hello all,
I am an experienced fishkeeper who's been at this now for about 10 years. I've always kept African Cichlids and had several tanks ranging from 10 to 200 gallons. My whole life I've kept Malawi mbuna, and I recently tried to give a Tanganyika tank a try for the first time. I went out and bought a 75 gallon tank, all glass (wanted acrylic, but... you know... the economy and such)... went through my usual routine of building a lightweight background, cave structure out of PVC with gravel silicone'd to the outside. Its a process that takes forever, but its worth it to create a lightweight, natural, African cichlid friendly environment - not to mention I can hide heaters, filters, basically all the tank equipment. Next I put about 80 lbs of Florida crushed coral in the tank, with a pond liner under it to prevent scratching the tank bottom. Here's where things start to go badly...
1) With all the equipment, rocks, etc in the tank it is perfectly level on its stand (I actually used a level to determine this before I filled it) - I fill the tank, not level any more. I use the level on the stand... level... the bottom rim of the tank... level... the canopy... level.... the sides of the tank... level... yet, my water line is not straight, lower water line on the left side than the right. What gives?
2) This where I made some serious errors - I strayed from equipment, filters, etc that I have always used and tried to go with more expensive stuff. My original plan was to filter with an Eheim 2080, and a JBJ canister (with U.V. sterilizer) that had its output running through a Lifegaurd fluidized bed filter... yes... overkill for a 75 gallon. Overkill is good when it comes to filtering African cichlid tanks. And here comes the fun:
a. The Eheim is a complete piece of crap - after having the filter replaced twice AND have a technician from a LFS who swears by them come to my house, neither the first or second one would prime. Water would flow intermitently and eventually air would get pulled into the intake mysteriously and stop the flow. Trust me, between myself and the tech we tried all the obvious (making sure everything is connected right, keeping the intake away from the spray bar) and not so obvious (replacing nearly every component) stuff. Conclusion - this filter simply refuses to work with this tank. For $400 I would at least expect it to run.
b. Getting the JBJ's 5/8" output to "talk" to the 1/2" on the lifegaurd was a nightmare as well. It leaked like crazy. I finally solved this issue after hours at home depot, a million different barb connectors, a lot of silicone, a lot of pipe dope, and just about all the plumbing education I ever wanted. Then the JBJ itself actually started leaking. After replacing the O-ring that set up finally... FINALLY seems to be working (and yes, the JBJ flow rate is within the parameters of the lifegaurd, so it wasn't an over-pressure issue)
c. I replaced the Eheim with a Fluval 305 AND a Magnum 350. Fluval has apparently replaced their regular hose with some wierd new stretch tube crap. Needless to say, the Fluval is leaking where the input connects to the canister. Unreal.
d. The magnum I guess I can't complain about, it runs fine, its just loud. I thought those things were supposed to be relatively silent. I have to ball it down quite a bit to make it tolerable. If I have the flow valve all the way open it fills with air bubbles and sounds ridiculous - but it seems to run okay.
At the moment I have a tank that may... or may not be level... filled with water with 2 of 3 filters running, and an owner who is afraid to start his fishless cycle because he can't imagine what could go wrong next.
the moral of this long winded story is - if you find something that works for you just stick with it (I long for a pair of Emperor 400s I can just slap on the back of the tank, but at this point I'd have to tear it all down because its too close to the wall), and I leave the post with a question...
Is it possible for a tank/project to be cursed?
I am an experienced fishkeeper who's been at this now for about 10 years. I've always kept African Cichlids and had several tanks ranging from 10 to 200 gallons. My whole life I've kept Malawi mbuna, and I recently tried to give a Tanganyika tank a try for the first time. I went out and bought a 75 gallon tank, all glass (wanted acrylic, but... you know... the economy and such)... went through my usual routine of building a lightweight background, cave structure out of PVC with gravel silicone'd to the outside. Its a process that takes forever, but its worth it to create a lightweight, natural, African cichlid friendly environment - not to mention I can hide heaters, filters, basically all the tank equipment. Next I put about 80 lbs of Florida crushed coral in the tank, with a pond liner under it to prevent scratching the tank bottom. Here's where things start to go badly...
1) With all the equipment, rocks, etc in the tank it is perfectly level on its stand (I actually used a level to determine this before I filled it) - I fill the tank, not level any more. I use the level on the stand... level... the bottom rim of the tank... level... the canopy... level.... the sides of the tank... level... yet, my water line is not straight, lower water line on the left side than the right. What gives?
2) This where I made some serious errors - I strayed from equipment, filters, etc that I have always used and tried to go with more expensive stuff. My original plan was to filter with an Eheim 2080, and a JBJ canister (with U.V. sterilizer) that had its output running through a Lifegaurd fluidized bed filter... yes... overkill for a 75 gallon. Overkill is good when it comes to filtering African cichlid tanks. And here comes the fun:
a. The Eheim is a complete piece of crap - after having the filter replaced twice AND have a technician from a LFS who swears by them come to my house, neither the first or second one would prime. Water would flow intermitently and eventually air would get pulled into the intake mysteriously and stop the flow. Trust me, between myself and the tech we tried all the obvious (making sure everything is connected right, keeping the intake away from the spray bar) and not so obvious (replacing nearly every component) stuff. Conclusion - this filter simply refuses to work with this tank. For $400 I would at least expect it to run.
b. Getting the JBJ's 5/8" output to "talk" to the 1/2" on the lifegaurd was a nightmare as well. It leaked like crazy. I finally solved this issue after hours at home depot, a million different barb connectors, a lot of silicone, a lot of pipe dope, and just about all the plumbing education I ever wanted. Then the JBJ itself actually started leaking. After replacing the O-ring that set up finally... FINALLY seems to be working (and yes, the JBJ flow rate is within the parameters of the lifegaurd, so it wasn't an over-pressure issue)
c. I replaced the Eheim with a Fluval 305 AND a Magnum 350. Fluval has apparently replaced their regular hose with some wierd new stretch tube crap. Needless to say, the Fluval is leaking where the input connects to the canister. Unreal.
d. The magnum I guess I can't complain about, it runs fine, its just loud. I thought those things were supposed to be relatively silent. I have to ball it down quite a bit to make it tolerable. If I have the flow valve all the way open it fills with air bubbles and sounds ridiculous - but it seems to run okay.
At the moment I have a tank that may... or may not be level... filled with water with 2 of 3 filters running, and an owner who is afraid to start his fishless cycle because he can't imagine what could go wrong next.
the moral of this long winded story is - if you find something that works for you just stick with it (I long for a pair of Emperor 400s I can just slap on the back of the tank, but at this point I'd have to tear it all down because its too close to the wall), and I leave the post with a question...
Is it possible for a tank/project to be cursed?
