Very cool. I'm a big fan of peacock cichlids and frontosas and Malawi dolphins. Very cool!
750g African Cichlid Freshwater
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- Thread starter ictoae
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OP
OP
I need one too Adam! I ordered my background (48" end and wraparound both overflows) from Aquadecor on Halloween day so hopefully I will have that in hand soon.
And I am on the verge of ordering about $1,500 in bulkheads, valves, PVC, and PVC fittings to get it all plumbed was soon as I dig a little deeper into some options to try to get a discount.
In the meantime, we did take the obligatory family pic in the tank. It was a fiasco and the cats were 100% uncooperative!
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MoshJosh
2500 Club Member
Awesome!!! Lake specific? What stocking? A few emperor cichlid and hundreds of sardine cichlids???
Edit: sorry, just saw stocking in OP! Gonna be an awesome build!
Still though an emperor. . .
Edit: sorry, just saw stocking in OP! Gonna be an awesome build!
Still though an emperor. . .
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OP
OP
Hahahaha! I might transition to a more predatory Haps vibe at some point if the frontosa decide to make snacks of all the smaller species. I feel like this tank, as big as my wife thinks it is, still isn't big enough for an emperor long term.
OP
OP
It's not much of an update, but yesterday was a very good day. My Aquadecor background arrived (still in boxes, but pics from production attached) and my plumbing order as well. My room looks like a plumbing store. Pipes and majority of fittings are 1.5" for scale. Whole lot of schedule 80 up in here!
Need to get a piece of marine painted plywood under my sump and then start plumbing thos bad boy!
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Gumbies R Us
Certified Noob
Curious about updates as well!
BubblesandSqueak
Valuable Member
making this a 3rd request. how's it going? Pics please.
Ziggy17
Well-Known Member
Having kept both Calvus and Comps, if you’re housing with Fronts, I’d go Comps. Simply because you can buy large adults much cheaper, and if you decide to get smaller size, they grow so much faster than Calvus. Comps aren’t as shy eaters as well. I had my WC black Calvus in my cyp tank, and even then feeding a bit of a challenge. Awesome project and enjoy the build my friend. I’ve always loved the Zaire Fronts, especially with a little actinic in the spectrum to pop the blues.
Can’t wait to see the final pics or videos.
Can’t wait to see the final pics or videos.
OP
OP
Good evening! It's been 'a few' months and I am making progress. Stripped all of the bad paint off of the top rim and repainted. Ordered, built, and mounted my light rack with 4x 48" and 3x 24" Fluvial plant 3.0 lights. Light rack is hung from the ceiling by a SmarterHome MyLifter so I can raise it for maintenance. 3/8" polycarbonate lids with feeding doors installed. AND my Aquadecor 3D background is mounted and installed. Getting closer to fish time.
Next step is building and painting a plywood tray so the sump is not sitting directly on the wood floor and to provide a little bit of spill protection. After that I will install the massive stash of plumbing that I have stashed in the corner and fish soon after.
Next step is building and painting a plywood tray so the sump is not sitting directly on the wood floor and to provide a little bit of spill protection. After that I will install the massive stash of plumbing that I have stashed in the corner and fish soon after.
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OP
OP
I am so very happy with mine. After I installed it, my wife's reaction to the tank shifted from loving tolerance to admiring excitement. There's not fish in it and we still find ourselves staring at it.
littlefoxx
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Thats super cool! I miss
Awe this makes me miss my dwarf cichlids and freshwater angels! This is way cool. And yeah this is a saltwater form but lots of us on here have kept freshwater tanks or still keep them! Im in the used to category. Freshwater angels and bettas were my thing I kept. And goldfish. Despite all the hate they get I love them!
Not sure how tolerable this community is to freshwater, but I am gonna post anyway and find out. I've lurked for a while now and I do appreciate the expertise here on R2R.
After much planning and selling my pool table, I picked up a used 750 gallon (10' x 4' x 2.5') earlier this week.
The obligatory before pic:
It has two center overflows (approximately 2' x 1' each) with 3 drains and two returns in each so I am likely running a dual-bean setup. Would love any lessons-learned from someone who has done similar; in particular I am currently planning to tie the non-siphon drains together and the emergency drains together prior to the sump.
Sump measurements updated 9/29.
Speaking of sumps, it came with an amazing 100" x 27" x 23" acrylic sump (little bit dirty, but I have it about 1/4 cleaned up after last night). Planning 3 x 7" filter socks in the first chamber on the two siphons and the combined non-siphon. First chamber is 17" long and 20.5 tall so I'll stack a bunch of static media in it as well. After that are two narrow baffles taking up 6.25". Next chamber is the big one (33.5" x 16" tall) where I plan to run a fluidized K1 bed as my primary tank bio filtration. 200 liters of K1 should support a pretty heavy fish load. After that is a narrow 12" chamber (water flows in and out at the surface so hopefully the lower section is less turbulent) that I am eyeballing for a small refugium with plants & shrimp. Following that is a 17" excessive section of baffles, then the 13.75" x 10" tall return chamber for two return pumps (maybe four since the tank is already drilled for the returns; any single pump going down would only lose 25% of flow which is nice redundancy).
For lighting I plan to suspend an 8' x 3' extruded aluminum rectangle from the ceiling and mounting 24"/36" led lights to it. Have not decided on which lights yet, but I am looking for something programmable with a cell phone app. Tank will not be planted and is freshwater so I just need to be able to see the fish best and don't need high powered coral lights. I may add a couple small spotlight type fixtures as well to highlight specific spots in tank.
As far as livestock goes, the tank will be African cichlids.
- A colony of F1 Moba Gibberosa/Frontosa as the primary species (starting with 30, hoping for a final colony of 20).
- A group of lelupi for color contrast.
- Some dolphins (cyrtocara moori) (8) and Acei (12) to swim around.
- 8-10 synodontis multipunctatus to control fry/breeding.
- 8-10 inkfin calvus
- Neolamprologus Brichardi because they make me smile.
- a group of julidochromis marlieri (thanks @FishSkedee)
- Will probably add a fancyish pleco or two (blue phantom and/or something interesting).
Catfish approved?
If the Mobas eventually start eating the lelupi and brichardi, I reckon will let them and then add some larger predatory Haps since the tank has already proven inhospitable. I really like the Malawi trout, but he is a definite no with smaller fish.
If this is bad content for R2R, let me know. Otherwise, I will continue updating and asking for help as I go. I in no way think that I am an expert, so I welcome advice and suggestions.
Awe this makes me miss my dwarf cichlids and freshwater angels! This is way cool. And yeah this is a saltwater form but lots of us on here have kept freshwater tanks or still keep them! Im in the used to category. Freshwater angels and bettas were my thing I kept. And goldfish. Despite all the hate they get I love them!
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