anyone had an aquarium set up?

i am in the process of setting up my 75 right now. it is at my moms house and my step dad wants me to stock it with africans but i don't know if i want africans or new word dudes.

what kind of fish do you have?

i am thinking of a nandopsis haitientsis(black nasty, odo)
or a parachromis dovii(wolf)

so lets here what kind ya got.

step dad is also wanting to take the decor in a direction that i don't want to go. i might just tell him to go ahead and do what he wants with it but then he will have to take care of it.
none of them know as much about cichlids as i do so it should be interesting.

i still want to hear about your aquariums.

I made a small "river" tank....filter "in" one end "out" the other.

8" x 8" x 4 feet long. works great.

I keep a selection of little "Corydoras", small catfish that only grow to about 2" long.

Great fun to watch & they can tolerate unheated water too.

Also got a small (4") algae cleaning fish who does a great job of keeping it clear.

Bogwood and home-made plastic plants and plain sand for a substrate, great for their litte moustaches when they forage for food.

Easy maintenance and very pleasurable to watch.

I also have an old mechanical air pump that works off a rotating disk & magnet motor that drives a tiny piston. Tick, tick, tick. Not "HHHMMMMMMMM"

I'd love to have a huge system one day and have local freshwater fish. Roach, trout, perch etc. Something like 3 or 4 meters long and fed from my vast water cistern/supply out here in the sticks.

Good luck with your set-up. I know you are into Cyclids but check out the amazing "corydoras" species, south american I think. Cute!

I have no fish of my own yet but my father did a couple of interesting things over the years. We had added on a living room addition to our old house and one of the windows was in one of the living room walls on the inside. He removed the window, mounted in some shelves and then put a fish tank in it. You could look in from both sides.

The other time he took a old non working TV and removed the guts, glued on the knobs and put a fish tank inside of it. That was pretty cool.

reply to post by nerbot


yeah i know all about cory cats. i usually wind up with a couple in my tanks. we are still at odds about what to put in. i wouldn't mind an escondido either