ChilliPepper
Fish Gatherer
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2008
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So a brief bit of background as to why I have decided to keep Malawis.... After setting up a 2ft cube marine tank we were taken with these creatures and so decided to sell the 6x2x2 SA & CA cichlid tank we had that we had lost interest in, to just get one big marine tank. So plans were made for the 6ft marine tank, and the 6ft tropical was sold. We had managed to rehome some of the fish beforehand, but because we wanted to get rid of the tank as soon as possible so we could order the marine, we bought a cheap Juwel 400 to put the rest of the fish in that we hadn't yet sold.
This included my polypterus collection. I tried selling them for months but had little to no interest, and really wasn't going to take them to LFS for them to make a massive profit on. So, came up with the idea of keeping them and getting something active to keep at the top. So we decided on Africans, as Polypterus are also African.
However I am not a fan of Tanganyikan, so decided to go for the colourful Malawis.
As I want to grow babies on (they can't go straight in with the polys as they will be eaten), I set up my Aqua One 3ft tank to use as a grow out.
I have hard water 8.2, so this combined with coral sand and ocean rock, meant that my Malawi's should be pretty happy.
We would like to use slate in the 5ft when they go in there, but for now, ocean rock came up locally so that is what I've used. Plus chucked in a load of fake plants I had lying around.
Filtration is an Eheim 2217+ and a Tunze 6015 powerhead.
It has marine bulbs in at the moment, which need to be changed over but so busy with everything at the moment it keeps being delayed, and needs to happen before lights have been on all day as they'd be too hot.
Fish are yellow labs, red empress, blue dolphins, aulonocara ngara and an as yet unidentified Mbuna species.
Here is a pic of the setup.
I will do some individual photos later, but got to get going with dinner now!
This included my polypterus collection. I tried selling them for months but had little to no interest, and really wasn't going to take them to LFS for them to make a massive profit on. So, came up with the idea of keeping them and getting something active to keep at the top. So we decided on Africans, as Polypterus are also African.
However I am not a fan of Tanganyikan, so decided to go for the colourful Malawis.
As I want to grow babies on (they can't go straight in with the polys as they will be eaten), I set up my Aqua One 3ft tank to use as a grow out.
I have hard water 8.2, so this combined with coral sand and ocean rock, meant that my Malawi's should be pretty happy.
We would like to use slate in the 5ft when they go in there, but for now, ocean rock came up locally so that is what I've used. Plus chucked in a load of fake plants I had lying around.
Filtration is an Eheim 2217+ and a Tunze 6015 powerhead.
It has marine bulbs in at the moment, which need to be changed over but so busy with everything at the moment it keeps being delayed, and needs to happen before lights have been on all day as they'd be too hot.
Fish are yellow labs, red empress, blue dolphins, aulonocara ngara and an as yet unidentified Mbuna species.
Here is a pic of the setup.
I will do some individual photos later, but got to get going with dinner now!
