That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

Hey folks, it’s been a while! Today I’m going to give you some suggestions on creating a habitat for small South American Cichlids, but first let me tell you about some new additions to my finny friend collection. I recently bought a 4 inch Geophagus altifrons and two 5 inch Ocellaris Peacock Bass. They ended up going into my 40 breeder with my 2 to 2.5 inch Cuban Cichlid pair. After acclimating for an hour or so, they were placed into the tank.  I observed their behaviour towards the Cubans for a while, just to be sure there weren’t giong to be any problems. The bass showed no interest in attacking or devouring my little Cubans, actually it was the opposite, as the Cubans actually displayed threatening behaviour towards the bass by flaring their gills and charging at them. This went on for at least 2 days, and then I noticed that the bass would not eat any of the prepared foods that I put into the tank. I offered some trout worms and still no luck. I decided to break down and get a few small feeders, a last resort.

As the days went by I noticed that the Cubans would hide a lot and only came out for feeding, so I decided to watch them with the room lights off. The bass were hunting the Cubans! We were getting ready to move to another apartment, so I had to think fast. The wheels in my head started spinning. I moved the pair of Cubans into the 10 gallon that was holding my Largemouth Bass, and he went into the 40. He quickly assumed dominance over the Peacock Bass. I thought that maybe if the Peacocks saw the Largemouth eat that they would catch on. Again, no luck…now they’re stuck on feeders, so I’ll be hoping to trade them in one day soon.

Now on to the subject at hand, a set-up for South Americans. A tank for South Americans can range from a 10 gallon to an aquarium over a couple hundred gallons, depending on the fish you want to keep. If you’re hoping to keep fish like Peacock Bass to maturity, you’re going to need a BIG tank, but for this blog installment, I am going to talk about a 15 gallon set-up for some Dicrossus filamentosus. Known as the Lyretail Checkerboard Cichlid, males top out at 3 inches and females at 2.5 inches. This species is found along muddy shorelines with scattered leaf litter, so the decor I suggest will make them feel at home. You can furnish the tank with driftwood and maybe some small clay pots and flat stones for when the fish are ready to spawn. If you want, you can even try to add some leaves you may find in a river, stream or lake; just make sure you rinse them off really well. The last thing you want is to unleash a hellgramite or some other unwanted invader into your aquarium (yuck). I would recommend some low light plants, like java fern and anubias species tied to the driftwood, and a dark, fine sustrate for the bottom. Low light will complement the fish, too. Under bright light the blues, greens and reds on this species practically disappear. Low light plants, driftwood (which often leaches tannins) and the addition of products like Amazon Extract (blackwater) keeps this particular species looking sharp.

Once you fill the tank, check out your pH and hardness. You should aim to maintain a stable pH of 6.5 for wild fish and 7.0-7.4 for captive bred fish, with a low general hardness. The driftwood and Amazon Extract or a similar additive will help to keep the water soft. These little guys like the water warm and stable at about 80 to 82 degrees, so you’ll need a fully submersible heater for the tank.  For a 15 gallon, one in the 75 watt range with a external thermometer should do the trick. Lighting should be chosen with the plants in mind more than the fish. A small power filter pushing 75 to 100 gallons an hour should keep the environment healthy, as long as you don’t overcrowd. Stay on top of weekly water changes, about 10 percent each week. Diet for these fish can consist of any foods from flakes to frozen to live foods, like blackworms and bloodworms. I would add 4 to 5 small 1 inch fish to the tank to try to get a pair, moving the rest once a male and female pair up. Then I would add 5 rummy nose tetras and 5 neons or cardinal tetras to keep the middle of the tank active since the cichlids spend most of their time on the bottom.

I hope this was an enjoyable read for people and I hope I piqued someone’s interest in these little gems from South America. Let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like to share your own ideas for a South American set-up.

Until next time,

Jose

Peacock bass image referenced from wikipedia

I have been fragging corals for over 8 years, through those 8 years I have gone through hundreds of bottles of Cyanoacrylate better known as Super Glue, or other brand names marketed by a variety of companies. The problem with basic super glue is that it’s way too runny. Fraggers know that you tend to end up having more glue on your hands than on the plugs and corals. Over the past couple of years, companies within the aquarium hobby have developed their own “reef glue” formulas. They are much easier to work with, thicker and quicker to set. However, even with improvements, many still aren’t that great. The neck and pointed opening eventually become clogged with old glue, making it impossible to use all of the glue. More often than not, the glue in the bottle just becomes too hard after extensive usage, thus making it no longer useable. Read More »

I recently blogged on some tips and techniques for moving an aquarium, but what if you just want a larger tank? This was a question asked after that blog was posted. Some people start with a small tank for “simplicity” and get hooked enough to want to expand. Others want to switch the type of livestock they are keeping or have fish that have outgrown their existing tank. No matter your reason, many of the considerations and techniques that go into moving an aquarium apply to upgrading as well.

The “easiest” upgrade scenario would obviously be one in which the new tank is being set up in any location OTHER than where the existing tank already stands and has all new “stuff” in it (meaning substrate, rockwork, decoration, filter, etc.); you can be a bit more leisurely with this switch. On the other end of the upgrade-spectrum, you may be putting the new tank in the same place as the old one with some of the same substrate, decorations and equipment and will need to be more expedient with the transfer. Read More »

In Part 1 of this article, I talked about Carbon Dosing, and the principals and some of the products on the market that are being used in this method of natural nitrate and phosphate control.  You can read the first article for all the details, but for a quick review of what carbon dosing is all about, here are the basics.

By providing (dosing) a usable carbon source, the aquarist can increase the uptake of Nitrate and Phosphate by bacteria in the aquarium, and reduce the overall level of Nitrate and Phosphate in the aquarium to desired levels.  Maintaining this low nutrient system, improves the overall health of the system, eliminates nuisance algae, and promotes brilliant coloration in corals. Another benefit to this increased bacteria population, also referred to as bacterioplankton, is that it serves as a supplemental food source for corals and filter feeding invertebrates. Carbon sources that are used for dosing have traditionally been vodka, vinegar, sugar or commercially available products like Brightwell Aquatics Reef Bio Fuel, or Red Sea’s NO4-Px.  While effective, these sources of carbon must be added on regular basis (every day in most cases) and dosage levels are achieved largely on a trial and error basis. Read More »

I think that Cichlids can be an extremely fun fish to watch.  They interact with each other and other fish in interesting ways and they have their own set of habits that can be really entertaining from building shelters to courting and breeding. I live on a budget, fresh out of college, so to set up a cheap cichlid tank, I decided to do a single species that stays small so I can use a smaller tank and less expensive equipment. Cichlids usually need a larger tank to accomodate their size and territoriality. I really wanted to try African Cichlids of some type, even though most of the South American dwarves are more colorful. Most African Cichlids grow to at least 4-6 inches, but I did find one group of cichlids, the Shell-dwellers from Lake Tanganyika, that would be just the right fit for my set-up. Many of these cichlids stay under 2 inches even as adults, so the 15 gallon tank that I have will provide plenty of space for several. They use the empty shells of aquatic snails as sites for breeding and shelter, and this behavior alone is very interesting to watch.  Read More »