# how many cichlids



## tommy111 (Aug 10, 2011)

i have a 6' 125 gallon tank how many african mbuna-peacock can i put in my tank. filters are 2 xp3- 2emperor 400 -1penguin1140 power head . 40 pounds of crush coral and shells for substrate. and about 80 pounds of large base rocks. 10 conch empty shells of diffrent tipes. all of this i collected from the beach my self.ph 8.4 water temp at 82. amonia 0


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## logan84 (Jul 27, 2011)

tommy111 said:


> i have a 6' 125 gallon tank how many african mbuna-peacock can i put in my tank. filters are 2 xp3- 2emperor 400 -1penguin1140 power head . 40 pounds of crush coral and shells for substrate. and about 80 pounds of large base rocks. 10 conch empty shells of diffrent tipes. all of this i collected from the beach my self.ph 8.4 water temp at 82. amonia 0


This may not be the best answer but... you can put in however many you are comfortable with. I say this because some people choose to overstock their African cichlid tanks on purpose. 

Overstocking your cichlid tank removes some aggression as you remove the ability for your fish to divide up territories and bash on each other. In such close quarters the fish all just kind of deal with each other - sure they'll form a pecking order still but they won't be as quick to try to kill each other. But you will have to make sure you have the appropriate biological filtration to handle such a large bioload. Plus some people think it's mean to overstock like this as it's not how the fish would normally kick it back in Africa. 

But then some people really do keep larger cichlids to watch them in their "natural" habitat. Meaning letting them form a territory and patrol it. I'm not really sure what the best way to stock a tank this way would be - I would assume the big guys would need a few square feet of territory..???

Anyway. Just my two cents! Good luck!


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## Pigeonfish (Jun 23, 2011)

Tommy, if you don't feel comfortable adding too many fish to the tank, you can have maybe 5 yellow labs. They are less aggressive than other African Cichlids and won't go to the extent of killing the least dominant males. Just make sure to have a lot a caves or hiding spots, keeping it heavily planted will help too. If you see too much aggression, take out the least dominant male and put him in a tank by himself so he can heal properly.


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