Overhauling 120 gallon Tanganyika tank, pic heavy

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severum mama

severum mama

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It's going to be a long process as I collect enough TX holey rock to replace the river rock, but first things first, our replacement for the 3' actinic light has arrived! This is a 60"x18" tank so it's going to be a big improvement for us, although the fish actually seem to like the actinic light. They will have to get over it. :p
uploadfromtaptalk1395167358696.jpg

More pics to come after I get the light set up...

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Unboxing. Looking forward to the different functions. uploadfromtaptalk1395168667290.jpg

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Well, in this hobby I suppose one should expect the unexpected. :p

As it turns out, we lost our biggest leleupi. As you can probably tell from the first pic, we had to pull all the rock out to get the fish out, as it was down in the sand behind a rock pile. Since we had to pull all the rock anyway, we just decided to go ahead and get all our TX holey rock together and put it into the tank. We also decided to sell our 3 remaining leleupi at auction, so we caught them out of the tank and moved them to the fishroom to wait for the end of the month. We added our 7 Synodontis petricola that we've been growing out for a few months. They're still pretty small but hopefully the other fish will just ignore them.

Current stocklist is 5 Neolamprologus cylindricus, 6 young Cyprichromis leptosoma "blue flash", and 7 small Synodontis petricola. I'm sure we'll find something to complete the list at the upcoming auction. :)

I've got some more pics in case anyone is interested in the process.

Here's the rock that came out of the tank. There is over 200 lbs. of just river rock on that towel, lol.
20140318_210754.jpg


Syno petricola x7
20140318_210745.jpg


Leleupi headed to the fishroom
20140318_210740.jpg


Getting rock back into the tank
20140318_210732.jpg


Rock is in, just refilling now
20140318_213934.jpg


*edit* if anyone has any suggestions for one more species of cichlid, I'd love to hear them. One more species will be the last addition we make.
 
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Those are fantastic, and if I ever see any I will be powerless to resist... but for now I'm not super interested in ordering anything, as there is a huge auction coming up at the end of the month. I've never seen those fish in person, but I've seen plenty of other rarities come through the club so I guess you never know.
 
LOL... $25 a pop for 1.5" juvies, so figure a minimum of $150 plus shipping. I mean, that's not terrible for something that rare, but it is quite an investment and would require a separate growout tank for a while. I think we have too many tanks for that kind of commitment right now. :p
 
Get some sand shifters and some cyprochromis

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N if you ever want to breed petricola I breed them n can give you some insite...and i breed kilesa also...

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I have 6 Cyprichromis leptosoma blue flash juvies in the tank now. I'd love to breed the petricola but I have a long way to go until mine are sexually mature, lol.

By sand sifters, you're referring to fish like Eretmodus spp?
 
No more towards xeno and enantipous

Like kilesa n I got 18 cyprichromis kigoma growing out now

I breed tangs only so if b u have ? Feel free to ask

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I googled Enantiopus kilesa. That is a really stunning fish. *edit* just figured out that this was the same fish that Andrew McFadden linked earlier. I've been sick this week so that is my excuse. :/

I'm relatively new to Tanganyikans (a few years experience I guess), but our tap water is terrible for them so we need to buffer to be able to keep most of them alive in the long term. I have a lot more experience with South American fish, lol.

Tank is a lot less cloudy tonight, so here's a pic of what we have so far. As I mentioned, we are going to be adding to the TX holey rock but I was pleasantly surprised by the amount that we actually had sitting around in the fishroom, in addition to what was already in the tank. Please PM me if you have a good source at a reasonable price. :p
20140319_184557.jpg


And here is a quick video of the tank. The fish are still adjusting to the changes.
120 gallon Tanganyika tank - YouTube
 
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That looks great! The current led is an awesome light!

How about some juli marlieri and black calvus? Or are you looking to some less common types?
 
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Did you guys get the Satellite or the Satellite Plus? We got the Satellite Plus and the thunderstorm modes are awesome, but the fish aren't used to it yet so they hide every time I use those modes, lol.
 
erikmoseley said:
That looks great! The current led is an awesome light!

How about some juli marlieri and black calvus? Or are you looking to some less common types?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I want to put Julidochromis in the tank just because they look sort of similar to the cylindricus. I have thought about calvus, and if I see any at the auction they might be strong contenders. The body shape is so cool.
 
Marcie are you guys running aragonite sand in the tank? I used to mess around with buffering, then figured out that I could just use either the aragonite sand or crushed oyster shells (from a feed store - used for chickens) mixed in with gravel and that would maintain my pH without the use of buffers.

Those lights are cool, I picked up a couple for the 15 gallon tanks, but not the Plus version yet or any for bigger tanks.
 
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Wy Renegade said:
Marcie are you guys running aragonite sand in the tank? I used to mess around with buffering, then figured out that I could just use either the aragonite sand or crushed oyster shells (from a feed store - used for chickens) mixed in with gravel and that would maintain my pH without the use of buffers.
Click to expand...

Randy, the water here is so soft that we've tried that and it doesn't help as much as we were expecting. I've had tanks set up with aragonite sand (not mixed with gravel) and holey rock, both of which help buffer, but pH of the tank never got much over 7.2.

I premix water for our rift lake fry, but for the adult fish I fill from the tap and add buffer directly to the tank after I add my Safe (I know the label says not to do this, but it's working so far). With Malawi/Victoria buffer, I can keep the tanks at 8.2-8.4 and the cichlids seem a lot happier than the fish that were in my old non-buffered tanks. Off topic, but around the same time I started with the cichlid buffer, I started with alkaline buffer for all our livebearer tanks and I've never had livebearers do as well as they are now- especially the wild types.

My non-buffered tanks run about 6.4-6.6, very soft water. Rift lake cichlids and livebearers basically just wither away and die slowly in our tap water. lol
 
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severum mama said:
Randy, the water here is so soft that we've tried that and it doesn't help as much as we were expecting. I've had tanks set up with aragonite sand (not mixed with gravel) and holey rock, both of which help buffer, but pH of the tank never got much over 7.2.

I premix water for our rift lake fry, but for the adult fish I fill from the tap and add buffer directly to the tank after I add my Safe (I know the label says not to do this, but it's working so far). With Malawi/Victoria buffer, I can keep the tanks at 8.2-8.4 and the cichlids seem a lot happier than the fish that were in my old non-buffered tanks. Off topic, but around the same time I started with the cichlid buffer, I started with alkaline buffer for all our livebearer tanks and I've never had livebearers do as well as they are now- especially the wild types.

My non-buffered tanks run about 6.4-6.6, very soft water. Rift lake cichlids and livebearers basically just wither away and die slowly in our tap water. lol
Click to expand...

Yeah yikes - that is pretty acidic, I can see why the aragonite wasn't able to pull you far enough all by itself. Just out of curiosity have you tried just shell material in any tank, like oyster or Puka shell? I would think they would break down faster than the aragonite and therefore might buffer better.
 
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