Hi,

I've been reading through all of the old messages and learning allot about
cichlids which I recently started keeping. I've been keeping tropical fish
for over 30 years and love it.

We recently moved into a new home after almost 30 years in one location and
I was given another tank as a house warming present. I moved a 70 gallon
tank of tropical fish from hard well water to city water without loosing any
fish.. whew! Anyway.. I was given a 46 gallon bow front tank and I was
going to try my hand at salt water fish but after investigating it a bit
more I decided that the cost of just setting up the tank was out of my
budget let alone getting any fish. So I decided on cichlids.

Unfortunately the area I live in has seen all the small pet/fish stores
being eaten up by the "big box stores" like PetSmart and such so I've not
had much success with getting reliable information from the employees. I
did find a Guide to Owning Malawi Cichlids by David E. Boruchowitz. Some of
the information in his book directly disagrees with some of the information
that I've been reading here but so far I've not lost any fish.

So far I know for sure I have

2 Melanochromis auratus

3 Labidochromis caeruleus - blue

2 Labidochromis caeruleus - yellow morph

I also have two of something that I have no clue what they are and haven't
been able to get a good photo of as of yet. The stripes are vertical the
body is black or very dark brown with metallic gold or silver depending on
how the light hits it. They are really gorgeous fish. And I also have 3
sunset gouramis that came with the tank. I'm not found of gouramis but they
seem to be doing fine right now with the cichlids. These gouramis are
really aggressive and when I first added the cichlids they did do alot of
defending themselves (very well I might add) and are now totally left alone.

I've been looking for some chats but haven't found anything that is active.
Any suggestions?

Also if anyone has any clue as to what the two fish that I can't find a
description or picture of any where I would appreciate it.

I do have one more question, I've always kept under populated tanks just
because I prefer how it looks and I've enjoyed the challenge of getting my
fish to grow larger. It appears that cichlids do a bit better in a well
stocked tank. Is this true?

Thanks,
Nanette