Plastic Aquarium Plants - How would you set up an African Cichlid ...
Fake is fine, but plants are generally for you and not the fish – The rift lakes contain very, very few planted area’s and most types are rock dwellers or open water dwellers. More important is the rockscaping – most Rift lake types use rocks as security and depending what types you end up with depends on how heavily you rock scape the aquarium. For success with these fish you should choose one lake and stick with it. You should learn about the fish in this lake and what is compatible, and it’s safer to assume they are not until you learn differently. Plants: They don’t need plants at all. If you do a fishless cycle and then proceed to only add a couple of fish as mentioend above, then all your efforts of creating a large, healthy bacterial colony were for nothing when the bacteria dies off until there is only enough to support... To tell you what type of filter to buy is just silly, it depends on your budget and preference – just make sure you over filter the tank, unless you want to go with a sparser Tanganyika setup. If you learn how to seed a tank with live bacteria (real bacteria is much better then bottled) you can add many more fish right away even without a fishless cycle. Most of your questions regarding water, overcrowding, stocking, decorating – depends on what type of African setup you want. It’s been around a long time and I spent months researching before setting up my first real cichlid tank, and I’m glad I did because it prevented me from making all of the hundreds of mistakes most beginners make by jumping into it with a complete... Sand or fine gravel is best because it allows the fish to dig (a natural behaviour for the bottom dwelling types) and keeps the tank cleaner by not allowing all that waste to sink in and be forgotten. I do not recommend undergravel filters for most of these fish – if they dig, and many do, they will expose the filter plates and render it useless. Some you can overcrowd, some you should overcrowd, some you MUST overcrowd, some you can’t overcrowd. Some use some or all of aquarium salt, Epsom salt, and baking soda, which help with the ph, gh, and kh for good balance. Tell me what you want the tank to be like when you talk about ‘Africans’ and I can help you choose the right types to reach that goal. They tend to shred plants and can really only be kept with tough, thick leaved ones like annubias. Many Malawi Africans can handle very high temperatures that would kill many Tanganyikans. Rule # 1 with African cichlids (or any cichlids): Don’t generalize them. One poster mentioned ‘if your water isn’t at least 425… The average hardness in lake Malawi is actually closer to 100. If you do a full fishless cycle with a good amount of ammonia you can stock them all at once – if you have the budget this is highly recommended so the fish all start on the same foot… um fin. If you go to the store and randomly stock your tank (or base your purchases on what they say) you will be spending a lot of money replacing fish. I’m not advertising this site, I’m recommending STRONGLY that you go there before buying anything, and read read read. There are many ways to do this, which is better depending on your water and preferences. Others prefer to spend the big bucks on manufactured products like ‘Kent rift lake buffers’. Only one other poster above actually mentioned how there can be a difference in decisions depending whaty ou stock, showing this misuderstanding is all too common. Is the species best mixed with others of its type. If you cycle with fish you do it in small groups to prevent toxic spikes. African cichlids are generalized too often and this is not a good thing to do. They range in aggression from mild to hostile. Open water dwellers. Deep water dwellers. Others use crushed coral as substrate or in the filter. Aeration: Usually filtration takes care of this – if not you probably don’t have enough filtration. Tanganyika rock dwellers. PH: For lake Malawi or Victoria, 7....
This invasive aquatic species was introduced to the United States in the late 1800's as an 