Hi Ian hoping to take up tropical fish, African Chiclids I would be interested thinking of the Jewel led rio 125, L 81 cm, w, 36 cm, H, 50 cm, everything you need to get started, I have read with Chiclids you are better keeping plastic plants, is this right.
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Hi welcome to the forum thanks for the tag
@Essjay.
African Cichlids are awesome, I've been keeping fish for ages but only got into Africans in the last year or so but fully hooked now. In a 125 you are going to be limited to just Tanganyikan Cichlids which are quite a tricky group to keep if its your first tank, Shell Dwellers would be the best choice but there are other options out there but not a straight forward as Malawis.
Malawis are most commonly what people mean when they say African Cichlids and with good reason, they are usually very colourful and there are a lot of species that are don't grow too big for a lot of home aquariums.
Within Malawis you split it (generally speaking) into two groups Mbunas which are rock dwellers and Peacocks and Haps which are open water swimmers. For either group you will want a good sized 4 foot tank ideally 300 litres + but there are some options with Mbuna in a 250 litre or any of the other tanks around that size - eg the 240s or 260s that Juwel do.
One thing to say on the Juwel tanks, they are quite good though some members have had quality issues with some of them and with their inbuilt internal filter you lose tank space to the equipment and being at the back of the tank it can sometimes be hard to maintain and access. I personally prefer the Fluval Romas which are similar prices but you can choose your equipment to go with it - with Africans you often overstock the tank so external filters are the best choices.
There are other brands worth checking out too like Oase (though quite expensive) or Aquael are doing some great products these days, not too sure what size they go upto. I have my Mbuna in an Evolution Aqua Aquascaper 1200 and I'm setting up a second for some Peacocks at the moment. EA have been sold to D&D recently but there are good second hand options on things like Facebook, you get the rimless versions which I have or they do a slightly different version called Freshwater which comes with a lid.
If you didn't want to go too big there is a reasonably reliable species of Mbuna called Chindongo Saulosi which quite a few people keep in around 200 litres, but you want to make sure they have a tank at least 100 cm long. Saulosi are a great fish, bright yellow females and black and blue barred males.
In terms of the water hardness issue, I agree with Essjay that you'd need to rely on products to harden your water given Scottish waters reputation for being soft. But if you use limestone rocks in the tank and a susbstrate like coral sand that will help keep your tank water hard and once you've got that stable it should be possible to match it with some of the Seachem products like Malawi Buffer - I have really hard water out of my tap so its not an issue for me.
Wills
