Made a start on scaping my first ever cichlid tank. The star of the show will be a group of meeki with wild type swordtails as a dither.
The tank is a jewel Rio 240, 120w*40d*55h CM, 63US gal. The substrate is 20kg unipac silica sand mixed with 4kg black Limpopo sand 1.5-2"depth, the rock/pebbles were accuired from my garden, the wood is a mix of oak and unknown collected from my local wood, lighting will be 2x asta f20s (on separate timers), filtration 1x fluval 407 loaded with lava rock and 1x tetratec 800+ loaded with lava rock using a sun sun 602 prefilter for mechanical and both filters will have stainless steel inlets/outlets.
I'll be tweaking it a bit yet whilst it's cycling and I still need to add in some detailing gravel and perhaps some smaller twiggy branches coming down from the brace but so far I'm pleased with how it's starting out. Once it's filled and cycled I'll be adding leaf litter and other botanicals to make it more biotope correct.
I'm open to any criticism or advice so let me know what you guys think and if anyone is interested I'll keep this thread going with updates as the tank progresses
The tank is a jewel Rio 240, 120w*40d*55h CM, 63US gal. The substrate is 20kg unipac silica sand mixed with 4kg black Limpopo sand 1.5-2"depth, the rock/pebbles were accuired from my garden, the wood is a mix of oak and unknown collected from my local wood, lighting will be 2x asta f20s (on separate timers), filtration 1x fluval 407 loaded with lava rock and 1x tetratec 800+ loaded with lava rock using a sun sun 602 prefilter for mechanical and both filters will have stainless steel inlets/outlets.
I'll be tweaking it a bit yet whilst it's cycling and I still need to add in some detailing gravel and perhaps some smaller twiggy branches coming down from the brace but so far I'm pleased with how it's starting out. Once it's filled and cycled I'll be adding leaf litter and other botanicals to make it more biotope correct.
I'm open to any criticism or advice so let me know what you guys think and if anyone is interested I'll keep this thread going with updates as the tank progresses
