Basic Cichlid Care in the Aquarium

Okay, so you may have kept the bettas, goldfish and every possible combination of freshwater fish, and you may have even set up a nature aquarium, so now what?  Many hobbyist have seen cichlids in their LFS or online vendor and wondered about them.  You're usually told "you can't keep them with your current fish" and you may wonder how hard are they to keep?  Well, I have personally asked myself these exact questions and decided to share with other pondering freshwater hobbyist in this two part post.

Cichlids require specific water parameters to be happy and healthy.  These water parameters depend on where your specific cichlids come from.  You can currently acquire cichlids from Africa which come from Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, and Lake Victoria. 

These lakes are part of the East African Rift valley where Lake Victoria is the second largest freshwater lake (regards to surface area) and Lake Tanganyika is the worlds second largest in volume as well as the second deepest.  These lakes, along with Lake Malawi have specific water parameters regarding pH, Lake Victoria has a pH around 7.0 to 8.6, Lake Malawi has a pH around 7.4 to 8.6 and Lake Tanganyika has a pH around 7.8 to 9.0.  These pHs hare considerably high compared to the average freshwater aquarium and will make keeping aquarium plants very difficult.

Next, lets look at water 'hardness'.  You will have to take into account general water hardness (GH) and carbonate hardness (KH) to keep these African cichlids happy.  They require considerably hard water compared to typical freshwater setups, a GH around 160 - 320 ppm (part per million).  Many freshwater test kits only test for KH  which should be around 180 - 240 ppm.  Many specifics regarding how you setup your aquarium can change your pH, GH and your KH.

In the next post, I will go into detail regarding a typical cichlid setup and will introduce interested hobbyist to some great cichlids.

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Comments

[Richard @ Aquarium Pet Supplies]

So what are your feelings about how easy cichlids are to keep for newbies? Do you plan to provide a list of recommended "starter species"? Also, please ensure you make a mention of how territorial some species are in the breeding season and so stocking densities often need to be lower than for a tropical community tank for example.

[joshua@freshwater aquariums]

Thanks for the information... i can't wait for the next post...

[Merritt]

Thanks for the ideas Richard! I will make sure to point those out in the next post.

[Chris]

My experience has been that South American fish are much easier to raise than African cichlid species. It seems they are less aggressive, although, it is all species specific of course. I had no problems raising Jewel, Firemouth, and Convict Cichlids. Other cichlids to add later might be a Jack Dempsey or Green Terror Cichlids. These seem to be more aggressive though and the Dempseys get large.