780 Litre Tank

[ricbea]

Good morning,
 
Interesting reading and thank you both for the comments and question. So I think I have a plan on what to do now. I did post a new question regarding rift lake experiences, hopefully a response or two throughout today. I spread my wings a bit further last night and went scouting out across the web. I was able to uncover some more information.
 
What I have read quite a lot about is when you are introducing these fish it should be all at the same time (jag5116 thank you for raising that point) and this is something that my LFS is quite adamant on, however, if we take that statement to finality then we end up with is essentially a one time stocked tank and you can never put fish in again, doesn't really work like that. 
Plan no.2 As I already know that I will be adding more rocks, I have decided I am going down Byron's route and will add a hefty amount of plant (floating) around a dozen fish (juveniles) and keep a super close watch on them. Then when the tank is ready for the rest of the playmates I will rearrange the rock formations thereby effectively destroying established territories and rebuild. The new and existing fish will not have regions to squabble over and hopefully problem solved.
Bacterial supplement i feel is a must and the stuff I have Easy start by easy life and then for subsequent treatment filter medium by easy life will give what i need in terms of supplements.
I have a half day at work today as the wife is away to Edinburgh with her mother for a long weekend (my mother in laws life long dream is to go to Scotland, so we bought her tickets for her **birthday. I was born there so I can understand why she wants to go, so my daughter and I are going out plant hunting.
 
It really is starting to get to the business end of things now, I will keep you posted on the trial and tribulations of the upcoming journey.
 
Richard.

 

[ricbea]

Okay, hi everyone, it has been exactly a month since my last post...my my time flies.
 
So the good news is that the tank has been for the last 10 days cycled. 

The bad news is i lost 3 fish doing it. I tried to follow instructions and research as best as possible for the silent cycle but I must have made some mistakes along the way (sad emo).
Water quality as follows: Nitrates <0.3mg/l, Nitrates ~30mg/l. 
I have just completed a 25% water change. to do this i set up a 210l bucket and a submersible pump to feed back to the tank, previously all changes were done via 10l bucket, well actually 20ish of them. 
A few changes from the original set-up, a lot more stones have been added, still not certain if there is enough yet? I will take that under advisement. Always room to add more and if necessary I will do so.
 
I will post photos shortly, just trying to get some good ones. Currently the tank is populated with 32 fish of varying types including a pair of adult BN ancistrus (M=F)that I picked up for a song 3 GBP for the pair. I will be adding 34 new fish on Tuesday. My LFS owner is taking a large delivery on Monday and I have first dibs on the delivery. He is a cichlid addict so I am getting some preferential treatment here (its not what you know, rather who you know)

 .
 
Pics to follow.

 

[ricbea]

and before I post the pics I have to say the learning curve I am have gone through in the last weeks few weeks is nothing short of crazy. One of the most interesting things that I have experienced is how much the fish actually landscape their own environment, I have read about them making changes and shifting sand but these guys are insane for it. They must be literally moving pounds of sand around to make their own little domiciles. I will try to get a couple of pictures over the next few days so you can see what I am talking about, it is nothing short of fascinating!

 

[ricbea]

 
25% drain down in process
 

 
Melanchromis chipokae,
 
first fish into the tank
 

 

[hobby5]

Hi Richard, thank you for sharing your experiences!
 
Imho doing a silent cycle with a cichlid tank like that is rather impossible for some reasons:
1) Cichlids are messy fish with a high bioload
2) The silent cycle is depending on your plant activity and those guys are eating plants. (Where are your plants? You had way to less!)
3) You have to introduce preferably all at once so you cannot increase bioload step by step.
 
Your best choice would have been to get active filter bacteria from some running tank. Those commercially available are not very effective.
Also you don't mention it, but in the starting phase you should feed rather sparingly. (I know contradictory to having juvenil fish.)
 
Edit: I forgot: You need more stones. You can go nearly to the water surface.

