A Humble First Timer's Eartheaters tank

[abhishek]

Dear folks,it has been a while since I have ripped off my planted tank and have set for to fulfill my wish liost of cichlids.With utmost and unquestionable helps from MFK members l have decided to set up a humble,simple beginning to the endless journey into the SA cichlids' world.Previously decided to go for a pure Uruguay cool water tank.But have ended up in having inhabitants from the Rio Tapajos biotope,the lemon tetras .They are just dithers for my dream eartheaters,Gymnogeophagus Balzanii.The tank is a 38 inchx19 inchx19 inch tank (roughly 54 gals) with normal river sand as substrate , some cheap driftwoods and stones collected.Have used only 40% of RO water and now has only the lemon tetras in it.Tomorrow I'm going to get my dream Balzaniis.So excited that today can't even sleep well.Long wait is going to end for my Balzaniis.Please do wish me luck for my first Eartheaters setup.Here's a few pics of the setup.Hope you'll like my humble beginning.I know that Buenos Aires tetra would have been from the same biotope.But the lemon tetras were too alluring for me.

 

[HiImSean]

looks good! i love my gymnos and wish i had set up my 125g ast a gymno tank, it would be so cool

 

[FSM]

It looks good, but I think it would be better if you removed some of the smaller black rocks or grouped them closer to the base of the driftwood.

 

[robmcd]

Great start!! Good luck with them..

 

[ucng]

yup looks great but i agree with FSM try to not scatter the smaller rocks and clump them towards the tree if you want. If you like it your way that's fine. just my opinion great tank though

 

[abhishek]

Thanks a lot for all those encouraging words.Well as FSM and ucng have suggested,I have moved the smaller stones towards the tree.Will try to post the pics of my Balziniis as they settle down.As of now have got 2 males and 3 females.Can't wait to show them to you people.

 

[abhishek]

Will post the pics once they settle down.Meanwhile please help me with the food for them.As of now I have only tetrabits and freeze dried brine shrimps..What would be ideal diet for them?Please help me....

 

[abhishek]

As promised here's a few pics of the male..The females are too shy still for me to click with my crappy mobile camera.Poor guy am I ! No money left to buy a camera to capture the beauty of the balzaniis. Amazingly the male is a little too yellow with red just coming in the upper fins.He's just 1.5 inch and the females are less than an inch.They are fed Tetra bits,frozen bloodworms , frozen artemia, green peas and soon will get NLS.

I wonder if I can have any other dwarf cichlids out there with them or not.Please suggest.Badly want a pair of Laetacara or Bolivian rams.

Male : -

ENJOY.....