LF: Some advice

[luffs]

hello every one,

I have recently purchased a 90Gallon fish tank , I have had fish before in smaller tanks but this is my first serious tank. i have bought 5 yellow labs and they are small babies, can i put adult fish there too? and what do i buy for chemical? i know i have to buy the thingy for the chlorine, but there is so many other products for fresh water fish i don't know what they do or if i need them or not. such as Ph up or down what ever Ph is lol. and bacteria stuff, ick stuff??!!!! 

sorry if i sound crazy  i just want my fish healthy and in a good environment. so if you have a minute or two and would like to tell me what i need to run a good tank please drop me a line.

thank you,
have happy new year...

[zapisto]

i am not an african fish keeper but ....

hello every one,

I have recently purchased a 90Gallon fish tank , I have had fish before in smaller tanks but this is my first serious tank. i have bought 5 yellow labs and they are small babies, can i put adult fish there too?

i hope you dont want put them in the 90, if you bougth in less than 3 weeks at least

and what do i buy for chemical?

chemical... hmmm
i am not partican of chemical at all

i know i have to buy the thingy for the chlorine, but there is so many other products for fresh water fish i don't know what they do or if i need them or not. such as Ph up or down what ever Ph is lol. and bacteria stuff, ick stuff??!!!!

Test your PH (tap or what you use)
after you will know what you need or not.

sorry if i sound crazy i just want my fish healthy and in a good environment. so if you have a minute or two and would like to tell me what i need to run a good tank please drop me a line.

thank you,
have happy new year...

you are in the good forum and club to have lot info , more than you will expect

happy new year.

[luffs]

THANK YOU for the that, every little bit of info helps,

[sas]

Hello luffs :)Welcome to the OVAS site, you've just tapped into a very informative club Check out the toolbar on the left of the screen, and you'll find all kinds of Articles on tanks,fish etc....Hope that helps get you started, then don't be afraid to ask questions. Cheers

[luffs]

thanks i have checked them out and learned a tick or two... thanks,

[babblefish1960]

This information will stay put for others to learn a trick or two also, so it stays. This is why there are currently 116 pages, so that we can look backwards for answers and questions. This forum only gets larger with time.

[luffs]

I Really like the thingy where you can convert gallons to L, or the other way around, I hope they put more pages in there i can really use some more info... i was looking for some info on what temp should i keep my African fish in and couldn't find any...

[pegasus]

72F-80F   targeting  76F-77F

[babblefish1960]

Pegasus, does that cover all the Rift lakes, or are the Tanganyikans cooler?

[Quatro]

Temperature is a per species stat and can not really be summed up in a chart.  Your yellow labs are Temperature: 78 - 82°F (from www.cichlid-forum.com).  One of my favorites, white cloud mountain minnows, are 64-72°F.

[luffs]

oooh ok, thank you for that.

[PoisonJello]

well since everyone has probably answered your fish questions..here is some more important advice.........don't eat yellow snow 

[pegasus]

All my Africans are kept at those temperatures and they all breed. If you want to be a purist you could use a general rule as to a fish found in shallow waters will probably do better in the high temperature range.
At 72F there is not much breeding and their metabolism is slowed down too much for my taste.
I have 2 problems with temperature over 78F. One is less oxygen in the water and with overstocked tanks that is always a big concern. The other is I found that heathers are often faulty and being close to the upper limit is a risk that I can't take.

[Adam]

Keeping your fish is a lot easier than you would think.  I like to keep things as cheap and simple as possible, and I've almost always had success with my fish.

Temperature:  Room temperature is fine.  Between 72-80F...  A heater is good to have if your room temperatures aren't all that stable/your furnace dies.  I don't know my water temperature, but it is about room temperature.

