200g budget rebuild - species tank - TONS of pics

A few months back I lost almost my entire stock of Africans when the central air unit went out while I was out on vacation. Many of them were of uncommon size, and a few were VERY rare. I've finally gotten around to start rebuilding the tank. I took the lace-rock out and decided to go with a different theme this time.

Species tank - Africans / West Africans / Nicaraguans, because of their very similar water, food, and communal needs.

goals:

PH 7.8 / slightly hard water - requires removing the "cichlid sand" and aragonite mix I previously had in the tank, which buffers at a solid 8.4
rock background - difficult if not impossible to find in 96"
plants and driftwood - the nics and west africans won't be comfortable without more cover
New substrate - to match the new look, and the water parameters wanted.
fanless water flow - sick of seeing the fans
better top water agitation, better circulation - will also need a few low circulation areas.
automation - So I never have to worry about the same thing happening again
lighting upgrade - the T5VHO's I have are way too bright. the remaining Africans have "blackeye" from the burn-in of aggressive lighting.
better filtration - PH buffer through filtration.
Fish. only a few remaining of the old stock, need new stock. Will pickup locally available ones cheap, and order more rare specimen.

LIGHTS

For lighting I went with 10K Ebay LED's from Beamswork. These:



2 of these on Ebay were 179 shipped. The only complaint I could find from Reef users that these weren't bright enough for hard corals. Fine by me.
I was disappointed though to see how little actinic lighting there really was. There are only a few blue bulbs, the light REALLY bleeds out the Africans colors. Some don't look colored at all under the light. The Jewel and spotted fish look great under the lights, strange enough. They would probably work VERY well for CA/SA.



It looks nice on everything else though. I put the lights in a V as the middle is going to be the low-current low light spot for the ones that need it.

Total Cost: $179 from Ebay - 3 days shipped

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BACKGROUND

I started out with ordering a rock background from Design by Nature. It was around $210 - and was supposed to be 78". From there I was going to use rocks on the outside to build up the "cove" look that I wanted.



unfortunately, Matt from Design by Nature remembered our conversation - that the tank was 96", and sent me two 48" pieces. They were impossible to piece together seemlessly. There was too much repeat in the pattern. He refunded my money, and I still have the backgrounds. (they are for sale on these forums)

Next I tried the basic Universal Rocks "Rocky" background that's in every LFS. I got two 72" ones, their longest, and decided to make the best of them. Unfortunately, no rock in nature matches these exactly. These are 100% harder to cut than you'd think btw. If you ever need to cut one, SOAK IT FIRST. I burned up 3 saw blades making the cuts.



I set it up to go around the side overflows and wrap into the corners. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. It looks fairly natural, but takes a LOT of room from the tank.



Total: $140 from Critter Co

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PLANTS AND DRIFTWOOD

For plants I picked up cheapo plants from the LFS. Tried to find the most desert looking plants possible. The whole point of these really is to cover up the split in the background.

For driftwood, I went with Manzanita. I tried to find especially curved pieces, again to create a look of depth in the center. Ordered from Manz Man.



Manz Driftwood

I was VERY happy with the driftwood, but a couple of words of warning - The Parcel Post shipping from Cali took two and a half weeks, and you WILL need to boil these. I boiled mine for hours, dumping out what looked like black tea every hour or so. Don't worry if you can't get the whole branch in there, just stick the stump part into the water. It drains out.

TOTAL $80

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SUBSTRATE

My old substrate buffered the PH too high, and didn't match with what I was wanting to do. I decided to try a couple of different routes. The first was the Marco Rocks sand from Marco Rocks .

It arrived the very next day, and was beautiful. Extra white, and felt like powder. Unfortunately, it was kinda powder. I tested it in a 10 gallon tank first, my sick tank. It took 3 days for the water to clear completely, and that was with rinsing. It also stirs up VERY easy if anything messes with it. I have a cichlid called the Malawi sand diver. Just didn't seem like a good idea.



This stuff would be EXCELLENT for a tank without critters that insist on digging everything up. It buffered the PH to a solid 8.0 - which would have meant constant slight PH-down treatments.

The second option was pool sand from the local pool supply store, Leslies. $10 A bag for the silicate based sand.



The sand is kind of unnatural looking, and very obviously not as high quality as the Marco sand. It also is very dirty for filter sand, which is normally clean right out of the bag. However, it is PH neutral and does OK with the color of the background.



Kinda orangish. 3 bags to cover the bottom thinly

TOTAL $35 bucks at Leslies Pool Supply
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FILTRATION

This is where stuff starts looking REALLY ghetto. But it's just as effective.

I was already running a wet/dry setup with 30 gallons of scrubby pads in a plastic tub, to a 20 gallon long return sump. To establish a PH buffer and get filtration to the now deadflow areas (behind the wall), I ordered some live rock rubble, and dry rock from Marco Rocks. I was able to split the cost of this with a friend who needed more rock for his marine tank.

The rock came in the next day - awesome service from Marco (if that's his name.) The rock also looks awesome, and 50lbs of the stuff is a TON. I was really shocked how lite and porous the stuff was. I stuffed some of it in my sump, and the rubble behind my background in the corners. I also filled the overflow boxes with it, as debris was building up at the bottom of them.

I found the end PH buffer to be about 7.8 - .1 shy of what I was originally shooting for, but it'll do fine.

Sock to scrubby pads (through plastic pegboard)


Then through the dry rock in the sump (with the heater)


Dry rock rubble behind the background and in the overflow chambers


TOTAL $50
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looking good

WATER FLOW and CIRCULATION

I wanted to remove the fans from the tank. I thought it'd be best to circulate the water from behind the background wall on each side, to eliminate stagnant buildup.

