My second planted cichlid tank

[tiger15]

Update on fish stocking:

Nic female 4 inch x 2
Electric blue Ashli 4 inch x 1
Pink tail chalceus 6 inch x 1
Red streak Severum 6 inch x 2
Red shoulder Severum 6 inch x 2
Lamprologus elongatus 6 inch x 1
Thorichthys aureus 3 inch x4
Roseline barb 3 inch x 6
Cryptoheros nanoluteus 3 inch x 3
Zaire Tembwe Frontosa 9 inch x 1
Siamese algae eater 3 inch x 3
Longfin rosy barb male 2 inch x 4

 

[tiger15]

Video update as of April 2019:

 

[DawnMichele]

GORGEOUS tank & fish!!!

 

[SwampFins]

Nice tank!

Hiw are the Nicaraguan doing with the plants?

I have three in my 125 and they have shredded everything I had, including my java ferns

 

[tiger15]

Nice tank!

Hiw are the Nicaraguan doing with the plants?

I have three in my 125 and they have shredded everything I had, including my java ferns

I used to have a male a and two females, and they attempted to breed and pulled plants and blew sand every where. Now I got rid of the male, and the females are calm and no longer damage plants. I don’t know of any fish that have a taste for Java fern.

 

[tiger15]

Nice tank!

Hiw are the Nicaraguan doing with the plants?

I have three in my 125 and they have shredded everything I had, including my java ferns

You are right. My Nic have started to behave badly, so I got rid of them. Female Nics are problematic as they shred leaves to make nest even without male.

I got rid of my all male rosey barbs too. Although they have brilliant color and bold, they stake out territory and engage in constant battle with one another. I want schooling fish, not fighters. I plan to replace them with Congo tetra and/or Rummynose Tetra if I can find descent size fish.

 

[tiger15]

Updated pics and video of my 125.

There have been some change in the fish population. First, I got rid of the rosy barbs which battle among themselves all day long and don’t shoal. Second, I got rid of the Nics which are plant destroyer, shredding leaves all day long. Third, I added a school of Congo tetra and Diamond tetra. These silvery fish look superficially alike, shoal well and complement the slow moving cichlid and green foliage.

As for the plants, I added a Crypto wendti as a center piece which I rehomed from my 75, and added a lucky bamboo coupled with a Brazilian pennywort on the right to provide elevation. The pennywort has delicate texture that can break off easily, so I’ll wait and see if it is a keeper. If it doesn’t work out, I am thinking of replacing it with a Val or dwarf water lily.

 

[adamsfishes]

Low tech?

 

[tiger15]

Low tech?

It's a high tech tank. I started out as low tech in my first planted tank, and progressed into high tech as described in my 75 journal below. Having CO2 makes thing easier, less algae, and lusher plant. I will not go back so in my 125, I jumped right into high tech with no second thought.

https://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/...anted-cichlid-tank.685287/page-7#post-8138954

ISTA CO2 regulator (much easier to stabilize injection rate than the Milwaukee regulator used in my planted 75)
Tunze CO2 reactor (driven by a mini power head with no external plumbing as in most reactors)
10 lb CO2 cylinder
3 Penquin 330 HOBs ( run without biowheels for mechanical filtration only)
Hydor Koralia Nano Pump (425 gph circulation pump to provide longitudinal flow to compliment cross sectional flow from the HOBs)
Ebo Jagar 250 W heater
3 lines of LED (cheap but effective product from China, Ebay. I tied submerseable tubes with fishline to the front, middle and back rims due to lack of room while providing better light penetration)

Note that the set up has no external plumbing so no vulnerability to leak, and is silent as I replaced the 330 impellers with smaller 170 or 200 impellers to reduce flow and noise while improving filtration efficiency. Since fish food do not provide balanced nutrients, I still need to dose macros and micros each week after 75% WC but in moderate amount.

 

[adamsfishes]

That's a unique setup. Just goes to show there's more than one way to be successful in this hobby as long as the effort is put into it.