I have been planning and starting to make my 120G 5' tank an all Male mbuna show tank. What I have been doing and is the plan is to get groups of fry, growout, get a few mouthfulls while growing, pick out 2 Dom males, sell off rest, get next group, etc.

I have never before tried an all male tank, and am starting to rethink if its a good idea. Biggest problem I see is if it doesnt work out, I will be stuck with many Dom males with no mates, and may have a hard time getting mates...or selling off the males.

I plan on heavily overstocking the tank and eventually adding a sump system.

How has this worked out for others? Any problems with colouring or aggression?

Thanks

Andrew

It is my understanding that the males from many species
do not color up much as they would if a female were present.

Kim has tried this and she can offer up some great advise.

One thing that I have read about all male tanks is that they soon
become a litttle boring and their personalities are somewhat
dampened by the lack of female presence!

Good luck and good thread!

Well as far as colour goes...I have made an interesting observation. At least I think so...lol.

In the tank already I have a Met. Aurora, full size that I was worried about bullying my Ps. Flavus, due to the fact that they are both yellow.

After getting settled in the new tank with the Aurora, the Flavus coloured up very nicely, all the while his GF is in another tank.

About a week later, I aquired and added Ps. Elongatus Usisya. Once those fished settled in (theres is about 12 of them) the Ps. Flavus has since coloured back down.
Usisya have also yellow in them.

Eventually I will be cutting down the Usisya group, and hopefully the Flavus will colour back up.

With my Ps. Longior, so far its just the 2 boys by themselves, but I managed to get 2 of the more dom fish, and rarley do either of them colour down.

Am I on the right track when Im thinking I have to try and balance colours in order to have fish show them off?

It's best if the males look nothing whatsoever alike...But that will really limit you in a huge tank like that!

We tried an all male tank after keeping breeding groups for a very long time, and I found it very boring. So did my husband...

I think if we'd tried it before experiencing mbuna breeding behaviour, we might have felt differently.

Honestly, there was no aggression, but the males all looked like they wanted to commit suicide 24/7...

We kept all our females in a seperate tank just in case it didn't work out, so we were able to easily rectify the situation when we decided we didn't like it. You should have seen those boys when we dropped the girls back in! Giggly

You've got a really great stocklist, but as you're already seeing, alot of those males aren't necessarily going to work together to give you that "show tank" look that you want. My main concern would be getting females back if you don't like where you're going once you get there! If you have housing for them (and you can get away with putting alot of females in a bare bones tank for a bit) then do as we did and try it out before making your decision.

Kim

Well said!!!!

GLWT andrew that sound pretty awsome, but I agree with kim on the depression....you need some females.

Imagine u went to jail all guys!! :S not a pretty pic ur cichlids will feel the same dude.

Argh, Im so torn. Was just speaking with someone today, who has been working on the same thing, and so far, its working fairly well.

I have considered keeping females in seperate tank ...just in case. And this may be the route I take for starters, to see how things go. But ideally, Id rather not use the space for females in limbo.

Another problem I have with keeping females in main tank is crossing. Obviously I cant allow breeding or at least fry to make their way into that tank, as I have several species of Ps....of course if I go that route I will have to remove to seperate tank to allow for breeding. And we all know how much fun removeing rocks and catching fish is. Other option is of course to only have species that dont have the chance to cross breed...but really....i like my pseudos.

what to do what to do
If I had hair, Im sure Id be pulling it out right now..lol

Those dame rocks....Hence why I only keep a few and I add more plants :)

Oh and andrew that is why I shave my head so I have no hair to pull out ;)
On the Floor Laughing

Don't worry man , you can't expect to be satisfied right away, i've gona through a million variations before I found somthin that worked!!! KEEP IT UP

Rob