12-11-2009:
Drew: I saw this tank yesterday and the pics don't do it justice. I love the darkness and shadows in the corners. Those fish look great Jerry!
Walter quoting Drew: Don't do it justice? The pics are stunning. I love the bright rock with the dark corners. I know the rock isn't that bright, but it is a great contrast.
Drew quoting Walter: haha! The pics are great, but when I walked in the room, it was like BOOOOOM!!!
Kara quoting Walter (Don't do it justice?....) : This was my reaction too! The pics are fantastic and the tank looks so great, how could they not do it justice?! Amazing. I love this tank, it's so different, definitely looks like an aquarium showcase piece!
Jerry: Thanks guys. The fish really like the dark corners. They are really happy and show up from time to time. One of the males was just fighting with his reflection in the black background.
I have a very small upside down Synodontis I've had for about 4 years now. I just added him to the tank. I don't want to put my S. lucipinnis in there because I want to try to breed them.
I am debating with myself whether or not to add the N. leleupi since I have the one N. buescheri and would want a few more. But I want some Julidochromis regani kipili too. I need a bigger tank.
I still haven't figured out how to hide the silicone on the left-any ideas? I am thinking of how to silicone up some rocks to hang them on the left most rock so they still look natural and not just hanging in midair. I am going to go back to Glenwild Garden Center and see if they have any more flat rocks to replace the bunch of small ones on the right. They look a little too jumbled to me.
Jason: Hey Jerry, If I can figure out how to send fish through the mail safely would you want my 2 upside downs for your tank? I have had them for at least 3 years. and I have them cramped up in a ten gallon tank with a parenting pair of jelly bean convicts
Drew: Jerry, IMO you are asking for problems by adding to many N. buescheri. They are nasty fish and only reason I kept 3 in the 90g was because I thought I had the room. One male would beat the tar out the other male. I finally figured it out once I found a way to scape it and give them enough hiding places. Lots of plants also helped.
I have some babies I am raising. They are yours if you want once they get big. Right now they are tiny.
Leleupi are also pretty mean...and will duke it out with the buescheri.
12-12-2009:
Jerry: I added a rock on the left to cover the silicone. The fish like it already. I have to look at it a little more. What do you think?
(edit 4-18-19- while looking at my photos, I see there were a lot I didn't add in originally. So you guys get to see them.)
N. buescheri:
Paracyprichromis chillin':
Paracyprichromis from underneath. This photo was taken through the left side pane of glass.
12-13-2009
Jon: i think the rock is too big. it gives a feeling that i'm looking at a cove rather than a rock wall with little caves. if that makes sense.
Jason: I like it, Can't wait to see what it looks like when the plants grow in.Have you seen ur upside down cat since you put it in there?
12-14-2009:
Jerry:
Jon and Jason
I will be looking at the tank today while working to see what I think about the rock. Thanks for your input.
The upside down cat hides at the top right next to the heater. He did this in the other tank too. I guess he comes out at night. He's plenty fat.
12-17-2009:
Jerry: Last night I added 5 Otocinclus cats from the 150 gallon
(edit 2019: The 150 gallon tank was in my old bosses office) and a few pond snails to eat the brown and green algae that is starting to grow. The Oto's made the transition to the hard water fine. I adjusted them for about 4 minutes.
I bought 6 juvenile Julidochromis regani Kipili about 1 1/2" long today. I also bought one Altolamprologus compressiceps Red Lufubu today, again about 1 1 /2" long. I put them in this tank. I have another of the Red Lufubu's in another tank which I plan to add in later.
I had to remove one male Paracyprichromis nigripinnis as he was getting beat up by one of the other two males. Now I have two pairs. I am on the lookout for 2-3 more females.
I also removed the one Neolamprologus buescheri I had in here and put him elsewhere to allow my J. regani to grow in peace, rather than in pieces. In order to do that I had to remove almost all the vertical rocks. They were more difficult to move with the water in the tank. I took the opportunity to trim off some of the silicone on the left hand rock that bothers me so. It looks much better, but I am still not fully happy.
Johnny: I can't wait to see these tanks in march! May even sneak by if Jerry will have me earlier.
