135 Gallon - What Fish???

[Seaweed]

Hi ya'll,
And thanks for the great welcome!
I am not new to all this but decided to post this in beginners so that maybe anybody just starting out will benefit by it.

So, I had a suggestion for Cichlids so far, which I am very fond of but know very little about, and I have had a suggestion for Oscars which I do know about and that is kind of where I am leaning but need to know a bit more before I jump to conclusions.

I will get some photos out there as soon as I am setup and stocked.
Right now I don't even have "seascaping" done yet.

I'll see what people say here about what they think I should stock my 135 with, then I'll make a decision.

[Lady Hobbs]

Hello and welcome. I'm sure you will be anxious to get this tank set up. You could have several cichlids in that tank. With oscars not so many and they are said to be a dirty fish. Check the sites out for cichlids and you'll get some ideas but they must all come from the same area (and preferrably lake) if they will be housed together.

[Cichlid_Man]

I'm with Hobbs on the Cichlids!
I have had Oscars. They are awesome, but get huge.

Well, here goes:
I recommend the African Cichlids because I feel they are the most beautiful of all.
They are mysterious in a way and I find they are easy to care for.
They have a long life span if taken care of properly, and they breed fairly easy if you are interested in that.
I keep Lake Malawi African Cichlids. There are products out there that replicate the waters of Lake Malawi so your fish will thrive well.
Mbunas are the type of Cichlid I keep, although I have some that are not Mbunas and they are starting to cause trouble.
You have to keep the same "type" of cichlid together. Just being from the same lake isn’t enough. There are Mbunas and Utakas to name some.
My favorite of all is the Electric Yellow Lab. Awesome yellow with some black trim on the fins. Peaceful fish.
P Kennyi are nice too with a little more aggression. The two of them get along well so you can have Labs and P Kennyi.
If I had it to do all over again though, I would have a tank filled with Auratus.
They are gold and black. They sort of look like a mini striped bass! The black stripes run from head to fin instead of around the body like a zebra.
They are beautiful but very aggressive. Sometimes I wonder if they can get along with themselves! With Cichlids you need to know that they do best when the females out number the males by around 3 to 1. Lots of caves and hiding places are needed also, along with special salt and some PH boosters if your tap water requires it.
I can go on and on but I also added a link to a web site I like regarding ALL cichlids. Read up and decide...
Anyway, good luck with your decision and keep us posted…

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[Fishguy2727]

Cichlids can be tricky, but some good books and help from experienced hobbyists, and you should have a great tank. There are a number of things I would have to pick from if I had a 135. Do you have filtration yet?

Mbunas: From Lake Malawi. Extremely colorful, but quite aggressive (although manageable with some reading). Herbivorous and easy to breed.

Peacocks: Also from Lake Malawi. Arguably the most colorful freshwater fish, even as colorful as saltwater fish. Less aggressive than the mbunas. Also easy to breed. Omnivorous.

Oscars: A large and more pet-like cichlid. Mildly aggressive for such a large predator. Other South American cichlids could be included, as well as an assortment of other fish and bottom feeders (such as Synodontis spp., pimelodid catfish, and bichirs).

All of these would be fine for a beginner, although some may require a little more research to be prepared. All would be rewrding setups that may have aggression issues, but not at a level that would not be manageable.

[Slinky_Bass]

Hi Seaweed, I envy you, having a nice big 135 gal to plan, decorate and stock! I love that part, anyway, as for stocking, you could look at getting some discus. I've always thought they look really lovely in nice big species tanks. For the bottom of the tank you could try some of the larger catfishes, Syndontis decorus and waterloti are beautiful, interesting, and will also do well in the soft, slightly acidic water that discus prefer.

[f1oored]

Different thread, same idea. I think the mbuna are a great fish for that tank. They are colorful, active, hardy, and fun to watch. They require basic water but that is pretty easy to accomplish. Right now I have yellow labs and red zebras and they are great.

Cichlid Man - I think you meant 1 male to 3 females???

Anyhow here is a picture of my new Labs. Olde Yeller 1, Olde Yeller 2, Olde Yeller 3, and Bob.
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[Cichlid_Man]

Cichlid Man - I think you meant 1 male to 3 females???


Thanks for clearing that up!
Yes I did mean 1 male to 3 females.

[Seaweed]

Wow!

You folks are right on the spot!
Nice pictures. Now I see why Yellow Labs are among the favorite here.
Everybody has great suggestions. I have to get to some reading but first want to answer the filtration question.

Yes I do have filtration.
I may have over done it a bit but I bought 2 Fluval 405's.
It's a big tank. I am either gonna have a few big fish, or a lot of smaller ones, so I beleive in over filtration.
I don't use carbon.
I use The bio max that was provided with the filters and I add filter pads to really fine filter out small particles.

