhere from 6-12 specimens of a particular species of shellies. Design a tank with some small rubble rock scattered about and a plentiful amount of different sized empty snail shellls in the aquarium. Use a dark colored sand, and bam. one great and fun aquarium.

You can also set-up a nice "lake-edge design with shellies. Kind of like a vivarium, but with african cichlids. Anubias species plants will work great with the higher ph and harder water

Shellie species aquariums are some of the coolest tanks to observe in my opinion. You can always add small tang. species cichlids into the mix, just dont overcrowd a small system to the point of uncontrollable aggression and waste.

 

Have you upgraded or making plans to upgrade? How is everything going?

 

I think that since i just got this tank i might just stick with it for a while.

 

There are some good cookie cutter models on cichlid-forums that show some of the easy cichlid set-yps with relation to tank size.

http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/quick_reference_list.php