"Tom K" wrote in
:

I have a new 44 gallon tank and am considering stocking it with
cichlids, however I see here
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/hawk...ners_guide.htm that
they state that the minimum size for a cichlid tank is 55
gallons.

Is this true? I thought I had heard of smaller cichlid tanks
than this working fine.

Thanks in advance/


Cichlids come in many shapes and sizes and a 44 gallon tank would
certainly be large enough for some species. The particular link
you reference gives instructions for setting up an "African
cichlid" tank. If you read closely, this terminology is actually
improper because what the web site author is actually talking about
is a very specific type of African cichlids, namely, Malawi mbuna.
These are active fish and some can get fairly large, so a fairly
large tank would be preferable if it is to be dedicated to a
variety of such fish. A 55 gallon would actually be somewhat
small, in my opinion, because it is a very narrow tank (the number
of gallons is not always the most important thing to consider when
judging tank size). A 75 gallon would be better. But, if you are
interested in mbuna, you should be able to successfully keep some
of the smaller species (e.g., yellow labs and some of the other
Labidochromis species) in a 44 or 55 gallon tank.

Meph