Finally the time has come for me to make the change from S.American fish to Africans (again :roll:)
I used to have rams, apistos, clown loaches (still do), a convict, and heaps of other S.American cichlids, and most of them have gone now. All that and a cazillion plants. The plants have sold, been donated, given away to those who helped me get plants that i needed in the past etc... and are some are even in friends tanks cause I just can't get rid of all my plants.
The new tank shall have only demasonis (about 25) and electric yellows, and a feather fin syno who is awesome and has asked to stay cause he promises not to eat any other fish after he ate 100+ steel blue babies :lol: .
The Tank measures 4ft long x 15" deep and about 1.5ft high. It has T5 HO lighting @ 18000K, and now also has a marine blue, and a 6500K T8.
Here are pics of the tank in one of its many phases before the conversion:
______________
The process to change over has not been one I took lightly. I thought about it for months, deliberated and fought with my self and finally convinced my self that it made more sense :oops: :lol:
I first sold as many fish as I could (and wanted to), and sold more than 10-12 kilos of sagittaria subulata!
Then once there was just the heap (30kg) of gravel left - I gravel vacuumed it for the first time in over a year, and then proceeded to take out the driftwood (6 pieces), the remaining plants and then the gravel - which was a bit of a mission, as i had to use fish nets .
Then once all the hiding spots were gone, i had my poly box full of tank water, and i caught my fish and chucked them in that.
Drained the water from the tank, cleaned it, Refilled it; took the 2 cannister filters out, cleaned them (remember not to clean the media) and then put them back on the tank.
I had collected some schist from an awesome landscaping place in palmy The 5 huge pieces of schist were sold at $128/m^2 - it worked out to $56 - but the kind lady gave it to me for $40. Then the little pieces used as the rockwork cost $0.80/kg. The first batch I got was about 12 kg but again the nice lady happily charged me only $9.80.
Total spend that shop was $49.80 - bargain.
Then of course I needed more rock, so i went back and got 22kg more - in the cold, wet, rain, and with an unobliging bird on my shoulder! He charged me $20 for the lot. great deal again.
TOTAL Spend $69.80 on rockwork (south island schist).
Now the landscaping is complete! I am just looking forward to getting the fish. The plan is for ~25 Demasonis (I even bought some more spirulina flakes) and maybe a dozen or more electric yellows. I am shopping around for prices, but one place looks promising.
Pics after the conversion follow soon once I have something to eat. :bounce:
If there is something I may have missed out on please let me know and I can type it up.