I had never heard of people doing more than 50% water changes at once. I thought it might stress the fish out too much, but if I can get away with doing a bigger water change once a week, that works for me. I have the aqueon water changer that attaches to the sink so like you said, it will only be a difference of minutes. I'll have to look into the dieffenbachia and umbrella palm more! Your tanks look gorgeous. I want diversity in the plants, so thank you for the suggestions. As for fish I'm thinking of going with 1 striped Raphael catfish, 1 sailfin pleco, 1 tiger oscar, and 5 spotted silver dollars.
125 Gallon Stocking Ideas
- Thread starter ArtfulPrune670
- Start date
There’s absolutely no reason a large water change would affect your fish. I do 90% changes weekly on all my tanks.
the only time you might consider doing less water changes is if your tap or source water has nitrates in it. At which point you would be looking for an alternative water change schedule and a way to reduce source nitrates.
Thanks everyone for the advice! I won't be getting the new fish for another 2-3 weeks and then they'll be in quarantine for another 2- 4 weeks, which will also give me time to re-scape my 125G and let the plants get established, but I'll be sure to post pics when I'm happy with it. Thanks again everybody. This was my first post on monsterfishkeepers, and I appreciate the warm welcome.
Better late than never. Here is the tank after 3 years. Stocking is 6 silver dollars, 4 geophagus sveni, 1 blue acara, 1 red spot severum, and 1 sailfin pleco. As some suspected, the roots are constantly being chewed back, funnily enough mostly by the pleco. This hasn't killed the plants but has stunted their growth. Maintaining any kind of scape has also proved difficult between the pleco and the geo's digging, but hey, it's their tank after all. Everybody is a blast to watch. I used to have 4 blue acaras but separated them due to breeding aggression. The geos and the dollars have also tried to breed a couple times but haven't been too aggressive about it. If I were to add anything, I think it would be 1 zebra pike cichlid. What are everyone's thoughts? Thanks for looking!
Your tank looks great, and there may be room for a Crenicichla zebrina.
If you do add it, you may want to also consider adding a wave maker to produce a linear current, zebrina comes from areas where current is strong.
And if you do add it, depending on its size want to double your water change schedule as it hits adulthood, they can easily hit 12" and can be a serious nitrate producer, and they can be sensitive to elevated nitrate.
Here is an example of the type waters they come from.
Or..... since you are little paranoid about the viability of the newly acquired 200+ gal, use the 200 as a heavily planted regugium/terrerium to help reduce nitrate.
As a sump, you might need only fill it to half, or 2/3 its stated volume.
If you do add it, you may want to also consider adding a wave maker to produce a linear current, zebrina comes from areas where current is strong.
And if you do add it, depending on its size want to double your water change schedule as it hits adulthood, they can easily hit 12" and can be a serious nitrate producer, and they can be sensitive to elevated nitrate.
Here is an example of the type waters they come from.
Or..... since you are little paranoid about the viability of the newly acquired 200+ gal, use the 200 as a heavily planted regugium/terrerium to help reduce nitrate.
As a sump, you might need only fill it to half, or 2/3 its stated volume.
Last edited:
Thanks for the feedback! I created a separate post to get others' opinions on resealing the 220G. They've convinced me it shouldn't be an issue, so the plan is to upgrade these guys to the 220G+75G sump. In this redo, I'm definitely going to use more emergent growth to control nitrates and figure out a way to protect the roots from the fish.
