Just thought I'd add this for any cichlid enthusist in the U.S.A.

American Cichlid Association

They get together and bring fish to their conventions. It sounds really neat and I think I'm going to join!

Just a suggestion before gluing all your rocks together. I know personally that I'm occasionally buying new fish to add to my tank, but to do this you need to re-arrange some of your landscape to create new territories for your fish, especially once they're mature, otherwise the newbies will get tormented by the alpha males.

I know what you're going through, I just bought a 200 gallon yank but won't get it until March 1st! I'm not sure I can hang on that long!

i sent freaky fish a message about rocks and gluing and this was the response.

QUOTE
hi you just left a post on my 125 gallon tank. What do you think about the cement instead of the glue? My bro in law thought i might be able to break'em apart?! I just don't want to loose fish b/c of rocks falling when they dig. What do you think is the best way?



Ya I guess that's just the risk I take by not gluing them, not only can they hurt the fish but they could go through the front of your tank! If you're not staking them too high they should be fine as long as you keep the larger ones at the bottom and push them down as far as you can into your gravel. Or you can glue 3 or 4 or 5 (depending on the size) together and make sections that you can safely move around.

I don't know about you but I love re-arranging the landscape in my tanks once and awhile, even if I'm not adding new fish, it's winter gardening for me. end quote

I just thought that it might help other people who are going through this also so I put it on!

With slate you should be able to stack it and make it pretty stable, also with the egg crate you can stack the bottom layer righ on it so the fish digging shouldn't affect it very much. I have flagstoneand some other bigger rocks stacked in mine and I can push on it without it moving.

Edit
I forgot to say that 90lbs of rock is probably not going to be enough, I have about 250lbs in my 80 gallon. But some of the flagstone I got is very heavy.

This post has been edited by wslinky: Feb 22 2008, 04:37 AM

I figured it may not be enough . That's all I can get at this moment from the guy I'm buying from. If more becomes availabile, I'll be buying!! Thanks for all the tips everyone!!

I just got my sand in today and my slate should come by Wed. at the latest. I just ordered blue aquarium background.

One of my nyererei's died. I think it got the bloat. It sat on the bottom and did look slightly puffy. Then it just dissappeared! I haven't found him yet. I guess they are carnivores. I'm wondering if my snail and the other two fish would've eaten him?? I've been feeding them Omega One natural protein formula *the small pellets (it says Cichlid on the container). Any ideas?

I only gave them 4 pellets. They were kinda big for there mouths, but they would suck and spit'em to break'em up. Then they'd eat the peices. I now put two pellets in a messuring cup that has aquarium water and break'em up a bit so it's easier for them to eat..

----edit----

I did a water change and filled it in such a way that it swirled stuff around. I was hoping that I might be able to flush out the dead fishes body. BUT, still no sign of him/her....

This post has been edited by kj23502: Feb 25 2008, 02:43 PM

I hooked up one of my eheims to my 29 gallon tank to get some bacterial growth started in it. After a few weeks, I'll transfer it to the 125 when I move the fish in. I'm expecting to get 12 fish in the mail either Wednesday or Thurdsay. I think's it's probably a good thing I'm adding extra filtration on the 29 gallon, since that's where they will be for a couple of weeks. I figure once the bacteria is started and growing good with all the fish in there that I may be able to transfer all the fish to my 125 when I fill it and move the eheim to it.....ANYONE please correct me if I'm wrong!!!

It's the first canister filter I've ever had. I CANNOT believe how quiet it is. My air pump thing is noiser than the filter. I expected there would be more noise with it being so big and all (compared to the HOB filters). (Yes, it's working....I checked *twice* to make sure...LOL). I ended up aiming the spray bar at the wall that it's suctioned to. I have the HOB on the left side of the tank and a huge air stone( about 5.5" or 14 cm) on the right. With the addition of the eheim, I felt like the water swirled too much!

One more thing....

I think one of my nyererei's is male. His tail is starting to turn red and he's getting red on his dorsal fin. How exciting. It is my understanding that only males color up. The two that are in there are very funny!!!!

