35 gal dwarf cichlid

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this is my 35 gal long fw tank. its a little different than in this picture.. i changed to a canister filter, added some drift wood and changed the rocks a bit but its the best ive got at the moment
i'm looking at putting a red headed geophagus in but haven't quite decided.. any suggestions to improve?

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just an update of some added drift wood

Good looking tank, I would leave it as is, be hard to improve on!

What sort of wood is the driftwood on the right of the tank? I've never seen one so pale that it almost looks as though it still has bark on it.

Also do you have egg crate under the sand? The tanks looking good, I was just concerned that knowing what diggers cichlids are they may undermine the centre structure....I have mounds of sand in all my tanks where a male has been making a burrow in the hope of attracting a mate.....to lower occasional aggression I'll go in and move all the sand back, keeps them occupied for 24 hours or so :-)

its actually a piece of acrylic..the light doesn't do it justice..its darker in person.. I wanted to get a larger piece with long branches but i'm somewhat limited to size.. so i found this one on liveaquaria.com for a really good price and i snagged it lol

i did at one point have a crate set up under the sand but i found that i needed a large amount of sand to cover it all over( almost 2x as much) so i took it out and went with it straight on the bottom.. i actually don't have any trouble with the fish trying to dig up any of the sand.. a few times my german rams built a nest over on the left hand side but thats really the only type of digging I get out of my tank.. all my fish are really chilled.. they all have good space and don't mess with each other so there is almost no aggression displayed.. so it all works out well for me :-]

That's excellent looking for fake wood.
As for the aggression, don't suppose you could loan me the "Peaceful Fish" book, I could read it to mine!

Lol yeah it's call the Republic by Plato.. A few chapters evey week and They learn to use words instead of violence :-P

so i decided to make it much more of a natural set up with several live plants added over the past few months and here is what i have so far..I took this pic about a week ago after i added some new plants I ordered from liveaquaria
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so far the plants and real drift wood have caused my tank to be much more stable.. I switched over to an RO system a couple months ago and its working better than I expected. Gh is 80, with my pH sitting at 7.2 for probably 6 weeks or so.. just a few more point lower on my pH and I can get a few discus :-)
Ive got quite a few freshwater fish for sale btw if anyone is looking for some

That sure is a nice lookin planted tank! Whts your substrate?

Thanks man its actually white beach sand.. I think there's about 40+ lbs in it right now

Sweet... nice tank shape n with that substrate your on your way to a reef tank (yes i went there!) lolol

Lol how did you know :-0 Ive been gathering gear for a few months to start a reef tank this fall. I'm pretty stoked to finally jump into the reefin business!

Well that's cool but be warned... lol... the beauty of the reef has no comparison in freshwater... fw tanks that were awesome will become dull and boring if placed next to a reef tank lol... they just simply don't compare to sw diversity... anybody that's spent any time staring into a sump watchin copepods do their thing or whatever can testify to that lol... live rock is awesome

but seriously that's one of the nicer looking planted thanks iv seen in a while!

Thanks a lot man! believe it or not this is actually my least demanding tank set up to date.. It all just kinda works within itself to keep it pretty stable and growing
Lol I've heard how addicting it can be so I'm slowly dropping my feet in the water..yeah I agree with you, reef tanks are incredible looking and that's why I'm having these tanks in 2 separate rooms lol i don't want my planted tank looking down on my sw until it gets going strong and then there be bad blood between the two of them :-p
Any secrets of sw that you might be able to share with a future reefer?

Take your time and do a lot of research

I thought it was about time to do an update when it comes to this tank.. I decided to take out all of the white sand and make this a real planted tank.. so this weekend I picked up some Miracle Gro Organic Choice Potting Soil Mix and 50 lbs of black diamond blasting sand.. Heres the process that I went by

I decided to put about a 2 inch base of MGOCPM down with about a 2 inch space from the edges just so it does start to creep out and show the potting mix

after i added the mix i got my fish net and scraped the top of the water level to take out any of the large pieces that were floating before I capped it with the black diamond sand.. before I added the sand I had to wash it at least 12-15 times to get all the fine particles out before it was clean enough to use.. but hey it was only $7.99 for 50 lbs
I added the the sand and waited till it wall settled and then added all of my plants, rock, and drift wood.. then eventually after testing the waters added my fish.. I think it probably took me 5-6 hrs in total

my fish seem to really like it.. and they're coloring up nicely since the change

I also added a new lighting system from ahsuppply.com
http://www.ahsupply.com/36-55w.htm I decided to go with a 3-6-10 bulb which isn't quite so green as a 6700k lighing system but is still designed for planted tanks.

Thanks for check it out!

Sweet!
I love the black substrate.

Clean, not too cluttered... Very nice!

Thank ya thank ya.. I kinda like the minimalists look.. I'm gonna have to change out the air line tubing tho.. That white is shining lol

Just a quick little update.. So its been a few months with the new substrate and the new lighting system and growth as been crazy.. I've added some new plants a few months ago and got rid of an algae bloom I had for nearly 2 months. So here is what I've got so far

ozelot sword

I was even getting some runners coming out of the water

German ram male

My oldest fish to date.. Hes a south american flash pleco (L204) from Columbia.. Just hit 3 years old in December


Its taken a long time to learn, but balance is the key

Great lookin setup! :-)

Looks nice! What kinda substrate??

It's miracle grow potting mix topped with black diamond blasting sand.. Took a little while to get the amount of added nutrition, lighting and added co2 correct but I'm happy with it now.. And the substrate all together was less than $20

I tried miracle grow dirt once... it didnt end well. I killed $80 worth of cardinals lol... plants looked good tho lol