Setting Up A 125 Gallon Malawi W/pics-going To 75 Usg Now

[kj23502]

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?

 

[Ferris]

Sorry this thread is getting to be so long...it's definitely a long read

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

 

[kj23502]

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!

 

[kj23502]

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?

 

[wslinky]

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.

 

[kj23502]

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.

 

[chr15_8]

hi

journel and tank look great.

good luck with it

 

[wslinky]

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.

I added the cycle to my tank too in hopes it would help the Cycle but it doesn't seem to have done anything. I am still at the waiting game for the NO2s which seems to be the typical delay in cycling. I think that your thinking on the bio-load in correct, I know Plecos are pretty messy so that may be a big drop in load.

 

[caboose_122]

any closer pics of the C. Afra "cobue"? i love them, and how much did the eco complete cichlid substrate cost you? im looking to get that for my 55 that im going to be setting up

thanks
alex

 

[kj23502]

The cichlid sand was 19.99 for a 20lb bag.

Here are some pics of the fish. These are my best out of about 10 or so. It's REALLY hard to get good pics of them! In all, they range anywhere from about 1" to 2" maybe.

---edit---
my comp. was slow and i hit post 3 times(and hit added it two more times) LOL so I deleted the extra two

 

[kj23502]

I tested for ammonia last night and the reading was .6. i put an extra dose of cycle in the tank and this morning i checked again and was lower. I also changed 6 gallons of water(not adding the seachem malawi/cichlid buffer so it didn't raise the ph any higher). It's my understanding from all that I've read that a higher ph makes ammonia more lethal to fish at lower ammonia levels, than if the ph was neutral. I'll check again this evening. I haven't lost any fish yet, that I can see. They are still hanging out seemingly just fine and they ate their breakfast. (although they are probably not fine). We'll see how it goes.

PLEASE ADD ANY ADVICE ABOUT THIS IF YOU CAN. I was expecting the levels to go up a bit b/c of adding so many fish, I am wondering if I'm coping with it fine or not. I've never dealt with it like this before. Thank you!!

---edit---
I just did another ammonia test with a different kit. The other one measures like this: 0, .6, 1.2, 2.4, 4.9, 7.3. I did one that goes 0, .25, .5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 8.0. This test showed it was .25ppm. Lower than it was showing on the other one(.6).

 

[caboose_122]

i have never heard of ph affecting how leathal ammonia is to fish. i use the nutrafin tesk kits, they have worked excellent for me, and those fish are going to be stunners!

alex

 

[Larissa]

i have never heard of ph affecting how leathal ammonia is to fish. i use the nutrafin tesk kits, they have worked excellent for me, and those fish are going to be stunners!

alex

Dosn't your nutrafin test kit have a table at the back off the instructions booklet for ammonia that tells you the amount of lethal ammonia in your water - mine does if I remember rightly. On the table you can see as the pH increases so does the level of lethal ammonia. It has something to do with how ammonia in ammonium becomes more soluble at higher a pH or something like that - I don't remember the exact science behind it.

 

[kj23502]

i have never heard of ph affecting how leathal ammonia is to fish. i use the nutrafin tesk kits, they have worked excellent for me, and those fish are going to be stunners!

alex

Dosn't your nutrafin test kit have a table at the back off the instructions booklet for ammonia that tells you the amount of lethal ammonia in your water - mine does if I remember rightly. On the table you can see as the pH increases so does the level of lethal ammonia. It has something to do with how ammonia in ammonium becomes more soluble at higher a pH or something like that - I don't remember the exact science behind it.

Here's something I read out of a booklet.

Ammonia is produced by fish respiration and the decay of waste products in the aquarium. The decomposition of organic matter such as excess food, dead leaves, and fish also produce ammonia. Ammonia can be present in 2 forms. Ammonia NH3, which is a toxic gas, and ionic ammonium NH4, which is much less deadly. The ph of the water is the major factor that determines the ratio of the two ammoniums. When the ph is high, the ammonia is in its toxic form. Toxic ammonia will increase exponentially with increasing ph levels and temperature. a ph value of over 8 causes a corresponding rapid incread in the toxic ammonia component.

I didn't know all this until I just started reading about it! There's a lot of stuff to learn about fish keeping! I love reading about it

I still can't beleive they swim their own poo(waste products)! That's why i didn't eat fish for a long time.

 

[caboose_122]

i guess you learn something new every day i never knew that