New cichlid

[tizme]

Well, this hobby can be certainly exciting....just brought home some new cichlids and already had a major emergency...... our tank (used) it has an underground filter....the filter has 2 plates with 4 openings ea.....2 openings are attatched to a powerhead with tubing......4 openings are capped and 2 didn't have caps....asked LFS if they need to be capped and we were told no....well one of our new yellow labs got curious and we found him/her in the tube sucked up by the powerhead....turned off the powerhead and he headed down under the plate to the filter....had to get all fish in one corner, push all the gravel over after taking out all plants and rocks, lift the plate to get fish out and then put everything back....I felt like I was going swimming LOL!!

Everything is back in place and the fish seem fine - even the curious one....maybe I should name him George!!

P.S. we put some of the gravel in those two holes until we can get a couple of caps!!

 

[semper fi]

cichlids and ugf's do not mix. cichlids are notorious for digging and when the plates become uncovered, you create a dead spot. i would suggest removing the ugf and keeping the powerheads with sponge filters attached.

 

[tizme]

Thanks for the info.....nobody told us that when we asking about the fish....we mentioned an ugf too......not sure what kind of fish the previous owner had, but the ugf came with the tank, so we used it.....we also have an emperor 400 double biowheel that was sold with it as well as the 2 powerheads

 

[semper fi]

you could keep the biowheel and powerheads. get sponge attachments for the powerheads. about $5-10 apeice depending on where you are at. you want to make sure the plates are covered at all times to have the ugf perform properly.