New Lake Malawi Mbuna Fish Tank | How to aquascape Mbuna tank | Tips on Rockscape | African Cichlids

This is the new home for my Pseudotropheus Saulosi group, 2M and 6F. It is an Lake Malawi Dwarf Mbuna cichlid setup.

Tips and Tricks on setting up and aquascaping an Mbuna tank:

1. if you already have fish in the tank, taking water out always helps to catch the fish easier and may help reduce stress on the fish while you try to catch them.

2. If your background needs cleaning or replacement, now would be a good time to work on it.

3. When you place your current fish in a holding container, an air stone or sponge filter will keep your water oxygenated for hours while you work on the tank. This is why sponge filters are so useful, they will also contain beneficial bacteria that keeps filtering the water.

4. Now for the actual rockscape... make sure to pick rocks that are aquarium safe. Scrub and rinse the rocks thoroughly to get rid of impurities.

5. Using egg crate, light diffuser, or any similar material laid across the bottom of the tank will help disperse the weight of the heavy stones we will be using. This is important to keep rocks from falling or applying too much pressure on to the bottom glass of the tank. Make sure to bury your egg crate under the sand bed.

6. Now you can start adding your rocks. Create something interesting to you, not a scape that will bore you tomorrow and then you would have to go back to the board and change it again. For Mbunas, some people create caves and separate territories to give the dominant males their own space. This is up to you, or if you want to keep the rockscape as open as possible to reduce hierarchy and aggression. One idea I do recommend is to create some vertical coverage using taller rocks to "break the line of sight" where the fish that are being chased and attacked can hide or "disappear" from the aggressor.

HOPE THIS HELPS, THANKS FOR WATCHING.