***This post began short, then became long winded after I started to add more and more....***
Gotcha!!! Now I understand where your'e starting from!
Definitely start with Peacock Cichlids from Lake MalawI in my opinion. They are the least aggressive species of African Cichlids. On the other end of the spectrum, Mbuma Cichlids are the most aggressive African Cichlids, also from Lake Malawi.
From what I have seen from my own research, the Peacock Cichlids give you an excellent blend of color, size and lower aggression.
There are dozens and dozens of Peacock sub-species of all colors.
Some excellent YouTube Channels to check out that deal with cichlids and other fish hobby subjects I would recommend to watch and learn from.
There are a ton of excellent channels
I learned at lot from their videos before finding this forum!
Here are also some good resources on cichlids I have found while researching them myself. Eventually I want a cichlid tank myself!!
Companies with online cichlid sales and overnight delivery. (I have never bought from them and listed in no particular order)
Live Fish Direct
Imperial Tropicals
Cichlid Lovers
Tampa Bay Cichlids
Starting slowly and piecing everything together is a great way to start. I didn't know about this forum when I started and wish I had the guidance from seasoned hobbyist at the beginning. You're definitely on the right track!
As far as your filters, I wasn't sure of your budget and the size of cichlids you were starting with when I had posted before.
Since you are on a budget and starting with small cichlids, you could start with 1 or 2 inexpensive
HOB filters. As the fish grow larger you can add the 2nd HOB or a
canister filter down the road.
The Sun Sun canisters you mentioned are good budget entry level filters. The only down side really with those are two-fold. First their included media is not great. The
bio-balls and
ceramic rings Sun Sun provides are not going to colonize a ton of
beneficial bacteria that cichlids need compared to quality bio-media from Fluval, Seachem, Eheim etc etc. You're going have to spend some extra $$ down the road for extra quality bio-media when the cichlids grow and the
nitrogen cycle can't keep up with their bio-load.
Second, Sun Sun's have been known to rate their GPH very liberally. Actual flow rate through their included media could range from 50-70% of advertised flow rate. After adding additional media to the trays, that rate drops even more.
Keep this in consideration when weighing your options.....
An inexpensive, yet cost effective set up would be to run a $26
Marineland Pengiun 350 filter with only 2 simple and cheap DIY mods. It's pump is rated at 350gph.
When budget allows, run 2 Penguin 350's with the upgrade mods explained below. Or get one 350, add some media to it and as the fish grow get the 2nd one. Or upgrade to a canister later on.
(
Penguin 350 )
Although an out-of-the-box Penguin 350 doesn't come with all the media equivalent to an Aquaclear 70, with some easy DIY mods it becomes a filtering hot rod. For half the price, you can make it hold 2x the media of a stock Aquaclear 70.
DIY Mods for Penguin 350.....
The
1st DIY mod involves
boosting it's mechanical filtration capacity and
eliminating buying cartridges again.
Buy a
3-pack of Aquaclear 70 sponges for $4.99 from Petsmart or online.
1 will be used as an intake sponge and the other 2 will go into the back reservoir. These will act as your primary mechanical filtration and secondary biological filtration. The sponges are reusable and have an exponentially larger surface area to trap debris in the water compared to the cartridges. They will save you $$, catch more debris and act as a bio-filter compared to using the cartridges.
With the 1st sponge., watch this link to Youtube of a guy using the sponge to slip onto the intake tube to make a pre-filter. Take off the strainer from the intake tube and cut the sponge so it can slip onto end of the intake tube. This will catch stuff before it enters the impeller assembly and the rest of the media. It keeps the impeller cleaner for longer, and keeps the media in the reservoir also cleaner for longer. (
)
Next, take the other 2 filters and insert 1 each to the left and right side reservoirs. Place them standing up and shove them toward the inside. When water flows out the intake tube in the middle toward the L/R reservoir, the water will shoot out directly into the inner sponges.
For $5, you have reusable mechanical media with 3x the capacity of a stock Aquaclear 70.
The
2nd DIY mod involves
boosting the 350's capacity as a bio-filter. The Penguin's "
Bio-Wheel" can be a hot topic as to how well it colonizes beneficial bacteria. So I won't get into the debate if the Bio-Wheel works or how well it may or may not. The OP wants to set up a
cichlid tank, so maximizing the filter's ability to complete the nitrogen cycle is imperative.
After the sponges are inserted in the L/R reservoirs, a large void remains toward the outsides. This is a perfect place to drop in some bio-media!
Each Penguin 350 will need
2 media bags and
bio-media.
You can get $1 media bags from Petsmart I'm sure they can be had from Amazon as well.
Then you need to fill the bags with some quality bio-media. Here are some examples.
Fluval Bio-Max 500g for $6.99 a box. You might be able to fit 2 boxes into the voids of the reservoir. Amazon and Petsmart have them for that price. For reference, the Aquaclear 70 only comes with a 195g bag of Bio-Max. So the 500g box loaded into a Penguin 350 has 2.5x the biological filtration compared to a stock Aquaclear 70, and that's not including what the Bio-Wheels and the 3 sponges contribute!
or use....
Seachem Matrix, 2 liters for $19.94 The 2 liter container could probably be split between 2 separate Penguin 350's
Seachem Matrix is one of the most porous bio-media you can get. Excellent stuff. I use both Matrix and Bio-Max. Each is quality stuff.
$26 Penguin 350
$5 3-Pack Sponges
$2 Media Bags
$7-$14-$20 Bio-Media (depending if you get 1 or 2 Bio-Max or the 2 liters of Matrix)
So for between
$40-$53 you can have a HOB style filter rated at 350gph with
3x the mechanical filtration and a
minimum 2.5x the biological filtration of an Aquaclear 70. It will have great mechanical filtration and excellent biological filtration. Plus with HOB style filters, you can check, clean and move around the media a lot easier than a canister.
When the cichlids grow larger, get a 2nd hot rod Penguin 350 set up.
Or set up one Penguin 350 now, and wait until Black Friday and find a deal for a canister filter. Petsmart routinely offers 50% off their canister filters during this time. They usually will have their
Marinland Magniflow canisters for 50% off, and/or their
Fluval x06 series and
FX4/6 series
canisters for 50% off.
Retailers online will probably run Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales on canisters also.
Let us know how it goes piecing everything together!
