FishFolk

yes Cory - FishFolk is me - good ole mom.

Cory and I spotted the tanks on craigslist. We watched them for several weeks and emailed the original owner about 1 1/2 weeks ago. I didn't really want fish,(I wanted to create my own habitat) but they came with the tanks. In fact he had just give away a bunch the night before we went. They were running with fish when we went to look. So we just drained them, bagged the fish and plants and headed for home. As soon as we got here and found a spot for them, we started filling. After a bit of light cleaning, they were ready to go. The original owner is trying his hand at saltwater! Cory can give specifics.

Thinking about some glass fish - They are pretty - Also read about the annual fish - seems a lot of work but it is a pretty amazing process. I'm a softy and would be heartbroken each time the year was over.hmmm

FishFolk

Thanks for all the compliments on the tank. I'll take a bit of the credit but not all I keep changing it to help with the aggression. I took out the spinning wheel house and replaced it with natuarl rock. Then had to put it back in an hour or so ago to give the he/she? a place of refuge. It is perched in a rather tacky manner but has provided some relief for the gray one.

Odd- it is hard to tell. It stays mostly gray even when stripes start to show. It does have spots on the anal fin, but some sources indicate females have those as well. One of the for sure males is doing the allover body shimmy to the gray one. To top it all, I saw the he?she? nose the for sure male's anal fin in a fashion similar to what I've read that females do to get eggs fertilized. Pretty sure there are no eggs but who knows as they are cave layers and mouthbrooders!

Thanks again -

Coryd55

Well. These two 55's came from a guy near Ft. Benning about 30 or so minutes away. He was selling both. They had been setup for quite a while and actually had some of his cichlids breeding. He gave his fish away from one of his tanks. But left the three cichlids and all plecos. They were already cycled and we kept the filters wet. So the media didnt dry out. Most is fake plants. my moms tank so I am not worrying about it she can do whatever she wants with it. I live real but that is just me. He has like 3/4- 1 inch gravel in there though. Which would be very tough on the roots so I dunno about planting it with live plants without switching out substrate.

I used a python to fill it up, gravel was in it. Threw the decor and plants in there and thats a setup tank. Haha. Took like 3-4 hours I believe. We had to clean the fry tank out very good though since the substrate was ridiculously filthy.

Isabella

Well then, it's all good . No need to cycle the tank - you've everything basically ready . You're very lucky!

Coryd55

Yeah. I know. I can't believe we didn't get it sooner. We'd have quite a few more cichlids to deal with though.

I am pretty sure that my mom can't handle the aggression between cichlids and will get rid of them and get a community tank. Just what I think though. So you will probably see a lot of change in the tank.

steveangela1

cichlids are hard to get used to aggression wise! hey, if you decide to get into them, I will have a bunch of lab fry and kenyi in a few weeks! I have 2 holding labs and a holding kenyi

COBettaCouple

Welcome to Fishlore, Cory's mom!

Butterfly

UUUmmmm.... Family MTS! Thats really cool. My children have fish also, gives us something to talk about
Welcome to FishLore!
Carol

FishFolk

Y'all sure make one feel welcome Things seemed to have calmed abit overnight in the cichlid tank. Maybe territories have become more defined? I don't mind a bit of chasing, but the constant bullting was a bit much. I do like the look of these and the fact that they swim about the tank. Whatever I do, I want to get a breeding pair of one kind of fish.

I too prefer planted tanks, but cichlids eat them- so I guess that's why Jay had all the fake plants. They seem to break up line of sight which is helping - That and the big mound of hiding places I put mid tank.

The guppy/angel fry tank had a few issues this a.m. The angels were chasing the larger guppy fry and chasing and eating the smaller guppy fry. Cory is still asleep so I did a quick fix of pulling the angels and putting them back in their 10 gallon.

steveangela1

with cichlids the boys are greedy little devils.. they have to have 2 females to 1 male, unless you find a proven pair that has been raised together you can usually find those on aquabid. I got lucky w/ my kenyi (type of african cichlid) they paired right up w/ out the 2 to 1 ratio) but something tells me that doesn't happen often. The red top zebras are beautiful! I have one female, I would love to get another and a male to go w/ her. When I bought her she was so young and I didn't know if she was a male or female.

