FaerieWhings
Aquarium Advice Newbie
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2009
- Messages
- 3
I don't know what kind of information you need, so I'm going to give you all that I think may be imperative.
We have a 55 gallon tank. There were about 20 to 25 cichlids, including some new ones that hatched and lived over the past couple months, and 3 rather large plecos (any where from 5 to 9 inches each). There was a disgusting odor coming from the tank for a while but the fish were not only living, but thriving, till about 3 weeks ago. We're now down to 7 cichlids. All the plecos are still living.
My husband finally got to cleaning out the big tank, taking the remaining fish and putting them in the spare tank. With no gravel on the bottom I could see just how much waste the plecos create. My questions is: Do we have too many plecos for our size tank? Do we need three or could that have been the thing that was causing the disguting smell, all the waste they created and didn't clean up and in turn killing the cichlids? We want to replace the poor fish we lost but I want to know what we can and should do to help prevent this type of disaster again. It also seems that every time my husband cleaned out the tank in the past, it would cause major issues for the fish, killing them, so that's why we left it alone for so long.
Also, I loved watching the baby fish being born, hiding in the rocks and growing bigger. How can I tell the difference between male and female cichlids and do cichlids only mate with others of the same color?
We have a 55 gallon tank. There were about 20 to 25 cichlids, including some new ones that hatched and lived over the past couple months, and 3 rather large plecos (any where from 5 to 9 inches each). There was a disgusting odor coming from the tank for a while but the fish were not only living, but thriving, till about 3 weeks ago. We're now down to 7 cichlids. All the plecos are still living.
My husband finally got to cleaning out the big tank, taking the remaining fish and putting them in the spare tank. With no gravel on the bottom I could see just how much waste the plecos create. My questions is: Do we have too many plecos for our size tank? Do we need three or could that have been the thing that was causing the disguting smell, all the waste they created and didn't clean up and in turn killing the cichlids? We want to replace the poor fish we lost but I want to know what we can and should do to help prevent this type of disaster again. It also seems that every time my husband cleaned out the tank in the past, it would cause major issues for the fish, killing them, so that's why we left it alone for so long.
Also, I loved watching the baby fish being born, hiding in the rocks and growing bigger. How can I tell the difference between male and female cichlids and do cichlids only mate with others of the same color?