ardandy
Fish Fanatic
Got a new and bigger tank, the Aqua One Eurostyle 80 (185 litres), and decided to go for something a little more interesting than standard Tropical fish from your LFS! Anyway after a trip to MikesRifts on Saturday I came back with these fellas! Over £200 just on the fish, £300 on the tank itself, around £50 on water treatment stuff (PH etc), £100 on rock and sand and who knows what else.
Youtube video for those who just want fishes!;
http
/www.youtube.com/watch?v=13iSKJ4JUsY
YouTube Clicky
Here's my past 6 weeks in fishdom planning, setting up and doseing the water to suit Tanganyika Cichlids. They need Lake Salt, Cichlid Trace Elements and more crucially a PH of well above 8.0. My tank is around PH-8.4.
Setting it up;
In situe;
Now rather than a 3D background internally which I like the look of I didn't want to use up any space so I went for just a black background. Rather than use the really shiny glossy aquairum backgrounds you can get I just bought some thick black matt cardboard from my local arts & crafts shop.
Background in place;
For the rock I decided on using Ocean Rock as I have a relatively local supplier that has a huge choice for me to choose from. First they needed a bit of a clean. I also soaked them in boiling water afterwards to make sure no nasties entered the tank.
Now having fun stacking the rocks! I used polystyrene underneath to spread the wait out a little and protect the glass. Rocks before substrate!
Now the sand goes in.
I chose (mainly for aesthetics) Caribsea Black Tahitian Moon Sand. Not cheap as Argos Play sand but looks really good and slightly bigger grains mean I don't hoover up half as much as standard play sand. No water at this point.
Now I put the water in.
The tank has 2 external filters, one new and one that I used with my old tank. This helped the tank cycle very quickly. For the next month I had my old tetras/guppies in to help this process. These are now gone.
Here's the stocklist. Unfortunately I've not got a pic of the catfish yet as they've not come out of the rock for long enough. You can see them on the youtube vid though.
4x Neolamprologus Leleupi
6x Lamprologus Ornatipinnis
4x Cyprichromis Leptosoma Mpulungu
4x Julidochromis Dickfeldi
2x Callochromis Pleurospilus Kigoma
2x Synodontis Lucipinnis Catfish
The fish up close:
Cyprichromis Leptosoma Mpulungu; (Bigger one to the right, yellow tail)
Julidochromis Dickfeldi - Rock Dwellers;
Lamprologus Ornatipinnis - Shell Dwellers;
Neolamprologus Leleupi - Rock Dwellers;
Callochromis Pleurospilus Kigoma - Sand Sifters;
It's not cheap but they're great to watch. The behaviour is a lot more interesting than your average Tropical Fish.
Youtube video for those who just want fishes!;
http
/www.youtube.com/watch?v=13iSKJ4JUsYYouTube Clicky
Here's my past 6 weeks in fishdom planning, setting up and doseing the water to suit Tanganyika Cichlids. They need Lake Salt, Cichlid Trace Elements and more crucially a PH of well above 8.0. My tank is around PH-8.4.
Setting it up;
In situe;
Now rather than a 3D background internally which I like the look of I didn't want to use up any space so I went for just a black background. Rather than use the really shiny glossy aquairum backgrounds you can get I just bought some thick black matt cardboard from my local arts & crafts shop.
Background in place;
For the rock I decided on using Ocean Rock as I have a relatively local supplier that has a huge choice for me to choose from. First they needed a bit of a clean. I also soaked them in boiling water afterwards to make sure no nasties entered the tank.
Now having fun stacking the rocks! I used polystyrene underneath to spread the wait out a little and protect the glass. Rocks before substrate!
Now the sand goes in.
I chose (mainly for aesthetics) Caribsea Black Tahitian Moon Sand. Not cheap as Argos Play sand but looks really good and slightly bigger grains mean I don't hoover up half as much as standard play sand. No water at this point.
Now I put the water in.
The tank has 2 external filters, one new and one that I used with my old tank. This helped the tank cycle very quickly. For the next month I had my old tetras/guppies in to help this process. These are now gone.
Here's the stocklist. Unfortunately I've not got a pic of the catfish yet as they've not come out of the rock for long enough. You can see them on the youtube vid though.
4x Neolamprologus Leleupi
6x Lamprologus Ornatipinnis
4x Cyprichromis Leptosoma Mpulungu
4x Julidochromis Dickfeldi
2x Callochromis Pleurospilus Kigoma
2x Synodontis Lucipinnis Catfish
The fish up close:
Cyprichromis Leptosoma Mpulungu; (Bigger one to the right, yellow tail)
Julidochromis Dickfeldi - Rock Dwellers;
Lamprologus Ornatipinnis - Shell Dwellers;
Neolamprologus Leleupi - Rock Dwellers;
Callochromis Pleurospilus Kigoma - Sand Sifters;
It's not cheap but they're great to watch. The behaviour is a lot more interesting than your average Tropical Fish.
The pics. are nice, had the same Cyps from Mike and they consantly had a mouthfull, great fish, I was going to order some Callochromis Pleurospilus (Kigoma) from him but got distracted and went for a different type set up, yours look great, be nice to see how they get on, the Leleupi I have seen from him are more sort of orange so congrats on picking a nice bright yellow one, the Dickfeldi look happy, had them in the past, great Julie, the Ornats look like the Kungweensis I have although yours have yellow heads and mine have blue, all looking good, sorry for going on, just drooling 
