OMG I Did, Juan's 275G Cichlid Tank

[KARussell88]

I have a 110 gallon tank with 9 discus in it and I love them! I would totally recommend them for your tank!
If you can keep salt you can keep discus.
They love plants
They are very beautiful, and very personable.
Just use r/o water and they will be fine. Your tank has to be cycled before you add them though they will not tolerate high ammonia/nitrate/nitrite.
A beautiful planted tank with discus and huge schools (30+) of cardinal tetras and rummy nose tetras is gorgeous! go for it!
Ill throw some pics up of mine if your interested.

 

[Jackalope]

I have a 110 gallon tank with 9 discus in it and I love them! I would totally recommend them for your tank!
If you can keep salt you can keep discus.
They love plants
They are very beautiful, and very personable.
Just use r/o water and they will be fine. Your tank has to be cycled before you add them though they will not tolerate high ammonia/nitrate/nitrite.
A beautiful planted tank with discus and huge schools (30+) of cardinal tetras and rummy nose tetras is gorgeous! go for it!
Ill throw some pics up of mine if your interested.

BRING THE PICS! i would love to see this. when i was doing discus breeding, i had no idea what RO was lol. in fact... do they still use diatom filters or is that old school stuff thats been negated?

Dang this thread Juan! im close to chatting with the wife on a FW again. hrmmm the 12-year old could use a larger tank...

 

[KARussell88]

haha Lights are off right now but ill def put some nice pictures up tomorrow! don't have to ask me twice to show off my tanks lol

 

[jpsika08]

not as tough as SW. i used to breed them about 15 years ago. ive forgotten tons of specifics, and all my books/bibles are gone thanks to ex g/f back then. but i have had just about every cichlid i can think of and enjoyed them all. the thing is with discus, as you mention, they are about the most colorfull FW species you can get ahold of... although the newer hybrid arrowanas are nice, they need LOTS of swimming room as they can near 2' in length. had one of those also... silver one =-)

Thanks for the heads up James, wow, 2 feet in size!? sure they get big.

I have a 110 gallon tank with 9 discus in it and I love them! I would totally recommend them for your tank!
If you can keep salt you can keep discus.
They love plants
They are very beautiful, and very personable.
Just use r/o water and they will be fine. Your tank has to be cycled before you add them though they will not tolerate high ammonia/nitrate/nitrite.
A beautiful planted tank with discus and huge schools (30+) of cardinal tetras and rummy nose tetras is gorgeous! go for it!
Ill throw some pics up of mine if your interested.

Thanks! by all means Pictures Please
Discus seems to be a good choice.

BRING THE PICS! i would love to see this. when i was doing discus breeding, i had no idea what RO was lol. in fact... do they still use diatom filters or is that old school stuff thats been negated?

Dang this thread Juan! im close to chatting with the wife on a FW again. hrmmm the 12-year old could use a larger tank...

James, I think you should just do it without consulting and do a big SURPRISE "Tadaaaa, I got you a FW tank!" LOL

haha Lights are off right now but ill def put some nice pictures up tomorrow! don't have to ask me twice to show off my tanks lol

Looking forward to the pictures.

 

[Jackalope]

oh man you have no idea how many projects i have going. im all over like a chicken with my head cut off!
just atm with this kidney stone passing, im stuck doing light work around the house. driving me nuts i tell ya!

 

[jpsika08]

Sorry to hear about the kidney stone, you went into surgery?

 

[Jackalope]

yup. lithotrypsy (spelling?) they blasted it with soundwaves. best sleep ive had in years! now passing sand and that hurts. but better than a stone 1.25cm oval shaped. its the Dr.pepper i know, but im a long time addict of that. hey what time is it there in guatemala anyhow?

 

[jpsika08]

Hope you get better soon.

Right now here is 10:22pm, I think we're almost same time frame, what's your time?

 

[Jackalope]

11:22. one hour off. my sleep schedule is off by 12 hours because my wife works nights at a VA hospital. i sleep in the daytime ... well if the kids let me lol. man i really like this site. 99% very nice, friendly people. good to just bs sometimes lol

 

[jpsika08]

Wow, tough schedule but if you're acquainted with it it's ok.

I usually promote this site as the friendliest forum on the net because I truly believe it is, many folks here are really nice people which only tend to help each other without the need of flaming everyone as pure egocentric enjoyment, for example over at RC, not only people will tend to ignore you but getting flamed there is a common practice, I don't know how many posts you had there but here, only in one week you're almost reaching 250, because here you really communicate with friends all around.

