Patrick's Absurdly Expensive Aquariums
29g Cichlid Tank
Equipment-
Rena Cal 150W Heater
Marineland Penguin BIO-Wheel 150
Coralife 65W Compact Fluorescent Fixture
Standard 20W Fluorescent Fixture
~60lb Seachem fluorite & standard gravel mix
Structure-
This changes once every few months, but in general I keep a log or two along with several rocks in the tank to provide housing for my highly territorial tanganyikan cichlids.
Live Stock-
This tank started out as a community tank, but once I added the first few cichlids, it primarily became a cichlid tank. It currently houses:
Fish
1x daffodil cichlid
1x Julidochromis Dickfeldi
1x Neolamprogus Leleupi
1x Julidochromis regani
1x siamese flying fox
1x german blue ram
1x bolivian ram
2X glowlight tetra
~10x Julidochromis mix
Inverts
?x malaysian trumpet snail
Plants
?x rotala indica
Notes-
This tank has been alot of fun. This is the first tank I set up and I did alot of experimenting/learning with it. I cycled it with five glowlight tetras, all of which gladly survived the cycle, and two of which I still have today. As I mentioned above I had planned to make a community tank, but after adding a couple cichlids I realized that either the cichlids would have to go or it would become primarily a cichlid tank. I chose the cichlids. The cichlids never touched the glowlights, but adding more fish, even cichlids, was definitely another issue. This was the first thing I learned from this tank. The order in which you add the fish has a BIG impact on how well they will get along, especially in situations where you are adding fishes of differing size and temperament. Always add the small pacifists first and the big assholes last. I also found that turning off the lights and moving around the structure in the tank greatly increased the peace when adding new fish.
After a while I got a little bored with the tank and wanted to try something a little... stupid. I wanted to make a planted cichlid tank. Tanganyikan cichlids being rambunctious, this is obviously a bad idea, but I gave it a shot anyway. Remarkably I found none of my fish ever bothered the plants. However, there was another problem. They're on a never ending mission to eat snails, which in turns means the plants eventually get covered in ditrious, algae, and other junk that snails normally remove from plants and thus the plants don't fare very well. Every plant I put in there except for a lily bulb and some rotala, eventually died. I removed the lily bulb as it was taking over the tank, but the rotala is still in there today. It's leaves seem to be small enough that they manage to stay somewhat junk free and the plant seems to be stout enough that having a little junk on the surface of it doesn't seem to bother it much. Anyway, lesson learned, tangynikan cichlids + plants = tangynikan cichlids.
Another interesting and unexpected thing that happened in my tank was the mating of my julies. One day my girlfriend noticed some wierd little "things" moving around one of the logs. We inspected it closer and to both of our surprise there were little fishies. It was alot of fun to see them grow larger with time. Because I had so many I eventually had to sell some of them to the LFS, but the parents didn't seem to care for that so they just made more. I'm no expert on fish breeding by any means, but it seems that the new fry always seemed to appear right after a big water change. I don't know if the change in water temperature triggers their mating instinct or what, but there definitely seems to be some correlation. It was also a pleasant surprise that I didn't need any special food to raise the fry. They seemed to grow just fine eating whatever was in the tank plus normal fish food.
Today I've "moved on" so to speak to my reef tank, but I still keep this tank going as while it's not a reef, it's still beautiful.
Rena Cal 150W Heater
Marineland Penguin BIO-Wheel 150
Coralife 65W Compact Fluorescent Fixture
Standard 20W Fluorescent Fixture
~60lb Seachem fluorite & standard gravel mix
Structure-
This changes once every few months, but in general I keep a log or two along with several rocks in the tank to provide housing for my highly territorial tanganyikan cichlids.
Live Stock-
This tank started out as a community tank, but once I added the first few cichlids, it primarily became a cichlid tank. It currently houses:
Fish
1x daffodil cichlid
1x Julidochromis Dickfeldi
1x Neolamprogus Leleupi
1x Julidochromis regani
1x siamese flying fox
1x german blue ram
1x bolivian ram
2X glowlight tetra
~10x Julidochromis mix
Inverts
?x malaysian trumpet snail
Plants
?x rotala indica
Notes-
This tank has been alot of fun. This is the first tank I set up and I did alot of experimenting/learning with it. I cycled it with five glowlight tetras, all of which gladly survived the cycle, and two of which I still have today. As I mentioned above I had planned to make a community tank, but after adding a couple cichlids I realized that either the cichlids would have to go or it would become primarily a cichlid tank. I chose the cichlids. The cichlids never touched the glowlights, but adding more fish, even cichlids, was definitely another issue. This was the first thing I learned from this tank. The order in which you add the fish has a BIG impact on how well they will get along, especially in situations where you are adding fishes of differing size and temperament. Always add the small pacifists first and the big assholes last. I also found that turning off the lights and moving around the structure in the tank greatly increased the peace when adding new fish.
After a while I got a little bored with the tank and wanted to try something a little... stupid. I wanted to make a planted cichlid tank. Tanganyikan cichlids being rambunctious, this is obviously a bad idea, but I gave it a shot anyway. Remarkably I found none of my fish ever bothered the plants. However, there was another problem. They're on a never ending mission to eat snails, which in turns means the plants eventually get covered in ditrious, algae, and other junk that snails normally remove from plants and thus the plants don't fare very well. Every plant I put in there except for a lily bulb and some rotala, eventually died. I removed the lily bulb as it was taking over the tank, but the rotala is still in there today. It's leaves seem to be small enough that they manage to stay somewhat junk free and the plant seems to be stout enough that having a little junk on the surface of it doesn't seem to bother it much. Anyway, lesson learned, tangynikan cichlids + plants = tangynikan cichlids.
Another interesting and unexpected thing that happened in my tank was the mating of my julies. One day my girlfriend noticed some wierd little "things" moving around one of the logs. We inspected it closer and to both of our surprise there were little fishies. It was alot of fun to see them grow larger with time. Because I had so many I eventually had to sell some of them to the LFS, but the parents didn't seem to care for that so they just made more. I'm no expert on fish breeding by any means, but it seems that the new fry always seemed to appear right after a big water change. I don't know if the change in water temperature triggers their mating instinct or what, but there definitely seems to be some correlation. It was also a pleasant surprise that I didn't need any special food to raise the fry. They seemed to grow just fine eating whatever was in the tank plus normal fish food.
Today I've "moved on" so to speak to my reef tank, but I still keep this tank going as while it's not a reef, it's still beautiful.
At its planted prime. Before plants started dying.
Cichlid Tank
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