Empty 70 gallon!

[Graham]

Hi All,

After getting my 55 gallon tank from Mark set up in the basement as my african cichlid growout, I now have an empty 3' 70 gallon tank to play with! I need help deciding what to put in it though. So far I'm entertaining these three ideas: 1. A Tropheus breeding colony 2. A planted tank with either puffers or possibly discus (a little small so not sure about that) 3. A severum tank (Gold, green, Red)
I'm not sure at all what I want to do really, so any suggestions would be great! I am open to other fish besides the ones I listed, and if you are looking to sell the fish you suggest, even better!

Thanks,
Graham

[robt18]

Tropheus breeding tank! The severums would be too tight in there from my experience. I think discus would be fine, they may want more room at maturity or for breeding but I think it would be alright. But a tropheus breeding colony would be awesome to see again!

If you can, try to get Tropheus Duboisi "Maswa". They have a yellow band instead of white (like most duboisi that you see), and when they're young they're all dark and covered in light blue dots. When you have a breeding colony it's cool to have both looks in the tank. But really, you can't go wrong with tropheus IMO.

[Al]

Graham,
What is the footprint of the 70 - you say 3 feet in length - I am assuming 18" width and a high tank.
For a breeding colony of trophs, or just keeping trophs period, you should really have 15+ fish to minimize aggression and have them in a colony setup which they like as they are social animals. Secondly, a 3 foot tank is a little small, ideally it would be a 4 footer 75 or 90. 36" in length and once your dom male claims an area (you need a couple of rocks only for this, not a lot of aquascaping), there isn't going to be a lot of room for other sub-dominant males to get away and get some peace. It wouldn't be a great setup for the fish.
Good luck.

[k1ng]

There are green spotted puffers on sale at big als if your interested in them.

I nice planted puffer tank would be cool, plus if you get any snails they would take care of them.