300L Tanganyika Tank

[Jinkz]

Hi all.

Been lurking a bit on here and not posting mush so thought I'd change that now.

Bit of background first eh

I'm originally from Scotland but live in the north of Israel. Kept trops years ago back home but only recently (6 months ago) got back into it over here. Set up a 300ltr community tank in my living room but since my middle daughter started to get seriously interested I bought her a 2nd hand 100ltr bow front tank and moved the fish from the 300ltr to the 100ltr, so basically had an empty 300ltr to play around with. After a bit of humming and hawing I decided I'm going to go for a tanganyika set up with a wee bit of a twist.

And now to the meaty part!

What I'm going to do is use 2mm white quartz sand as a substrate, sprinkle a good selection of rocks around and also use a piece of bogwood I have spare. It's not a massive piece but it does have a nice root arrangement so can be utilised by the fish for cover.

Would like to have a bit of greenery in there but not completely sure what to go for considering tans will most likely want to uproot everything I plant, so hopefully someone can point me in the right direction with that.

Oh, should mention the tank is a Minjiang 300ltr running withy a Tetra Ex1200. "Brand" name tanks are horrendously expensive over here so they import the Minjiang and to be honest I'm more than happy with it. I'll post a few pics starting tomorrow hopefully when I start removing the existing substrate, cleaning the tank and adding the new strate. Saturday looks like me and the kids will be down the local burn or to the beach looking for some choice rocks.

One thing else I'll really need some good advice on is exactly how and what to stock. I'm not planning on turning into a breeder, but if it happens then so be it. My approach to fish breeding in my tanks is one of leave them be and whoever survives then fine. If not, well it's the law of the jungle, right

Anyway, preamble is now over and done with...hopefully someone will be interested enough to give me a bit of info. I like having someone to bounce ideas off

 

[doresy]

Hi and welcome to the world of Tanganyikan's

Lovely sized tank.

How is the water Ph level over there?

I am probably not the best person to give you stocking advice as my policy is to get whatever Tangs I fancy and let them get on with it for a while. If it doesn't settle down the offender goes back and I try something else. Also I don't worry too much about size as I regularly re-home fish once they outgrow my set up. There is always someone looking out for large fish at bargain prices. I always reckon it's better to get fish small and grow them on.

As far as your choice of substrate is concerned I'm not mad about it. I had black quartz sand once and I was always getting splinters in my fingers (I'm a hands in the tank sort of guy!) I chucked it as Tangs love to shift substrate about.
Also before that I had white gravel, looked great at the start but quickly became green and mucky even after vaccing.

Lastly, definitely not a lover of bog wood in a Tang tank (better in a New World Cichlid tank).....nor plants for that matter sorry.

However just my opinions, others may go with it? Guess we'll back and forth a bit. Where in Scotland do you hail from?

 

[Jinkz]

Hi and welcome to the world of Tanganyikan's

Lovely sized tank.

How is the water Ph level over there?

I am probably not the best person to give you stocking advice as my policy is to get whatever Tangs I fancy and let them get on with it for a while. If it doesn't settle down the offender goes back and I try something else. Also I don't worry too much about size as I regularly re-home fish once they outgrow my set up. There is always someone looking out for large fish at bargain prices. I always reckon it's better to get fish small and grow them on.

As far as your choice of substrate is concerned I'm not mad about it. I had black quartz sand once and I was always getting splinters in my fingers (I'm a hands in the tank sort of guy!) I chucked it as Tangs love to shift substrate about.
Also before that I had white gravel, looked great at the start but quickly became green and mucky even after vaccing.

Lastly, definitely not a lover of bog wood in a Tang tank (better in a New World Cichlid tank).....nor plants for that matter sorry.

However just my opinions, others may go with it? Guess we'll back and forth a bit. Where in Scotland do you hail from?

Hi Dorsey, thanks for the reply mate. I'm from the south west, about 45mins drive from Glasgow. Small place called Largs. Famous for ice cream and vikings

Forgot to mention the water...lol. It comes out the tap with a ph of 7.6 and both my tanks are / were stable 7.6. I didn't try to soften the water for my trops and they've been fine and I know it'll be fine for tans also. Once I get a load of rock in there also it'll probably buffer the water although my tap water is hard to begin with.

I'm pretty much from the same school of thought as yourself when it comes to stocking. Been an impulse buyer for years but thought I'd got most of it out my system and hopefully I'll not make any major blunders when stocking the tangs tank

Know what you mean about white gravel, that's what's in the tank now and it did get a bit dirty but the tank was pretty well planted and stocked so I wasn't surprised. I'm not completely sold on the idea of putting plants in but if I do there won't be a lot in there. Maybe a few around the two back corners and that's about it. I like the idea of a nice clean open tank showing the colours of the fish. In saying that I still like the idea of having the bogwood in there. It doesn't leech at all and isn't that big that it'll dominate the landscape. I have an image in my head of how to scape it into the rock work so will see how it works out. Not as if it's a problem to remove a piece of wood afterwards.

Problem as always with me when I start a project is finding enough time. Working all week, 3 kids blah blah...trying to get a few hours to myself can be a nightmare but I'll manage..just wish me luck

 

[Jinkz]

HHmmm...having a bit of a change of heart regarding the substrate. I was gonna go with the 2mm white quartz but after opening it it's not exactly white and looks more like common as muck beach sand. Had a word with my guy in the lfs today and went down to see what he had in stock and I'm now thinking of using th 2mm black quartz which I've used in the 100ltr tank I set up for my daughter. Here's a couple of pics

http/img695.imageshack.us/i/25032011231.jpg/

The tank as it looks in the room. It's in the guest room so I purposely went for a subdued look and I'm really happy with and love the substrate. Because it's planted and there will be more plants going in I used Seachem Flourite Dark under the black quartz.

http/img40.imageshack.us/i/25032011229.jpg/

Anyone currently using a black susbstrate in a tangs tank? Would really like to hear of anyone's experience with using black. I've seen a good few examples online but what worries me is whether I'll really experience the fish displaying their colours as much if I use black.

Cheers

PS>> Tried to upload the pics from Imageshack and the forum won't let me.

 

[bullit]

kiriyama uses black sand in his tanks if you have a look through his threads.