My First African Tank

[GirlinWayside]

Here is a picture of my first go at setting up an african tank. Im gonna tell you, that rock work was alot harder than I thought it would be.. took me two hours to come up with what I did. Im sure it could use more rock but thats all I had picked and cleaned. I still have to get a background too. I wasnt satisfied with the one I had. Im thinking maybe a black or blue one. MY yellow labs will be here tomorrow!

 

[laurasmithuk]

nice tank could do with more plants to bulk it up though

 

[Ethos]

^Ah, no.
African cichlids do NOT do well with plants.
If you dont want to have to replace and replant every plant in your tank every day, then I'd highly suggest you dont put plants in with them. They dig up and move all my gravel rocks. They love digging holes!

Nice tank. Yellow labs are cool...I have a juvi one

 

[GirlinWayside]

yeah, I was under the impression that they didnt do well with plants either. I read that there really are not any in their natural habitat so I didnt see the need to add alot. Im going to work on getting more rocks to sorta build up the back a bit. Will it hurt for them to rest on the back glass of the tank?? Will that cause any problems??

 

[Wildfire]

I don't think the rocks will bother! BTW nice tank.

 

[Ethos]

I've had a few little incidents (Banging rocks up against the glass), and the glass held well.
I've seen a couple of people on here have lots rocks leaning against the glass, so I'm sure it'd be ok.
If you add alot of weigt to the back of the tank, make sure its up against a strong wall!

 

[laurasmithuk]

sorry was not aware that plants were not a good idea.......... my apologies! )

 

[Ethos]

sorry was not aware that plants were not a good idea.......... my apologies! )

I'm sorry, I hope I didn't sound like I jumped on you too hard.
I had the same Idea untill i had cichlids of my own.
Plants would be a horrible waste of money....

 

[yvez9]

i wouldn't risk putting rocks against the glass personnally but... i guess it can't be that bad but i prefer having a nice self supporting pile of rocks inside the tank rather ten having an inch of water on the floor

 

[penguinpimp1990]

you could add artifical plants if you wanted.........although they dont look to well in cichlid setups, but ive seen some BEAUTIFUL cichlids tanks including artifical plants.... these pics were in books, probally aquascaped by "professionals" but who knows yuor tank could look just as good but theyll dig them up a lot as they love to dig

 

[Hunkgoldn]

nice tank set up!
here is a pic of mine, not good quality as it was taken with a palmpilot

 

[Hunkgoldn]

I added some real plants to my cichlid tank to see what they do.....the first 5 days nothing, day 6 they wiped them out! So I put the remains in my planted tank.

 

[Fishboy17]

Well while we are talking about african tanks, is a 55 gal ok for a mbuna tank?

 

[Ethos]

Yeah, thats what I have for my fishies......

 

[GirlinWayside]

here is a more recent picture - I sorta changed it around some and added a background.. although, Im having a heck of a time getting all the air bubbles out of it! Everyday there is a new one! I may have to take it off and redo it.. I also found a place that I can get slate rocks at so soon I will be adding some more to try to build up the rockwork.

all I currently have in it are yellow labs.. Hopefully I will be getting some other fish soon.

Hunkgoldn - your tank is nice!