Finally Added Sand.

[dthoffsett]

Well, I finally broke down and put sand in the tank in place of the crushed coral. While I had the tank down, I also took off the blue background and put up a black one.
Take a look at my link in the pics section, be kind and respond.

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=199300

 

[Ferris]

Very nice.

What do the fish think?

 

[dthoffsett]

The alpha male callainos is pissed off , he is spending most of his time excavating and guarding his new cave. However, that didn't stop him from knocking up one of the girls.

The others are still a little freaked but settling in, I was just looking this morning and I may have a holding lab, not sure yet though. And two of the acei have been doing constant breeding runs. So, I'd say they are pretty happy.

 

[Ferris]

Sounds good to me.

 

[jgray152]

What are you going to be using asa buffer? You have the coral in your filter? I added 1 Tbl spoon of African salt to every 5 gallons and the coral in the filter and tank, my water parameters are havn't been better.

The tank looks nice! Makes me want a 125 gallon

 

[denis coghlan]

Looking good dawn! Now that you have replaced the substrate with sand are you going to use anything to buffer the pH. Or are your fish accustomed to living in fairly neutral water at this stage?

Great great job on the photos, your fish look like they are in excellent condition

Makes me want my cichlids back!


Edit My apologies. I didn't read jgrays post about buffering. Forget the above question but you can keep the comments about the fish.

 

[dthoffsett]

My PH from the tap is 8.3, but the KH is around 3-4, so I added crushed coral to the filter as using for substrate really didn't do anything. However, the sand I added is aragonite, so I'm hoping I'll be able to remove the coral from the filter eventually and replace it with more bio-media. From what I've read, aragonite is supposed to buffer well even as a substrate, and as a bonus, reduce nitrates, so we'll see what happens. My test kit seems to have gone bad, so I need to order a new one and see if the sand is helping.


Tanksalot, thank you very much for the compliments on the fish, I'm quite happy with them. I'm trying to get a close up of the holding female, but she seems to know what I'm up too.

jgray: here's a great link to a homemade buffer recipe, it works well, and is cheap to make.

http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php

 

[adambrum]

The aragonite will buffer your water better than the crushed coral if you look at salt water tanks aragonite is used because of it buffering and raising abilities

 

[dthoffsett]

The aragonite will buffer your water better than the crushed coral if you look at salt water tanks aragonite is used because of it buffering and raising abilities

That's what I've read, which was why I shelled out the extra money. Thanks for the confirmation Adam.

 

[chishnfips]

thats one nice looking tank dude, are the plants plastic or real, I tried putiing a real plant in my mbuna tank and it got ripped up, I think they make it look great how you only put in one or two plants.

 

[dthoffsett]

The plants are all fake, and there are actually 5 of them in there. To keep the fish from moving them around, I attached them to rocks with fishing line. Here's a pic, ugly, but effective.

 

[chishnfips]

nice one cheers

nice one cheers oh

PS: on topic, I have argonite sand to, looks cool in the tank,more marine like