In our cichlid tank I have it covered in limestone all the way across w/ a ton of caves for them spread out, its kind of plain no plants, but I have 16 in there and they dig all the time so I didn't want the hassle of putting anything other than rocks in there. I have thought about putting something in there for show, its getting boring to the eyes!

Jugglo

Welcome Corys mom, and nice tank.

FishFolk

Steveangela1,
Does your female have any spots? This one of which we are unsure does have the egg spots. I can't find any pics of females and very few descriptions in detail - one did say that females can have spots -

I need a female too - Looked at pet stores and online but haven't seen one. I also need to remove one of the known males.

I looked up some cichlid info today and I like the yellow labs. The descriptions I read on Kenyi don't sound like they would go with what I have to offer - not enough tank and other fish I found I like some of the peacocks too.

Would yellow labs be okay with redtops? They won't interbreed will they? I know they are both from the same area, so guessing it would work. How big would the newcomers need to be before I could put them in with the ones I have?

steveangela1

[quote=FishFolk;370315]Steveangela1,
Does your female have any spots? This one of which we are unsure does have the egg spots. I can't find any pics of females and very few descriptions in detail - one did say that females can have spots -

I need a female too - Looked at pet stores and online but haven't seen one. I also need to remove one of the known males.

I looked up some cichlid info today and I like the yellow labs. The descriptions I read on Kenyi don't sound like they would go with what I have to offer - not enough tank and other fish I found I like some of the peacocks too.

Would yellow labs be okay with redtops? They won't interbreed will they? I know they are both from the same area, so guessing it would work. How big would the newcomers need to be before I could put them in with the ones I have?[/QUOT

My female has some egg spots, w/ african cichlids the egg spots doesn't mean much, the males and females both have them. But yes, the females can have them too.
the kenyi is a met also they are far to aggresive for a community tank, and for your fish. The labs are a pop choice for a cichlid tank because they are very peaceful cichlids compared to the others. I don't think they can inter breed, but I would try to keep the species in trios so they will all be grouped up. The newcomers need to be big enough to fit in w/ the others in the tank, if they are 2+ inches I would go w/ the bigger cichlids in the tank. Or if you have a "holding tank" you can buy the smaller ones and let them grow to size.
Also if you get any peacocks they don't mix well w/ the red tops or any mbuna. The peacocks will let the mbuna dominate them.
Its really hard to think of the peaceful ones, in fact getting the right combo of cichlids is hard to do. I am finding myself liking the cobalt zebras right now. I just put a pair in my tank, the other part of that trio is in a holding tank it was a "runt" and I didn't want it picked on. I had been raising them in a tank from fry size.

FishFolk

I'm reworking the tank to make it more cichlid friendly. First things first was to find a heater that works! Managed that but only after trips to several stores. I didn't find any cichlid sand...

In the heat of the day I spent about an hour at Flatrock Sand and Gravel picking out rocks for the tank. Then Cory helped me clean and boil them. Another several hours setting them up - dry run and in the tank - with a water change and it is beginning to look better. I have a bid in for some holey rock that would do well in the corner in place of the vase piece.

All three love the new rock formation...and the fry in the other 55 g seem to like the plants and driftwood they inherited.

Attached Images

DSC05508.jpg (219.6 KB, 4 views)

Jugglo

Nice lookin tank.

FishFolk

Thank you

steveangela1

Love the tank! for the substrate you don't have to have the cichlid substrate, you can use the crushed coral that you find in the saltwater sections in the fishstores. thats what we ended up using. we also gathered up our own rocks (don't it feel good to do that, a lot better than 1.99 a lb. I love to look at the tanks and see the rocks that I spent so much time collecting and see my fish swiming in and out of the caves from them, enjoying them) not to mention the rocks I got were limestone at the most part here in tn so that helps w/ the hardness of the water for the cichlids.

Jugglo

You welcome.