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New 75g Tank

2K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  DJRansome 
#1 ·
Well, I finally got back into the hobby. Had to sell my tank when we moved to Utah and was waiting for the right time to get back in. We finally purchased our home 2 years ago once we decided we like it here. After a year of contemplation and searching for deals, I set up a 75g tank.

I have about 60lbs of aragonite sand as substrate.
A 300w and a 100w Heater
A SunSun 704b canister filter. (The thing is huge)
2 Fluval Aquaclear 70 HOB filters
2 Hydor Koralia Nano Powerheads
40lbs of Atlantic Coral Rock

Tanks PH has been a stable 7.9. Temp 80F
Fully cycled. 0 Ammonia 0 Nitrite

Doing a Mixed Malawi tank.
Have 3 Peacocks (Sunshine, Fire Fish, German Red)
4 Haps. (Blue Dolphin, Flame Back, Livingstonii, Star Sapphire)
The rest are Mbuna. 1m2f ratio
Yellow Lab
Yellow tail Acai
Saulosi
Cherry red zebra
Maingano
Socolofi

The tank is pretty peaceful. No tail nipping. And not much chasing. So I'm pretty happy. All are larger juveniles. And properly sexed.

I was wanting one or 2 more peacocks and 1 more hap

Total of 28 fish. Is this overkill for this tank? Do I have enough filtration?

Oh I'm using about 6.6 lbs of biohome ultimate in the canister. The HOBs have Seachem Matrix in there.
 
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#2 ·
For all-male in a 48x18 tank I like 12 fish that mature <= six inches.

Welcome back to the hobby, and welcome to Cichlid=forum!!

I've never had luck with trios(or even quads) ...especially with aggressive mbuna like zebra, maingano and socolofi.

Even if you considered a max number for a 75G with mixed gender mbuna only, my max would be 20. I think you have 2 tanks of fish there. I do not think more filtration = more fish...for me it is more of a territory thing.

I'd see how it is going in a year or so when the mbuna are spawning.

Glad all is going well.
 
#3 ·
I hope you enjoy the nice setup. But your current tank occupants will have trouble with each other eventually so I would say it's not a permanent setup.

For now I would be aware of their diet; most mbuna have increased chance of bloat when fed on a meaty diet. When I was beginning with africans I mixed mbuna with peacocks/haps and the mbuna eventually died of bloat due to feeding non-plant based foods. I now feed strictly algae/spirulina/kelp products to my current all-mbuna tank. IMO the safest course of action would be to feed the tank a plant based food which hopefully your peacocks/haps will also eat, but then you'd be depriving them of the meaty foods they prefer.

The Livingstonii will grow up to 10 inches.

The length of your tank limits the size & amount of fish you can have in there to have a balanced tank that you can enjoy. Personally I would either choose a mixed gender mbuna setup or a peacocks/haps setup for a tank your size. I wish you luck.
 
#4 ·
Thanks for the replies. I will keep a look out for a 55/75g second hand deal. If things start to get ugly, I will move the Mbuna to the 55g. As of right now, all is going well.

Here are some pics
 

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#5 ·
Nice fish and they should hopefully grow into some real beauties. For my tanks, for the first four weeks I would feed them very sparingly but spread out the food along the length of the tank to give all an opportunity to get a piece or two, to minimize chance of bloat.
 
#6 ·
Thank you for the suggestion. I have been feeding them in the manner you described. Across the whole top of the aquarium. Front and back. Pretty sparingly. One measured half teaspoons. 1x Monday, Wednesday, Friday. 2x Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday., Sunday. That give me like a 1.5 day fast, per week.

Weekly 35% water changes keeps my nitrates below 50ppm.

If anyone has suggestions on how to naturally keep nitrates down, I'm all ears.
 
#7 ·
I like nitrates 20ppm or lower right after a water change. High nitrates are an indicator of less than optimal water condition, which can be a stressor and lead to bloat.

I use Seachem Purigen which I find makes a real difference in keeping my nitrates lower for longer. I have 5 liters of Purigen in bags in my 450gal tank's sump.

But I still do 70%-75% weekly water changes in both my tanks. Whenever I add more fish to a tank I do a water change 2 days after and monitor water parameters throughout that week.
 
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