Inspiration

Dodger77

Gambusia
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Jul 14, 2018
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Hi I am looking for some ideas for my aquarium (4.5ft x 2ft x 2ft). I have kept mbuna before and various other species. I want to try a hap or peacock tank but not all male, any thoughts on this as all I see and read about are all male.
 
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SilverArowanaBoi

Redtail Catfish
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Sep 21, 2023
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If you are interested in cichlids still, you could do some SA/CA cichlids if you have appropriate water parameters. You could do a single Green Terror, a Jack Dempsy with some other fish, a Convict tank, a Firemouth tank, a Geophagus tank, a EBA tank, a mix of some of these.

Or you could do a massive school of small tetras like neons.

You could also do an Asian setup with Gouramis, Loaches, Barbs (if you don't do Gouramits that is), etc.

You could do a predator tank with Hujeta gars or needle nose gars with maybe a cichlid.

I hope this will give you some ideas. Good luck!
 
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james99

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You could easily do a mixed gender hap/peacock tank. Something like aulonocara baenschi, placidochromis Electra, and Otopharynx tetrastigma. These are generally less aggressive and smaller species. A male with a few females of each. You'll only have 3 colorful fish, yellow/blue, blue/black, and green/red, but the Electra and tetrastigma females also look pretty nice.

Aulonocara "ruby red", protomelas marginatus and a smaller copidochromis species is another example. You can also substitute a group of yellow or white labs for either group.
 
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Dodger77

Gambusia
MFK Member
Jul 14, 2018
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You could easily do a mixed gender hap/peacock tank. Something like aulonocara baenschi, placidochromis Electra, and Otopharynx tetrastigma. These are generally less aggressive and smaller species. A male with a few females of each. You'll only have 3 colorful fish, yellow/blue, blue/black, and green/red, but the Electra and tetrastigma females also look pretty nice.

Aulonocara "ruby red", protomelas marginatus and a smaller copidochromis species is another example. You can also substitute a group of yellow or white labs for either group.
Thanks for the reply, sounds interesting, I do enjoy the interaction of breeding groups rather than just all male. Thankyou
 

punman

Polypterus
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Feb 22, 2016
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If you are interested in raising fry you need to be careful about getting species that wont interbreed. If you are just leaving fry that come along by chance in the tank, maybe not as big of deal as they will likely mostly disappear. You don't want to be passing on raised fry to others as pure when you have no idea if they are or not. James99 has some good suggestions, but say picking three different colors of male peacocks with a bunch of females would not be a good idea.
 

DJRansome

Aimara
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Mar 16, 2008
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Agree. 1m:4f of each if you choose reasonably peaceful species, and females that look NOTHING alike. So only one peacock species/tank. And the hap females can be either spots or stripes or bars or solid but definitely different.
 
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