 

[catran]

Cool, you finally took the plunge!! Not so sure you want Discus, thought you wanted to do a FW with less maintenance...

 

[steved13]

Great news to have another Juan Pablo work of art to follow.

The tank and furniture matches you office very well.

 

[PSU4ME]

We have a LFS here with a beautiful discus tank......they have all FW grass planted and as mentione before, massive schools of tetras roaming around......I really like the idea if you're up for the challenge.

I love african cichlids too but most of the ones i had loved feeder guppies/goldfish and that really dirtied up the tank.......but the carnage my jack dempsey caused was a sight to see!

 

[jpsika08]

Cool, you finally took the plunge!! Not so sure you want Discus, thought you wanted to do a FW with less maintenance...

That is absolutely true Cat, this tank I don't want to even know what the word maintenance is LOL, even I think my LFS will take care of it, everything but feeding. (Really cheap around here to pay for this).

Great news to have another Juan Pablo work of art to follow.

The tank and furniture matches you office very well.

Thanks Steve! yes, now they will paint all the gray to white, so it will look much more integrated

We have a LFS here with a beautiful discus tank......they have all FW grass planted and as mentione before, massive schools of tetras roaming around......I really like the idea if you're up for the challenge.

I love african cichlids too but most of the ones i had loved feeder guppies/goldfish and that really dirtied up the tank.......but the carnage my jack dempsey caused was a sight to see!

LOL, I know, just saw a couple of videos on frenzy feeding and wow, sure they look like small Piranhas, which I just found out, they're illegal here too.

First, as you can see I corrected the name on the thread title LOL, I thought these fish were named Chichid but no, I looked at google and they're named Cichlid (Thanks Terry).

Well, more pics, canopy is on and on Tuesday they will install a white vinyl sticker, which will have the same look as the cabinet.
Also, I'm going to change the purple bulb to a white one, it doesn't look nice for a FW tank.

Quick question, if I decide to go with the Malawi Cichlid's, can I use wood inside the tank or just rocks?

 

[QuentinB]

Going off PSU's post, I love our Jack Dempsey. And our green terror. They're beautiful fish and just own the tank.

As for your question, I know there is some debate on whether or not you can keep driftwood in there with them. I think the main concern is that the "driftwood" that is sold still contains tannic acid, which could lower the pH some. Kind of counter-productive when you have fish who like a higher pH. The good news is, a lot of the tannins will come out with soaking. The chunk I just threw in my tank a while back I soaked for about three weeks, replacing the water most every night. By the time it got to my tank, I didn't see any browning of the water or anything. I think the other issue is just simply aesthetics, so that would totally be up to you. My yellow lab(Flash, if you follow my FW thread) finds some odd positions to hide, and just further cements the fact that these are rock dwelling fish.

That'll be one sweet office!

 

[jpsika08]

Thanks Quentin, I was looking at some Cichlid setups on the internet and many seem to have volcanic rock, is this possible? I got a lot of access to these types of rock, do I need to cure them as they must be acidic? or time removed this from them? thanks.

 

[QuentinB]

That... I don't know. There is a tank down in a mall in Fargo, ND that uses the rock I think you're talking about. Knowing what I do about the LFS taking care of it(a branch of the same one up here in Grand Forks), they probably didn't even worry about it. Might be a question for the chemistry forum...

 

[Jackalope]

if its like the volcanic rock from hawaii that i once tried. if the fish fight around it or dart and brush against it, it will descale them... my red devil and managuense fought all the time. miss that jaguar fish. he would mess up Anything in my tank including my 2 tiger oscars i had that were twice his size. named him Satan he was that evil.

 

[Frankie]

Nice tank Juan, what's up with the overflow? Could you give some close ups of that?

 

[PSU4ME]

Juan,
I used lava rock and driftwood in my setup.....like Q said, soaking and letting the "crap" come out of it is good.......running carbon and purigen helps pull it out as well. IMO, Driftwood is essential......aesthetically and for fish protection/peace of mind. Having a planted garden is nice but unless it is rooted/weighted down, they will tear it up. As for the PH.....I learned (by mistake) that crushed coral and limestone is used to help keep it higher. The Malawi cichlids require more alkaline water - somewhere over 8.0 I think.

Setting the tank up with all rocks is cool too but then you have all that weight.....but it looks cool and I "think" it should help keep the tank clean.

Fun!