Ground cover inquiry

[Damyanovftw]

Greetings fish fam! Hope everyone is doing great.

Been looking into ways to cover my large tank, but as I live in a island that has limited selection of everything and delivery of cover would by a stupid idea xD, I'd like to get your feedback on what would be best to go with.
To start of tank is 350 Liters, current stock is 4 Plecos, 8 Peacocks and 4 Silver Dollars with a plan on adding another 6 peacocks in near future. Decorations that I will use will be driftwood, large rocks and maybe moss on the driftwood if I can find enough available and my peacocks don't harvest it for their delight.

As far as filtration goes, currently using a JBL e1502, that sucks almost everything up. Intake is around 12 cm of the bottom of tank.

So for my choices, when I bought the tank it came with the rocks from the next photo as well as 4 plecos and an internal filter all for 100 euros. As I don't plan on introducing live plants in this aquarium, the rocks would be a good way to go, but as I never had cichlids before not sure if it's suitable for them as well as I'm gonna be worried over the bioload that will probably get cranked in between. Cleaned the tank 1 time already only with the 4 plecos in probably vacced out 2-3kg of poop.

Sorry for the bad photo, I still have the rocks in the original tank water they were staying in, with hopes of possibly keeping some beneficial bacteria if using them soon. You can see all the poo thats still left at the bottom, not sure how good if an idea it was keeping it like this but would love some feedback.

So for next option, I can get gravel which I use in my small tanks, that is gonna cost me 17 euros for 5kg at the best price I found. Only for the standard gray one this blue will not be used.

And for the third option that would be a cheep alternative is using pool filter sand, the problem there is the only one I can find is with a mixed granulometry 0,4 – 0,8 mm. Cost for that is gonna be 20 euros for 25kg.

Is there any way to mitigate the pockets if using the rocks that were included in the tank, or should my filter keep everything tidy as long as I keep up on proper maintenance of it. As well would it be a good idea to give them a good hard cleaning before reusing or just rinse out most of the bioload?

Looking forward to your feedback, peaceful fishkeeping all!

 

[Wills]

Hi this sounds like a fun project but perhaps a few issues with your start...

So first with the substrate, I would ditch the stuff you inherited, it might have been good to start with, with some beneficial bacteria in there, but now it will just be full of detritus unless you wash it thoroughly could cause real problems. Your Peacock cichlids will also want to dig a bit, not loads but enough to the point where I would recommend sand.

From the list you have given I would put in the pool filter sand, the bigger grain size is not too much of an issue for the Peacocks you want to keep

In terms of the fish you have and want to keep at the moment you have some issues. Peacocks should be kept in one or two ways and both situations is just them with other Malawi Cichlids so keeping them with the Silver Dollars is not a good idea, the Plecos are a bit subjective but I would not recommend this.

The reason for this is the Peacocks as Malawi Cichlids need very hard water with a high ph but the Silver Dollars come from South America and more acidic waters. The Plecos also come from this acidic water but a lot of people keep them with Malawi but I personally wouldnt.

In a 350 litre tank I'd recommend having around 15 male Peacock and Hap Cichlids as this will spread out the aggression and also give you a ton of colour and variation. To achieve this there are two main approaches and it will depend on what is available to you in Cyprus as to which you take, the first and the one I'd recommend is to use true species and strains with scientific names and the second is to take a mix of what you like visually which often includes hybrid species like Dragon Bloods and OB (orange blotch) fish. The benefit of doing the first route is the fish are more predictable, you know roughly the size they will grow to, how aggressive they will be, what colour etc. The other route with hybrids and OB is much more hit-and-miss and you can get fish that change colour (dull down) and have unpredictable levels of aggression to each other.

Do you know what kind of Peacocks you have?

Wills

 

[Damyanovftw]

Thanks for your feedback Wills! Will be trying to see if I can take some river sand in the coming days, if not will go with the pool filter.

Will keep in mind towards the different parameters, but will have to wait till separating as I'll need to arrange time to pick up a 600 liter where I'll keep one of the species and sustain suitable conditions based on the stock

As far as selection goes currently: 2 blue, 2 yellow,2 OB obtained from a reputable source. And 1 OB and 1 blue head / yellow body obtained from my LFS. About the gender I won't be able to tell you.

 

[Wills]

Thanks for your feedback Wills! Will be trying to see if I can take some river sand in the coming days, if not will go with the pool filter.

Will keep in mind towards the different parameters, but will have to wait till separating as I'll need to arrange time to pick up a 600 liter where I'll keep one of the species and sustain suitable conditions based on the stock

As far as selection goes currently: 2 blue, 2 yellow,2 OB obtained from a reputable source. And 1 OB and 1 blue head / yellow body obtained from my LFS. About the gender I won't be able to tell you.

Awesome! 600 litres sounds amazing!

In terms of your species though blue and yellow are not a great - for example I'd guess the blue head/yellow body is am Aulonocara Steveni 'Usisya-Flavescent' or possibly an Otopharynx Lithobates, the Sulphur Head Hap? Some Peacocks are hybrids so you typically can't name them and they get cool sounding names like Dragon Blood or just fit in the OB category but the ones you can name I think its important to know them and keep it in mind as you build your community as they are all different and have different temperaments and sizes etc.

 

[FranciscoB]

I agree that the combination of Peacocks and Silver dollars is not good due to drastically different water characteristics for either to thrive. Whereas for peacocks one would usually choose substrata and decorations that maintain well buffered water, for dollars one would want to do the opposite. In addition, their diet is sufficiently different to become problematic to keep them together long term. They will survive, but not happily. The aquarium is also smallish for long term well-being of both groups. The 600 liter tank would be much better, but again, not for both types of fish together (for the above reasons). I cannot comment further on the peacocks.

Regarding the dollars - I would suggest not using the gravel you have, as being large, it allows debris and poop to fall thru and it becomes very difficult to maintain the tank as clean as it would be desirable. But I do suggest using substratum, as the reflections from bare glass are stressful to already somewhat skittish fish. Pool filter sand is far better than gravel, and it allows to hover over the surface with your vacuum to remove poop and other debris.
Even though a ~90 gal tank is not very large, I would suggest adding some sizable piece of driftwood (ideally real wood, but even something artificial would do), to give the dollars a physical structure they can associate with, and hover about. They really like that. Long term, on an empty tank as currently, they will not thrive. Although not as good, even one or two large rocks can serve the same purpose, but in that case I would use smooth, river rocks.
If you post closer pictures of the dollars, shown on the side, we would be happy to tell you what species and genders you have.
Below, one of my silver dollar tanks (3 species of Metynnis (7 fish, but 8 in photo), + some tetras and cories in a 125gal. All of the plants and decorations are real. This aquarium was set-up in Sept. 2021 and is going strong. See how the dollars like to hover around the driftwood? I have two silver dollar tanks, currently setting up a third.