Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I posted a post awhile back about a new hobby. Well here it is. At the moment I have 12 asstorted african cichlids and 3 synodontis catfish. I am VERY HAPPY with the way this tank is going and my kids LOVE IT.

That is an awesome tank!! Major props to you, I've just got a measley ten gallon with some tetras and a very cranky gourami, haha. What kinds of cichlids are in there?
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1.4 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, Periscope, Dot, and Coco)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 mice (Cute Girl Mousy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
0.0.5 tropical fish (tetras and a neon blue gourami)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
3.0 horses (Buddy, Sam, and Scout)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
0.0.1 chupacabra (it ate our chickens)

jenny.thegreenes.org

I have 2 yellow labs, 2 kenyi, 1 socolofi, 1 ghost, 1 red zebra, 1 something Acei and a few others that I have NO IDEA what they are.

Awesome! My favorites were always the jack dempseys and another one I think was called turquoise jewel or peacock or something along those lines. Some kind of frou-frou name for a brilliant greeny blue fish.

Keep us updated!

~jenny
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1.4 normal ball pythons (Cindy, Darwin, Periscope, Dot, and Coco)
0.2 rescue chinese water dragons (Yoni and Linga)
1.0 rex rat (Scurvy)
1.0 gerbil (Yerbul)
0.1 mice (Cute Girl Mousy)
0.1 bunny (Spazz)
0.0.5 tropical fish (tetras and a neon blue gourami)
2.2 great danes (Shasta, Odysseus, Merlot, and Watson)
1.0 fat fuzzy mutt (Smokey)
1.1 cats (Thidwick and Turtle)
3.0 horses (Buddy, Sam, and Scout)
1.0 goat (Billy Jack)
0.0.1 chupacabra (it ate our chickens)

jenny.thegreenes.org

2 Emperor 400 filters
1 200w heater
40lbs crushed coral
75lbs moon rock
1 4' Current dual 10000k 460nm dual actinic light.

A milly drop of blood, a little bit of sweat and no tears (knock on wood)

you do know that those fish breed faster than rats i hope you have a place that will buy babies from you. my tank was over run with yellow lab babies as soon as they reached maturity. Our fish store failed to mention that when we bough tthem, but the do buy the babies from us.

good luck, its a beueatiful set up, i like that it looks like a natural setting without the flourescent colored tank decorations so many people use.
~kim

Awesome setup! I love the varying personalities of cichlids. I currently have a nice looking pair of kribensis in my 30 gallon setup.

Tom

your tank looks good but I would add some more fish. African cichlids get very territorial and without over crowding them to spread out aggression you can run into a big problem (read that to mean they will kill each other off). We have a hap/peacock tank set-up here and just love these fish. In our tank we have D. compressiceps, lithobates, a. stuartgranti (2 diff locals, males only), and red top kimpura (sp) along with 2 pleco's (i hate cleaning glass, lol). in total we started out with 40 fish in our 90 gallon tank and are now down to 32 (lost 4 fish in the first 2 days due to shipping problems).

I plan to start a new cichlid tank of introduced florida species if I can obtain them. I went to the glades today and in 3 hours we caught 9 different species of cichlids from oscars to some green and red thing that I still haven't been able to identify but would look nice in a large tank. We are going again next thursday so hopefully i can get some pics up to show them off.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

how many would you recomend for the 55? I just added 6 more fish yesterday and I dont want to overload the bioload. I noticed some nippiness on the fins in the original 6 so I added 6 more and would LOVE to add some more on top of that. Ill tell you the original 6 were primarily blue adding the yellows and orange makes an incredible ifference.

I would have at least 15-20 fish in the 55g. you can always cull out individuals as they get bigger if the tank is too crowded. What kind of filtration do you have on the tank? I have 2 aquaclear 110's formerly 500's on our tank which filters 1000 gallons per hour to help with overload of waste products.
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Josh & Krysty Hutto
J&K Reptiles

Various Ball Pythons:::

1.0 striped vanilla
1.0 spider
1.2 Citrus Ghost and hets
1.2 Albino and hets
2.3 het Pied
0.6 50% poss het pied
1.1 Pastel (male has additional gene going on with him)
a bunch of normal female breeders
a bunch of normal female holdbacks and several rescued normal males

0.1 columbian boa, she's a feeding monster, controls my
over production of rats, lol
0.1 brazilian rainbow boa, another rat eating monster
1.1 corns

a BAD dog is MADE not bred, support the American Pit Bull Terrier as the greatest breed of dogs on Earth!!!!!

2 emperor 400's

Nice tank. I am setting up my 100 gallon reef this weekend, it is pretty nice! But it is still empty, just have to glue a few pvc pipes, and we should be good to go.

Dave

Louis - Awesome Tank!!
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Tosha

It looks like you have started a great looking tank. It sounds like you have covered yourself with filtration. Plenty of it. The heater is up to par. The general rule is 4-5 watts per gal. I didn't notice if you had any aeration?
The general rule I follow for my tanks is 1" of fish for every gal. This is of course a very general rule. In my 125 peacock show tank I probably only have about 50" of fish. But, in my 29 gal. Mbuna holding tank I probably have about 60". It all depends on how confident you are in your abilities to keep fish.
I would definately recommend involving yourself in local clubs and local websites for information concerning aquaria.
Here are a few pics of mine.

Thanks for sharing.

I used to have a 55 with cichlids. I loved it but my house grew smaller and the tank had to go to put down new flooring. I still miss it sometimes. Good Luck with them and if you ever need advice with them just give a holler!

~April

THANKY

Where do the fish originate from?

Beautiful setup!

We have a crappy 10 gal w/ 1 big silver fish, name unknown (how pathetic that I don't know).

My fish come from Lake Malawi in Africa