The one I'm assuming is male even flares his fins at me sometimes when I come up to the tank. If they see eachother they compact their tail and turn semi sideways and quiver at eachother from a distance. Then one usually takes off and chases the other for a second. After that they usually return to their hiding spots. When they're doing this is when the vertical black stripes darken up!

Sometime, when I approach the tank to watch, it's as if they are studying me. They swim to the front of the tank and just sit there seeming to be staring! Crazy....

These fish are soo interesting, I wish I would've known about them years ago!!!

arnt they amazing fish!

both of the nyererei's could be male, the way they are acting is sounds like its a domanince thing over a territory, the one that looks female could be a male just not showing its colours becuase of the domanint males agression.

thanks, i was kinda wondering that! I figure when I gat my other 12 fish in, then that would help curb agression between those two since there'd be more to chase!

I don't know for sure if Josh will be able to mail my fish or not tomorrow. We're getting freezing rain and snow today. He doesn't mail them if there's really bad weather on either end(he's in Illinois) to ensure the fish don't get stuck somewhere. It seems he's very thorough!!

Going to start setting up the tank...Just got my rocks in yesterday. I think I can tell that I'll need more than what I have already!! I'll buy more later, this will work for now!

I'm putting pics up of everything. Especially egg crating lighting cover stuff. When I first started reading about large tanks and came across egg crate, I could only find one pic and that one didn't help at all. I had no idea what they were talking about. So for those people out there like I was: It is generally used as a lighting cover in commercial buildings and can probably be found at DIY stores like Home Depot, Menards, Lowes, etc. My bro in law gave me these.



Also are pics of my slate. I have them divided into three boxes according to size. I may glue a few peices together to make bigger ones.

A pic of eheim pro II 2028 set up on my 29 gallon.

A pic of the "special" sand I ordered from Dr. fostersmith.com I got the sand instead of the gravel size since I'm keeping smaller cichlids.

Sorry this thread is getting to be so long...it's definitely a long read. I'm trying to be as thorough as possible for this. That way other people can learn from my mistakes and achievements. Especially for the ones that have never had a "giant" tank before. If anyone has any questions about things I'm doing, feel free to ask on here or pm me. I'm not an expert by any means, but have been reading about this stuff everyday for about the last 2-3 months. And I love looking up and reading about new topics!!!

---edit----
i really don't like the green tubing on the eheim. I'm going to see about a getting a different color...maybe clear or blue?

This post has been edited by kj23502: Feb 26 2008, 07:57 PM

Don't worry about that - it's kinda the point.

I'm soooo excited. I just recieved my mail order cynotilapia afra"cobue" and my pundamilia nyererei "python island" varieties!! They look great and are swimming around!
I'm floating them in my water right now to adjust them to the same temp as my tank is. I'll pour them into a clean container, check the ph to see if it's the same as mine. (i'm assuming it should be). If so i'll net them and put them in my tank!

If not i think i need to do a partial water change in their container and then every so often add some of my tank water to their bowl to slowly adjust it,,,am I right? I've never had to that before. I'm hoping I don't have to!
I'm also going to add some cycle to the tank!

i lucked out and both bags of water checked out almost identical to my water....my nitrates are a little lower and that's the only difference. I added cycle to my tank and all the fish are in now....they seem to be doing great. As i said earlier, i think i did anyway, I aimed the spray bar from my eheim toward the glass and about half of the new fish went over to that glass and are still swimming in the current (right next to the glass). It's seems as though they may like it?! Maybe there was a lot of current in their old fry tank?

Congrats!!!

I can't wait for my tank to finish its cycle, so I can start adding fish.

I'm hoping my 29 gallon can handle the extra load. I'm a little concerned, which is why I added the cycle. i'm hoping that a bacterial colony will establish in the eheim that's set up on the 29 gallon. Then I could hopefully move the filter along with the cichlids over to the new tank when it's done. Since I won't be adding fish for a little while, the bio load would still be the same as it is in the 29 right? Well, maybe less...i'm leaving my pleco and snail in the 29(so only slightly less). I hope that works. Will someone let me know if it'll generally work like I'm hoping, please.

hi

journel and tank look great.

good luck with it