Here is my fish and tank setup. Need advice for a newbie.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Hard to tell from the pics, but I think the yellow cichlid is an african bumble bee cichlid. It's hard to see his pattern, but he looks like he has brown stripes. I agree with the comments above that A) you need a bigger tank for the ray and B) there will be compatibility issues. I am no discus expert but I think they need different water conditions than the eels and the ray. I had teacup rays and have always had sand as the substrate, as they like to bury themselves in the sand. You need to check with a ray person though!
 
Honestly I think thats a Red Devil, not a Midas. Some might say there isnt much of a difference but I beg to differ. Red Devils are not nearly as mean and look a lot nicer too i think. Midas turn monstrous. He will do fine in anything above 100 gallons.
 
JIENKINZ;4133900; said:
Honestly I think thats a Red Devil, not a Midas. Some might say there isnt much of a difference but I beg to differ. Red Devils are not nearly as mean and look a lot nicer too i think. Midas turn monstrous. He will do fine in anything above 100 gallons.

Ha I havent kept either so it was an educated guess, to me Midas and red devils look fairly similar.
 
Me too! I am learning a lot!

I think I am going to go ahead and buy the 220 gallon tank. Should I do a sand substrate? Or stick with gravel?

Is there any + and - about going with sand?
 
Welcome to MFK!
The african looks like some kind oif peacock to me (sunshine maybe?).

The motoro will outgrow the 210.
Sand is awesome, other than getting in filters which a prefilter should solve.
 
Your "placaso" is probably a bristlenose pleco
I would recommend getting the 210, would give your fish more space..especially the motoro
 
There are a number of problems in the 75 and 55....first several of youe fish can outgrow your tanks(stingray for sure). Second, the invertebrates in both tanks coulb become meals for the fish. Third, it is too soon to stock the tanks with that many fish. Your filtration seems to be fine but the reason your fighting ammonia so bad is that there isn't enough nitrifying bacteria to handle the ammonia created by your livestock. It takes a good 4 to 6 weeks for a tank to cycle and even then I wouldn't put that many fish in there after a month and a half. The nitrates are the end result of the cycling and will eventually build up to high levels without regular water changes(at this stage weekly or biweekly 25 to30 percent changes). The biowheels and bioballs contribute heavily to nitrates. Also, the white rocks in one filter are biological media.

James
 
CyberPunk;4132444; said:
First I would like to say Hello to everyone!





1: Do I have to many filters? lol
You can never have too much filtration unless water current is way too much

2: What media would you recommend in them? Right now I have ammonia eating crystals, activated charcoal, BIO balls, sponge and 2 fine filters in each (And also some pores looking rock things that came with it that I have no idea what they are).
I would remove the ammonia eating crystals since they don't let the beneficial bacteria in your tank do its job,take the crystals little by little so that you don't have a mini cycle

3: My tanks are new, going on 3 weeks now, and I have been battling ammonia hard core, its been going into the danger zone ever once in a while. I was using tap water for water changes and my tap water had a PH of of around 9, this is why I got the RO system. I did a water change on bolth tanks with the new RO water and the ammonia has lowerd to just below the stress level but now I have nitrates on the rise. Are these nitrates just my tank cycling itself? Should I do anything?
Water changes every week for nitrates, i recommend around 30%

4: Do I have to many fish for my aquarium size? All my fish are small right now but I know they will get bigger in the coming years. What size tan k or tanks should i plan on getting? Also, is my 10 gallon going to be enough to keep my feeder ghost shrimp alive for long? With all those fish you are looking at around a 300 gallon or many tanks

5: I am using about 3 to 4 inches of rock on the bottom of my tank. I would like to make part of my tank sand to make the stingray happy. Can this be done? I heard it can be hard on the ray to be on rock, that and they like to bury themselves. I recommend you change the whole thing to pool filter sand which can be found at a pool store for $10 for 50 pounds


I was feeding all my fish frozen blood worms and frozen brine shrimp. I belie this is what might have helped with the ammonia spikes as in the rocks when I vacuumed I found a ton of dead rotting little worms. I am now going to only feed my fish live foods like blackworms, ghost shrimp, ground worms, guppies, tetras and a little flakes. Is this a smart move?When feeding your fish food you have to try not to overfeed which was probably why you found so much crap in the rocks, you have to feed and remove anything left after the fish are done

Again, I am sorry for the long post! I thank you in advance and so do my pets!

NP
:)
:D
 
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