first thing you need to know about African cichlids is that they can be
dirty fish and create a lot of waste in order to keep your tank looking good and
looking clean you should overfill tray more than you think you need the average
turnaround for a tank should be about four to six times per hour with African
cichlids I say turn it over ten times per hour over filtration doesn't hurt
and can only help in your water looking clean and clear so go for it
number two is going to be your tank size most african cichlid experts suggest
that you have a 55 gallon or more when keeping African cichlids but I'm gonna
give you a more specific tip these fish are beautiful and you're gonna want to
keep adding more and more and more so my suggestion to you is get the biggest
tank that your budget and your space allows for right now because in a short
matter of time you're gonna find yourself wanting to upgrade that tank
you're gonna find yourself wanting to add more fish it's natural in the
aquarium hobby and it's even more natural when keeping African cichlids so
do yourself a favor and just get the biggest tank that you can right now and
you can thank me later number three is gonna be temperature most tropical fish
in the hobby like their temperature around 70 to 78 degrees African cichlids
like their temperature a bit warmer they're gonna require temps of about 78
to 85 degrees give or take a few this is gonna make them the most comfortable and
what they'll enjoy number four is going to be your pH level this is where
African cichlids differ from most trap fish your regular mixed aquarium tank is
probably at a neutral pH level African cichlids are like their water a little
bit harder with a higher pH of around 8.0 28.5 this pH level will be ideal for
your African cichlids the best way to raise your pH in my opinion is to add
fresh coral to your substrate or aragonite sand these two substances will
raise your pH I don't recommend using the pH up and down additives as this
will have you chasing the pH which you don't want to do swings in your pH are
gonna affect your African cichlids a lot it's gonna stress them out your main
goal should be to stabilise your pH as much as possible so I suggest adding
some crushed coral or agonized sand to your substrate and this will help in
stabilizing your pH which is the most important thing number five is going to
be about the hierarchy in your tank African cichlids are known for their
aggressive behavior but don't let this turn you away
they do eventually settle down in the beginning you'll notice everyone chasing
everyone it'll be a hectic tank but this is just them settling and establishing
the hierarchy you will notice that you will have what's called a tank boss this
tank boss is gonna be the guy that pushes everyone around and is the most
aggressive towards everyone but luckily if you have a good tank boss what he'll
do is actually prevent other fish from fighting he will establish the heat the
boss and let everyone know and then he himself will settle down the hierarchy
in your tank will go from the tank boss being number one and work its way down
the number two fish the number three fish number four and so on all the way
to the bottom of the totem pole this is the guy that you'll notice everyone
chases and he doesn't chase anyone at all this hierarchy is established early
on in your tank and will remain that way until you add more fish
that moves us right along into number six which is adding more fish you do not
want to add only one fish at a time into an african cichlid tank this one new
fish all by himself is going to be tortured all of your fish have a
specific position in the hierarchy and they want to make sure that they
maintain that so this one new fish that doesn't have any place at all is going
to be beaten down to the bottom of the totem pole all the fish are going to
chase him around and nip at his fins keep him at the bottom because they want
to keep their spot this is not going to be good for that new fish that fish is
gonna be heavily stressed out and could potentially go bye-bye
so what you want to do instead is add about three to five fish at a time what
this is gonna do is mitigate the aggression towards any one specific fish
all your main guys are gonna spread their aggression amongst all these new
guys and this is gonna help the new guys in establishing their rank in the
hierarchy since we're talking about aggression this is gonna lead us right
into number seven dealing with the aggression in your tank is going to be a
handful one of the ways to deal with it is going to be over stocking your tank
again with the same mentality by over stocking your tank you spread the
aggression there won't be any one or two specific fishes that just get picked on
all the time it'll be spread amongst all the fish or
hopefully the end result is that there's no aggression because no one can keep
track of who they don't like number eight is gonna be another tip
about aggression yes as you can see these fish are aggressive and you got to
handle it but number eight is gonna be about
keeping an all-male tank for multiple reasons one reason is males in African
