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My 75 gallon African Cichlid tank. Work in progress.

21K views 23 replies 7 participants last post by  Firefighter337 
#1 · (Edited)
Some of you know of my unfortunate incident from the other day. My fish got sucked up into the filter.

I promised pictures, so here they are. Please bare with me, I am not a photographer by any means.

Glass is dirty, water is cloudy. I put in the salt, buffer, African Cichlid gravel. I think this picture is with only 1 T-5 strip light with a blue and white light. I added another one. Which makes.......2 strips with 4 lights total. 2 blue and 2 white.

I was trying different things with the lace rock. Right side.

Left side of the 1st round of lace rock.

Fish'

Fish in tank.

Whole picture of tank. Water is still cloudy. At this point I began adding some Hagen Nutrafin cycle. I should of started a few days before hand, BUT....I didnt.

Tank looks green here, In person it is perfectly clear.

Side picture of the tank.

Kind of a side angle, I wanted to show more of the caves.


Thats about it. All fish are about 2". Except the big ones. They are close to 4". I am still doing fish recognition. All of these fish were practically given to me. A heck of a deal.

I started with 20, 9 died.http://www.fishforum.com/freshwater-aquariums/worst-fish-story-board-long-post-22066/ I got 12-15 more today. So that makes ~30 or so. I cant count, they move to fast.

75 gallon Oceanic
70 lbs of African Cichild gravel
40 lbs of Lace rock - I am going to add 60-100 lbs more once the LFS gets some more.
Cascade 1500 filter with a Pura Complete pack.(A large wet/dry is on standby, incase I need it.)
300 watt heater
2 T-5 strips with actinic and white lights
A bubbler manifold, with black hose running to 3 seperate bubblers. Manifold has gate valve to gate back bubbles if I want to.

PH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0
Nitrates - 0

Thats about it.
 
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#6 ·
I would only mention numbers with respect to ammonia levels. Keep an eye on em. You may indeed have to utilize more filtration. May not be a bad idea anyway. Plenty of seed material for the larger tank without creating stress to current fish . In my mind,, it's not the numbers of fish you have but the waste being produced.;-)
 
#5 ·
the tank is looking good :)
sorry to read of the disaster you had.
the mabuna are fun to watch when they're mouth brooding.
 
#9 ·
Thanks lowco. I am adding more lace rock tomorrow. The lfs FINALLY got some more in. I might have to take all of it out and then restack it all. I am not sure what all the other peice look like, and I am somewhat of a perfectionist. If it does not look good, i will do it over 100000 times until I am satisfied.

Currently, I am unsatisfied but It will have to do, until tomorrow.

I'll post more pictures as well.
 
#11 ·
I got 53 more lbs of lace rock today. Some great looking pieces. I am going to put it in tomorrow morning.

I also got 5 cat fish. I am not sure what type they are, I will call my buddy at the fish store and ask him. I just told him I wanted a "waste" eater. He handed me a bag and I put them in there. They are black with white dots. Like a baby shark or something.
 
#17 ·
Updated pictures. I cleaned the tank, its a little foggy. Plus I used a magnet glass cleaner and what do you know.....I got a scratch across my tank. I guess as I was cleaning it, I got too close to the gravel and a piece of sand or rock got caught in between the felt or something.

I am not completely happy with the lace rock. I am going to redo it soon. But there are plenty of caves and what nots.



Sorry for the horrible pictures.
 
#21 ·
absolutely awesome tank, and great rockwork! I'm jealous :-D

Question: do you plan to ever remove the rocks to do thorough cleaning of the tank, like every couple of months or something? Or will you just leave the rocks in the way they are? I've always wondered if it's really necessary to remove rocks to clean the gravel deep inside large rock structures. A silver lining of the work is that you get a chance to re-aquascape the tank!
 
#22 ·
thanks for the kind words. The fish like the configuration alot. The are a lively bunch. No attacks on anything yet, they are still young lads, though.

As far as removing stuff to clean the tank, Everything inside it is not much more than a month old. So I probably will remove the rocks every couple of months to rearrange everything. I get bored easily.
 
#23 ·
probably will remove the rocks every couple of months to rearrange everything. I get bored easily.
the tank is looking great,the fish look so nice and bright.
i have the same problem as you,however apparently i was reading that it's not a bad thing
with these boys,i can't remember where exactly i saw this article,i was looking up something.
it also mentioned(and i don't know if it's right or not ) that the main reason for the agressiveness
is because of the lack of hiding places,also females being in the same tank close by,gives
off the wrong message to the males,because the females only usually turn up for breeding.
like i said i don't know how much of that be true,however it made for interesting reading.
 
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