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whats the carbonate hardness of your tap water? KH test kit needed for this, if its too low, you could increase it before it goes into the tank with calcium carbonate rather than the pH up, otherwise you will need to keep adding pH up etc every time you change water as the pH will keep changing. the crushed coral should help, but you need to check the KH and GH (general hardness) to to be sure its atr the right level to prevent a ph swing.

Between 15 Cichlids (some adult size and a few juveniles) how long would you say a 'Hikari Cichlid Gold' 250g Medium Pellet pack would last? That website recommends feeding up to 4 times a day. I thought twice would be plenty?

Wow, I didn't realise how many different types of Malawis there were! Literally hundreds, if not thousands!! :S I have identified a few of them. So far I have:

2 x Male Labidochramis Caeruleus (Electric Yellow)
1 x Frontosa (unknown gender - research req'd)
1 x Pseudotropheus (Maylandia) zebra *** (Orangey yellow with black mottled body & black tail fin)

The rest are mostly zebra types (sorry that's not a very technical description but I will find out what they are exactly). There are some purple/black stripes, some plain purple, a yellow/black striped one, and some purple ones with yellowy fins. Theres a goldfish-looking one, and apink one with black splodges on (this one is very agressive towards the other fish and I saw him fighting (mouth to mouth) with a yellow lab earlier.

Pictures will be on the way, but I have lost the SD card from my camera so waiting for a new one from eBuyer!

I did an ammonia test this morning and it had risen to 0.5 overnight, so I did a 30 - 40% water change today and it is back down to 0.25. I guess I will have to keep doing this until the nitrite comes up.

The fish seem generally well settled in now and they follow me about the room which is cool. They think they are going to be fed! They don't even hide when I put my arm in the tank!

That bloody pink fish keeps chasing the others as we speak... I may just throw him in the bin! (joke). I have nicknamed it Camilla for now. If it is a male then it can be a drag queen, because that's how it seems to be acting...

Fronty doesn't look too happy. He stays in the corner of the tank behind some rocks a lot of the time. I guess it's not natural for him to be on his own. I will have to give him away sooner than later, which is sad as he is my favourite, just can't afford/don't have room for a bigger tank at the moment. :( Sure 200 Litres isn't big enough for him? I guess not...

with my Malawi tank i feed once a day as much at they can eat in a few minits very the diet erring towards the vegy base foods i use the hikari cichlid gold as a staple then add frozen and freeze dried foods to very the diet

4 times a day will be excessive unless you feed very small portions

you will need tests for ph/gh/and kh the api gh/kh test is a good accurate one same for all the others

i have plenty of ocean rock and crushed coral gravel in the tank but i have a hi ph to start with you need to get it stable at around ph8 using ph up chemicals tend to swing the ph around to much and are really not advisable

its best to use substrates and rocks crushed oister shells and such to slowly affect the water chemistry

I have not added any pH up and today the pH reading has risen to 8.3 ish - it is difficult to say as the result has given a very purple reading, which I'm estimating is somewhere between the brown (pH 8.2) and pink (pH 8.4) on my card.

Ammonia has risen to 1.5 (from 0.25) since I did the water change yesterday. That seems pretty high? I'm not sure what is considered 'high' for fish - I know any reading over 0.0 isn't good but at what point should I be really worried? Doing another 30% water change now...

Thanks for your help :)

Mike

Strange, I've just taken about 50% of the water from the tank, removing a lot of poo from the bottom too. I did the high range pH test again (before adding fresh water) and it's giving me 7.4 now. Maybe I messed the last test up.... don't think so though...

You really have to worry about ammonia in a malawi tank as it is more toxic the higher the pH. Cut down on the feeding and do daily partial water changes until it is holding at 0. Get some bactinettes and add them to the filter if your lfs has them in fridge.

What test kit are you using to test pH?

Did you get GH/KH test kit yet?

Still haven't got a GH/KH test kit. I'm using an 'Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, Inc' Freshwater Mater Test Kit. I also have an unopened API test Kit but I was going to wait until I'd finished this test kit first. I think the one I am using is a decent enough kit.

I have a bit of a problem with the fish fighting. When I first put them in there was no fighting at all, but now they're constantly at it, there's one that seems to be worse than the others, but they all fight. I don't think they have quite enough hiding places between them. I went to the beach today to get some rocks. Will post some pictures in a few minutes.

My uncle told me I should overstock the tank to stop the fighting. That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It was in a txt message so maybe he misworded it...

PICTURES!!

Nice to see pictures (though I'd ditch the fake anemones, we're in a rift lake here after all, not the sea!)

I think the rockwork could be rearranged to break up sight lines and provide more in the way of individual territories, but it may be that you are overstocked for that tank.

There is a signficant school of thought in the hobby
in favour of overtocking malawis. I wouldn't do it myself just on general ethical grounds, not because I have any experience keeping mbuna, but you can read the debate
in this thread

HERE

Is there any reason you haven't got water up to max fill line?