African Cichlids

I would like to say…I tryed to keep 5 african cics in a 20 gallon tank. I ended up trading them them in when they reached 2 years old. There is a pet store that was interested in selling each one for somewhere around $30 each. That fails to mention that I had been feeding them a diet of mostly live or frozen blood worms. Each one was at least 6 of 7 inches long when I traded them off. The noise from them fighting was constant. I tryed to move the rocks around to confuse them into not making territories all efforts failed. I Brought home 12 new dwarf ciclids of various species. which I still own about 9. I had them try to breed twice but with partial water changes it was to late when i discovered the eggs in the cave. Dwarf is much more enjoyable in my opinion. One word of advice get at least a 90 gallon or bigger tank they grow fast even in a little tank. Weather you do decide to switch to dwarf or not, remember to provide alot of rocks and a special substrate gravel to keep the ph level ballanced. Don’t bury the shell dwellers in the gravel with water changes like I did. And believe it or not I planted real live plant bulbs which continue to thrive with a plant food weekly they don’t dig them up like all the books say.

there small now but remeber they will get bigger. the smaller the tank is the more aggressive theyll become to their tank mates so i advise you to get a bigger tank