Converting A Reef Tank To Malawi

[suggs]

Hi and a merry Cristmas to you all..


ive decided to convert one of my marine reef setups to a Cichlid tank, ive kept them before but it was many years ago. I have kept marines ever since and now have a very large reef tank around 400 gallons, and also a smaller 30ins cube which im going to keep some Malawi's in.

today ive striped it right down and put all the stock into my main reef tank, the cube has a sump in the base and lighting is currently 1x150w 10.000k halide with a couple of blue atinic tubes, there was also a skimmer but im guessing they arnt used on tropicals ??.

so a few questions.

filteration, should i buy a canister filter or can i somehow use the sump for a tropical filter, it hasnt got separate sections its just a smaller tank containg the heater and return pump, although i could add some sections with glass partisions.

lighting, can i use the above halide for malawis.

what flow suits them high med or low

whats the best rocks and substrate to use to aquascape.

is it ok to fill with R/O water, and what test should i do for malawis, are they bothered by nitrite, and nitrate etc or PH levels in R/O water, any addatives worth using to correct the water to best suit them

ruffley what amount of stock can i keep in the above tank, im planing on only buying smaller fish and to give them growing room.


thanks in advance for any advice you can pass on to me..


Harry

 

[Ginge]

Hi Hary firstly can i say welcome.

It seems like you already have alot of fishkeeping experince which is good.

Firstly yes you can use the sump and i imagine the sump is a perfect method of filteration for such messy fish but you may need to speak to somebody else about that.

WIth lighting yes i think you can use the halide lighting but there is no need for the blue atinic tubes.

Nah no need for the skimmer.

Quite high flow i would say they are quite active little fish so i wouldnt say it matters.

As with rocks and substrate id say go for a crushed coral substrate and some tuffa or ocean rock for aquascaping and lots of it.
Yeah R/O is fine i think.

As with all fish your looking for Ammonia-0 Nitrite-0 Nitrate-Doesnt matter too much id say not over 50 and you want your PH
around 7.5-8.5. Unless you really know what your doing i wouldnt mess with addatives to cahgne water stats.

In that tank i reckon 12 fish (may be wrong) of low to moderate agressivness and looking at 3 species 1m/3f in each species.

 

[mr.dark-saint]

What's that 100 gallons or so? I'd re-use everything from your past set up lights, substraights (as long as it's calcium based and crushed aragonite would be nice) and base rock or extra not so pretty live rock. Only thing that won't work right would be the skimmer (sell it or keep it for spare. I'd keep it since I'd hate to rebuy something I already had). I recon you have a ton of powerheads so I'd place them back in the tank (no need to make a Water Jet. Unless you want to). You could "Mod" up the small tank but why bother unless you want to use bio balls.

Water flow is a subject with wide veriety of disagreement. I'm on the boat of three to five times the tank volume (like 100 gallons then 300/500 Gallons Per Hour) then there are others in the 10 to 30 time (1000/3000 GPH). My 125 with sump has a 300 GPH return water pump with two Hagen 802 powerheads. I did try 500 GPH water pump but the over flow didn't seem to handle (at least to me) the volume. Water level was higher than my usual hight and it made me nervous.

My set up is a recycled Reef tank with Fiji rocks and crushed aragonite. Calcium based rocks and sub. made the water nice and hard for my Tanganyikans. Instead of spending a bucket load of cash for rocks I spent it on the fish and their food. I do have a 270 Gallon I'll use Basalt (a cousin to Granite without all the white) with newly purchased crushed aragonite.

I woudn't waste R/O on them (just cheap I am) but if I had some made up I'd use it for top off. Besides the fish like minerals as in Hard Water. No sauce for my tank for corrections just a water change (way back when I did use some Cichlid Vitamins that came in bottles which made the water greenish like antifreeze. But I think it was more snake oil and oohs).

Size and maxing the tank out. I'd look in to what the fish and how big they get then add in the babies that may come along. Since I know I will never catch any of the fish once they get in to the 125 or the 270 without breaking the tank down so I made sure I wanted the fish (choose wisely). I suppose one could put in a large predator to clear the tank then all one needs to do is to remove it.

 

[suggs]

Thanks some good advice there..

i will have to buy some new rock as i was using about 40kg of premium live rock when it was a reef, i dont want to stick that into freshwater as it will die off and make a right mess not to mention its about £400 worth so its in the main tank now.

might as well use R/O as i have my own 50g aday unit.

if i use my sump for a filter whats the best medium to use, bearing in mind its not partisioned at the moment, its just a 24x12x12 tank housing the return Eheim pump and a heater, i have plenty of circulation pumps i can use for flow in the tank..


this is the tank as it was

thanks again
Harry

 

[mr.dark-saint]

From my reading of your post "today ive striped it right down and put all the stock into my main reef tank" I got the immpression of the tank being empty or just base rocks (as in less than "Primo" LR).

I sold off my better live rocks before converting my 125 gallon in to a mostly Tanganyikan (sold off 100 pounds). The thing was I was getting two dollars U.S. a pound (from a LFS) so I figured I'd keep and re-use much as I could. I reconed I'd pay more for just regular deco rocks that wouldn't do squat for the water (and no way was I going to let them get fatter off me). So basically the 100 pounds was the rocks I couldn't use because of lack of nooks or them being a solid chunk but I did sell the colorful rocks 'cos I couldn't kill it.

You really don't need to add any bio-balls or other medias in the sump or you could if you want to. Since it's not devided I'd just drop squares of Matala http/cgi.ebay.com/Matala-Filter-Media-Bi...tem230071462449 and fill the sump.

The "Atinic Blue" tubes come in handy when you want to watch your fish in lower light without buying a moon light kit. Also depending on the fish the "AB" will throw out some colors off your fish you wouldn't see under regular light. Besides it'll help with algae growth for the algae grazers to snack on. After all they are called "Rock Biters".