300Ltr Tanganyika Journal

[Jinkz]

Hi all,

not sure if anyone will remember but a month or so ago I mentioned I was going to convert my 300ltr community tank over to a Tangs tank. Right as I was about to start my convicts bred so I thought I'd have to wait a couple of months before getting started....but for whatever reason the male ate all the fry so it allowed me to finally get started on my wee project.

Anyway....to give you an idea of what I done, here's how the tank was a couple of months back...

Okay so yesterday a mate came up for the weekend with his missus so we started stripping down the tank, removed the decor, plants (live and plastic) and I syphoned out about 200ltrs of the water then went about trying to catch my convicts and pleco. That went off pretty quickly actually and I made a quick run down to my lfs as the owner had agreed to house the pleco for me till I was ready to return him to the tank. As for the convicts, well they won't be suitable in a Tangs tank or my 100ltr community so I told the lfs to sell them

So, after stripping out the decor and removing the fish I syphoned out the last of the water, got all the old gravel out and gave the tank a good rinse out. It was actually a lot cleaner than I thought it would be so it didn't take long. Meantime I'd disconnected my external filter but left it full of water as I wanted the media to kick start the new set up.

On to the good stuff....

For substrate I decided to use a base of 2cm deep 2mm black basalt quartz and on top of that 3 - 4cm of 1mm basalt quartz which is very much like sand but a little easier to clean and less prone to heavy packing. Was a bit of a chore washing it as it gave off a lot of muck but (in my opinion) it was well worth it as it gave me exactly the look I was wanting. For rockwork I went with Korean Basalt which I'd seen in another tank and really liked the look of. I bought 25kilos but so far have used around 20 kilos. I'm still undecided whether I should use more rockwork, so hopefully a few of you will give me your opinions on whether I should add more or not.

Here's a few pics of the tank from this morning...

This afternoon I decided to reintroduce my pleco as my water was stable and tested out fine. So far no ill effects and he's found a cave to inhabit.

As for stocking, I'll definitely be going with around 6 -8 Julies, maybe a couple of pairs of multis and others I've yet to decide on.

 

[creg]

that rock is awesome, was it expensive?

 

[kiriyama]

Looking good, I really like those rocks, looks like Seryu stone, if you're keeping Julies and shellies I would probably stack some of the rocks in a pile at one end then leave an open space "no man's land" then have your shells at the opposite end, you could lay a couple of rocks round the shells as a territory marker but not essential, looks good though....
Tank looking nice, keep the pics coming, be nice to see when you et the new arrivals

 

[Jinkz]

that rock is awesome, was it expensive?

Yeah I like it a lot. The 25kilos cost me 38 quid, but remember I'm out in Israel so (obviously) bought it local.

Looking good, I really like those rocks, looks like Seryu stone, if you're keeping Julies and shellies I would probably stack some of the rocks in a pile at one end then leave an open space "no man's land" then have your shells at the opposite end, you could lay a couple of rocks round the shells as a territory marker but not essential, looks good though....
Tank looking nice, keep the pics coming, be nice to see when you et the new arrivals

Cheers Kiriyama...appreciate your thoughts mate, I know you have a good bit of experience with Tangs. What I could do is (assuming I can find more shells..hard to get them here) use some of the rock I have left over and build a wee structure front left of the tank in front of the filter intake.

Still not sure whether I should put a background up or not. I like the open feel of the tank the way it is and I'm pretty sure that once I get more fish in their they'll catch the eye more but don't know whether the open feel will freak them out too much or not...what u think?

 

[kiriyama]

General feelings on the backgrounds are the tank will always look better with one, hides cables etc. I have a black background and it shows up the subtle colours of the fish. I have a blue background on the other tank but as the dubs are black it works fine.
Rockwork , a main structure off centre or at one end of the tank , usually with a wee space between the side glass (stick some shells here also), , your idea of hiding the intake should work as lon as the rocks are away from the intake, using the rocks purely as "visual camoflage" (spelling - oops!!!)...
Shells, try fleabay for escargot, I can send you some links for turbos and tonna etc.. (usually a bit more expensive)
I don't know what your total stocking plan is but if you have julies on the roks they will hold a very small territory, your shellies will hold the shells, more about making sure they have there own space for a territory...
Punks would use the rocks and also the open space, cyps open space, feather fins open space, most lamprologines use the rocks.
Hope this helps a bit,
cheers, Sean

 

[Jinkz]

General feelings on the backgrounds are the tank will always look better with one, hides cables etc. I have a black background and it shows up the subtle colours of the fish. I have a blue background on the other tank but as the dubs are black it works fine.
Rockwork , a main structure off centre or at one end of the tank , usually with a wee space between the side glass (stick some shells here also), , your idea of hiding the intake should work as lon as the rocks are away from the intake, using the rocks purely as "visual camoflage" (spelling - oops!!!)...
Shells, try fleabay for escargot, I can send you some links for turbos and tonna etc.. (usually a bit more expensive)
I don't know what your total stocking plan is but if you have julies on the roks they will hold a very small territory, your shellies will hold the shells, more about making sure they have there own space for a territory...
Punks would use the rocks and also the open space, cyps open space, feather fins open space, most lamprologines use the rocks.
Hope this helps a bit,
cheers, Sean

You've got a point about the background....I'll look into it and see what I can find. Might just get a bit of black craft paper and stick it along the back....assuming I can get my hands in there...if not I'll get one of the kids and stuff them there

Wouldn't mind those links to the escargot shells. Having a hard time to get any here. I don't want too many in the tank, maybe 8 or so maximum and see how it works out but my idea was for a wee community of shellies in the right corner area, Julies and something else in the rocks. LFS have some gorgeous Feather fins in just now...might take another wee peek Tuesday and see if I can resist grabbing a couple as I need to start to slowly populate the tank....Julies first though for sure.

