Discocichlid here! This is my first fish related forum experience! I have a 55 gallon Cichlid aquarium with about 13 fish, some NW, some OW, and some not even Cichlids.I have 2x Labidochromis caeruleus, 1x OB peacock, 1x Melanochromis auratus, 1x Metricalima emmiltos, 1x Parachromis manageunsis, 1x Lodotropheus spengerae, 1x Auloncara koningsi, 1x Melanchromis cyaneorhabdos, 1x Thorichthys meeki, 1x Rocio octofaciata, 1x Hypostomus plecostmus, and 1x Pimelodus pictus! I have an African Cichlid sand substrate, 2 Marineland penguin 350's, an Aquatop 300w heater, and a lot of caves for the fish to call home! I'm a novice Cichlid keeper so advice on anything would be much appreciated! It's nice to meet you all and I look forward to becoming an established member of the Michigan Cichlid community!
Welcome.
My specific advice for the above would be to pick Old World or New World and/or get more tanks. As for general aquarium care, check out this article:
http://michigancichlid.com/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2590.msg22271For Old World, in a 55 gallon you'd need to go for the milder "mbuna" cichlids from Lake Malawi, many of which stay smaller, e.g. the labidochromis caeruleus ("electric yellow") and Iodotropheus sprengerae ("rusty") cichlids. You'd also need to bump up the group size to something like 1 male 3 females for each species. You could potentially add a third species like Pseudotropheus sp. acei (yellow tail, white tail, or Ngara black). These would also be ideally 1 male 3 females. That would give you a total of 12 fish. Possibly you could add in a few smaller synodontis catfish, e.g. petricola or lucipinnis, something that stays under 4-5". All the cichlids would stay under 5-6", most would stay around 4". These cichlids are all mouthbrooders, which means the babies are carried by the female in her mouth until they hatch out and can swim on their own.
The species I listed for you above shouldn't hybridize, which is important - few to zero true hobbyists want hybrid Africans cichlids. Hybrid = 2 species crossed, e.g. electric yellows with Labidchromis "hongi" or "mbamba bay" or similar. To a lesser extent, hybrids could also mean two collection points being thrown in together, like mixing Frontosa - all are technically Frontosa but people like to keep the collection points separate e.g. 6 stripe vs. 7 stripe and so on.
The other option for Old World using some fish you have and your 55 gallon tank would be a group of the peacocks, e.g. Aulonacara koningski or OB peacocks. Keep in mind the females are generally drab/gray/silver colored with the various peacock species. And you have to be careful about mixing peacocks so they don't hybridize. You can potentially do all males if you don't want to breed them, but not every species of male will get nice color when in a tank with certain peacocks. Others with more experience with peacocks can comment further on what would be a good mix in terms of color.
I would not pick for Old World any of the Metraclimia or Melanochromis species. Especially for a beginner, these need a larger tank. 75 gallons minimum for some and even larger for others. Plus they are hyper aggressive and will kill any extra males and sometimes kill the females if you only had 1 male 1 female, for example.
If you pick New World, you need to pick SA or CA.
You could go for a breeding group of 1 male with 2-3 females of Thoricthhys meeki (or sell yours to me
), or possibly go for a pair of Rocia octofasciata (Jack Dempsey) cichlids (and only them in the tank).
Sell the Parachromis managuensis - it will get too big for your tank.
Also find another home for the pleco - it's likely not a hypostomus plecostomus but rather one of the sailfin plecos (pteroglopicthys gibbiceps). Even if it is a hypostomus, it will get too big for your tank. Properly cared for they can reach 1.5ft or more, and are huge waste producers.
As for the catfish, you could keep it if you go SA community, e.g. with angelfish or something, but otherwise I'd get rid of it. The meeki or Jack Dempseys would kill it for eating their eggs/fry, and the Africans will almost definitely nip it to death.
Once you pick what you want, sell the other species, e.g. if you go for peacocks, sell everything else (or trade in at your fish store), or else set up another 55g tank to put in one other kind of fish, e.g. mbuna cichlids in your 2nd 55, or new worlds in your 2nd 55, etc. It may take you some time to figure out what you like. Some people on here still haven't figured out what they like, so they keep 20+ tanks.
Hope this helps. Feel free to start other threads about ideas you'd like to try in your 55 or reply to this one. We'll try to help you out.
