Aquarium Hobbyists

Good thing it’s not your tank or money I’m not buying a controller for a thermometer. I’m buying it for the extra peace of mind knowing if the heater malfunctions it won’t boil the tank or let it freeze. The tanks still cycling so it doesn’t matter.

 

Tank is looking tip top this morning. All the fish have their color back and are swimming around enjoying their new scape. The corys seem reeeeeaally happy with the new soft substrate over that shitty gravel

 

That's nice! What type of cichlids do you have?

 

I have a 135g fresh and a 25g reef. The fresh is a community tank and reef, well I just came out of a year long battle with algae that killed most of my corals. Taking it real slow with the reef now. I'll post some pics this weekend.

 

Thinking about moving the crypts in the yellow circle and leaving one or two and filling the area with some white sand. I think it’d look pretty sweet.

 

Thanks, I don’t have anything now, starting over.

 

I don’t have pictures because I haven’t had a tank in 10 years but I did something similar. I put a fine white sand path down the middle between larger substrate. It looked good for a few days but between the current from the filter outlet and the Cory catfish the sand was all mixed in with the other substrate not too long after. Then vacuuming it pretty much ended that aquascape experiment.

 

Damn. That’s a bummer to hear. Maybe I won’t put the sand in then

 

I see pictures online of tanks that have it so there must be a way to keep it from mixing into the other substrate. Maybe some larger rocks containing it or sand that is not so fine? When I did it I didn’t put much thought into it and it was ruined in a few days. I think it’s worth doing if you figure out how to contain it because the contrast does look very cool.

Mine was similar to this and it looks like this guy separated it with rocks which I didn’t:

 

Y’all talked me into giving the live plants a chance, I really hope they work out because it’s so much nicer. Got my starter fish today so around Christmas I should be able to start getting my cichlids.

 

That looks awesome. Looks like you have good light, so the plants should be just fine. I kept Africans when I lived in Georgetown, TX, our water there was perfect for them. Mine actually mated and some offspring survived.

 

I’ve had them breed pretty well. I can’t keep convicts because they will quickly take over. The others will breed and have maybe 2 survivors.

 

It was way clearer before I started digging around in it. Probably going to cloud up again real soon though with the starter fish in there.

 

Rate my tank lol.

 

So who lives in the pineapple under the lid?

 

Fantastic.

African or America cichlids?

With thar nice bottom you have there I'd look into epiphyte plants. Slow growing, they need pretty much zero maintenance. Just superglue them to a rock or decoration and you're golden.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/buceplant.com/a/amp-1/collections/epiphytes

 

I like the African cichlids. I’ll check out those plants, thanks

 

10 for sure

 

I ordered 10 of each of these guys today, 20 total they were advertised as being for planted tanks. I really just want something that will help with cleaning. Sucker fish don’t do shit.