harpua2002

Hey all, just wanted to document progress on a 55 gallon Tanganyika setup. I've always been more interested in Tangs than Malawis, but never kept any other than a 10 gallon lamprologus ocellatus setup that I sold off when I moved. I've had this 55 just sitting around for months and finally decided to do something with it! Substrate is 1/2 aragonite sand and 1/2 cichlid gravel. The rock is a bunch of Fiji rock I had that was live rock at one time but dried out. It's just base rock now. A quick rinse with the garden hose to get rid of salt creep, and it was ready to go. Filtration is one Rena XP2 and one Aquaclear 50, and an Ebo Jager 250 heater should do the trick. I've got a 2 foot 65W Current PC strip on there now for lighting, but will probably upgrade eventually when I run across a good deal on a used PC light. Planned stocklist is a shelldweller colony (undecided on species), a group of N. pulcher "daffodil", and possibly some cyprichromis. Anyway, here's how it looks after a couple days of tinkering.

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MissMTS

Looks great so far! I would love to do a large tang set up at some point Daffodils are gorgeous. As far as cyps go, blacktails and blue neons are my favorites. I love the fiji rock! Can't wait to see how the tank turns out.

bolivianbaby

That looks gorgeous! I can't wait to see it stocked!

Tony G.

it looks great! it makes me want to get a bigger tank and get africans

harpua2002

Thanks everyone! The best part is that we've managed to spend $0 so far!
All the items we've used to set it up were just laying around the house and garage. I can't believe we didn't think of this sooner! LOL

Tony G.

LOL imagine all the stuff you could do if you went to lucy's house or BB's LOL

my garage... i dont have a garage LOL i have a closet though

harpua2002

LOL... BB actually bought one of my 55 gallon tanks a while back!

We have a ton of tanks around here, but already have 7 going now so I'm not in a big hurry to set anything else up at the moment. The next tank will be a 46 gallon bowfront SW reef (our second reef tank). We'll focus mostly on nice zoas and mushrooms and a few LPS.

Tony G.

awesome!

harpua2002

Great news- we've been able to find someone selling a proven pair of n. pulcher "daffodil" along with some of their babies! We're going to pick them up this afternoon and I can't wait. I'll try to get some pics later.

Tony G.

YEAH!

cant wait to see them!

harpua2002

WOOT! We're leaving soon to get our new fishies!

mare2009

..can't wait to see who goes into that gorgeous habitat those lucky little ones ...how exciting

Diggly

ive been excited all day for you!! I have no idea how excited you must feel haha!!

harpua2002

Got 'em!

We brought home a proven pair of n. pulcher "daffodil" and 13 of their babies, plus 6 julidochromis ornatus. The julies are pretty small. They're all hiding right now, but I'll get pics soon.

Tony G.

yeah! i cant wait to see the pics!

harpua2002

Here are some pics of the new fish!
First and second pics are the male, third and fourth are our female. Last pic is one of their babies.

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harpua2002

And here's one of the julidochromis ornatus.

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mare2009

BE UTI FULLLL How are they doing? I love your julidochcromis
great tank..I hope that they do well for you

MissMTS

Awesome fish Harpua! Congrats They are beauties for sure.

harpua2002

Thank you! They are still really shy for now but hopefully we'll start to see more of them when they settle down. The baby daffodils are soooo cute!

Tony G.

wow! they are beautiful! congrats

harpua2002

Here are some pics from tonight. You can see a bunch of the small fish- they really like to hang out together. You can see One Eyed Willie in one of the pics, lol. The large fish you see is Mama Daffodil.
Oh, and I rescaped some of the rock work to make room for our shelldwellers, and added their shells. We're still trying to work out shipping details, but I wanted to be ready for the new guys!

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bolivianbaby

That's looking fantastic! I like Mama Daffodil! She just looks like she's got "that" personality that we all look for in our fish.

harpua2002

Thanks, she is a gorgeous girl! It's too bad I didn't get a shot of Daddy Daffodil- he is a real stunner!

harpua2002

Woot! Picked up a 75 gallon tank and stand for $75 this afternoon! These guys will be getting an upgrade.

bolivianbaby

That's fantastic! congratulations!

lorabell

wow ...the tank and fish are georgeous!!!!!! I love the used rock!!!!!!

Tony G.

beautiful! glad theyre doing good

harpua2002

We've gotten to work on their 75 gallon upgrade.
The stand was looking pretty terrible (a couple of bad paint jobs), so we picked up a couple cans of Krylon "Make it Stone" texturized spray paint to cover it up. The first coat is done and it's looking much better, and the texturized paint has a cool mottled look to it, it's actually like 3 different colors. We also picked up some new hardware for the cabinet, decent hinges and new knobs. The tank itself still needs to be cleaned up and painted, but with the new fish coming soon I'd like to get it going asap. We also got another XP2 from the seller that we bought the 30 gallon cube setup from the other day, so we're going to be running 2 XP2's on there. Much better!

Tony G.

great news harpua!!!