A while ago I was thinking of filling my spare tank with mawali cichlids. As you have to put lots of them in a tank and add them at all the same time the expense was too much, the cheaper ones worked out at around £5 each and I would of needed at least 25.

I was looking around a LFS (maidenhead aquatics) and they had closed a load of tanks down and were going to replace them with tankset ups to sell. They were stopping selling some types of fish and this included some cichlids like JD and jade eyes etc and also malawi. Well these fish they were selling off cheap. They were selling the malawis for £1 and £2. I ended up buying 40 fish (actually got 44). I got a discount and only paid £46

The thing is I dont know that much about these fish. I have a variety of fish, but not a full variety. I have some odd ones and 2's. I also have about 16 of the same variety and 6 of another.

I have loads of filtration, a hydor prime 30 which is for about a 90g tank and a eheim professional 2 which is rated for about 130g

What temperature is best? The guy in the shop said keep them at 24c

I have bought some stones to silicone together to create some caves. I have some pieces of bog wood, large and small. I also have some plastic plants and a sand substrate. The tank dimension are L 56 H 23 W 15 (these are the dimensions of the water in the tank- not tank dimensions). This works out at 70uk g, 81 us g, 313 lt

The questions I have are-

1. Have I got too many fish?
2. How much should I be feeding- does the 2mins rule apply to them? and how many times a day.
3. How tolerant are they of nitrates, what should the maximum level be?
4. I am pannning on 1 50% water change a week- is this enough or are more needed
5. Whats food should I be feeding them. I have some bloodworm and tetra cichlid pellets (they are small- very small). Do i need anthing else. Will they eat what oscars eat.
6. How big can i expect these fish to grow to

I know I have been a bit dumb in buying the fish and then finding out about them afterwards but I couldnt turn down these fish. In some ways I cant believe I have bought fish without researching them first- How many times do we get people on here who buy on a whim and them get in trouble

1. I would say you are over stocked by around 14 fish. people say you can cram african tanks with fish but ultimately it will lead to water quality problems and health issues the same as any other fish.

2. I would feed them around 3 times a day if your tank is stocked to that density to make sure every fish gets at least something.

3. They are more tolerant of poor water quality than Oscars to be honest...missing a water change shouldn't cause any issues.

4. I would do a 20% water change every 4 days with a 300 litre tank and 30+ fish

5. Most malawi/tang cichlids live on spirulina alge that they rip off the rocks so a good tub of spirulina flakes will be good and a staple pellet diet (NO BLOODWORMS THIS GIVES THEM BLOAT)

6. you can expect most of the fish to grow 4-6 inches but there the odd few species that grow over 10 inches like the vc10s and the haps but they are pretty slow growers so nothing much to worry about for now

bare in mind if you have any mabuna in that selection...they can be very aggressive and territorial. you will also notice that one mabuna will take over your tank and become the Alpha male....his colours will be very bright and the other fish will be dull...if this happens remove the aggressive fish and then re add him in a few weeks time and move some rocks about.....it can be a bit of a battle with these fish sometimes. you remove the aggressive fish and another fish takes over bullying everyone but its natural for them to do this and a bit of bullying wont harm your fish. In fact you will find there will always be a degree of bullying going on in your tank especially if you stock it densely.

Hope this helps buddie
just my methods remember im sure somebody will disagree LOL

ps....temperature wise your looking for around 25-26c

holy shit dont do a fifty water change do a fifteen or twentyfive and i feed my fish regardles of the three min rule i feed my fish every time i see them and if they dont eat it then its gone by the nxt day i use hikari floating type small and it never seems to go to the bottom sounds like u got a good setup but i would never use silicone in my tank with rocks you dont really need glue just stack them goodluck to you

good advice matt but any uneaten food should be removed right away really...at college I learned food does not take long to start to break down and give off nasties in tropical temperature water. Worth a thought

It is an impressive information about the Mawali cichlid that is gathered here.Malawi is the beautiful lake which has a beautiful cichlids. Cichlid are the beautiful fishes from the family Cichliade. Many cichlids are important food fishes and share a single key trait into a single tooth bearing structure.

well the reason i dont remove my food is because i have two new fish and they are still shy around me and wont eat infront of me so what i think happens is they eat when i leave my room lol but ya i still dont do the three minute rule im not saying you shouldnt but i dont personaly i know how much my fish eat but sometimes my lil o is unpreductible

Ok thanks for that, cheers guys

So i have to rehome some fish, is it ok to have several(6+) of the same variety? or should i try to keep as good a mix as possible?

No more bloodworms

Im not sure what what type they are except they are not tanganyika, i guess they are mbuna

I have to silicone the rocks as they are max 6inch long- i dont want them falling over and i want to make them easy to remove as i find lots of waste finds it way under decor (from my discus fish keeping with a sand substrate). Im planning on siliconing them in groups of 5 or 6 rocks

I will post some pics when i have the rocks set up in the tank

Keep as many of the same species as you like mate it shouldn't make much odds.

Like I said tho mubuna can be very aggressive and territorial and its best to keep these in groups so that the bullying is spread between the fish and not concentrated on one certain fish

dude you might think im crazy but i have 2 malawi cichlids with my oscar....there is no problem at all! They like hiding places though! I use Texas holey rock....but it is expensive!!! Feed the brine shrimp....they love it!!!!

me here i have two malawis with my oscar they get along and my yedllow lab actualy fixed my oscars agression