(2019 edit: NJAGC held a follow up meeting at my work in March 2010 http://www.njagc.net/wp/meetings/march-27-2010/ and this is what Johnny is referring to.)
12-18-2009:
Jerry: I am getting a growth of algae all over the rocks that are in the light. It started out as brown algae, now it is progressing to a green filamentous algae. It is pearling really well. Small bubbles floating up from it. This is a non CO2 tank too.
I cleaned the front glass today as it was getting really full of algae.
My fish are settling in fine. They just motor around the surface of the rocks and hang out. They pick at the rocks/algae from time to time. I feed them very, very small feedings a few times a day.
There is almost as much space behind the rocks in the dark as there is in the front. If I poke my head around the side and look back there I can see where the N. buescheri was starting to excavate a hole. At least I think it was him. He's not there any more.
I have thought about setting up a video camera to watch back behind the rocks, but I'm not sure how to go about that. What is involved in doing that?
1-27-2010:
Jerry: I see I haven't been keeping this updated. I added a few video's of the tank.
Here is an update I put on NYCichlidForum.com on Dec 22, 2009:
I was at work on Saturday after I planted my garlic and took a video of the tank. I had to split it up into two videos.
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pElk_byUDPo#
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSLtzH_BUYE#
They just finished uploading, so I don't know if they are available yet.
This tank has two 65 watt PC bulbs over a 65 gallon tank. Sounds like 2 watts per gallon, but with the large rocks shading the back half of the tank, and me having the lights up near the front of the tank, I am thinking I have closer to 4 watts per gallon over the front half of this tank. The algae that is growing is a filamentous green type, and it is pearling!! Today I saw one of my Julidochromis regani "Kipili" grab a piece of the algae off of the rock and swim around with it in its mouth. I wonder if it ate it?
Jan 5, 2010 update:
The algae I have is Hair Algae, Spirogyra.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirogyra It is still pearling but it is very long. I cleaned the tank last week with a 80 % water change and thorough scraping of the front glass. I took some before and after photo's and I'll get them up soon. Today the tank is just as bad as before the cleaning.
Tank before scraping:
Tank after scraping the algae off the front glass:
I have been thinking of ways to get rid of this algae: get one good looking Tropheus to eat it. Would only one Tropheus survive? Are there other Tanganyikan algae eaters?
Another option is a Florida Flag Fish Jordanella floridae html
https://www.fishbase.in/summary/Jordane ... ridae.html I really don't want to go with non Tanganyikan fish though.
Reduce the lighting duration from 12 hours to 8 hours. Easy to do.
1/26/10:
I ended up removing one of the 65 watt lights while keeping the lights on for 12 hours. This made a drastic improvement on the growth of the algae in the entire tank. Now I only get a thin layer of green algae on the front glass which is easy to scrape off.
We had a discussion on algae eating fish and I settled on Tanganicodus irsacae Moba Goby Cichlids. They are small and the least aggressive of the Goby Cichlids.
I added about 6 new juvie Paracyprichromis nigripinnis a few weeks ago to go with the ones I got from Drew. I now have about 10 of these, 6 1 1/2" Julidochromis regani Kipili, 1 two inch Altolamprologus compressiceps, four 1 1/2" Tanganicodus irsacae Moba Goby Cichlids were added in today, and four Otocinclus cats.
The Vallisneria is really starting to grow in and it is sending out runners. It is staying short so far, and from what I've read it will probably stay short in the African tank.
Here's a new video taken today:
1-27-2010:
Johnny: The tank and fish look great in the tank even with the algae seeing it in person. The algae on the rocks isn't distracting with the fish activity in there peeking in and around the rocks, it's pretty cool! Thanks for the quick tour.
Jason: Jerry looking great. I can see where your coming from with all the algae, I get annoyed with it as well. You know better than I do that it will go away with a little fine tuning. Great job man, and good luck with your bully fish.
1-30-2010:
Drew: Jerry, tank is looking nice. I love the way the rocks look.
3-30-2010:
Jerry: This is way overdue for an update. I've had two video's in the camera for maybe two months but have not been able to upload them. I now think my son may have deleted them. Ooops.
I just got the photo's off the still camera from February and will post them up later.