Thanks to all!

[Fishguy2727]

It's not overfiltering. Whatever a filter claims it can handle 'up to', cut that in half. So you really have about 100 gallons worth of filtration. For about the same cost, possibly less, you could have gotten a Fluval FX5. It goes 'up to' 400 gallons. If you still can, I would return the 405s and get the FX5.

[Seaweed]

I did look at the FX5 but chose two 405's for a few reasons.
First they were on sale so it cost me less for 2 405's than for one FX5.
The FX5 was selling for 249 and these were on sale for 120. Not much savings, but some.

The big reason is, although the FX5 has two nozzles for output, I always use 2 seperate filters because I also like the water to be taken in from two opposite sides of the tank. Just a thing with me.

I set the outputs one 45 degrees left, and one 45 degrees right.
It creates almost a small whirlpool effect pretty much in the center of the aquarium.
My fish love it in the 55 gallon.

Thanks for the suggestion though.
I am off to read up on African Cichlids.
They sound cool.
My 55 gallon is filled with varieties of tropical fish from platy's to guppies and everything in between

[Lady Hobbs]

WOW. You got great responses from the guys here. Hope that helps in your search for cichlids. This place is great!

[Only Registered Users Can See Links.] This is a great book on cichlids if you decide to go that way and the peacocks recommended by reptile guy start on page 11 with the pictures of them. They are cool.

[Fishguy2727]

The capacity though for the FX5 is a huge deal. It is 'up to' 400 gallons, which means it can deal with about 200 gallons on its own, depending on stocking. The 405s are 'up to' 100 gallons, which means with two you actually have about 100 gallons of filtration right now, but since most cichlid need even more filtration, 'overkill' is a must. I have a FX5 on my 150. I put the output at one end and the intake at the other, so you will get the circulation. If you go with mbunas they love a strong current, so a huge powerhead in there will help with even more circulation. I have all of these filters and I am telling you, you need more if you are wanting any decent stocking level, and you don't really have enough filtration as is. For an extra $9 you can get double the filtration. This will make a huge difference in long term success and the fish will thank you.

[Seaweed]

I get your point, but I still would like two filters because I actually do something else with my setups.

With 2 filters, I have them on timers.
They each shut on and off at different times of the day so the actual current in the tank switches around a few times daily.

Just another thing with me.
Currents change in real bodies of water so I like to have that also. I'm a bit whacky :-)

How about 2 FX5's??
I wonder if you can control the output?
2 of them at full force may really be too much, no?

[Fishguy2727]

Most freshwater bodies of water do not switch current direction, I can't think of any that do. Mbunas love current, so 2 FX5s for them would be great.

I don't want to sound offensive, but you need to put a couple personal pet peeves to the side and make sure you are doing the best for your fish. You don't need two different filters when one better one would be more than enough. And you defnitely don't need to be turning filters on and off throughout the day. That is a good way to screw up your biological (they need oxygen and a canister that is not on for an extended period of time will run out of it real quick). By turning them on and off you effectively only have one since only one will be running at any given time. So it is actually worse on the fish. Even if there were fw fish that are from current switching habitats, most likely they would not need that in captivity to thrive, they would be better with more constant filtration, but I really can't think of any fw habitats where that occurs. Where did you hear that?

[Seaweed]

Actually, the FX5 shuts down on it's own to release gases and then comes back on, so, what I do with my 2 filter system will not throw off anything, really.
Bacteria is everywhere in the tank, not just the filter. As a matter of fact, I clean my filters weekly with water changes. I use hot salt water to clean it...No problems for years.

The Lakes of Africa do not have a current as we know it, like the ocean, but there are heavy, heavy winds that blow and create a current effect along the top of the water. 20 foot swells changing direction all the time.
Tanganyika is so deep that there is hardly life way down deep because it doesn't have any motion, but the surface is forever turning.

Here is a piece from a web site about Tanganyika:
"Despite the ferocious surface storms that occur, driving waves up to six meters high (20 foot), no mixing of the lower relict waters occur. The bottom 1 200 meters of the lake remain ‘dead’ - either too high in hydrogen sulphide or too low in oxygen to support life. This ‘fossil water’ may be as old as 20 million years."

I like having the filters on and off several times a day, and you can see the fish like it too.

[Fishguy2727]

I can't see that fish like it too. Please explain what you mean by that. You also did not explain how the currents reverse direction. Wave action is not current. Fish will avoid the high movement areas anyways, which shows they do not enjoy (and by no means require) this movement. The general current direction in Lake Malawi is south to north. The winds blow from the south, pushing the water towards the north end of the lake.

