The water should get no warmer than about 86. There is also tons of aeration with the waterfalls. I will be monitoring it though. Also planted some water lillies to help with some shade.
cichlid pond build
- Thread starter Doctordetroit
- Start date
pro tip, do what i did with my cichlid pond and add about 6 convicts in right now. will help you out on the feeding bill and add some diversity, also throw in some daphnia and amphipods, they will show up naturally eventually but i like to speed the process up. most likely anything too big for the dovii to eat will be killed, and obviously anything small enough for them to eat will be killed also, but if you provide a few hides that the convicts can fit in that the dovii cant, they will breed.
and be prepared for faster growth rate then any aquarium owner can dream of, dont be surprised if they are all 20-24 inch in 3 years, and 26-28 by 5. oh, and ghost shrimp, they will help keep the water clean and feed the baby dovii/convicts, just throw a bunch of these in right now before theres too much in there for them to establish themselves. congrats on the pond and be prepared to have a lot of fun. having a pond for cichlids open up countless possibilities.
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btw, remember dovii are open water and very territorial. to cut down on aggresion toward eatchother when they get bigger try to make a few "walls" in there out of structure and plants, all 3 dovii should be able to be out of each others line of sight if they want to be
Awesome pond build and great ideas for stocking! Can't wait to see pics or vids of the fish feeding! Really beautiful build!
Quick update. The dominant pair are the only dovii left. Amazing that they can't live together even with that big of a footprint. The green terrors are in there and growing fast. They co-exist with the dovii fairly well. Also threw in a male flowerhorn of 3 inches. Seems that they are being neighborly for now. I am going to see if the male is tolerant of this crew before I add more.
