Central American or Malawi in a 45g tank

Hi all,

I'm moving the denizens of my 45 gallon to my other tanks and am redoing
that tank. My water is alkaline liquid granite, (DH 8 and PH 7.5-8)

I'm thinking about what to put in the tank (I want a biotope of some
sort). Central American and Malawi fish would really like my water. (I
don't want to do Tanganyika at the moment)

I'm also interested in having fish that grow big fast, and I don't mind
aggression. I'm also quite a fan of color, especially big, bright fish.

I would like to be able to breed the fish. Or at least get some
offspring out of the tank occasionally.

Altough I like plants, I can live quite well without them.

I would like to my fish to breed. It would be nice if they where able to
raise the babies themselves. But I don't mind having to funnel them out.

Thanks for reading this Incredibly Boring review of my fish preferences
I hope you guys can give me some ideas and pointers.

Nico Kist

---- Some Ideas I've already had--------


Malawi
Electric Yellows and Eelctric Blues
Auloncara spp
Pseudotropheus Saulosi
Assorted other Mbuna's, I haven't really thought about this one much,
how many fish would I be able to put in? I have pretty good filtration.

Central American
Pair of Midas Cichlids
and Lifebearers
any other tankmates a possibility here?

Or

pair of Heros Sevrum
How come some of those pictures look so much better than what seen so
far? The ones in the store seemed very dark. and I don't think the
picture is the gold variety.
(the image: http://www.elacuarista.com/secciones/images/severum.jpg)


Lots of lifebearers, Always open snack bar. and adds color
This has the adventage of me being able to put in plants. Allows the
lifebearers to hide and maybe even reproduce a bit.


Or

Two pairs of C. Salvini
Lifebearers, see above.