It's gotta be Africans...

[NeilP]

OK - i need some advice.

I have the choice of three tanks to convert into my Africa Cichlid Paradise

Option 1
18" Cube 21 gallons (UK) 38" of fish

Option 2
Fluval 1000 30" wide x 12" deep x 15" high 19 gallons (UK) 37" of fish

Option 3
Custom 36" wide x 20" deep x 30" high 72 gallons (UK) 138" of fish


My main problem is, having read around on Africans, the like lots of rock, hidey holes etc, and most of the tanks i have seen, have rock all the way up to the top - now with Option 3, thats one hell of a load of rock and thus weight......

The fish i have as potential favourites at the moment are:

Labidochromis Carelus(?) - Yellow Labs
Hapilochromis Moorii

Frontosa's (not really looked at these yet - but seem them in the Members Aquarium pics)

and the Peacocks are cool as well

I know Santa is bringing me a couple of books on Africas..... so it is really which tank first i suppose! (Options 2 and 3 have only just started their fishless cycle, so won't be ready for ages yet anyway )

 

[fish_r_great]

if you want frontosas and peacocks go big

 

[juanveldez]

actually fronts get a heck of alot bigger than a peacock.... at least my peacocks only get to be about 5 inches and then also that is about the same for the labidos. both of which I have

 

[aernympha]

GO FOR THE BIGGEST!!!!

 

[NeilP]

The biggest tank seems to be favourite ....

But how do i work out if the tank / stand will take the weight of all the rock that is usually found in African Cichlid Biotopes,

and

is it best to have rock all the way to the top, or doesn't that matter too much.

I would like to keep fish interest at all levels of the tank - that is the reason for having a tall tank on a tall stand (the top of the tank is just below eye level (for me and I'm 6ft).

 

[LesGerber]

First off with a tank that is 30 long you are going to have to take into consideration the size of the fish. In a 30 inch long tank I would recommend going with a small colony of Yellow Labs....maybe 5 or 6

As far as your rocks you dont need to go to the top of the tank with them........just a nice selection scattered with little hidey holes for them to go into..


HTH


Les

 

[thecichlidaddict]

That 72 gallon will make an awsome African tank! It is still too small for adult Frontosa and Moorii though.

Rocks do not need to be piled up to the top, but with rock dwelling species (mbuna) it adds a nice touch, and is the only real way to utilize the entire hight of the aquarium with these fish.

These tanks can take the weight of the rocks.

Mbuna like Yellow Labs like lots of rocks. Peacocks like a tank with some good hiding spots and open swimmin space. Haps like Moorii enjoy mostly open swiming space with a few rocks for comfort. How you decorate the tank should directly relate to the fish that you keep.

Here is my mbuna/hap tank, a 90 gallon


Before I set up my 90 gallon I had a 33 gallon with six yellow labs, one adult peacock (see my avatar) and a couple of synodontis catfish. It was a very attractive and successful little African tank.

I would not even bother making the cube tank anything but a new world dwarf cichlid tank, or another community type tank.

 

[NeilP]

OK - I'm convinced

The 18" cube remains as the community tank

And the other two are set up as Cichlid Tanks!

Question - BGFK - are they compatible with African Cichlids?

 

[thecichlidaddict]

The needs, habits, and even physical makeup of the knife fish is so vastly different from African cichlids that I would never even attempt it.

Also, because none of your tanks are long, try to stay away from the larger, free swimming hap species, a tank should be at least 4 feet long for them.

 

[NeilP]

Thanks Cichlid Addict.

Had a good look around your website - excellent site....

With the tall tank (30" high), if i build the 'rock face' with some shelves in it, will the the africans populate the whole height of it, or will they all congregate at the bottom, leaving me to try and find some top / middle dwellers (Angelfish?)

 

[Exiled]

I wish I had that 72 gallon! Last week, I thought the 55g I got was huge.....now I wish I went even bigger.


About the rocks-- i have close to 120 lbs of rocks in my 55g tank and it seems to be holding up fine. (I layed eggcrate--sometimes called lighting grid or lighting louvre) on the bottom of the tank to distribute the weight more evenly.) I've seen some pictures of 90 gallon tanks with more than twice that weight in rocks. Underneath the tank (inside the stand) I set up two tripods with flat plywood tops to also reduce the stress on the bottom of the tank. But this was probably just being overly-cautious.

Post pics of your setup once it's done!

 

[thecichlidaddict]

With the tall tank (30" high), if i build the 'rock face' with some shelves in it, will the the africans populate the whole height of it, or will they all congregate at the bottom, leaving me to try and find some top / middle dwellers (Angelfish?)

If you are getting mbuna then you will find that they use all levels of the tank. The fish ideally like to stay near the bottom, so less dominent fish will often go find spots in the rocks higher up to get out of the way. There are no mid/top level fish that would work with Africans in that size of a tank, angels would not last very long.

 

[NeilP]

Exiled - thanks for the confirmation of tanks taking the weight - pics - definately - though not for a while as i only started the fishless cycle this weekend. Looking forwards to seeing yours though, it sounds as though we are both on the same sort of track!

CichlidAddict - thanks, sounds like i need to deliberately stock the tank so that i have dominant and less dominant males. I will probably go along the lines of just a couple of species of Mbuna, but more of each.

Thanks for all the input Guys.

 

[Exiled]

Neil, yeah I think we are pretty much in the same part of the getting ready process. I started the fishless cycling a few days ago--ran into a snag, and started again yeturday.
One thing that's really got me wondering is, when will I see a rise in Nitrites? I don't want to keep adding ammonia, if the ammonia ppm is staying the same.... though the "recipe" for fishless cycling says to add daily the amount of ammonia it takes to originally reach a level of 5 ppm. Well, if the ammonia isn't being consumed, adding a daily dose of that amount is just gonna turn the tank into a toxic waste dump! And how do we know if it's being consumed? Nitrites, right? Well, when is that supposed to show up? I mean, are we talking a day, a week?

please-- tell me what you've done so far to cycle the tank and let me know your test results?

And as soon as I go out and get a digital cam, I'm gonna be showing off my mbuna tank. Even as it is now, lifeless but aquascaped, it's still quite interesting.
Show us your design...

 

[NeilP]

My tank arived eventually on Friday (2 weeks late!), but they hadn't got my Eihm Cannister in stock so they gave me a fluval 404 to get it going. So i put in the sand substrate, filled it with water, put in some nutrafin cycle, then thought - when i change the filters over when the Eihm arrives, i will be taking out all the bacteria.

So the tank is sitting there at the moment all nice a pretty with no filtration, and all the nutrafin cycle bacteria has probably died!

I suppose (thinking as i write) i could squeeze the old filter into the tank water when i change them over........

I'm not entirely sure when you should see Nitrites and then Nitrates start to show, I have also recently got a 3ft tank, filled it with water, heated it up and placed a Java Fern Mother plant and a piece of planted bogwood from my other tank, and within 24 hours Nitrates were showing. (i had also used some Cycle in that thank as well which probably helped)

The bateria does take time to grow, and in fact if you put too much ammonia in it will infact hinder the growth as opposed to boost it.

May be worth starting a thread in either Tropical Chit Chat or Fish Emergencies (probably the first one) to see what other people have seen happen.


What rock did you use? I don't really want to get mine from the lfs as it is probably overpriced. What sort of rock is actually found in Lake Malawi - do you know - sandstone, limestone, lava rock.....

I see Cichlid Addict has two different types in his Malawi 1 and 2 tanks.

I thought fishkeeping was easy - it's the setting up the tank that is the difficult bit!!