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Changing my ugly blue gravel to black sand!

I was going to say posterboard too :) Maybe get some sticky back plastic on it so its a bit water proof.
 
Love it! Looks both more natural, and yet also more striking and dramatic, with the contrast between the black sand and light coloured rocks. Nice!
I know nothing about cichlids, except bits and pieces like they need to be heavily stocked/need rockwork/tend to destroy plants, lol. So can someone tell me what the black ones in this tank are? Really cool looking, I like them! Shape reminds me of a ram.
 
AdoraBelle Dearheart said:
Love it! Looks both more natural, and yet also more striking and dramatic, with the contrast between the black sand and light coloured rocks. Nice!
I know nothing about cichlids, except bits and pieces like they need to be heavily stocked/need rockwork/tend to destroy plants, lol. So can someone tell me what the black ones in this tank are? Really cool looking, I like them! Shape reminds me of a ram.
Click to expand...

Well the couple with black on are things like certain mbuna, venustus, Livingstoni, Orange top hongi, Johanni, frontosa and OB’s have a bit of black too. I’m glad you liked the tank :)
 
AmyKieran said:
Well the couple with black on are things like certain mbuna, venustus, Livingstoni, Orange top hongi, Johanni, frontosa and OB’s have a bit of black too. I’m glad you liked the tank :)
Click to expand...
I really like it! I'm personally into nano fish for what I want to keep myself, but I'd like some apistos at some point, maybe angels - and certainly doesn't stop me admiring a beautiful rift lake tank! If you don't mind, I'll borrow and circle one of your photos to show which fish I meant. :)
I certainly know that it's a big job switching out all the substrate on a stocked tank. Hard work! Would love to see it once the cloudiness has cleared up. Don't forget that switching all the substrate can knock back the bacterial colonies, so keep an eye on ammonia/nitrites/nitrates for a while, and water change as needed. I only needed about four-five days to manage a nitrite spike when I moved fish to a clean tank, called a mini-cycle.

Crossing fingers that your plants don't get eaten... lol!
 
For your next tank, PAINT the back glass black....nothing beats the look that will give you...but the posterboard will make a significant difference, as you will see
 
These are the ones I was curious about, species wise!

riftlakecircled.png
 
Rocky998 said:
They do look sharp...
I bet a black background would make those guys POP! 😅
Click to expand...

I’ve finished putting the black background on one side, it actually doesn’t as much because the glass is somewhat mirrored, it would perhaps if I put it on the inside but I just am ready to collapse so I’ll leave that for another day lol
 
Slaphppy7 said:
For your next tank, PAINT the back glass black....nothing beats the look that will give you...but the posterboard will make a significant difference, as you will see
Click to expand...
I’ve put some side on, does a good job hiding the pipes but not so much for the fish, the glass inside is showing reflections but I probably should have put something on the inside lol
 
AdoraBelle Dearheart said:
I really like it! I'm personally into nano fish for what I want to keep myself, but I'd like some apistos at some point, maybe angels - and certainly doesn't stop me admiring a beautiful rift lake tank! If you don't mind, I'll borrow and circle one of your photos to show which fish I meant. :)
I certainly know that it's a big job switching out all the substrate on a stocked tank. Hard work! Would love to see it once the cloudiness has cleared up. Don't forget that switching all the substrate can knock back the bacterial colonies, so keep an eye on ammonia/nitrites/nitrates for a while, and water change as needed. I only needed about four-five days to manage a nitrite spike when I moved fish to a clean tank, called a mini-cycle.

Crossing fingers that your plants don't get eaten... lol!
Click to expand...
Came home from the shops and one plant has been uprooted but other than that nothing else :) for a cichlid tank that’s a win in my book. Also yes I’ll be testing probably every day for a while :)
 
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