Team-BHP - My Fishkeeping hobby

Hi All,

This is my first post here. Super excited to be a member of Team-BHP :-)

I have been keeping aquariums for more than 8 years now, with Cichlids from last 4 years.

I have 2 tanks now - one with mixed African Cichlids which is 4 feet 55 gallon and one with American Cichlids which is 2.5 feet 35 gallons (Green Terror and Red Devil).

Question for Cichlid Keepers:
Since a week, whenever I switch on the LED lights for the 4 feet tank the fishes go crazy as if someone is trying to kill them and they hide. And they'll be out in the open as soon the lights are off. No idea what spooks them when I switch on the lights? Any thoughts / suggestions please.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Piscean502 (Post 4027634)

Hi and welcome to the fishy side of tbhp lol:

What lights do you have for the Africans? Fishes are extremely sensitive to certain spectrum of lights. For example my buttikoferi used to go nuts when there was a blue light on. And my indo dats hate all white lights. How tall is the tank?

And i hope you know that the green terror would be no more once the RD hits puberty so to speak.

I used to have aquariums very actively, but now have fallen off the habit. I have a query: what are the 'premium' (and non violent) categories of sweet water fishes one can keep in house with regular fish tank? I know a few:

1. Ghost fish - looks nice but little wierd
2. Glass fish - great looking, but very small
3. Parrot fish - very active, and comes in nice colours
4. Flowerhorn fish - don't know much about it

Discus fish needs temp control etc, so they are not exactly as maintenance free as gold fish. Any more such premium sweet water fishes?

I saw axolotls in an exhibition, and they are absolutely amazing! THere is a shock value, seeing a full crawling animal deep in the water, but they swim very gently and have great face once you get past the shock factor.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ani_meher (Post 4028385)

By sweet water i guess you mean fresh water :D

Ghost fish is a nocturnal fish which grows rather large and is a predator. If you have small fishes, say bye bye. But they are not aggressive and would not do will with aggressive fishes.

Parrot fishes, one of the few fishes i actively dislike.

Flowerhorns are single tank fishes or you need a rather large tank to offset their aggression.

Axolotl are an endangered species and need sub tropical temp to thrive. somewhere around 20 deg i think. Beautiful specimen to own as they seem to have a happy face.

To answer you query about "premium" non aggressive fishes, you could look at exotic tetras, barbs, rainbow fishes, rams, angel fishes, clown loaches etc.

But trust me, there is no fish which is low maintenance. Every fish has it's own maintenance requirement and adhering to it will ensure you have a happy aquarium.

CO2 tablets are useless. The shrimp wont harm the plants. If the plants are newly added, within a month they might be converting from the out of water emerged form (how they are grown in the farms) to the submerged underwater form. Also could be due to conditions not being favourable for the plants.

CO2 is necessary for tanks with medium to high light and also some plants just need them to flourish.

If you are doing a low tech setup with not very demanding plants one alternative is 'liquid carbon' dosing. Seachem Flourish EXCEL is an example of this and is very easy to use. Fertilisers also help keeping plants in good health

Quote:

Originally Posted by deathwalkr (Post 4028325)

Thanks deathwalkr.

I have custom made 3.5 feet LED lights which are combination of 2 strips of white and 1 strip of blue lights. Have been using these lights for more than a year without any problem. I haven't made any changes to the settings of the lights or to the aquarium and I haven't added or removed any fishes, apart from the weekly water changes. I don't keep only the blue lights on anytime. But still since a week they are like spooked.

Tank's height is 1.5 feet.

For GT and RD - just received the tank divider clips from eBay today. Will be installing them over the weekend. Had them for almost 6 months without any issues. Just was trying my luck if they can coexist as I got them when they were juveniles. But as you said my RD had started growing little aggressive on the GT since a week. So planning on dividing the tank.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Piscean502 (Post 4028817)

Try feeding them only when lights are on. If possible try dimming the lights a bit.

As for RD and GT, the tank is too small for both of them. Get a 90G tank for the RD. It's an amazing solo fish to have as it is very responsive and adapts to the owner very well. My RD used to eat Pellets between my fingers, but if i put my hand inside it will attack it :P

Still miss him :(

GTs are beautiful fishes if it's a nice specimen with long finnage. But they are not even close to holding their own against RDs. Tank dividers are only a temporary solution since in an already small tank you are cutting out valuable tank space for these cichlids.

Hi All, So after having lot of cichlids, a short body flowerhorn, couple of freshwater lobsters, I feel I need more colorful and vibrant ones.

I was looking at Marine aquariums, and so some doubts came regarding the same.

1) What other things are required when compared to a freshwater tank? Some special filters? normal canisters wont work?
2) How do we get salt water? Is it rock salt mixed with water or some machine is required to create the same?
3) How difficult id it to maintain. Anyways the cichilid tank I had was not at all easy to maintain as I had to change water in every 15 days and clean filter in every 1 month.
4) Now I have a bare-bottom tank. Will marine fish grow in that (for lesser maintanace) or does it require some small sear-urchins, etc.
5) I don't want to change my current tank size of 3x1.5x1.5 feet as this itself is creating space issues in my home.
6)Are these marine fish, like clown fish really expensive or will be in the range of flowerhorn?
7) Is there any special marine fish that is as interactive and friendly as flowerhorn or they are having the brain of guppies?
8) Can someone provide the guide lines for how to set up a marine tank in a basic manner without going hi-fi and very easy to maintain.