My f1 Midas cichlid is like a loved dog. I've had him for 6 months now and he's tripled his size. This was the first fish that I raised this well , 70% water waterchanges twice a week all june and july and feeding him as much as he would eat everyday. The past summer the tank averaged 87 degree weather whIle in a 55 gallon aquarium.
In August I moved him along with a half inched female umbee, female convict, two firemouths and a small f2 managuense. I continued waterchanges now 50% instead of 70 and only once a week. The temperature in my 125 has constantly been 80 degrees except for 3 weeks in September when my eheim Yager 250 broke and was replaced (slowly) by eheim. I had just got a new job at a fish store at the end of October and was broke for 3 weeks so my tank had to eat bio gold and sinking carnivore pellets instead of bio gold+ for the first time. During black friday sales I bought 2.2 lbs of it online and have been feeding large amounts of it along with dubia roaches,mainly eaten by my jaguar cichlid.
In the past monthh my midas cichlid,mainly by mass, is starting to dwarf himself. It seems like the his nunchal hump and mass have returned to where it has been to before, but now on a much larger fish then during the times of twice-weekly 70% water changes in June/July. A side effect of the less volume of water changed in a week was higher nitrates. I didn't change the water for almost 2 weeks in November due to laziness, and a broken sump pump in my basement and the levels had reached about 70. I did a 60% water change and over the next week I stuffed 3 hob filters full of Golden pothos, peace lily, philodendron and lucky bamboo. Over the next month the plants doubled in size and nitrates are down to >5. I can't wait to get a good picture of my midas tomorrow as the cleaner water and increased eating have done him amazingly.
The past week on my random days off I changed the white filter pads, that I had been cleaning around every 1.5 months in my aquatop cf500uv, and stuffed the second tray with polyfill and along with the blue filter pad on the first. I got in the mail today a 250 gram bottle of seachem safe I picked up off Amazon, that I'm going to start using to make sure I'm getting the most out of my benificial bacteria. My fish have changed slightly as the fish I was sold as an Amphilophus Festae was a female umbee, that I didnt want as a showpiece in my tank and didn't want the bio load from. One of my firemouths, that I love and that had been with the midas for 5 months, died after I placed him in my pet female spotted softshell turtle, who lives in a 40 gallon breeder with 5 goldfish and eats pellets from my hand, cornered him while I wasn't home. I had removed the more dominant of the two firemouths, after they started fighting again over territory. Losing one fish and removing one due to not being properly labeled really sucks, but all these factors have made my midas grow as fast as he did in my heavily filtered 55 as a juvenile during the hot summer months.
In August I moved him along with a half inched female umbee, female convict, two firemouths and a small f2 managuense. I continued waterchanges now 50% instead of 70 and only once a week. The temperature in my 125 has constantly been 80 degrees except for 3 weeks in September when my eheim Yager 250 broke and was replaced (slowly) by eheim. I had just got a new job at a fish store at the end of October and was broke for 3 weeks so my tank had to eat bio gold and sinking carnivore pellets instead of bio gold+ for the first time. During black friday sales I bought 2.2 lbs of it online and have been feeding large amounts of it along with dubia roaches,mainly eaten by my jaguar cichlid.
In the past monthh my midas cichlid,mainly by mass, is starting to dwarf himself. It seems like the his nunchal hump and mass have returned to where it has been to before, but now on a much larger fish then during the times of twice-weekly 70% water changes in June/July. A side effect of the less volume of water changed in a week was higher nitrates. I didn't change the water for almost 2 weeks in November due to laziness, and a broken sump pump in my basement and the levels had reached about 70. I did a 60% water change and over the next week I stuffed 3 hob filters full of Golden pothos, peace lily, philodendron and lucky bamboo. Over the next month the plants doubled in size and nitrates are down to >5. I can't wait to get a good picture of my midas tomorrow as the cleaner water and increased eating have done him amazingly.
The past week on my random days off I changed the white filter pads, that I had been cleaning around every 1.5 months in my aquatop cf500uv, and stuffed the second tray with polyfill and along with the blue filter pad on the first. I got in the mail today a 250 gram bottle of seachem safe I picked up off Amazon, that I'm going to start using to make sure I'm getting the most out of my benificial bacteria. My fish have changed slightly as the fish I was sold as an Amphilophus Festae was a female umbee, that I didnt want as a showpiece in my tank and didn't want the bio load from. One of my firemouths, that I love and that had been with the midas for 5 months, died after I placed him in my pet female spotted softshell turtle, who lives in a 40 gallon breeder with 5 goldfish and eats pellets from my hand, cornered him while I wasn't home. I had removed the more dominant of the two firemouths, after they started fighting again over territory. Losing one fish and removing one due to not being properly labeled really sucks, but all these factors have made my midas grow as fast as he did in my heavily filtered 55 as a juvenile during the hot summer months.
