What Would You Do? Cichlids In A 1600 Gallon Tank...

Newbie here... I hope this is the right place to ask this question!

I need some advice/opinions! I have a 1600 gallon freshwater tank and I'm not sure what my next move should be.

My boyfriend built this tank in his house about 10 years ago and has had a lot of different varieties of fish. Winter of 2010 we traveled to Canada and had a little mishap with our friends feeding the fish and the water temperature... needless to say, the two Knife fish he had and one pleco died. We let the tank sit with nothing in it (other than water) until around June of this year. We went to the local pet store and got two Cichlids (don't know what kind) and 10 little white plecos. We figured this would be a decent start for a new tank and it would be much better than looking at an empty fish tank! The plecos devoured all the algae that had grown and the tank is nearly completely algae free now. (It was DISGUSTING.) The cichlids are doing well and now we are looking into getting more fish.

So my questions are:

What are some good fish to add to my tank?

Any schooling fish suggestions?

What kind of cichlids do I have?

Any advice or help would be great!

Tank dimensions are 12 x 4.5 x 6. (Right now we have a little leak issue in the top left corner that we are addressing.)

Both fish are in this pic... one white and one blue/grey.

1600 GALLONS? Are you sure?! Not litres?? That would then be about 400 gallons, which is still humungous.
The measurements you give give approx 2000 gallons, I don't know what to believe. but I AM jealous.

This is the biggest tank I've seen up to now:
http/www.fishforum...us-gal-project/

Obviously you can have pretty much whatever you want in it. Gallons or litres, that is a mighty big and fine tank. You could have a lot of cichlids in there, but there are so many other options to look at. What takes your fancy? Colour? Size? Lots of smaller fish or a few monsters?

I apologize... my dimensions were off. The current dimension of where the water is now is 4.5 x 4.5 x 11... so around 1600 gallons.

As far as what I want out of the tank... We travel often so I need something that has a fairly easy schedule... Something easy to feed. Easy water temp maintenance... stuff like that. After we decide what we are going to do with this beast of a tank, I would like to get in there and get the lava rocks really clean and get the sand sifted so it is white again.

Tristan

Hey Tristan, welcome to the forum!

That is one amazing tank! Very envious! In regards to stocking, could you start by taking a closer photo of your cichlids? That way we can get them ID for you and base the stocking around what is compatible for them Also, if you could let us know what your pH is like, and what temperature?

Sorry for the questions, it'll just let us get a better idea of what would suit you best

The little guys are sure hard to get pictures of! Here's the best I could do. Water temp is 74 degrees right now.

Tristan

Here is one of the knife fish that was in tripac's tank. This is a 48" straight edge in the tank to show knife fish size. This knife was a little bit bigger then the other two, when this pic was taken it was 10 years old and around 33" long. They started out in the tank at 3" long.

Here is tripac's pacu, it was not as long as the knife's but was really thick.

If you notice the little yellow fish down in the right hand corner, I only put two of these fish in the tank. They started having babies and there ended up being hundreds of them at one point.

How do we know if we get a male and female to do that again? I was told the yellow ones that we had the difference was female had black on the top fin and the male had black on the top and bottom fins?

that tank is crying out for a nice school/shoal of tin foil barbs and/or bala sharks

this pic gives a better idea of scale of the tank in comparison with the pool table.

at one point I had a few hundred fish in it.

anyone know where I can get fish wholesale to buy a hundred or so?

how on earth do you do water changes and clean it and feed them? thats a MISSION!

bmonki said:

how on earth do you do water changes and clean it and feed them? thats a MISSION!

Click to expand...

I have never done a water change, I have cleaned the front glass with a magnet cleaner every couple years. The top is open in my shop around the back side of the tank to throw food in.

TysonGarvin said:

bmonki said:

how on earth do you do water changes and clean it and feed them? thats a MISSION!

Click to expand...

I have never done a water change, I have cleaned the front glass with a magnet cleaner every couple years. The top is open in my shop around the back side of the tank to throw food in.

Click to expand...

Is it a drip system? Sump?


Thanks,
Steve

TysonGarvin said:

bmonki said:

how on earth do you do water changes and clean it and feed them? thats a MISSION!

Click to expand...

I have never done a water change, I have cleaned the front glass with a magnet cleaner every couple years. The top is open in my shop around the back side of the tank to throw food in.

Click to expand...

unless its a drip system, that might explain why all the previous fish died

Is it plumbed in to the main water supply then? I presume so, or changing even 25% a week would be a pain! Can you imagine lugging 400 gallons in buckets hahaha!

Two thumbs up for a shoal of tinfoil barbs, they are amazing when they are allowed to grow to full potential!

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