cichlids are the ones that tend to show more color females are usually washed
out so if you want a beautiful colorful tank you want males in there anyway
another reason is that females are going to cause aggression in your tank all the
males are gonna want to be very dominant they're gonna fight for that dominant
position to attract the female if you're not
breeding you don't want to have any females in your tank if you are breeding
you want to have a specific ratio of females to male something like four to
one or five to one you don't want the males fighting and being aggressive
towards each other just to get the attention of the female number nine is
gonna be know what type of fish you are buying there are thousands of species of
African cichlids in Lake Malawi alone there's about the 700 I know it's gonna
be very easy to just buy a beautiful fish that looks really nice and you want
it in your tank but this may cause some problems in the long run there are some
African cichlids that do not mix well with other African cichlids so you want
to do your research before buying something the three main groups of
African cichlids are peacocks HAP's and in bonus these three groups have
many species among them with varying levels of aggression so you want to do
your research on that too most Aquarius will suggest that you don't mix these
three in the same tank for multiple reasons but I'm not saying that it can't
be done it's just a suggestion not to do it one of the reasons is that peacocks
and HAP's are three swimmers they like open waters
they like to swim around and swim back and forth in your tank and bonus on the
other hand or rock dwellers they like rocky area to swim through and around
and hide in and hide out so keeping these three together may cause issues
when aquascaping your tank some decorum may work well for one type and not the
others another reason not to mix them is their diet peacocks and HAP's are
omnivores while in Boehner's are herbivores so for your peacocks and
HAP's you're gonna feed probably a high
protein diet maybe some live fish food or frozen fish food while you're in
burners are going to require more something like veggies and a lower
protein diet it's gonna be a little challenging to feed two different diets
in one tank another issue you may run into is that in bonus tend to be a bit
more aggressive than peacocks and HAP's so if you're in bonus or the same size
as your peacocks and HAP's they're gonna be very aggressive towards
them if you do choose to mix these three in the same tank which you would want to
do is make sure that you're in bonus are much smaller than your peacocks and
HAP's this way the aggression from the omona
will be mitigated most african cichlid keepers in the Hobby will tend to either
keep peacocks and HAP's in one tank or in bonus in a tank but
the choice is up to you mixing all three can be done but it's a
little bit more challenging and finally number 10 is gonna be more of a tip than
anything else there is a great app called the fish companion I do not own
this app I am NOT sponsored by this app but I do use this app it's a great app
that helps you identify names species colors of African cichlids it's been
very helpful to me and I think it'll be very helpful to you tried out I think
you'll enjoy it so if you made it this far congratulations
you must really be into African cichlids so because of that I'm gonna give you a
bonus tip continuing with the premise of this entire video this tip is gonna be
about aggression you are going to encounter that very aggressive fish that
at times you just don't know what to do with unfortunately you may reach the
point where that fish just needs to be rehomed but before that there is
something that you can try obviously the best thing to do is to remove the fish
now when you remove that fish and put it in a quarantine tank or a hospital tank
what you want to do is leave that fish by itself for about two weeks a total
fourteen days this will allow enough time for that fish to completely forget
about every other fish in your main tank forget the entire decor of that main
tank forget its territory that it's been defending for the whole time forget that
it wants to really be the tank boss of that tank this two-week time period is
also going to allow your other fish in the main tank to reorganize the
hierarchy there will be a note boss a new number one number two and
number three after this two-week time period you want to reintroduce this very
aggressive fish to the main tank alone by himself now I know this goes against
the adding one fish by itself theory but this is gonna help reintroduce this very
aggressive fish by adding this aggressive fish alone into the main tank
he's gonna quickly find out that there is already a hierarchy in this tank and
he's not going to be able to assume that prior position that he once had this may
help in curbing his aggression and settling him down into his new ranked
order in the tank this way you'll be able to save that fish without having to
be home that's it guys I hope you found this information helpful if so please
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