Hello again MFK,
I thought I had this figured out about 18 months ago and was well underway to having some awesome fish in my 265 gallon. (36h x 24w x 72l) I had started with 6 festae (true red terror) in a grow out tank and traded 3 of them away once 2 had paired off.
Sadly one had died shortly after purchase while they were all still in quarantine. Fast forward and I had the 2 paired festae transferred to my 265 with a couple plecos who I would remove if necessary.
Everything was going pretty well, growth was good and other than some typical cichlid jostling everyone was getting along. Well I left a couple months ago to go on vacation after school school had gotten out, all said we were gone about 3 1/2 days and had arranged for my brother to stop in and feed all my tanks and other animals.
I get home and there is a large clutch of eggs from the festae, one of the plecos has been killed and to make matters worse mom had been seriously injured by I assume the male festae who was diligently guarding the eggs.
I took the female out of the tank and isolated her in a 28 gallon I had and tried treating her but she unfortunately succumbed after a couple days and died.
At this point I had the male festae and probably close to 100 babies in my 265 and had to decide what I was going to do. He seemed to be an attentive parent and wasn’t presently a danger to the babies so I left them all together for about a month until the babies had grown enough they were easier to move and I moved the survivors (around 65) to a 40 gallon breeder tank.
So finally I was at a crossroads and decided it was time to part with my festae. I traded the male for a geophagus to someone off Craigslist and arranged to give the babies to a LFS for a small amount of store credit once they were 1-2” long.
This leads me to present day where I need to figure out what to do with my tank. I currently have 6 angels I put in there while I decide what to do with it just so it’s not empty lol.
This is where y’all wonderful people come in, if you had a 265 gallon tank what would you put in it?
I’ve considered an arrowana but know they do better in an 8’ long tank; I’ve also considered the following:
Fahaka puffer with large school of neons
Black ghost knife with ???
African cichlids
Clown loaches + angels + ??
Let me know if y’all think any of these will work well with this tank or if you have any different suggestions.
Thanks for reading and I apologize for the novella
I thought I had this figured out about 18 months ago and was well underway to having some awesome fish in my 265 gallon. (36h x 24w x 72l) I had started with 6 festae (true red terror) in a grow out tank and traded 3 of them away once 2 had paired off.
Sadly one had died shortly after purchase while they were all still in quarantine. Fast forward and I had the 2 paired festae transferred to my 265 with a couple plecos who I would remove if necessary.
Everything was going pretty well, growth was good and other than some typical cichlid jostling everyone was getting along. Well I left a couple months ago to go on vacation after school school had gotten out, all said we were gone about 3 1/2 days and had arranged for my brother to stop in and feed all my tanks and other animals.
I get home and there is a large clutch of eggs from the festae, one of the plecos has been killed and to make matters worse mom had been seriously injured by I assume the male festae who was diligently guarding the eggs.
I took the female out of the tank and isolated her in a 28 gallon I had and tried treating her but she unfortunately succumbed after a couple days and died.
At this point I had the male festae and probably close to 100 babies in my 265 and had to decide what I was going to do. He seemed to be an attentive parent and wasn’t presently a danger to the babies so I left them all together for about a month until the babies had grown enough they were easier to move and I moved the survivors (around 65) to a 40 gallon breeder tank.
So finally I was at a crossroads and decided it was time to part with my festae. I traded the male for a geophagus to someone off Craigslist and arranged to give the babies to a LFS for a small amount of store credit once they were 1-2” long.
This leads me to present day where I need to figure out what to do with my tank. I currently have 6 angels I put in there while I decide what to do with it just so it’s not empty lol.
This is where y’all wonderful people come in, if you had a 265 gallon tank what would you put in it?
I’ve considered an arrowana but know they do better in an 8’ long tank; I’ve also considered the following:
Fahaka puffer with large school of neons
Black ghost knife with ???
African cichlids
Clown loaches + angels + ??
Let me know if y’all think any of these will work well with this tank or if you have any different suggestions.
Thanks for reading and I apologize for the novella
