New to the forum... NOT to fish **INTRO**

[Racingfish]

Hello everyone my name is Dave. I am 27, I have 3 kids (2 girls and 1 boy) and I am married.

Currently I do not have any tanks setup.. Me and my family moved into our new house back in June of 07'. Before the move we tore down all 4 of our fish tanks.

I have had many different fish including:

Stingrays (FW)
Angels
Sevs
Bichirs
Saltwater
Lungfish
Gars
smaller community fish
Puffers
Pike cichlids
etc

We moved out here into the country (kinda/sorta) And the reason for the tare down was because our new house has well water. I was figuring that the best choice for getting back into the hobby would be to do an African cichlid tank or something in the cichlid family only because in my experience it seems that they can be one of the more healthy fish and should be ok with the WW. However I dont know this to be true just what I have assumed

Any info would be great. I have yet to pull either of my two remaining tanks upstairs yet. (1 75g 5'L x 18"W x 16"tall AND 1 40G cube (roughly 2x2x2)

I will get some pictures posted of my last fish, my tanks (once cleaned) and I will get some pics of the family and our dogs if anyone is interested.


I tested my tap water about 30 minutes ago and this is what I got from my luke warm water

NitrIte: 0
NitrAte: 0
Hardness: Very hard at 300ppm
ALK: very high at 300ppm
PH: 7.8

From these conclusions I guess I would be all set for some Tanganyika's

I bought some cider and I plan to go wash my 75g tank up tonight
I dont know about you guys but I have become a slave to the Filstar XP3.. I use two of them on my 75g tank packed full of media and sometimes I even introduce a HOB filter.. (without bio-wheels)

anywho let me know what u guys think?


Take care and thx for reading my intro.

Dave

[Ichthius]

Welcome to FF, Dave!

I also have well water; has its ups and downs. I've personally had no problems keeping a variety of fish and inverts with it. Granted, my water is softer and has a lower pH than yours. African cichlids do sound the way to go in your case .

Hope you enjoy it here!

[JustOneMore20]

Welcome to FF!

While most fish will adapt to any pH, Tanganyikans are awesome fish, so I'd definitely suggest those for your 75g.

[Obsidian]

Welcome to FF Good luck with everything getting set back up again!

[joe kool]

7.8 is a touch low for tangs but if you set your tank up with an aragonite substrate (like cichlid sand or crushed coral) and different rocks that are limestone based (holey rock or Tufa stone) or something like lace rock that will help buffer your already high ph and raise it a tad. Tangs will do fine but you are closer to Malawian conditions depending on salts and additives used. AND you "can" mix them. Some folks are "purists" and say you shouldn't but their conditions are similar enough that you can successfully, I've done it for quite some time now. Tangs especially like the sand bottoms and I love caribsea's cichlid sand for all my Africans. A bit more expensive that the "play" sand a lot of people use but most of the time that's silica sand anyway and doesn't have the same benefits. plus with the black and whit mis it has a good contrast to most of the cichlids

[Kribensis12]

If you want activity, you might want to get some "multies". They live in shell's, adn are pretty small. Around 1 inch full grown. If i rememebr right, it is 3 shell's per multi. They are pretty darn aggressive though. You can safley fit 7 multies in a 10 with good filttration( some may argue). Good Luck, and Welcome to TFF

[trashion]

hey and welcome!

i have well water with pretty much the same readings. no fun! i wanted to keep german rams, but i really don't feel like dealing with pH adjustments.

[PoptartShop]

Welcome to the forum!