African Dwarf Cichlids

[SensesFail]

Im toying with buying and setting up a 155L tank and originally i was thinking of marine but im beginning to sway towards just sticking with tropicals for now. I have an African Cichlid tank at the moment and have been looking at the american Cichlids and the dwarf ones look really nice!

Any ideas on which i could have in a 155L and how many so to speak. My Ph is around 7-7.5 So i would have to address this and somehow drop it to cater for the Americans 6.5ish needs. (What can i do to do this safely and effectively?)

Some Ideas (I know they wont all go together but any info will be appreciated then i can decide on tank etc):

Ramirezi Mikrogeophagus
ANGELFISH
Electric Blue Ram
Apistogramma cacatuoides
[font="Verdana]Apistogramma borelli[/font]
[font="Verdana]Apistogramma agassizii[/font]
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[font="Verdana]What sort of environment will best suite these guys? Planted? Rocks? Wood? Substrate - sand or gravel? need to do some research as you can see. [/font]
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[font="Verdana]Many thanks for any ideas and thoughts![/font]
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[moochy13]

i read somewhere on here that each pair would need a 60cm patch to call their own. id wait for more experinced info though. im not sure how this works in the real world, but ive got a pair of rams, a pair of apistos and a single angel in my 4ft tank with no aggro between them. other than the angels they will all prefer to live withint he bottom 6 inches of the tank, apparantly their natural habitat is among leaf litter and broken branches and rocks etc, so i guess sand, wood and some dense plants would be appreciated. and caves for spawning if you want them to. my rams love sitting inbetween my big amazon sword leaves, and the apistos like to hide under the wood or rock. the angel does whatever he fancies doing.

if you can get fish bred locally to you they should be used to your water, my Ph is about 7.4 and seems to be having no ill effects, though ive only had the apistos for a week or so now, rams about 3 months and the angel about 3 years. stable Ph is far more important than the 'right' Ph. if you bring your Ph down artificially, if the #105### hits the fan for some reason and you need to water change, your tapwater is going to be almost useless as the Ph difference could shock the fish too much. i much prefer keeping my tank close to my tap water.

i was actually just thinking about how mint a tank with loads of rams and apistos would look, im interested to see what you can come up with.

 

[SensesFail]

i read somewhere on here that each pair would need a 60cm patch to call their own. id wait for more experinced info though. im not sure how this works in the real world, but ive got a pair of rams, a pair of apistos and a single angel in my 4ft tank with no aggro between them. other than the angels they will all prefer to live withint he bottom 6 inches of the tank, apparantly their natural habitat is among leaf litter and broken branches and rocks etc, so i guess sand, wood and some dense plants would be appreciated. and caves for spawning if you want them to. my rams love sitting inbetween my big amazon sword leaves, and the apistos like to hide under the wood or rock. the angel does whatever he fancies doing.

if you can get fish bred locally to you they should be used to your water, my Ph is about 7.4 and seems to be having no ill effects, though ive only had the apistos for a week or so now, rams about 3 months and the angel about 3 years. stable Ph is far more important than the 'right' Ph. if you bring your Ph down artificially, if the #105### hits the fan for some reason and you need to water change, your tapwater is going to be almost useless as the Ph difference could shock the fish too much. i much prefer keeping my tank close to my tap water.

i was actually just thinking about how mint a tank with loads of rams and apistos would look, im interested to see what you can come up with.

The tank iv been looking at seem to be more a of cube so to speak its 60cm wide by 60cm high and something like 40 cm wide....something along those lines. My 190L tank has width as apposed to height coming in at 100cm wide but 55 cm high i think it is. Im interested to get some info and pics of tanks i really want to spend time ont his one and give aqua scaping ago! But then ill have to learn about live plants thats something iv never looked into!

 

[SensesFail]

Anymore hints or tips? Substrates fish etc?

Cheers