60 Gallon Tank chiclids in tank

awe guys greeting from south africa I got a 4 foot tank last week from my mate in it is a sand substrate with rock caves a corner filter and a internal filter filtering 900 liter per hour . the fish inside is two oscars about 10 cm long each 1 male and female giraffe hap { venustus chiclids } about 8 cm long each a pleco and 4 think its zebra or mbuna chiclids from malawI about 5 cm long each. I was stressing and wanted to know if the will be fine in the tank together or will problems arise. any help will be appreciated . temp is 25 c I will do weekly water changes and feed worms and pellets for chiclids . filter was just transfered with filter media . help me guys .

 

Good morning and Welcome to Fish Lore!

It would be a great help to know your exact tank size. If you can give us the dimensions (in inches would be nice) for Length, Width and Height, it will be a great help. (or # of gallons)

I'm not certain that all of your tank mates are compatible so hold on for more responses.

I hope you enjoy the site.

Ken

 

its a 66 gallon tank length 47 inches width 18.5 inches height 20 inches

come on guys or ladies need answer urgently

Merged back to back posts.
Ken

 

I see many problems. That tank is't really big enough for even just the two Oscars I'm afraid. They get rather large (35cm) & produce huge amounts of waste. Two large Oscars will fould the water in that tank very quickly. Plecos are also huge waste producers & depending on the exact species could be small & manageable or a monster that destroys everything. Some Plecos can get up to 2ft long. Basically the tank is massively overstocked & you need to rehome some fish. Personally my choice would be to rehome everything excepth for the mbuna & then stock the tank properly with more mbuna.

Venestus & mbuna are all rift lake cichlids but unfortunately should not share the same tank unless the tank is really large & or you have plenty of experience with rift lake cichlids. Haps should be kept with other Haps & mbuna should be kept with other Mbuna. The fish behave very differently, come from vastly different habitats within the lake & also have very different dietry requirements. Haps are predators that live in th open sandy areas of the lake while mbuna are predominantly vegetarian/omnivours that live in the rocky shore areas. That makes setting up a tank to house both Haps & Mbuna very difficult, especially in a small tank like 66gal. The different diets can bring about all sorts of health issues as well. Even for a very experienced aquarist keeping Haps & Mbuna in the same tank is very challenging. To compound that problem, neither the Haps or the mbuna should be kept in the same tank as the Oscars or Pleco. The MalawI fish require a different water chemistry to the Oscars & Pleco. The MalawI fish require hard water with a high PH (8.0 at least) while the Oscar & especially the Pleco require water that is a bit softer & lower in PH. Oscars are fairly adaptable to water parameters & can live in higher Ph water but they are really at their best when the PH is kept under 7.6. Most Pleco species will not tolerate the high PH the malawI cichlids require for the long term. There will also be many aggression issues due to the fish being from different countries & 'speaking' a different 'fishy language'. In other words these fish comunicate in different ways & that can lead to misunderstandings over territory, feeding & a few other things.

I'm sorry taht the news isn't better but it's best you know from the start that there's no way your tank is sustainable with it's current stock.

 

ok so I got rid of the giraffe hap and have the 4 mbuna and 2 oscars so what next. one more thin why is 2 mbuna yellow and one blue and one grey blue any idea of spesies and sex. also the pleco is gone

 

Well either the Mbuna or the Oscars are going to have to go next & that depends on what size the tank is. I know you said it's 120cm but that doesn't really tell us anything as width & height can vary alot. If you can provide the height & width as well we can let you know if the tank is suitable for two Oscars or it they will have to go.

Regardless of tank size you are still going to have to pick either the Oscars or the Mbuna to go as they simply don't belong in the same tank as each other. They require different water chemistry, different decor & 'speak' a different language. Mbuna need rock piles most of the way to the top of the tank while an Oscar will knock those rock piles down when it gets bigger, possibly damaging the tank itself. There is probably going to be a difference in aggression levels to. The mbuna are very nippy aggressive fish & are likely to pick on the Oscar.

There are hundreds of mbuna species & positive ID is immpossible without pictures. There are also colour morphs within most of the mbuna species. If you post some pics of the mbuna you have we can probably ID them for you, or at least try to.

 

Hi, I used to live in S.A. Jo'burg, good to hear from that side of the world!!
My pleco will hide for days and days then pop up, he has hung upside down from wood or from a little clay house in my tank..... so..... he may still be there, don't give up. They can jump like crazy though so make sure you have a lid that is tight. Mine comes up for air very occasionally and it is quite spectacular!!

 

got rid of the mbuna today so its only the two oscars left my tank is 120 cm length 45 cm withd 52 cm height please tell my ill be ok for a while oscars are +- 10 cm long each give me some good news please greetings brian

 

Hmm...personally I don't think a 66 gallon tank is big enough for two oscars. Although they prefer 75 gallons per oscar, a single oscar in the 66 *might* be okay.