My 60 Gallon Mbuna Tank

[Stussi613]

Hey everyone,

I have been thinking about posting some pics since I started my build out a few weeks ago, but I didn't want to do so until it was a proper cichlid tank.  There are cichlids in it now, so I guess it counts.  Like everything, this is still a work in progress, so any comments and constructive criticism will be very much welcomed.  I'm basically posting pics from the beginning of April to now, at some of the "major" milestones.

Here we are on day one.  Brand new 60 gallon tank, measures 36x18x22.  This was just after I spent a few hours washing the aragonite substrate in my kitchen sink:



Once that was done I dry fit all the rocks to get a sense of the layout that I was going to try to go for:



Close up of the rock work on the right of the tank:



and the left:



A shot with water in and the filter having run for 24 hours FULL of filter floss to clean up all the aragonite dust.  You can see the school of Danio's I used in combination with the seeded media I got from garnpet to cycle the tank, as well as the java fern that I got from dan2x38:



And finally a shot with the background on the tank:




At this point everything started happening with the tests and the drop in nitrates so I stopped working on it for a little while.  According to my fiance I could have left well enough alone and not changed anything, but something was nagging at me and I wasn't satisfied with the way that the tank looked.  I decided to rip apart all the rock work a few nights ago and "re-pile" everything.

Here is a closeup view of the right side:



and the left:



and the tank overall:




I'm very happy with the rock pile on the right of the tank, but I'm not sure if I'll leave the pile on the left alone, or try to tweak it a bit more.  I'm going to be adding in some demasoni over the next few weeks and I would like to end up with 12 demasoni and 6-8 yellow labs...so I'm far from finished, but I do know that I went from wanting a tank and knowing nothing about cichlids a month ago to having what I think is a decent setup today.   

I would not have been able to do that without the support of everyone on ovas, and specifically garnpet, demasonian, dpatte and dan2x38.

Thanks!!

[mesner]

love your setup!
where did you get your rock?

[Stussi613]

thanks 

I got the natural stone on the left and right at Merkley Supply, the listed price is 33 cents a pound and they have TONS to choose from.  I selected some bigger pieces and then broke them up and rubbed the sharp edges off.  The piece in the middle is actually a pre-fab that came from Super Pet.

love your setup!
where did you get your rock?

[Demasonian]

Looks great Stussi! I usually don't care for backgrounds with pictures, but yours works. I  also prefer the newer setup, lots of caves and it just looks cleaner...On the rocks, personally I prefer having only one type of rock in a tank:



But your tank works and if suits your taste, that's all that matters!

On placement, my only critique would be that the open space in the center of the tank might be troublesome down the road when the dominant male demasoni(s) start laying claim to their territories. Sometimes it helps to have a break in the line-of-sight, to allow a sub-dominant male, or unwilling female partner, escape into the crowd. That said, I'd leave it as is and change rocks as necessary later.