I wound up purchasing two cheapo ECO 396 water pumps from That Pet Place. I also purchased 10' of 1/2" tubing and a couple of sections of loctite "hoses."



I drilled holes through the background on each side and forced the loctite sections into the holes. The result is actually a very strong flow of water up top. I blew them out and to the middle, again to leave the center most part slow-flow for the fish that need it.

Front view:




TOTAL $50 - 6 days shipping
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AUTOMATION

Apparently what actually killed my fish when the central air went out wasn't the 100 degree water, but the 100 degree water's inability to maintain a healthy oxygen level. There really was no cheap way I could think of to be safe here, so I went ahead and purchased an automation system.

Those who know ReefKeepers know what they're capable of. It now monitors my temperature, and the different settings allow me to make a travel mode that keeps all pumps and air valves going full blast while I'm not there - just in case.



I also went ahead and purchased another Eheim Jager 300w heater to put in the sump just incase the first one ever fails.

The reefkeeper also makes water changes a breeze, no more fooling with plugins.

TOTAL $150 - 6 days shipping ThatPetPlace.com, 3 days shipping BulkReefSupply.com
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FISH

Unfortunately I only had around 5 fish left after the previous failure of my tanks. All of the large fish died. With existing stock and donations, I had:

Frontosa 10"
spilonotus 6.5"
Dimidiochromis 6"
Venestus 5"
C. Moorri 5"
Intermedius 4"
sulphur head 4"
Rusty 3"
Yellow Benga 3"
Yellow Lab 2.5"

I then purchased:

Taiwan Reef 6.5"
Malawi trout 6.5"
Sand diver 4"
Blue regal peacock 4"
buccochromis 4"
VC-10 4"
From Daves Rare Fish for $170 - 1 day shipping


Apache (hybrid) 3"
Yellow Benga 3"
2X O.B. (hybrid) 2.5"
electric blue 2.5"
Azureus 2.5"
and From Live Fish Direct for $120

Today I ordered the last 5 from Tangled Up in Cichlids - I'll post pics when they arrive.
Polleni
Macaw
Green Chromide
Vieja (regani)
and a multipsinosa rainbow.

TOTAL $350

STILL TO DO

The lighting sucks for Africans. It really bleeds their colors out, it's just too white. I'm going to try supplementing it with some cheap actinic lights. the LAST thing I want is a blue tank, but right now everything is just tinged white.

There are still some clamps holding drift wood in place

The frontosa is obviously unhappy with my decorating, and destroys the right side of the tank every night. I need to make him a hideout he's happy with

Need the rest of the stock!

PICS and VIDEO

My camera SUCKS! Phone camera. But you can get an idea of what it's looking like. SUGGESTIONS ARE VERY WELCOME. I'm still not sure how I feel about the tank - there's a lot going on there. This is the first tank I've ever done in anything but black and white.

VIDEO



















More updates coming!

I think the background works wonderfully, and I love the curve. Lighting, I must admit I like it. I wonder if the T5's will actually be too strong. To me it gives the appearance of more depth in the tank, by the back being somewhat darker, and also lets fish have the choice of light or shade.
My only concern would be where do the fish that need a rest from aggression run to hide? It's difficult to tell from the rocks if you have some sanctuaries hidden within the rocks.
But over all a great looking tank, and I would say you were lucky that the other background supplier messed up, this back ground looks a 100 times better than the grey wall.

Thanks for the replies!

I like the lights too Yeti, they'd be perfect if they didn't kill the colors of so many of the fish. I'm going to try to figure out a way to just add a little bit of actinic along side the current lights. I definitely want to keep the current shade parts shaded, and lit parts lit.

As far as aggression - there is space behind the rocks and plants, but it's not a lot. I won't tolerate any aggression in there whatsoever - I already gave away a gorgeous 7" O.B., it was honestly the prettiest one I've ever seen. But he just couldn't play nice. All of the larger fish in there are Very docile, I do worry about some of the smaller/newer ones though. Especially the vieja and polleni. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

I actually have some black coffee mugs hidden amongst the rocks of my Mbuna tank, along with a couple of terracotta plant pots, using the holes of the holey rock, to create caves, a cheat, but it works.
I love your Front, but most of all I'm amazed that your Trout and to some degree Venustus aren't causing you problems, long may it stay that way. As for the O.B., well we both know, that's the gamble you take.
As for the Sulphur head, if you find some females let me know, I have a 4" male that would love to get some action. He's probably my favourite, bought him with 3 dames, but they all faded.

He's a Fusco - I don't know why I labeled him as a Venestus. He's in that awkward "teenage" stage right now, only colored on his head. The trout is a sweetheart, I've never had any problems out of them - but I know eventually he'll be big enough to eat the Mbuna. They're not permanent residents, just in there until I can get the other tank up and running.

My poor sulphur head is an ugly duckling, but he's a survivor! Had him since he was a fry.

Do you have any pics of your cichlid tanks up? Where did you wind up getting your stock from?

Looks great ! Still miss it, but you've really did a nice job with it!

J.Davis wrote:Looks great ! Still miss it, but you've really did a nice job with it!

Wow Jason, this was your beautiful reef? I didn't even recognize it.
It does make a cool African tank though.

Thanks Jason, I still really appreciate your help - everyone one this board I've done business with has been very fair and helpful.

Yeah Donny I WISH I had the money and know-how to make a reef tank out of it like Jasons. I only saw pictures, but it was pretty awesome

Looks great and I like the complete rock wall on the back