A forum member pointed me to a very good resource for getting into African cichlids.  The “Cookie-cutter setup for 55G” recommends a configuration for the tank and some solid options for stocking with fish.  I wish I had found that about 3 weeks ago.

Hopefully this will help someone else avoid the apparent mistake I have.

So, what to do with my bumblebee and kenyi???  I don’t know yet.  I am planning a very large African tank for my basement, and possibly they will end up there.  Otherwise, I will take my own advice on what to do with unwanted fish and put them on Craigslist as free to a good home.

Post from: Tropical Fish Central

African Cichlid Stocking Screw Up

There was no indication of what happened – the fish were fine when I had turned the lights out the night before.  3 young angels and a pleco survived, so whatever happened could not have been totally devastating.

I perform 50% or larger water changes weekly, and have for years.  I vacuum the gravel thoroughly each time.  It had been 3 days since the last water change.

Here is my theory on what happened:

The day before, we lost power in our house for about 20 minutes.  Not terribly long.  I have battery powered air pumps that turn on when the power goes out.  All of them came on, except one – the one in the 55G tank where the fish died.  I replaced the batteries, but it didn’t work.  I noticed that if I took the hose off, it would very slowly work.  I hooked the hose up again and had to go take a phone call for work.  In the mean time, the power came back on.  When I finished the call an hour later, I walked into my family room and the battery powered air pump was pumping normally – because I had forced it on whilest trying to get it to work earlier.  I turned the pump off and didn’t think about it until the next morning, when I found all of the dead fish.

Upon inspecting the air pump, there is a think tar/oil like liquid that appears to be oozing out of the air outlet.  My suspicion is that water from the tank had somehow siphoned through the air line back into the pump where it sat for many months.  The reason the pump didn’t work at first was that it was gummed up with this likely concoction of water, oil, rust, etc.  Eventually, the pump pushed the goo out and up the air hose and into the tank.

What I can’t reconcile is why the fish did not start having trouble the night before – 9 hours after the pump was turned off, and presumably after the goo was put into the tank.

So, that was extraordinarily sad for me, and I will try to learn a lesson from it.  I have decided to re-populate the tank with African cichlids, using the opportunity to try something new and challenging.

I will post pictures as I can.

Post from: Tropical Fish Central

Disaster in a 55 gallon tank

I had been thinking about adding some dither fish to the 125G tank in my bedroom to distract the 4 angels in it from constantly beating each other.  Zebra danios are good for that – they are very active swimmers and big enough and fast enough not to be anyone’s lunch.   So, I went to my local Petsmart last weekend to get some zebra danios.  While there, I saw that they have glofish and decided that I’d like to buy those instead of the normal danios.  Now, for those who don’t know what glofish are, they are a Zebra Danio genetically altered to contain a genes that causes bio-fluorescence.  The fluorescent genes was originally added to the fish to detect pollution.  So, basically glofish are a brightly-colored zebra danio.

Knowing that zebra danios like to be in groups of 6 or more, I bought 7 – at $5 each.  I took them home, floated them for a bit, and released them into the tank.  Immediately my 4 angelfish begin hunting the glofish, snapping at them.  One by one they disappeared.  One was left alive, and I found the remains of two more.  But, the other 4 I am afraid were tasty and expensive snacks.  It would seem that the colorful glofish remind them too much of their natural prey.

The remaining glofish swam the tank for about a week.  I felt bad for him, and figured that the angels were probably accustomed to the colorful fish now.  So, I bought 12 more.  Immediately on release, they start getting hunted again.  This time, I netted all of them out and put them into a 55G tank with bandit cichlids and a firemouth.

I now have 13 glowfish zipping around a different tank than I had intended.

Glofish are quite pretty, but they do not mix well with angelfish.

Post from: Tropical Fish Central

Lesson learned – Glofish and Angelfish Don’t Mix