Elaine T wrote:

Cichlid is a little general. Two "not excessively aggressive" groups of
cichlids come to mind. First, Lake Malawi has a group of open water
fish often called "peacocks."
snip


The second group that comes to mind are the peaceful South American
cichlids like angel fish, festivums, keyholes, rams, and Bolivian rams.
snip

With my city water, I'm able to keep a variety of cichlids from both
groups Elaine has mentioned. My tap water is 7.4 and very soft. With
some bog wood tank decorations and a tiny amount of peat moss in the
filter basket I had Apistogramma borellii cichlids spawning in no time.
Now, the Angel fish are spawning once a month as well. The water in
these tanks is about 7.2 pH, 2 deg KH and 1 deg GH.

To set the water properly for my new Malawi tank, all I had to do was
put some crushed coral in the filter basket along with beach sand for
my substrate. The water is conditioned with Malawi lake salts at water
changes. It's quite simple to set up the proper conditions for these
facinating fish.


steve