Picked Up New Tank Today

[sadguppy]

If you have a high PH, why not get some cichlids which like that kind of water? I would love to have a Mbuna tank one day, but would need to raise my PH substantially. But no sorry, can't help on this one.

 

[delta]

The only trouble with Mbuna tanks and the like is that you can't have plants as they dig them up and part of the attraction of aquariums for me is the planting side of it.

I was once offered a massive tank filled with cichlids for free. I mean were talking huuuuge. It was in a house that some fiends of mine had bought. It was actually built in to the wall. We must be talking 6ft long by 4ft deep and a couple of feet wide. There were also the most gorgeous koi ponds in their garden. The irony of it being that these people were not remotely interested in fish keeping. I couldn't take the cichlid tank as it was waaaaay to big for my house.

Re my ph, the fish I have seem to be happy enough, I suppose because I get them from local shops so their already used to it.

Isn't it typical though that people who want hard water have soft and vice versa LOL

 

[delta]

Dragged this thread up to post an update on my fishless cycle.

Nitrites a nice dark purple and are munching happily through 4ppm Ammonia every 24 hours. Nitrates are a very pretty ruby red so it looks like my cycle us well under way. Now just waiting for the nitrites to go to 0 and I'm more or less set as I understand it, huge water change to reduce the nitrates and Bob's your uncle! I use the API liquid testing kit BTW and I'm finding that this is actually quite fun, I guess because I already have two tanks up and running with fish in I'm not experiencing the same impatience I would if I had not. And before anyone asks, there are two reasons I haven't seeded from the existing filter. 1) It's a recent upgrade from 2 internals to an external so I want to leave it to settle, and 2) I was curious to experience doing a fishless cycle completely from scratch. Hubby was getting a bit naggy about the fact that I seemed to be doing nothing with the tank but I showed him the mini chemistry set and he actually seemed mildly impressed

Now the questions.

I want this to be a planted tank but I have read conflicting reports as to whether to plant, or not to plant when cycling. What's the general consensus?

I would like this tank to contain angels, however, should I add the smaller tank mates first and introduce the angels later as one would with a betta?

Thanks for reading.