Who Gives A Fish Forums

Folks,
I've finally completed the 39" long "Multies" tank I mentioned earlier. I've been running it for a week now using my previous multi's matured tank media. As you know, my 10-gal tank has a pretty uneven ratio - 6 males and 3 females. I've been waiting for my LFS to source more females, and today they informed me they've got 8 females and 2 males in stock for this project.

My tank's specs are:
- 36" wide, 13" deep, 12" high
- Water volume's around 100 liters

I'm using:
- oceanic_42 20 and oceanic_42 30 HOB filters

For scaping, I've got:
- Handpicked Natuflake River Rocks
- 100% natuflake Play Sand and Nile Sand
- 72 Escargot shells (still to be added)

Now, I need your input - how many males and females would be ideal for this setup? Any other suggestions are welcome, folks.

I've had experience with African Cichlids before, though not this specific type. They do seem to have a thing for shells, don't they - for living and breeding purposes, I mean. Are you looking to breed them in this new tank? I recall starting out with just 8 cichlids in a 55-gallon tank, and before I knew it, I had over 50 within a year - despite giving many away. To curb the breeding, I removed all the plastic grass and hiding areas from the tank.

Thanks for the reply oldraider, I appreciate your input. I'm not planning on breeding, but if the conditions are ideal, the multis will likely breed and I might give away a few of the young ones to my LFS in exchange for some store credit.

Folks,
Below are the 2 pics with shells. Finally released the fish a while ago.
- Took me 3 hours to get 9 adults from my 10gal out of their shells - quite a task. I used the breeder box, removed the net so the multies swim down to the bottom. 5 was a breeze but the last 4 were a different story altogether.
- I had to cut open the shells - wasn't an easy decision, but I took the chance hoping the multies will not go too deep into the shell. They did go way deep inside, had to cut the shells till the very end and managed to release them without hurting - a huge relief.
- The worst was 2 multies in one shell - they are stubborn and never want to come out. Had to coax them out carefully.
- As of now the tiny ones are doing good and none of the adults are harassing them - that's a big plus.
- But what I observed is even though it's a big tank & up to 60 shells still the adults squabble for shells/territory. One was getting harassed so had to move him to extreme corner of the tank with some shell for himself - hope this works out.
- I still have some 20+ shells - do you think it's good to add them too? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Will post the update by tomorrow again with the pics of the multies.

I've got a situation on my hands now. Till afternoon, the adults weren't bothered about the new smaller multies, but since evening, two of my previous batch adult females (I had only 3 females, mind you) are chasing them away. I've added more shells - 91 in total now - and I'm letting them sort it out for themselves. It's tough to grasp the dynamics sometimes, so I'll just have to observe and see how it plays out.

Just a few snaps of the new setup - taken yesterday afternoon.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Below is the link for a small video I put together - Neolamprologus multifasciatus Tank - 27gal (Youtube Link). I apologize for the video quality, plan to do another one soon using my Digital SLR camera for better results.

Folks,
Here's a quick update on the current layout of my multi's tank. As you can see from the pic, the real estate has been occupied by the respective multi's.

Marked area occupied by:
1) One of the males
2) A pair - male and female
3) Another pair - male and female
4) Yet another pair - male and female
5) A lone male
6) Another single male

My thought process is I'd want to remove 3 of the males and introduce 3 or 4 females to get the ratio right. I'm thinking of 1:2 females, so I'd like to hear your suggestions, opinions, or thoughts on this.