Best African Cichlid Tank This Forum's Ever Seen!

[DTetras2]

I'll get a pic with more light in a bit, I gotta get my light fixture back from my friend haha :P

[Cory1990]

You could always use shop lights, that's what I have for day time they cost about 15$ I have 6500k daylight bulbs in mine that look real nice. At night time I use a t8 night bulb.

[DTetras2]

I've already got a nice light fixture that I'm gonna use, but thanks for the info

[Superfly724]

Put the rocks in before the sand. Make sure all of the base rocks are sturdy, and laying on the glass, and not sitting on a layer of sand. If your fish start digging at the bass of a rock, and that rock shifts, your whole structure is coming down. That can potentially kill fish, or even break the glass. I had multiple scares when setting up my rock structures. One small shift and roughly 40 pounds of rock tumbled forward. Apply pressure to each rock after placing to make sure it's not going to wobble or slide.

[Cory1990]

I put my rocks in after the sand. It's a bit easier to get them stable out when you can dig the sand a bit to set the base rocks in place.

[lohachata]

hmmmmm....i remember telling a certain cory guy to not make the neat little stacked cave thing...there was a reason for that...lol..
the best african cichlid tank i have ever seen was my 125.....had 80 or so fish in it...mostly adults...
what i see a lot of people doing is ignoring what is best for the fish and putting in what they think is cool or looks good....which kind of tells me that the fish have little importance....

[Cory1990]

Busted, but he did say the best. And that's the only criticism I got with my tank. Since then iv changed a few things up and it's looking much better. But theres still one man made cave.

[lohachata]

i may be a little bit anal about this but.....here is what i would recommend for a rift lake cichlid tank...

rift lake cichlids need to have a PH of 8.4 or a little higher....

substrate........crushed coral of dolomite gravel or sand...not play sand or pool filter sand...crushed coral and dolomite will help to naturally buffer the the water to maintain that PH level...

rocks......best to try to use rocks that will also help to maintain the higher PH...i have always used tufa rock..many use texas holey rock...pile the rocks about 2/3 of the way from from the back to the front and about 3/4 of the way to the top of the tank...

never use chemicals to alter water parameters...

keep lights on to grow a nice coating of algae on the rocks..once established you will want to keep the algae growth....it is an important food source for mbuna...

over crowd the tank a bit... overcrowding cuts way down on aggression and keeps them from all picking on any one fish...

giving them lots and lots of hiding places to dart in and out of allows them to feel safe and they will be out and displaying for you more...

make sure you do 30-40% weekly water changes....

always feed a variety of quality foods twice daily...

[Cory1990]

Iv been using real sea shells mixed crushed coral that I had leftover from my new salt tanks my ph raised from that so far so good with the cichlids