65 gallon albino african chiclid tank

Discussion in 'Freshwater Aquariums' started by oakvad, Aug 23, 2009.

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  1. oakvad

    oakvad Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Cheyenne WY.
    New to this forum and just wanted to share some pics of our new setup

    65 gallon acrilic with 5 gallon bio filter
    2 albino oscars
    1 pleco
    2 chinise algea eaters

    The tank is only about a month old and we have a real algea problem, as you can see.

    After the last cleaning with a gravel vacuum we had a seriuos amonia spike, probably because i disturbed to much of the subtrate, just did a water change and hopefully that will straighten things out in a couple days.
     

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  3. inwall75

    inwall75 Giant Squid

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    Welcome to 3Reef and it sounds like you're off to a flying start
     
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  4. LoJack

    LoJack Sea Dragon

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    Aug 3, 2009
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    Location:
    Thompson, Manitoba, Canada
    The tank looks great. I have a few questions though.

    What is the footprint of the tank? LxW in inches?

    -- I ask because Oscars when full grown need at least a 48x18 to turn around comfortably. I'm not sure if albinos stay a touch smaller, but the average oscar will hit 14 inches.

    Second question is, Are you attached to that Pleco?

    If not I would trade him in. Those large generic plecos from the pet stores do nothing to combat algae, and are just little poop factories. And with two oscars (possibly the messiest cichlid around) you probably won't want a fish contributing so much to the bio load.

    A bristlenose pleco is about 5 inches full grown ... and will consume almost 5 times as much algae as that big guy in a day.

    Any other questions ... shoot, I was huge into Cichs before I set up the reef.

    HTH
     
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  5. oceanparadise1

    oceanparadise1 Fire Squid

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    Nice looking tank man! You fresh water guys make me want a fresh water tank again so bad!
     
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  6. iLLwiLL

    iLLwiLL Sailfin Tang

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    I'm pretty sure oscars considered central american cichlids. Africans are the smaller more colorfull ones. I would say in around 4-5 months your going to have a real problem with that tank. The footprint looks very small and keeping water quality decent will become a challenge. I would start looking for at least a standard 75 gallon tank with a 48" x 18" footprint.

    I had a pair of ruby red oscars in a 55 a loooong time ago, I sold them when they were 8" and I was on the verge of needing a bigger tank. I ran an emperor 400 and a rena XP3 canister filter just to keep up with how nasty they can make a tank.

    ~Will.
     
  7. coldshot

    coldshot Blue Ringed Angel

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    Welcome to the reef....When I had fresh water I had African Cichlid's....Very nice setup....
    Danny
     
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  9. oakvad

    oakvad Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

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    Cheyenne WY.
    Well the tank footprint is 30x24, but i had thought about that and was kinda planning on making this into a reef tank just didnt have the cash flow right now. The tank itself was built to be a salty but i wanted some darn fish now so we went ahead and did the fresh thing.

    I am having issues with the water though, thats why we got the big pleco and he is acually diong not to bad but i also put in 2 chinise algea eaters that are rediculous they go nuts on grime, but the water is really cloudy prob. do to the fact i used crushed corel for substrate ( i know big no no) but the fish seem to be happy. I also dont think the filter is able to keep up.

    Also i have a 29 gallon with 6 bleeding heart tetras and had 3 dalmation molly's ( recently deceised) i cleaned both tanks with a gravel vacuum and after the nitrates and amonia levels went sky high, so i did a half water change yesterday and have not checked levels again yet.

    Im thinking the tank was finishing cycling and i disturbed it by stirring up the gravel?
     
  10. missionsix

    missionsix Super Moderator Staff Member

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    Welcome to 3reef!!!!! Nice tank.
    Be sure not to use any copper based meds in your system........
     
  11. iLLwiLL

    iLLwiLL Sailfin Tang

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    The footprint is 30 x 24??? How tall is it then, like 6 feet? Just trying to get an idea of what i'm looking at. The footprint of a tank is the length and the width (not height), and your tank looks to be at least twice as tall as it is long. its a great tank for a reef setup with a few very small fish, but anything larger than 6" is going to be swimming in tight circles.

    Heres a pic I dug up of my oscars. I bought them when they were the size of yours and fed them nothing but hikari gold "red formula" and krill treats. They grew to this size in a little over a year.

    [​IMG]

    ~Will.
     
  12. oakvad

    oakvad Spanish Shawl Nudibranch

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    Location:
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    Length 18 width 24 hight 30
    And ya they have grown almost an inch in a month
    My problem is i got in a hurry ( big mistake) and went with fish that i new were gonna out grow the tank with plans of getting them to a bigger one in about a year.
    like i said the ultimate plan is to make this a reef tank

    Just figured out something, this is not a 65 gallon is it?