Lake Tanganyika Species • 2100 Gallons - mainly shelldwellers

[Ardeus]

It doesn't have glasses yet, but here it is:

[ahud]

Wow, how did you get these huge rocks in?
I guess you are leaving it outside?

[Darkside]

How will you prevent birds from snacking on your fish?

[Ardeus]

Today I nearly got a leg crushed while trying to move them around. But this is how they got in:

[Ardeus]

Darkside: I hope they don't have the guts to come down

[ahud]

Ardeus must be rolling in the muh lah

[ahud]

Oh, and I hope you boiled them rocks!

[drungil14]

What shelldwellers and types of shells are you going to put in there? Please keep the pictures comin.

[clgkag]

going to be a sweet setup. Looking forward to futher pics.

[cholile]

my jealousy knows no bounds. i bet you could put a pair of the emperors in there with shell dwellers and have plenty of breeding to make up for lost fish as long as you feed your emperors. that'd be so cool!

[Ardeus]

Thanks guys!

I have two restrictions in choosing species:

- Only small fish;
- Only fish that stay very closely to their territories.

This tank is my atempt at having a tank that's not a cage, and that's the purpose of those two rules. A big fish will make any tank look small and the same goes for a fish that swims from one side of the tank to the other in a few seconds.

So, it will probably come down to:

- Multies (right);
- Ocellatus (left);
- Brevis (left);
- Alto's "Sumbu" (left);
- Buescheri (left);
- Eretmodus (left);
- Gracillis (left);
- Cyprichromis (middle-right);
- Callochromis (middle).

That's it, I think, but I'm still open to suggestions. I don't want to put any particularly frail species in, at least in the first months. In the future, it would be nice to have just a few Benthochromis. A large peacefull fish would help to keep everyone else close to their homes and maybe the cyprichromis would school more.

I have to have in mind that I probably will not be able to remove any species after I put it in.

Another thing is the breeding of certain species. Multies will probably breed like a biblical plague but they stay very close to their territories, so I have no problem with that. This tank was built mainly for them.

Buescheri fry also have a very high survival rate but they are completely bound to the rocks and they have small batches of fry.

The one that worries me is the gracillis. I never had them, I know that they also breed a lot but are less aggressive and smaller than the other species of the brichardi complex, so I am willing to take the risk although I hate hate hate overstocked tanks (I have one).

All other species will have a much lower survival rate, I guess, because their fry leave their parents too early.

The rocks ended up occupying much more space than I expected, but there's a lot of sand going in and it will hide completly some of them, mainly in the left, where I will try to build a dam to contain the sand. The idea is to have the sand at the level of the glasse all around the tank.

In the back, in the middle of the tank, I plan to have vallisnerias. This will be the place to go for the evicted fish.

I hope I can get the glasses in place this weekend. Let's see.

[BRANT13]

sounds and looks to be an amazing tank in the making....keep the pics comin

[Longstocking]

Very cool....

Please keep us updated.

Callochromis will wonder the whole area for the most part....

[Ardeus]

Thanks.

Sarah: I'm planning to have a huge shellbed on the right and scattered shells on the left. I was expecting the Callochromis to just wander in the middle of the tank, in an open sand area. I'm pretty sure the multies will not allow them in their area and I think that the ocellatus will also do the same.

[drungil14]

I would leave the gracilis out. Also just curious to know the number of cyprichromis you were planning on getting because I always wanted to see a large school of cyps and you have the perfect tank for it.