55 gallon African cichlid rescaped

Kassh4815 · Apr 23, 2022

Hey everybody, new here so apologies if this is the wrong place to post. I recently made an aqua scape for my child build and I wanted to get some opinions. Attached is tank and here is my entire build.
I was wondering if I had enough filtration, And if my lighting is set in a decent configuration.

Fish:
2 yellow tail ACEI,
2 yellow labs,
2 sulfur head,
1 cobalt blue
1 Red peacock
1 eureka red
1 lemon jake
1 rusty
1 zebra Raphael catfish
2 kuhli loaches.
1 pictus catfish
1 pleco

for the fish like the catfish and pleco I have a deal with my LFS to swap the grown version

Equipment:
Running a 55 gallon marineland a 75 gallon marine land filters, 1 Fluval plant LED 3.0
I have added filter floss, activated carbon, purigen (for tannins) and fluvial bio max in addition to the regular filter media.

Plants:
2 Amazon sword echinodorus
7 various Anubias
Hornwart
1 red plant lookin thing haha

i water change 2x a week (every 4 days) to keep nitrates down. Algae is an issue but not as bad as it used to be would like to get rid of it if possible.

Any advise on filtration and light settings is appreciated.

Colin_T · Apr 26, 2022

The algae grows because there is lots of light but not many plants. Adding more plants would help.

I would move the sword plants 6 inches in from the edges of the tank and put the Anubius on the edges so they get less light.

Add some Ambulia, Hygrophila polysperma and or narrow Vallis along the back.

You could add some floating plants like Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta) to help reduce algae and nutrients like nitrates.

-------------------
The Rift Lake cichlids come from water with a GH around 300-350ppm and a pH around 7.6-8.0

The loaches and catfish do better in softer water with a lower pH.

-------------------
The colour of the light is a bit messy.

You want the orange light (warm white) on first and it goes off last.
Yellow (pure white) and come on after that.
Red is next, then blue and cold white. Blue and cold white can come on together.

They should all be at 100% or the same peak level (50, 75%, etc) during the main part of the day.

Then reduce them starting with blue and cold white.
Then red.
Then yellow (pure white).
And the last to go off is the orange (warm white).

Have each colour come on and go off about 30-60 minutes apart.

itiwhetu · Apr 26, 2022

Colin_T said:
The algae grows because there is lots of light but not many plants. Adding more plants would help.

I would move the sword plants 6 inches in from the edges of the tank and put the Anubius on the edges so they get less light.

Add some Ambulia, Hygrophila polysperma and or narrow Vallis along the back.

You could add some floating plants like Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides/ cornuta) to help reduce algae and nutrients like nitrates.

-------------------
The Rift Lake cichlids come from water with a GH around 300-350ppm and a pH around 7.6-8.0

The loaches and catfish do better in softer water with a lower pH.

-------------------
The colour of the light is a bit messy.

You want the orange light (warm white) on first and it goes off last.
Yellow (pure white) and come on after that.
Red is next, then blue and cold white. Blue and cold white can come on together.

They should all be at 100% or the same peak level (50, 75%, etc) during the main part of the day.

Then reduce them starting with blue and cold white.
Then red.
Then yellow (pure white).
And the last to go off is the orange (warm white).

Have each colour come on and go off about 30-60 minutes apart.

You are really good at this, I think I might just go along agreeing with you and then I may not get any more demerit points.

Search

Search

55 gallon African cichlid rescaped

Kassh4815

New Member

Attachments

Colin_T

Fish Guru

itiwhetu

Naturally First

Similar threads

Most reactions

Useful Links