Filtration:  For a 90 gallon, 2 AC110s would be fine.  I don't know what you have, so tell us.  Africans like your yellow labs need good water quality, so a little extra filtration is needed.  I only use foam blocks from any pet store to fit your filter, and pillow stuffing from Wal-mart to catch the smallest particles.  I put the filtration media in order from catching largest particles to smallest.  You don't need carbon (unless you want to take any medicines out of the water, or the rare strange smell)...and those ceramic bio rings aren't necessary either.  They are supposed to give surface area for good bacteria, which your aquarium needs.  But if you look at the Aquaclear foam blocks, you can see all these tiny little fibres forming the block that provide a much larger surface area.  I don't buy new blocks, I just rinse them out whenever I wash the filter.  I've had the same ones for years, and the filter flow is the same as when I bought it, and my water is always clear.  What I'm trying to say is a foam block/pillow stuffing will give you everything you need in a filter.

I clean my filters once a month or two, alternating between the two or three of them.

Chemicals:  I don't ever add any chemicals...I have not been putting dechlorinator in my aquariums for 13 years now, and apart from one incident, I've never had any problems (and I don't think that incident was because of the chlorine...).  However, most people use it and would recommend it, especially with the way Ottawa is messing around with the water lately...  There are products like 'cycle' (the bacteria thing) that you can pretty much forget about. As soon as your aquarium goes through a 'cycle' (read about nitrogen cycle) itself, it's a waste of money because you get the bacteria for free.  The nitrogen cycle thing is something your aquarium needs to go through to grow bacteria to transform the poisonous ammonia your fish produce in their waste/extra food, to non-poisonous nitrate that has to be removed through water changes.

pH is the hydrogen potential in your water.  Basically, the lower the pH, the more acidic the water, and the higher, the more alkaline.  Different fish require different water pH, depending on which part of the world they come from.  But I would say a stable pH is way more important than fiddling around with your pH.  pH up and down are just a waste of money IMO (in my opinion).  I don't even know my pH.

Other chemicals/medicines you should purchase when a problem good, clean water can't treat, like diseases.  But if you keep the water fine, there should be no reason why diseases should occur...

Africans don't need special lighting, so a 4 foot shoplight is ok.  I'm sure your aquarium came with a light, so you're fine there.  It's just for you to be able to see it, especially if you aren't planning on growing plants (africans like to eat plants).  There are some really low light plants you could put with africans like Java Fern, Anubias and Java Moss.  You can save money by not buying overpriced LFS (local fish store) fluorescent tubes, but rather going to HD (home depot) and looking in their lighting section.  The higher the K (Kelvin) rating, the bluer it is.  6500K is white light, below is red/yellow, and above blue/green.

Africans like yellow labs (they are a type of cichlid called mbuna) are omnivores (eat vegetables and meat) but pretty much all other mbuna are vegetarians, so don't feed them meaty things like bloodworms, brine shrimp, etc.  Other fish from lake malawi that might catch your eye are the groups called haps and peacocks.  They are carnivores, and can grow quite large.  Ask questions about what fish you want to put in together, and we can try to answer.  Putting adult fish with young fish is ok sometimes, but when the smaller fish are too small, they can be out competed for territory and food, and you can have problems.  Adding fish of the same age is usually the best idea.

I would also put a lot of rocks in, as they are quite fond of them.

Depending on how large your fish are

And finally, I would say that your africans would appreciate sand as a substrate.  Some people like gravel, but it is both expensive and not too natural.  If you have ever seen an african pick up a mouthful of sand, and sift through it and throw it out of their gills, you would know what I'm talking about.  Sand can be as cheap as you like.  You don't need to spend much, but you need to wash it really well.  You can get plain brown sand from HD, or pool filter sand (larger grains, white colour) at a pool place for a little bit of money.  But you can also pay premium prices for pure white sand at the LFS.

Hope this helps.  If you have any questions, just PM me (personal message).  It can be really inexpensive and simple to keep an aquarium.  The LFS will try to get you to buy a lot of extra stuff you don't need...to complicate things...come back and read about those things before you go back and buy anything.

Oh, and this is the best site for cichlids.  www.cichlid-forum.com

Adam

[PoisonJello]

lots of good info there adam but i was starting to think you were writing a novel