Sa/Ca stock for the 300

[pengu13]

nice tank by the way but i would deffenatly catch a dempsey as if they breed it will be chaos trust me

that is one of my concerns

SWEET TANK! That looks really cool! Now I am assuming those plants are real in there correct? What kind of plants are they? do they seem to hold up well with the big fish? do the fish leave them alone? I would like to try real plants and have very similar stocklist of fish so I wanted to check.

right now i just have anubias nana, anubias barteri, lace jave fern. they leave the jave fern i have tied and stuck to the drift wood alone and the only one that picks at the anubias is the green severum and thats just the new leafs. when i first got my cyano it went into a small semi planted 20 for isolation and it uprooted everything. the large anubias i have in pots with large rocks to hold down the roots and the smaller ones i jammed in the rocks.

One more question... Did you build the tank yourself? Is it a plywood build project?

ya i built it myself learned a lot from my mistakes. its not finished i still need to finish some siding and the trim.
heres a link to the build http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=348524

 

[Batboi3000]

Cool build. I would really like to do something like this sometime. I have had an interest in carpentry for a little while and I would really like to get a tank around 200 gallons. I have about a 10 foot gap in a wall of my house that it could sit into beautifully. Something like 9' x 2' x 2'. It seems like building your own plywood tank is more economically friendly than buying a glass or acrylic that big. And it is a good learning project too!

 

[Sarah88]

the cyano is definitely male IMO, the carpintis may be female another pic of it more straight from the side without an angle might help to see the body shape better or without breeding colors so you can see whether it has black in its dorsal or not, as for the midevil it definitely looks male to me as well (and rather SWEET looking at that! nice job raising him) its definitely a mix as the chainstore ones are and i actually think it shows more midas characteristics than labiatus. nice BGK by the way, a breeding pair of jewels i used to have tore mine up and i've been contemplating getting another one ever since but i think i would have to get rid of my sailfin if i did that... GREAT set-up by the way, cant wait to see it all set-up with all your driftwood and everything

oh and for the pictus i would add in more of them so they can have a proper school and stay together, my cichlids have pretty much ignored my pictus for the most part except for a few mean cichlids that have picked on new really small ones i tried to add and if you only add a couple the other pictus may not like them but as long as you add a good number they should all get along well especially in that size tank and once they get some size on them should be left alone by the cichlids

 

[Sarah88]

the cyano is definitely male IMO, the carpintis may be female another pic of it more straight from the side without an angle might help to see the body shape better or without breeding colors so you can see whether it has black in its dorsal or not, as for the midevil it definitely looks male to me as well (and rather SWEET looking at that! nice job raising him) its definitely a mix as the chainstore ones are and i actually think it shows more midas characteristics than labiatus. nice BGK by the way, a breeding pair of jewels i used to have tore mine up and i've been contemplating getting another one ever since but i think i would have to get rid of my sailfin if i did that... GREAT set-up by the way, cant wait to see it all set-up with all your driftwood and everything

oh and for the pictus i would add in more of them so they can have a proper school and stay together, my cichlids have pretty much ignored my pictus for the most part except for a few mean cichlids that have picked on new really small ones i tried to add and if you only add a couple the other pictus may not like them but as long as you add a good number they should all get along well especially in that size tank and once they get some size on them should be left alone by the cichlids

oh and the severum is female lol

 

[pengu13]

Cool build. I would really like to do something like this sometime. I have had an interest in carpentry for a little while and I would really like to get a tank around 200 gallons. I have about a 10 foot gap in a wall of my house that it could sit into beautifully. Something like 9' x 2' x 2'. It seems like building your own plywood tank is more economically friendly than buying a glass or acrylic that big. And it is a good learning project too!

It was a fun project but if all your trying for is a 200 or a 250 (8x2x2) its not really coast effective. if you had the glass maybe but you would probably spend more then 500$ on materials and have just a tank and stand and thats the cheep part. i have seen new 250 for sale for 750-1000 with metal stand and glass lid up here in Canada.

the cyano is definitely male IMO, the carpintis may be female another pic of it more straight from the side without an angle might help to see the body shape better or without breeding colors so you can see whether it has black in its dorsal or not, as for the midevil it definitely looks male to me as well (and rather SWEET looking at that! nice job raising him) its definitely a mix as the chainstore ones are and i actually think it shows more midas characteristics than labiatus. nice BGK by the way, a breeding pair of jewels i used to have tore mine up and i've been contemplating getting another one ever since but i think i would have to get rid of my sailfin if i did that... GREAT set-up by the way, cant wait to see it all set-up with all your driftwood and everything

oh and for the pictus i would add in more of them so they can have a proper school and stay together, my cichlids have pretty much ignored my pictus for the most part except for a few mean cichlids that have picked on new really small ones i tried to add and if you only add a couple the other pictus may not like them but as long as you add a good number they should all get along well especially in that size tank and once they get some size on them should be left alone by the cichlids

Thanks for the compliments, should have the drift wood ready in a week or so its hard to clean bigger pieces.
i think i'm done with the pictus for now, having little cats i can see y people get hooked on them. i may try a larger cat fish something that gets around 12" maybe someday

oh and the severum is female lol

thanks that was my guess because it didn't have the worming on its face

 

[Batboi3000]

Thanks for the advice! I would rather just have an all glass tank anyway but if the cost is going to be the same, I would rather save the head aches and just buy one if I ever have the monies.