46 Bowfront journal - African Cichlids - update 12/10/11

[monkE]

Hey guys, I've started up my first Cichlid tank. I've chosen Africans mainly becuase there was a decent selection of them at IPU in Richmond.
After cycling the tank and dosing with alkali buffer and aquarium salt to get my ph and hardness up to the proper levels i'm ready to start adding some fish.

I've started with 2 Demasonis and 2 Yellow Peacocks.

The first thing that I had to figure out was the aquascape. I already had a couple pieces of Malaysia wood and i wanted to do a lot of stone, but the LPS sells that stone for 1.99/lbs. That's far too much. I'm all for supporting my local stores and am quite loyal to Richmond IPU, but i had to look elsewhere for these. I discovered a landscaping supply store in Burnaby where you can get a huge variety of stone for 24 cents/lbs.

All this rock (approx. 40lbs) cost me $10 (PM me if you want to know where the store is)

Here's some pics of the tank so far. More fish to come soon.





Sorry i don't have any decent pictures of the fish, they're pretty skiddish right now after all the work setting up the rock scape.

What do you guys think? How am i doing so far? Am i ok adding ANY African Cichlids or are there certain species that just don't get along? What do you suggest for "clean up crew" fish like cats or plecos? I was told that any thing from the upside-down catfish family would be fine and a friend kept bristlenose plecos with his africans. I would like to add a couple catfish, but am just worried that with only a 46 gallon tank, they would outgrow it pretty quickly.

[onefishtwofish]

Hi Monke. well your off to a fairly good start. if i were you i would remove most of the small scattered rocks for 2 reasons. 1 food will fall in the gaps and rot and 2 most africans like to sift the sand for food which keeps your substrate turned so bad gases cant from as easily and it keeps the fish occupied. they seem to enjoy the foraging. the other thing i would watch for is your mix of fish ie demisoni very aggressive and should be kept in species group of a min of 10 and the peacocks are very gentle. you may want to check too about food for them as demisoni i beleive are more herbivore type like spirolina based. But overall the rock piles look good. just make sure they r placed in such a way that when the fish start digging out caves to attract the gals by excavating the sand with htier mouths and moving it that the removal of the sand from under the rocks wont cause a shift in the ricks which can potentially injure fish or damage glass. Coming along tho! I am sure some other african keepers can correct me if i am mistaken.

[onefishtwofish]

oh and a small piece of driftwood is ok if you r keeping a pleco with them but it tends to lower ph and soften the water which africans dont like so much.

[monkE]

thanks for the heads up onefishtwofish, As soon as i placed all the polished rock i realized that cleaning the substrate would be a huge pain. But i really like the look of them all over the bottom. I suppose i'll have to observe the fish and see if they are having trouble getting between the stones and change it accordingly.
As for food, i am currently feeding them with "TetraCichlid" Cichlid Crisps. I was told by the guys at IPU that this would be fine for both breeds while they are still young and small.

[onefishtwofish]

yes the crisps r great. I use them often. i cant tell from your pics if that is gravel or sand under your rocks. i know they prefer sand and it reduces the risk of them cutting their mouths when they sift. even if it is smoothed gravel you may find they wont like to mouth it. keep us posted on how it goes.

[monkE]

its actually flourite black as the substrate... this tank was orgininally set up as a planted one but because i've already got a 55 that is planted i decided that i wanted to go another direction with this tank. I'll keep this updated as i add more population

[bingerz]

i'm bingerz, nice to meet you! i like the shape of the rockscape and the different rocks you're using. as long as they're all fine to use and don't leech anything into the water that might harm the fish. it's cool, i like! i went with all limestone, cuz it helps with the hardness and ph. i had a rock pile in my tank....and just kept on adding more and more. i noticed that my fish would get real territorial. i've only got a 33g and they would chase each other around. it was cool seeing the chasee swim up and down and through the rocks, but i got sick of the aggression and was told that if you take out the rocks...and just put a little bit...it cuts down the aggression. so i took out all my rock piles and just put my rocks into the sand...so they stick out a little bit. it just looks like what the bottom of a lake would look like. what i noticed is that now...all my fish swim together. it's kind of annoying, i've got fuelleborni, red zebras and acei and they swim like a school. there will be times when they all swim around the tank...but when i approach and they're scared...they all swim together into a corner like it's a pajama party or something. all on top of each other. one thing though...w/o the rocks...they're alot easier to catch. heheheh! keep us up to date. i saw a youtube video of red zebras and yellow labs mating. if you're not into having hybrids, then i prolly wouldn't mix them. i was thinking about getting some yellow labs, but when i saw that...changed my mind.

[monkE]

Hey bingerz, good to meet you too!
I'm glad that you like the rock formation I've made in there, and I can only hope that the stone doesn't leach any substance into the water. I soaked down all the rock before it went into that tank, but of course that will only remove surface dirt and debris... so far it's been about 24 hours since the stone went into the tank and the fish still look fine, no change in behaviour and no change in colour.

I really like the fact that the fish can create their own territories and defend them. I figure that with the amount of hiding spaces in there now there should be plenty of places for each group to call their own.
I'm planning on just populating this tank with mixed Africans and try to get as many complementary colours as possible. I've very interested to see how these peacocks look when they mature. The Demasoni's have an amazing blue/black stripe pattern but they are very tough to get a picture of becasue they are quite small and timid right now.

I think i'm going to add perhaps 2 fish each week for the next month or so and slowly grow the tank.. if they eventually begin to breed, well then i guess I'll have to cross that bridge when the time comes.

I checked out your tank too, looks great! I love the white sand and will definitely think about doing that if i set up a third tank here down the road

[monkE]

Here's a couple quick pictures of my guys so far

[bingerz]

its cool they're getting less camera shy. mine are wierd...some days they know you...some days they're like who the hell are you!? lol!