I've been in the hobby since I was a kid, and more seriously over the past 15 or so years, but focused mainly on the South American cichlid side of things, with a brief 3-4 year foray into reefing. I've kept quite a variety of SA cichlids including discus, all 3 species of angels, apistogramma, pike cichlids and eartheaters. I moved to a new place 2 years back at the peak of the pandemic and set up a nice 7' x 3' x 4' 600 gallon tank with a 6' remote sump and 5% daily auto water changes. It most recently housed altum angels, uaru fernandezyepezi, crenicichla multispinosa, geophagus sveni and some Pseudacanthicus plecos. Unfortunately the spikes on the pseuda plecos proved too deadly for my Aquadecor 3d background and they ripped holes into the background that caused my tank to be filled with tiny foam balls. I had to tear down the tank to replace the 3d background and so decided to go with a new challenge. I have never kept African cichlids in my life, so I decided to give it a shot (the other option was a massive goldfish tank which is what my wife wanted, but I let her have one of the 3' tanks on the rack in my fish room for her goldfish instead).
The big challenge is that my tank automation was designed around keeping blackwater fish that liked low pH, low tds water, and since my tap water was also very soft, I needed to modify the system to keep the water parameters suitable for Lake Tanganyika cichlids. After much research, I have added a dosing system that works in tandem with my auto water changes to dose back kh and gh into the water to keep parameters stable. I will also be doing monthly 50% water changes to reset parameters and keep nitrates low.
Being 100% new to this aspect of the hobby, I started off pretty lost but thanks to lots of helpful advice from experts on another forum, I managed to come up with a stocking list that seems that it would work out and will feature this tank around featherfins - or more specifically Cyathopharynx furcifer Resha. This is the current stocking of the tank:
Here's a picture of the tank with about half the stock newly introduced:
The tank has been running with fish for about a month already and so far things are going well! There have been 0 deaths so far and some of the fish are starting to colour up pretty well!
The big challenge is that my tank automation was designed around keeping blackwater fish that liked low pH, low tds water, and since my tap water was also very soft, I needed to modify the system to keep the water parameters suitable for Lake Tanganyika cichlids. After much research, I have added a dosing system that works in tandem with my auto water changes to dose back kh and gh into the water to keep parameters stable. I will also be doing monthly 50% water changes to reset parameters and keep nitrates low.
Being 100% new to this aspect of the hobby, I started off pretty lost but thanks to lots of helpful advice from experts on another forum, I managed to come up with a stocking list that seems that it would work out and will feature this tank around featherfins - or more specifically Cyathopharynx furcifer Resha. This is the current stocking of the tank:
- Cyathopharynx furcifer Resha x9 (3m6f)
- Enantopius melanogenys Kilesa x15 (5m10f)
- Altolamprologus compressiceps Mandarin x8
- Xenotilapia nigrolabiata Red Princess x5 (2m3f)
- Paracyprichromis nigripinnis Blue Neon x8
- Cyprichromis leptosoma jumbo tricolor Mpimbwe x24
- Cyprichromis microlepidotus Bulu Point x24
Here's a picture of the tank with about half the stock newly introduced:
The tank has been running with fish for about a month already and so far things are going well! There have been 0 deaths so far and some of the fish are starting to colour up pretty well!