Had a wee play around with rocks and added some ore also. Basically added what was left over so there's not the full 24 / 25kg of rock spread along the bottom, although I did try to increase the height at both corners. It was more for visual effect than anything else but I made sure I provided loads of wee caves and crevices. Attached another few pics of the rockwork now.

Front view...

Side view with a few new pieces added. No chance I can completely block the filter inlet but at least the new pieces catch and take the eye away from the inlet a little.

Side elevated, looking down onto the rocks

Front left corner

Front Right corner

One of my very shy Julies Have two in there but only one seems game enough to come out. I put them in 3 days ago and have seen the other one only once.....hoping she's still okay and just very shy. I'll be adding 4 more this week.

A wee bit grainy but lets you see the colours coming through, especially in the fins.

Have a common pleco in there also but it looks like I'm gonna have to trade him to the lfs and get something smaller as he's completely tearing up the substrate. Will see how it goes over the next week or so mind you I don't fancy tearing the rock apart to try and catch him


Look forward to receiving any opinions or comments from you guys that keep Tangs. This is my first Tangs tank so will be feeling my way along.

 

[simonas]

looking great I;m loving all these african tanks at the moment and looking forward to the time when I can have some more tanks

 

[bullit]

what julies are they? dickfeldi? If so your gonna struggle to get 2 pairs to co-habit. And if you did then there isnt gonna be much room for another rock dweller. Julie transcriptious would have been a better option. Also if you want to keep multies they are a shell dweller that needs lots and lots of shells. (stacked on top of each other. They are also gonna dig your substrate around but thats why they are great. Unfortunately i think your not gonna be able to keep them with your julies due to your julies aggression.

 

[Jinkz]

what julies are they? dickfeldi? If so your gonna struggle to get 2 pairs to co-habit. And if you did then there isnt gonna be much room for another rock dweller. Julie transcriptious would have been a better option. Also if you want to keep multies they are a shell dweller that needs lots and lots of shells. (stacked on top of each other. They are also gonna dig your substrate around but thats why they are great. Unfortunately i think your not gonna be able to keep them with your julies due to your julies aggression.

Yeah I know mate. The plan is to introduce another 4 then 2 more a week or so after that and see if I can get a couple to pair off. Then I'll remove the others and bring them back to my lfs. I was due to pick some more up today but succumbed to a a couple of Neolamprologus brichardi that I've been drooling over for the past 3 weeks

I know I need more shells....can't get them over here but will be in the UK on business in a couple of weeks and will try to pick some up then. Failing that I'll have to try and get some on fleabay!

Meantime...here are the aforementioned Lyretails I am so in love with

No apologies for overdoing the amount of pics

 

[bullit]

Cool. Yeah there loads of escargot shells on ebay. Tonna shells are handy aswell.

 

[kiriyama]

The pics. look great , keep them coming.........

Don't shoot the messenger here as I don't want to be the one that pi**es on your parade, when stocking with Julies it can prove "problematic" if adding more over a period of time, best putting them in all at once. It may work better for you though with your tank size and all that rockwork as they should have more territories to claim.
I had to remove all the fish then all the rocks, redo the tank the reintroduce the fish (more than a few times) before they settled in.........
Good luck, looking forward to seeing those pics............

 

[Jinkz]

The pics. look great , keep them coming.........

Don't shoot the messenger here as I don't want to be the one that pi**es on your parade, when stocking with Julies it can prove "problematic" if adding more over a period of time, best putting them in all at once. It may work better for you though with your tank size and all that rockwork as they should have more territories to claim.
I had to remove all the fish then all the rocks, redo the tank the reintroduce the fish (more than a few times) before they settled in.........
Good luck, looking forward to seeing those pics............

Nah you're good mate...never really been one to shoot the messenger....the wife's good enough at that Wish I had a good SLR though instead of using a point and shoot. Get some decent pics but nothing like a good SLR to get some really good piccies

You reckon it'll be a real issue then adding another 4 Julies next week? I hadn't thought it would be much of a problem due to the amount of rocks in there but then I've no experience of keeping Julies so god knows...lol. I'll bring the schedule forward a bit and maybe try adding another 4 this week and see how they get on. I'm definitely taking my pleco out though, he's tearing the sand up something major almost every night.

 

[kiriyama]

It could work for you though because of all the rocks, Julies hold very small teritorries, I had all my rocks together so the biggest Julies claimed all the rock pile, afeter a rescaping I put the rocks into various piles with spaces between them and then the new Julies got a place each, I had to take all the fish out and out them back in for this to work though. They arereally cool fish and very interesting to watch

 

[Jinkz]

Best laid plans always seem to go right out the window......today I drove to see a guy I know who breeds a fair amount of cichlids. He's a good hour drive away so dropped off the kids at school and continued on to see him. The plan was to pick up dome more Julies as he'd told me he had some nice fish available. Anyway I get there and one of the first things I seen was a handful of really gorgeous Brishardis, a lot lighter than the first two I bought....so ended up taking them Think I've got 3 females and 2 males but it's difficult to know 100%. Also took a couple of shellies off him, male and female Neolamprologus similis. The female took about 5 mins before deciding which shell she was having, went straight in and hardly pokes her head out at all...shy wee thing that she is. Here's a few pics....all comments welcome.

Thanks for looking

 

[kiriyama]

Liking the pics. , cheers for posting... like the picture of the shellie peeking from her shell
I havn't seen sims with that little blotch on the side before, I thought it was a Brevis when I saw it , unsure though, so what's your stocking up to now ?