Ph 8.2 - 135 gallon, what to stock?

From everything I've read, I think an eel would work. But it may eat the Rainbowfish... But what else do they eat, I've read earthworms, blood worms, raw cut up shrimp, and brine shrimp. And him and the geos would be the only fish on the bottom. Although all of the fish I have in the tank like to hang around the bottom and look for food. And I plan on doing something strange with my tank. I'm planning half, deep sand and carbisea floramax, and heavily planting on that side, and then have it gradually go to pebbles, then rocks, then like a platform of flat rock/slate, and then big rocks surrounding that. And maybe plant some scraggly looking plants on there. But all of the rock work will be on top of sand so an eel should be able to still dig around in the pebbley area.

 

One of the people I know who kept an eel said it was hard to feed, I don't really know much about them, sorry.

 

One of the people I know who kept an eel said it was hard to feed, I don't really know much about them, sorry.

Oh, well that's a bummer... But I kinda wanna try lol. If I do get one, I would start it off in my 10 gallon (quarantine) and try and see if I could get him to eat small earth worms and maybe some raw shrimp cut really small. But would I be able to do an eel instead of a firemouth? I've been, and will keep doing research on their care and diet. Most people seem to recommend to bury their food around lights out, and that usually helps them find their food because they'll dip their pointed "nose" into the substrate looking for food. The minimum tank size I found from a couple different sources is a 35-40 gallon. And what's a good place to buy live or frozen bloodworms? I can only find freeze dried.

I found some bloodworm cubes, and my worm trap didn't work lol. Do you think nightcrawlers from like a bait shop or something would be ok? In one of Taylor N. Dean's videos, she went and bought earthworms from petco, but I've never seen any at my local petco or petsmart.

 

I probably wouldn't get them from a bait shop, no.

 

Ya, if no pet stores carry them, I’ll order some from like a composting website or something. I’ll call my lfs tomorrow to see if they carry any.

 

I'm not saying I will ever do this, but the ph for my tap water is 8.2. In my 135 I have angelfish, red hump geos, an eba, and some bronze Cories. If I wanted to with my high ph could I mix African cichlids in with the current stock? Just like a single peacock or something.

 

Cichlids are species tanks.

 

Africans are not community fish. You could do non-Rift lake cichlids like jewels or kribs but I’d not keep any mouth brooders with American cichlids. It make work for a while but as soon as the peacock starts hitting breeding age things will go south.

You do have a bigger tank which may make it work for a while, but I worked in a nasty pet store that had a 300ish gallon tank with frontosa, peacocks, a couple mbuna, 2 jack dempsy, a red devil, synodontis cats, blue dolphins and a few other things. It was a sorry looking tank. The red devil harassed the bigger male frontosa. One male peacock was a thin, sickly looking skeleton. Both jack dempsys where also sorry looking as were the dolphins. I’d chalk it up to poor water quality but I’ve seen the fish fighting and being bullied.

 

It's probably not a good idea. Aulonocara Peacocks have a reputation as being non-aggressive to semi-aggressive, but that's being compared to Mbuna & Haps. When male Aulonocaras reach early adulthood, about 3 - 4 inches they colorup, become territorial & aggressive towards weaker tankmates. A mature male Peacock would likely pick apart most of your current stock. Some keepers mix Africans & New Worlds with limited success but failures are probably more prevalent.

 

Thank you all for the replies! I don't think I actually would do it, but I don't think I would even have room for a Jewel or any thing else for that matter. The tanks current stocking is 6 Red hump geos, 6 Angelfish, 1 EBA, and 7 Bronze cories. And I didn't mean just peacocks, I meant like the general higher ph cichlids.

 

Wait... I'm being kind of a hypocrite by saying this, but... Could I? Fit a jewel cichlid in, I mean. I really don't think I can but I'm just curious. And I have 5 Angelfish not 6, I mistyped.

And I also want to move 2 of my male red hump geos into my 50 gallon so I can even the number of males in the 135. And from what I've read 4 males is too many for the tank considering the amount of females. But I have room in my 50 gallon for the 2 I'm moving. Or I might just move my biggest male in there and leave the other three because they're all pretty docile towards eachother.

 

Who can advise you when we don't know what you are aiming for? When will you be satisfied with your setup?

 

Jewell Cichlids can be very aggressive and have the potential to reek havoc in your community tank.
It seems that every four or five years I do a major re-do on my show tank. A couple of years ago I switched my aggressive New World cichlid community to an African Rift community. I do miss the Red & Green Terrors, Salvinis & Firemouths, but things just became boring and I wanted a new challange.
The change up gave me re-newed enthusiasm for the hobby.
Maybe that's what you're looking for. A 135 Gal. Is a great size for an African Peacock / Hap tank. Good luck.