Dwarf Cichlid Community Tank 280 gallons

[HFRCampbell]

Okay i think this would be best posted here.
But im making a tank and its around 280 gallons. Heres the stock list for shure.
2 pairs of Bolivian Rams
1 pair of Blue Ram
1 Pair of Macmasters Dwarf Cichlid
1 Pair of Cockatoo Dwarf Cichild
1 pair of Agassiz Dwarf Cichlid
30 Bleeding heart tetras
10 Angel Fish
1 Male Blue Acara
Im thinking this for a centerpiece fish maby 2 or three green knifefish or 1 black ghos knife fish?

Would one of the two groups of knifefish work good or do they do better in a species only tankk.
Also whats a natural way to tint the water a brownish green color?

 

[dirtyblacksocks]

Best stuff for tinting the water is either filtering peat, collecting and boiling your own oak leaves, or buying ketapang almond leaves on aquabid (I do the latter).

I think the ghost knife might end up eating all your dwarfs once it reaches adult size.

 

[HFRCampbell]

okay what do you think about green knife fish? im planning on having the top of the tank pretty goodly covered w a few diffrent floating plants do you think they would be good

 

[dirtyblacksocks]

Don't know anything about them, sorry.

 

[voss345]

Best stuff for tinting the water is either filtering peat, collecting and boiling your own oak leaves, or buying ketapang almond leaves on aquabid (I do the latter).

I think the ghost knife might end up eating all your dwarfs once it reaches adult size.

the knife will demolish your stock

you could do a ton more fish in that tank man you could do that in a 100 gallon IMO
if your making the tank your self i would make a very long foot print and wide and mabye only 20" tall since all your fish are small

 

[HFRCampbell]

Ohh, yea actually i just read that a large groups of Bolivian Rams have interesting social groups so im thinking of doing 10 of them in the tank then 8 Macmaster Dwarves and drop the rest, probably get rid of the bleeding hearts and have 15 angels. How big of fish do the bgk eat?

 

[voss345]

i would leave a school of tetras for sure, maybe red eys and bleeding hearts, you will not be able to throw in rummynose cardinals or neons with the angels and especially not the BGK,
theres alot of apistos you can throw in
but if your just doing a big school of bolivian rams, i would do severums and festivums on the side and buenos aires tetras

 

[HFRCampbell]

Yea buenos aires tetras are pretty cool whats a good size school for this tank, i think im going for greenknife fish they are smalelr only growing to 14 inches and are native to the area.

 

[ewok]

i think the fact that the knifefish gets that big, and the fact that all those dwarf cichlids stay so small should indicate that they aren't meant to be mixed... even if the cichlids don't end up as food the tetras and dither fish will.
drop the knife if you are serious about this set up. it sounded really promising until this knifefish got thrown into the mix.

 

[voss345]

yea as i said before a couple times and everyone else has said,, the knifefish is not working in this stocklist, unless you want it to eat virtually your whole tank or at least the whole point of the tank the dwarf's