working on a planted tank with cichlids

MySpace Mike

MySpace Mike

MySpace Mike Creative Media Founder
Jul 8, 2007
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So I'm about to start turning my 18 gallon Convict Fry tank into a planted tank and was thinking of the following stocking list.

2) German Blue Rams (male/female)
1) Black Veil Angel
3) Albino Cory Catfish
1) Siamese Algae Eater (siamensis)
10) Neon Tetras
3) Rummy Nose Tetra (their red face helps watch the water chemistry)


What do you think of the stocking? Keep or ditch the Angel? What are your ideas or concerns?!?!?!?
 
Yeah I was thinking the angel would get to big for the tank. Last time I did a planted I mixed in 3 Rummy Nose with Neons and had no issues, they all schooled together. So I'm definitely going with the 10 Neons and 3 Rummy's together. The Rummy are better than any water test when it comes to water quality with their Red Faces, but I want Neons for sure.

I think a pair of GBR's should be ok since they don't get too big. I had a pair before and the male barely pushed 3". So they should be ok. Definitely want the SAE and Cory's for a cleaning crew.

I'm more worried about the planted part most of all, I have a post going in the planted forum for that part. But this would be my 4th planted tank, but nothing this small, as my old planted tanks were 55 gallons and 30 gallon.

I have most of the equipment already from heater, filters, lighting, and sand to cover the eco complete substrate.
 
Hey Mike! If I could throw my 1 penny in... Well, now I guess it's 3 pennies... Inflation and all...

My 55 Community, when I picked it up was already home to a very large Angel, 2 Hatchets, 2 headlight/taillight tetra's, 1 neon, 1 black molly, 1 von rio tetra, 1 cory, and at the time, 2 very large pleco's. The tank was horrendous when I got it. It hadn't been cleaned in about 2 months or longer.

Not trying to tip the balance too much I re-homed the large pleco's, and opted for an albino bristlenose pleco, and added 2 platies, 3 glo fish, 2 clown loaches, 1 killie, 2 more glo fish, a red finned tetra, and an SAE... Authentic no kiddin SAE.

I have a bunch of live plants, don't use CO2, upgraded the lighting, and i'll tell you that Angel, is the Matriarch of the tank. She only gets mad when the glo fish bump into her when they are doing their Danio thing... You know, running amok... *LOL* I know that there are several fish that are supposed to be schoolers, but i'm assuming that these kids were all brought up in the tank together at it's inception about 4 years ago. Somehow it's working. All fishy kids are flashy and healthy, no in-fighting, other than when the molly gets stupid with the hatchets... Maybe not the best setup in the world, but they only mess with the plants when the bearded algae makes it's appearance.

I wanted to add more SA fish to it, so I tempted the fates with 3 GBR's. It's still working. No issues. Am I tempting the fates? Yeah, probably...

Ok so that's my 3 cents worth. For what it's worth....

Thanks Mike
 
GBR's are actually a well known peaceful species of cichlid, despite people saying they can be aggressive and get big. They are a dwarf species of cichlid that are known to get around 3" and are only territorial when spawning, they hate others being near their eggs lol. I find them beautiful and an awesome addition to a planted tank.
 
MySpace Mike said:
So I'm about to start turning my 18 gallon Convict Fry tank into a planted tank and was thinking of the following stocking list.

2) German Blue Rams (male/female)
1) Black Veil Angel
3) Albino Cory Catfish
1) Siamese Algae Eater (siamensis)
10) Neon Tetras
3) Rummy Nose Tetra (their red face helps watch the water chemistry)


What do you think of the stocking? Keep or ditch the Angel? What are your ideas or concerns?!?!?!?
Click to expand...

For a tank that small I would ditch the angel and one of the tetra species. The rummynose need to be in a group of 6 minimum, as should the cories. I would go with pygmy or panda cories, rather than the albinos which can hit 3" each. The SAE is really too big for that size tank too. Using rummynose to watch your water chemistry is not very responsible fishkeeping. That is what test kits are for.

I would go:
2 GBR 1m/1f
10 neons
6 pygmy cories
3 otos once the tank is mature
 
Why spend $30 for a test kit if I could just keep a school of 10 rummy faces which run the same amount, and I have a test kit. I would love some panda corys but nowhere around here sells them anymore. I would keep 3 ottos but they don't eat certain algae, where as the SAE will eat almost all forms of algae.

Of course non of the fish will be added to the tank until I am done with planting it and that'll be roughly 1 month. I will be adding in the Rummy Face Tatras first, and let them run the tank for 2 weeks then I will add in the SAE and corys for another 2 weeks, then finally the GBRS last.
 
MySpace Mike said:
Why spend $30 for a test kit if I could just keep a school of 10 rummy faces which run the same amount, and I have a test kit. I would love some panda corys but nowhere around here sells them anymore. I would keep 3 ottos but they don't eat certain algae, where as the SAE will eat almost all forms of algae.

Of course non of the fish will be added to the tank until I am done with planting it and that'll be roughly 1 month. I will be adding in the Rummy Face Tatras first, and let them run the tank for 2 weeks then I will add in the SAE and corys for another 2 weeks, then finally the GBRS last.
Click to expand...

That sounds very overstocked to me, rummynose are significantly larger than neons. I would only go with 6 of them if that's the fish you're going with instead of neons. The SAE gets way too big for that small of a tank. I have one in my 29g and it will be moved to the 75g when it gets too large. Another option for algae are nerite snails, they eat all sorts of algae and don't reproduce in fw.
 
MySpace Mike said:
You know I was deciding on maybe going with a couple snails, I think I will go with snails instead of a SAE.
Click to expand...

Good call, the nerites are really cool and really do a great job on algae. I've got olive nerites in mine, would love to find zebra nerites as they have awesome shells.
 
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