Who Gives A Fish Forums

I got into keeping Malawis after setting up a 2ft cube marine tank - we just fell in love with the whole marine scene and decided to sell our 6x2x2 SA & CA cichlid tank, which we'd lost interest in. We'd already started making plans for a 6ft marine tank, and in the meantime, we got rid of our 6ft tropical tank. Before selling the SA & CA tank, we rehomed some of the fish, but we still had a few left, including my polypterus collection, which I'd been trying to sell for months without much luck.

I didn't want to take them to the LFS and let them make a massive profit, so I decided to keep them and get something active to swim at the top. Since polypterus are from Africa, I thought Africans would be a good match - I just wasn't keen on Tanganyikans, so I went for the colourful Malawis instead.

I set up my Aqua One 3ft tank as a grow-out tank, since I want to breed and grow out the babies before introducing them to the polypterus - they'd just get eaten otherwise. With my hard water at 8.2, I figured the Malawis would thrive with the coflake sand and ocean rock. We'd like to use slate in our 5ft tank eventually, but for now, I used ocean rock since it was available locally, and chucked in some fake plants I had lying around.

Filtration's taken care of with an Eheim 2217+ and a Tunze 6015 powerhead. The tank's still got marine bulbs, which need to be swapped out - it's been delayed with everything going on, but I need to get it done before the lights get too hot.

The fish are a mix of yellow labs, red empress, blue tursios, aulonocara ngara, and an unidentified Mbuna species. Here's a pic of the setup.

I'll take some individual photos later, but for now, I've got to get dinner going.

Cheers for sharing, got a few tanks myself with Malawis, actually got 4 Mbuna tanks running, my show tank's got T5 marine white/blue lighting which I think really makes the colours of the fish pop.

You've really gone the whole nine yards with this setup, CP.

Zorchzing CP!!! You really have gone full circle.

Haha, I've come a long way, haven't I? Funnily enough, switching to Africans made perfect sense, especially with the hard water in my area. I recall never having much luck with breeding my SA's, fluxx.

I picked up a 4ft tank for marine QT purposes, and it came with a bundle of goodies, including some ocean rock, which I've since added to this tank - looks a lot better now, if I do say so myself.

My stocking's looking good, with Electric yellow labs, Red Empress, A. ngara, and a few others. Although, I have to correct myself, I don't have Dolphins, I have Blue Tursios instead. I also have a Labidichromis Liongi and a Saulosi coflake red.

I've got a separate 5ft tank with my polypterus, and some larger Malawis, including N. venustus, a large male Yellow lab, a blue Peacock of some sort, and two unknown Mbuna that I need to ID. I traded my last two SA cichlids for these with someone who's bought fish from me before - he had them mixed in with his SA and CA cichlids, not ideal, if you ask me.

Loving the journey you've been on with the tank setups, CP. Brilliant choice on the Malawis, makes total sense considering your water type. The tank's looking fantastic, and great to see the pics are back to their usual high standard!