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Another first African tank (+pics)

tinytawnykitten
in Cichlids

Featured Replies

After all my stressing and boundless posts (sorry Ryan :oops: ), I finally have an african tank set up, I think. The substrate is silica sand, and I have a rocky background which is a mixture of limestone, river rocks, schist and some coral. I need some tips about building a good rock 'wall' though because it only goes about 15cm up the back of the tank and I haven't built it any further due to worrying about rocks falling on fish.

As for the fish, I have 5 electric yellows. Then I was going to get demasoni as per a few suggestions but Glenn suggested an alternative of some melanochromis johannii, so I have a pair of them and 3 of their offspring. And then rather than sticking to one variety of peacock he suggested males only (G - please tell me if I have this wrong) and I have 2 otopharynx lithobates ( I know they're not peacocks but was told they are as close to Peacocks as you can get without them being Peacocks) and 1 aulonocara baenschi so far.

They are all out and about, eating well and looking lovely. I actually thought they would be hiding for days but perhaps they don't like my caves.

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    Nice fish.

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    Good stuff tinytawnykitten!!

    Interesting choice of fish.. looking forward to seeing how the tank develops!!

    Can you show us a full tank shot?

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    • Author
    Nice :D Now just wait for the boom of color and Wow one fantastic African tank :bounce:

    Neat pic's nice and clear ! :wink:

    Oh, wow, great, to be honest, having no experience with cichlids and very little knowledge :o , I was expecting some you shouldn't have put xxx with xxxs and some great now but in a few weeks xxx will eat xxxs or some nice if you want dead fishs or something. Thanks! :):)

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    Oh, wow, great, to be honest, having no experience with cichlids and very little knowledge :o , I was expecting some you shouldn't have put xxx with xxxs and some great now but in a few weeks xxx will eat xxxs or some nice if you want dead fishs or something. Thanks! :):)

    Do a lot of reading and don't be shy to ask questions :wink:

    We all started out once not knowing too much and that only way is to learn ! :bounce:

    Good Luck and congrats on your new African tank!

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    lol as long as your happy with the result its all good :)

    You may run into problems with stocking as you start putting more males in but that depends on the fish and the lack of females means they should be ok, hopefully the dominant one doesn't just smash everything else.. Thats the reason I recommended a trio of one type I have had huge issues keeping more than 1 peacock male in a 4ft tank even in my 540L tank only 2 will colour up and come out from behind the rocks.. Also watch the johannii they can get quite big have a nasty rep and can throw their weight around mine certainly dominate much bigger fish in my tank but your tank is 200L so should be big enough to get away with it, just keep an eye on it.

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    maybe you could silicone a few lumos together i.e. 4 or 5 different rock groupings that you can stack around in different ways. That way you won't have the same layout forever like if you glued all the rocks together.

    Hope that makes sense :oops:

    George

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    Nice tank. Enjoy . I use coral and pumice to get taller stacks ,that way when (if) they fall at least they fall relatively slowly. Also if you don't mind artificial things in there Fishzone , Mt. Wellington in Auck. have some cool resin rocks

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    the melos were bought as ''blue melanochromis'',they arn't johanni they don't get as big as the johanni and the female keeps the colours.

    good breeders too cleaned out the red shoulder tank and more babies,want any more,lol

    the baenschi looks to have settled in well

    tank looks good to keep us updated on progress :D

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    • Author

    Hi there, well this is the Blue Melanochromis I got from 'peanuts'. I am wondering then after a quick internet search, are they Maingano, Melanochromis cyaneorhabdos? And here's a full tank shot I just took but it is dark and night time ish. It's not great, definitely a work in progress. I need more rocks which I am getting this week. And the dark area on the right hand side is a piece of driftwood I've had for ages. The pink and orange bits are flakes I just fed them.

    315895028.jpg

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    yup bang on,well thats the conclusion i reached watched these fish grow but as i had not seen or kept was unsure,was only when the female held that i bought them

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    Yeah who knows what those fish are I stayed away from them all the melo's can cross breed so easily and if they weren't imported with a descent name they're probably hybrids. From what ive read (and seen) they can be fairly nasty someone I knew brought like 6 of them and ended up with 1 but glenn has had these ones for a while and bred them so maybe they're laid back? If they were nasty then you would have noticed something by now :)

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    • 3 weeks later...
    • Author
    Thats the thing

    they just get better and better.

    Good luck and keep it up...MTS here we come...lol

    Navarre

    Hmm MTS just can't happen in my house, :( it is only 100sqm, and we don't have a garage.

    I think my husband is rather relieved at this fact!! :lol:

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