The FX5 only shuts off for two minutes to allow air to escape, that's it. That's not long enough to kill the bacteria, a few hours or mor emay be mong enough to kill out a lot of your biological.

Bacteria will live where it has the optimal environment. In captivity that ends up being where there is the most oxygen and the most food (current/water circulation). So the bacteria will be mainly in the filtration. I do not know how you have not thrown off your biological, but you must be doint something lese right, killing good bacteria with hot saltwater is not that. Why do you do that?

[Seaweed]

I am not going to sit here and argue with anybody. I've been to Malawi. If you are telling me that the winds are always in one direction and the Malawi current is always from north to south, I can tell you different from being there.

The fish like slow moving water, true, but there is no life down deep where there is no movement, so I find a happy medium. That's why I asked if the FX5 can be adjusted to a lesser water flow.

As far as my filters, they need to be cleaned.
You need to clean your filter thoroughly. I don't clean or change the Bio-Max, and I rinse the foam with tank water. I only change out the filter pads.
The filter canister itslef is cleaned with hot salt water.

I can see how the fish respond when my current changes in the tank.
When the 2 filters are on, the fish spend a lot of time in the center of the tank where it is sort of spinning. They like it. They feed there.

When only one filter is on, they swim from right to left, and when the other filter is on, they swim from left to right.
I feel they like the change. Change is good. I even move the decorations around from time to time.
The only thing that doesn't change in my tank is temperature and chemistry.

[Fishguy2727]

That is different, you made it sound like you purposely ran hot saltwater over your biological media.

What fish do you have? Most mbunas love just a nice strong current. Most people usually use a very powerful powerhead for this. In the 90 at my work we have one that is 500gph if I remember right. They all love it and although most don't stay right in the path, they love to jump in and out of it.

I found that the flow on the FX5 in my 150 is not as strong as I expected. This is good because I have peacocks which do not like the strong current. Even if a filter's output is too strong and unadjustable, just point it at the tank wall and that will dissipate a lot of energy very quickly. That and a lot of rockwork and most tanks (at least mbuna tanks) need more flow real quick.

If you are that interested in wave/changing current type flow, why not just get a wavemaker? They just alternate between powerheads so you get the wave type action.

Were there any species of bichir in the lake? If so, which species?

[Lady Hobbs]

Seaweed, you have had fish before and have fish currently. You know how you want to do things and are confident in what you are doing and in your way of thinking. No two people do things the same way and if your way is working for you, go with it.

Now, to get back on topic...............

Will you be doing fishless cycling? Many people here have suggested cichlids but what kind of fish do YOU like? A tank of that size would certainly make a beautiful tank for many species and like someone else mentioned, Discus. Wow. They are expensive but sure are purdy! You could also have many, many community fish, as well. Will you be keeping the 55 tank going, as well?

We would love to see pictures of this awesome tank when it's set up finally and you can enter it in our Tank of the Month competitions.

[William]

I Agree. Let's focus on the original question.

But just to give my 2 cent to the argument about filters. Two filters is not necessary but it will not hurt either. In fact the setup you describe seaweed sounds interesting. Just make sure to choose a fitting filter size.

As for turning of the filters if the filters turn of and on constantly there won't be any problem but if you leave it of to long there will be a problem. This is not primarily due to the lost bacteria but rather due to the poison the dead bacteria breaks down into and that are pumped into the aquarium when the filter is started again.

[kimmers318]

If I had that large of an aquarium I would definitely have to consider housing either larger puffers that can live together.....or a BIG puffer that would love that size tank!
Good luck with whatever you choose and make sure you show us some pics!

[Seaweed]

Hobbs/William/Reptileguy and all who have posted here.

I apologize if I came across as trying to be different or rude.
I really am paying attention to what all of you say, but it is just that I have had a lot of success doing things my way, so please understand.
I have decided to go with All African Cichlids.
At first, I was going to do just Auratus, but after reading about them, I decided they were a bit to aggressive, even among themselves. Plus, I want some variety.
I started out for now with 10 yellow labs and 10 P Kennyi.
I have just 2 males in there so I should be good.
I'll keep you all posted as I go along.
I will also post a picture as soon as I can get my hands on a didgital..

Thanks folks!

[Lady Hobbs]

No one thought you come across rude at all.

Hey, you got fish! Isn't it fun to set up a new tank? The ones you picked are both very nice fish so sit back now and just enjoy!

[f1oored]

I can't wait to see pictures. I wish my cich tank was 135.

[kimmers318]

AWWW YESSS, African cichlids are beautiful! You have made a great choice for a colorful tank. Keep us posted!
:)