My 385L Malawi Tank

[jamesmacc]

since you have all been very patient i uploaded a few photos, its hard to get a good shot as there is so much natural light in the house and we dont have blinds yet, the photos dont do i justice and it looks alot bigger in person...but here goes....

and another

 

[jamesmacc]

day 6 and ammonia has started to drop and i have about 5 ppm of nitrite. hopefully start seing a drop in nitrite and a rise in nitrate shortly

 

[jamesmacc]

day 11 of cycle. adding ammonia everyday as it drops to 0ppm in just over 12 hours, nitrite goes purple as soon as the drops go in the test tube then settles to show abit darker than 5 ppm, and i also have a small amount of nitrate. hopefully another 2 weeks and i can order fish

 

[jamesmacc]

update:swapped the green eheim intake for another tetra clear one and have rescaped the tank. tank has cycled and added my fist 8 fish, 4 yellow labs and 4x sp44's.im aware they are from different lakes but quite a few people on here keep them with malawis with no bother. the labs are quiet and busy exploring, the sp44's are real characters and going for it big time, the 4 always seem to stick together and dart about the tank all day. they are 2 male 2 female. not 100% about the labs but i think they are also 2 male and 2 female. hoping to get a big order of about 22 cichlids or so after new year. will get pictures up as soon as they stay still enough for my stupid auto focus to catch them

 

[fishprotector]

The tank looks fab now that it is in place

 

[Hermithall]

Great to hear you've added some fish, I bet the labs look great against the black tank. Things will keep getting better and better as your stocking level grows. Are there any dominant males yet among the labs and haps? Usually only one dominant male per species will colour up fully for the mostpart unfortunately - although subdominant males will also sometimes colour up and attempt to challenge for spawning rights, fascinating stuff. Love your set-up, gonna be even more amazing down the line when fully stocked with mature fish

 

[jamesmacc]

hi mate, after a week one of the sp44's has coloured beatifuly, he is more yellow on the belly and much stronger black markings, he is also the boss of the tank and keeps chasing other fish around the tank, especialy the females, do you think this is a sexual thing or is he being bossy?
thanks for your comments
james

 

[Hermithall]

A bit of both I think James - my dominant male lab is exactly the same. He's the only one fully coloured up and has spawning rights with 3 other females. There's one other male who's much paler - I've seen him colour up a bit only once when I watched him make a challenge against my dominant lab. There was a whirlwind fight which he lost and retreated; with no fin damage at all on either fish. Species with similar colours seem to feature on each other's immediate 'hit lists' - my zebras are quite an orangey yellow colour and compete directly with my labs while aceis seem to target a young malawi dolphin (both blue species), but they totally ignore the zebras and labs.
Upping the stock levels will help disperse the aggression as sure you know, and you've got lots of space with hidey holes in the rocks for them, it's all good

 

[jamesmacc]

yeh im hopeing it will be fine, he doesnt actualy bite their fins he just likes to chase them about, but then 10 mins later you will see him calm down and almost flirt with the females. i will get some photos up once i get a decent camera, my phone has auto focus and its a total night mare to get a clear photo.
cheers, james

 

[blagger]

Awesome looking tank James. What do you plan on doing when you get fry, will you move them over to a new tank or are you just going to let nature take its course?

See I am thinking of adding about 20 fish, not decided which, but there will have to be a male/female mix to reduce aggression. But I'm not sure what I will do if fry start turning up. I will probably just leave them in the same tank as I am not planning on getting a back up, for now any way. My worry is those fry that survive could increase my numbers drastically and I could get an over crowded tank.

 

[jamesmacc]

Awesome looking tank James. What do you plan on doing when you get fry, will you move them over to a new tank or are you just going to let nature take its course?

See I am thinking of adding about 20 fish, not decided which, but there will have to be a male/female mix to reduce aggression. But I'm not sure what I will do if fry start turning up. I will probably just leave them in the same tank as I am not planning on getting a back up, for now any way. My worry is those fry that survive could increase my numbers drastically and I could get an over crowded tank.

hi mate, commented on your tank earlier, looking good .
i am going to get a hospital tank incase things turn nasty at any point, i wont run it all the time, i will just remove one of my external pumps and some rock from the main tank to the hospital tank so that i dont need to cycle it. with regards to fry i havent decided yet, i think i will wait and see when and if it happens. i have plans for more fish and wasnt planning any more labs or sp44's. so i would say i will leave nature do its thing and see what happens but maybe when it actualy happens it might not feel right to let the others eat the fry.
hows the cycle coming along?

 

[blagger]

Thanks for the reply. My cycle only started yesterday so there's a long way to go yet, did add some established media but this was a small amount. Hopefully speed things up and be ready for some fish in a few weeks. I am rather impatient though, I want fish now, lol.

 

[jamesmacc]

yeh im impatient too but its worth the wait. i think it took about 27 days until i got my first double zero's. then i did 12 hour checks for 10 days before ordering fish. what temp is your tank at, i ran mine at around 29 degrees and added extra aeriation to get more oxygen into the tank

 

[blagger]

Its currently at 28.6C, had a bad start though as the dial on the heater is hardly accurate, it was running at 24c when the 300w heater was on 28C for the first couple of hours. Have ordered another 300w heater today which should be here early next week.

I have a couple of airstones in their to get the aeration/oxygen going.

Hoping to have it full of fish by mid January, but who knows could be sooner. Just a waiting game as you say.

 

[jamesmacc]

update: hey folks, added some silk plants to see if the fish would attack them and they didnt, so put some real Anubias barteri at either end to give it a bit of colour. also changed the green eheim pickup for a clear tetratec one. did my first 50% water change this week, is that too much to change in one go, should i cut it to 25%? running 1 thermometer either end of the tank and both sides reading 25...looks like the external heater was a great purchase.
heres some photos, please excuse the mrs tinsle
view from the dining table

2 labs gaurding their favourite cave

my fav cichlid, dominant male sp44, he is colouring very quickly

and again
same male 2 days before

new centre piece

and finaly the anubias