First Cichlid Setup

[bezz]

New photos - 23/10/09

Currently:
1 Tangerine peacock
1 Dragon Blood peacock
2 Electric Yellows (M+F)
1 Electric Blue
1 Texas Cichlid
1 Cobalt Blue
1 OB Peacock
2 Clown Loaches

Just want to add a Pleco now, still waiting on the fish shop to get some nice ones in!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0042.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0046.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0048.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0095.jpg
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Hi all,

Just set up my first ever fish tank, 5ft with African Cichlids. So far have added a Dragon Blood Peacock, Tangerine Peacock, and two Electric Blues (one Iceberg I think?). Also getting some Electric Yellows off a breeder in the not too distant future. I'm thinking later down the track adding an Albino Peacock, some sort of Pleco and possibly a Frontosa.

The tank is 5ft long and only about 25cm wide, so quite slim. Works out to about 180 litres. I'm using coral sand as my substrate and have just added in some Texas Holey Rock today - still haven't arranged it properly yet. Filter wise I'm using a 2nd hand Eheim professional.. I think its a 2222.

[cichlidboy]

i think you got the iceberg mixe dup with a cobalt blue...
also, you're frontosa wont fit in there for long..
but awesome set up

[yarra2]

Hi Bezz. I reckon you made a good decision with African Cichlids as a first choice, they are interesting and a bit smarter than the average. When you get it all going it would be good if you can arrange your filtering so you have the intake at one end and the outlet at the other - that way you get a flow through which keeps the whole thing cleaner. Just checking that you have adquate aeration - the water looks a bit too still.

Mike

[bezz]

Cheers for the advice guys, I've learned a fair bit in the last couple months but still have a long way to go. A quick question, no one ever seems to give me a straight answer on how much I should be feeding them. Right now I generally give them about 5 cichlid pellets a day each. Should I be feeding them more?

yarra2, I will look into getting some more piping to move the inlet to the other side, cheers! There seems to be a fair bit of water flow at the top but not much aeration as you said, will see what I can do about that. Problem is the tank is situated about 3m away from my bed!

[cichlidboy]

Spray bars just skimming the top of the water will do the job as far as airation is concerned. But cichlids love a fair bit of "current" in their waters.
as far as feedings concerned, theres no specific amount thats why you've been getting roundabout answers.
just feed them till you think they're almost full. i repeat ALMOST.
keep in mind that pellets expand with water.

[bezz]

Cheers for the advice mate. You were right too, the other blue one is a cobalt blue.

Got my hood fixed finally so got that on now.. it sits a bit high though so I might mod it slightly in the future. I'm also planning on soldering together a strip of blue LEDs and sticking them in the hood. Be good to flick on at night time.

On the fish front.. one of my peacocks decided to make its home amongst the filter pipes so to remedy the situation I added some more rock. Of course I couldn't help myself and also added an OB Peacock and two clown loaches. I have a feeling one of the clown loaches isn't quite right.. much less colour than the other, sits on the bottom all the time (I know they do this but anyway) and its also shaped quite weirdly, its back end seems to hang down. I don't know, might just be me being paranoid.

Don't really want to add many more fish to the tank now, might just go a couple of electric yellows and a pleco. Probably getting close to overstocking it now anyway. Will get some new photos up soon!

[yarra2]

`lecric yellers are good - make for a nice display

Mike

[bezz]

New photos added :)

[bezz]

Update: tank has been going well for the last couple of months.. have added some new fish too!

Now the tank has:
1 Tangerine peacock
1 Dragon Blood peacock
2 Electric Yellows (M+F)
1 Electric Blue
1 Texas Cichlid
1 Cobalt Blue
1 OB Peacock
2 Clown Loaches

The fish are growing well, and its a relatively peaceful tank, the Blues and the Texas Cichlid seem to rule the tank.

Only want to add one more fish, a pleco. Just waiting for the fish shop to get some nice ones in :)

I've also put a bunch of blue LEDs in the lid, gives off a nice blue haze at night time.

Here's the OB Peacock, an Electric Yellow, Cobalt Blue and a Dragon Blood:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0088.jpg

The Texan, the yellow again and one of the clown loaches:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0083.jpg

The Dragon Blood Peacock hiding

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0089.jpg

[bezz]

more photos

A couple shots of a big group of em out. They aren't shy!

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0085.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0086.jpg

The Electric Blue chillin' in his place

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0091.jpg

[bezz]

I've also been experimenting with different LED setups.

First pic is with 8 blue SMD LEDs spread evenly across the lid:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0067.jpg

Second is with 16 blue SMD LEDs:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0095.jpg

I think I'm going to stick with the 16 LEDs as 8 was just a little too dim, couldn't really make out the fish in there.

My next step is to try a similar setup with white LEDs. I have a 3-way rocker switch that will either switch all the blue LEDs on or all the white LEDs on.

[bezz]

New rock formation! :cool:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0098.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0099.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_0101.jpg

[bezz]

Time for an update. The tank has been going well for the last few months, all the fish are nicely established. I moved the Texan to my sister's tank as he was growing a bit too fast in mine. He now lives with a very large sailfin pleco, some clown loaches and siamansis.

The only problem I have at the moment is some aggression issues between the Peacocks, the OB being the main culprit. I added in a couple more fish today to hopefully mix things up a bit, a Red Empress and a Pseudo Elongatus.

So in the tank now:
4x Electric Yellow (breeding pair and two babies)
1x Cobalt Blue
1x Tangerine Peacock
1x Dragon Blood Peacock
1x OB Peacock
1x Red Empress
1x Pseudo Elongatus
3x Clown Loaches
1x Albino Sailfin Pleco


Some photos of the tank as of this afternoon:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_7726.jpg

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_7725.jpg

My Tangerine Peacock:

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f309/bezz_86/IMG_7713.jpg

[Skinnyman]

Nice tank mate:), i like the white substrate looks very nice with the rocks, im getting a bit sick of normal gravel (in the 2 tanks i all ready have) so i think ill be putting somthing like yours in my next tank. The blue LEDs look rather nice too.

any ways nice tank,somthing to be proud of, Skinnyman.

[bezz]

Nice tank mate:), i like the white substrate looks very nice with the rocks, im getting a bit sick of normal gravel (in the 2 tanks i all ready have) so i think ill be putting somthing like yours in my next tank. The blue LEDs look rather nice too.

any ways nice tank,somthing to be proud of, Skinnyman.

Thanks for the compliments on the tank mate. Having coral sand in there is great for my pH, sits at a constant 8 which is perfect.

Bar a few aggression problems between the peacocks the tank is running perfectly well, just added a Hongi today.

[Skinnyman]

hey man where abouts did u get your coral sand? your local fish shop? I was thinking about the kinda of sand u you get from a landscaping place but wasent to sure on how it would go,could be a bit risky mabey.

[bezz]

Yea fish shop can help you out with it. Can't remember exactly how much it cost though sorry.

[Kersh]

Looks good champ.