I currently run a turtle/tortoise rescue. In the last couple of months we've gotten a large number of requests about taking in fish. With the nagging and pestering from my two small children, I decided to start accepting uh. "Monster" Cichlids. Well koi too, but they're pretty easy. 
For the record I've never thought them to be all that large, but I already keep some 2 foot koi and a few large (8 to 10") Jack Dempseys already (in separate tanks), and hopefully soon some flowerhorns.
Anyway. I've spent a few hours poking around on online, and I was trying to find a book that would allow me to id cichlids. Bonus extra cool points if the book would also list which varieties of cichlid that usually managed to get along together.
It's very cool of you guys to offer to do ids on random fish, but it's just not practical if I'm out somewhere.
So anyway. I have a number of livestock tubs (different sizes from 100g to 300g) that I used previously for turtles, that I was going to use for the fish. I have two donor Rena xp3s to be set up on the quarantine buckets. The rest I want to all set up on the same filtration system since each livestock tub already has setups for pluming. I need to look into how exactly to do that. I have some ideas, but no need to go reinvent the wheel on that.
I'm also not sure what would be the best method to heat all the tanks. The two quarantine tanks would just get a submersible but, not sure what would make the most sense with the other system.
This would all be based on donations/stuff we have laying around as well, so while I'd love to just throw down the cash on a fancy pool heater I need to try and come up with something that won't blow our budget.
Any other thoughts? Anything I'm forgetting?
For the record I've never thought them to be all that large, but I already keep some 2 foot koi and a few large (8 to 10") Jack Dempseys already (in separate tanks), and hopefully soon some flowerhorns.
Anyway. I've spent a few hours poking around on online, and I was trying to find a book that would allow me to id cichlids. Bonus extra cool points if the book would also list which varieties of cichlid that usually managed to get along together.
It's very cool of you guys to offer to do ids on random fish, but it's just not practical if I'm out somewhere.
So anyway. I have a number of livestock tubs (different sizes from 100g to 300g) that I used previously for turtles, that I was going to use for the fish. I have two donor Rena xp3s to be set up on the quarantine buckets. The rest I want to all set up on the same filtration system since each livestock tub already has setups for pluming. I need to look into how exactly to do that. I have some ideas, but no need to go reinvent the wheel on that.
I'm also not sure what would be the best method to heat all the tanks. The two quarantine tanks would just get a submersible but, not sure what would make the most sense with the other system.
This would all be based on donations/stuff we have laying around as well, so while I'd love to just throw down the cash on a fancy pool heater I need to try and come up with something that won't blow our budget.
Any other thoughts? Anything I'm forgetting?