 

[ricbea]

Hi hobby5,
 
Thank you for your comments. Please understand that this was the first time I have done such a cycle, so if  I did not make something clear apologies in advance. I will respond as best I can.
I guess first up the tank is cycled so it probably is not impossible. The plants were only ever in there to help with the cycling the majority have been thrown away and will continue to be reduced on a daily basis until there are none. They were being replaced as necessary when the fish were destroying them or eating them, a necessary expense as I needed to ensure the welfare of the fish as best as I could
The water changes(anywhere between 20 and 50%) involved were done on a daily/bi-daily basis, testing was carried out morning and night bar 2 days when I had to fly to UK for work. The testing continues however the water changes are now scheduled for weekly intervals and will of course be altered as required. 
I unfortunately did not have access to media from other tanks so it had to be done one way or another. Perhaps you have not had good experiences with adding bacteria because the easy start that I added seemed to work delightfully for me and the treatment for the water prior to adding to the tank is also excellent. regarding introducing all the fish at once, i was totally aware that for cichlids from lake Malawi this can be critical in terms of fish safety, bullying and general all around health, however, I researched it and found from many different sources that you can re-scape your tank effectively demolishing one housing estate and building a new one. Also, when new fish are introduced it must be done in numbers to confuse any potential aggressive fish as they do not necessarily which fish to get after first. This is why on Tuesday, as long as the fish are healthy and suitable I will add another 30+  fish.  
 
Thanks again for taking the time to post hobby5, I see you are listed as in Germany, if you ever find yourself near Prague please let me know you are more than welcome to come see the tank.

 

[boshk]

incredible massive tank!

 

[hobby5]

@Richard
 
Hope you didn't take any offence. I am a little blunt and direct sometimes
 
I know it was your first time. But from the information you gave it seemed you lost the three fish due to the fish in cycle. But in fact you went through a huge effort and did all you could to prevent that. Did nitrites ever went up? If not fish might have died for other unknown reasons not in your hands (which happens).
 
My point 3 was only referring to the bioload. Of course you can rearrange your tank and add more fish. Imho if you add 30 more fish to the existing 30 you can also go without rearrangement especially if the fish are still juveniles and small compared to tank size, like is the case currently with your set up.
 
Good luck! Your tank looks very promising!

Thanks again for taking the time to post hobby5, I see you are listed as in Germany, if you ever find yourself near Prague please let me know you are more than welcome to come see the tank.

Tyvm! Would love to, but probably I have no time to visit beautiful Prague in the near future. But who knows

 

[ricbea]

@hobby5,
 
I don't take offence lightly so please don't worry about it, as i have put in my previous posts I wanted to receive comments, some will be good some will be not so good. To my way of thinking if I can highlight the problems I experience and perhaps help someone else to avoid them then mission accomplished.
 
Some super exciting news for me though. One of my fish is carrying eggs in her mouth. I sat and watched her and daddy playing last night, it was under some of the rocks so I was not able to get a good view but today she has appeared with a full mouth/pouch. So the 21 day countdown is on...
 
I will try to post more pictures but truth is I am pretty awful when it comes to photography.
 
I now have 2 tanks both 60l  that are virtually cycled ready for some cichlid fry.
 
Richard.

 

[hobby5]

Great news Congrats!

 

[ricbea]

Good morning,
 
I finally managed to get a picture of this elusive fish, took about 12 days before he would come out in light. Now he has started he comes out every feeding session to wait for his spirulina wafers. He and his female partner have made base deep in the rocks at the back of the tank. Looking at buying a waterproof fibre optic camera to see if I can actually find where they are at.
 

 
 
 

 

[ricbea]

Finally managed to get a semi reasonable picture of fish holding eggs in her mouth.
 

 

[ricbea]

Happy new year everyone, just got back from my annual vacation in the mountains. Came back to many very happy tanks (6) with no losses and in fact several gains!!!
Found another fish holding, it seems like it is only a couple of so we will have to see how that develops. My first holding fish is due to release in around 10 days but i feel it will be sooner her pouch is huge and when she moves her mouth she looks like Alex Ferguson chewing gum 

. 
However the big surprise was the eggs that hatched in the last day or so of the Brichardi, there are around 40 fry splashing around at the moment. What is really interesting for me is both the female and male are being incredibly defensive literally keeping a 30cm cordon around the fry. I will attempt to get some photos but they are at the back half of the tank and still very small.
 
Hope you all had a great festive season and are looking forward to 2016.
 
Richard. 

 

[ricbea]

Another pic of my BN. He is growing fast and becoming way more active and confident.

Couple of extra fish included as a bonus 

 

 

[simonas]

I enjoyed reading this journal . The pics so far look great and this tank is one that will only get better and better as you stock and the fish grow. I have always wanted to do one of these tanks but never in 25 years taken the step into African cichlids. I hope you keep the journal going.
Are you English living in Prague? My favourite city went last year and loved it. I had one of my favourite ever meals there, pigs knee with saur kraut!