looking for plant and fish ID help

Hey Folks,

In the quest to find a larger tank to do mixed Malawis, I managed to get a pretty great deal on a 110.  However, it came with plants and fish I've never kept before.  In fact, I've never kept any plants and the C02 system and fertilizers are a bit daunting to me.  I'm still in the stages of researching how to take care of these guys and thought I'd post here for any advice/ ideas.  I'm considering putting some of them into a smaller tank to get some experience with plants before tackling a large project.  Anyway, here is the species list I got from the pevious owner and some pictures.  The pictures I've found online of the keyhole Cichlids don't seem to match, so I'd be especially interested to know if that's what they are.  

Keyhole Cichlids
Roseline Sharks
Julii Cory Catfish
Black Skirt Tetra
White Cloud Mountain Minnow
African Dwarf
Kuhli Loach
Neon Tetras
Siamese Algae Eater
Angelfish
There are a couple of red / pinkish Tetras in there. I think they are Serpae Tetras.
The two yellow fish are Rams I believe.
And there is one pretty cool little sucker fish


OH! and I'm also still looking for cool Malawis!




hmmm, Am I not allowed to post pics because I'm new here?  It says:

"Uploaded file is not valid: exceeded attachment maxsize (0 kB)."

n9643750 wrote:hmmm, Am I not allowed to post pics because I'm new here?  It says:

"Uploaded file is not valid: exceeded attachment maxsize (0 kB)."

You can't upload pics to the forum, you have to host them, like photobucket, etc...

Here's a thread about it
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"New members are not allowed to post external links or emails for 7 days. Please contact the forum administrator for more information."



Thanks for the help though.

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Koi Angelfish

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Trilineatus Corydora

n9643750 wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Roseline Shark

wheew,

Sorry for all of that!

That is a beautiful angel!! Im not sure about the large fish at the bottom but I see that you have cardinal tetras and, black skirt tetras, and a pygmy frog. as far as plants it looks like you have amazon swords and some kind of elodea.

If these are pictures after you moved the setup the fish look great, Good job! Those Roseline sharks (Denison Barbs) are pretty expensive. They look fat and healthy. I am amazed, you took a huge jump and dove right into a high tech planted tank full of different South American, and Asain tropical fish.

My advice would be to keep researching, hold off on the injected CO2 until you know you have everything running smoothly. To much CO2 will make PH drop like a hammer, displace O2 levels and kill fish quickly. This is something you want to ease into if you have no experience .

Most of these fish can go into a smaller tank easily. The Denison Barbs and Angel fish shouldn't go into anything smaller than a 50 gallon. The barbs look like they are about 4 inches at lest. They need room to dart about.


If you are close to me  I would be interested in the Julii Cory's, maybe that big fat tetra, perhaps some of the other tetra species if you need to move them. I may also have room for your Angel fish & SAE (Siamese algae eaters)  I am just throwing that out there just in case.

Thanks guys,

Think I'm gonna keep these guys right where they are for a little while at least. Can anyone tell me if these plants are high light or low light plants ?

Amazon swords can be either high or medium light and I think the elodea is a low to med light plant

n9643750 wrote:Thanks guys,
Can anyone tell me if these plants are high light or low light plants ?

Right in the middle with medium.



If I member correctly you got a decent lighting system with this set up?

Some marineland led bars came with it, but I mean to use those on my cichlid tank. Would these plants do alright with a good full spectrum florescent? Also, not sure how to tackle fertilizing them..... Does anyone know if the moss pictured is java moss?

Looks like java moss... possibly flame moss by the way it grows up

For plant lighting, the closer to 6500k-6700k spectrum the better.  for fertilizing, maybe try root tabs and/or red clay

I'll check my bulb when I get home later, Thanks!
The kit came with tons of liquid additives as well as powdered ones. It seems like root tabs and liquid carbon might take care of these guys though. That would be great, I'll give it a shot.

n9643750 wrote:Some marineland led bars came with it, but I mean to use those on my cichlid tank. Would these plants do alright with a good full spectrum florescent? Also, not sure how to tackle fertilizing them.....  Does anyone know if the moss pictured is java moss?

Fluorescents are good just gotta hit that sweet spot of enough wattages and spectrums. A good rule of thumb to start with is about 2-3 WATTS per gallon of water using fluorescent lighting. So for a 100 gallon tank about 200W-250W should give you a good start for medium to low light plants. LJ suggested a very good spectrum to use.

Thanks for the advice,

I dropped by the pet shop today and learned that what I have us a 4ft t8 fixture that holds one bulb. Are there bulbs out there that would be sufficient to grow med light plants in a 75 gallon tank using this fixture? They aren't at petco.... 32 watts seemed to be the max.

Not with just 1 T8 bulb. You'll need at least 2 of those to get Anubias and Java ferns (low light plants) to grow. Even then they should be elevated about 1/3rd of the way up on bog wood or decor.

T8 is older technology. To give you an idea I had a 56 gallon acrylic that was about 2 feet deep. I got okay lighting with 3 20W T8 bulbs and really good reflectors. That's still less than 1.5 Watts per gallon. This was good enough to grow low light plants really well.

Something cool though, if you wanted to T8 fixtures are super cheap at hardware stores and easy to install under wood hoods. If you dont have hoods you may search CL. T8 fixtures shouldn't be much at all...

Nope - as fishNAbowl said you'll need either more T8 bulbs or different lighting all together.  T8s tend toward pretty low wattage and there aren't any high-output varieties like there are with T5s and other bulbs.

If you aren't concerned about looks, you might try using a 4-bulb 4-ft T12 fixture.  A 10-pack of 6500K bulbs at Lowes runs about $30 and it'll put out about 160W of light.  It'll be big and ugly, but you'll save a few bucks.  The fixture will run you about $50 - [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I have 6500k bulbs I bought at H.Depot for around 6.50 or a box at 22.00 They work well for growing house plants so it should work well for this setup til' he can get either a 2 bulb t-8, 4'er or
2-24" lights of some kind. Cory will be raffling one 24" l.e.d. fixture at the swap in Auburn coming up. What is it your looking for Malawa??or...
As for the cichlid on the bottom definatly a Keyhole, (maronii sp.) They are peaceful, cool fish that command a good price, and not easy to find, definitly house them separate for breeding. I have a pair in
15g no problem!

I also got some light bulbs and reflectors with a recent craigslist deal.  The pins are square configuration and I'm not sure what kind of fixture I need to run them.  Does anyone recognize these?

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Coralife fixtures run those, I know fishlover ron had some for sale at the last cartel meet (:
I also helped him find those kinds of bulbs.

(Ps I'm now a lifetime member after this post bros).

cool,
thanks for the info. I don't even know if these bulbs are good or not. I'm kind of hoping to find somewhere to test them.

I love these key hole cichlids btw. They alternate between hiding under the driftwood and coming right up to the glass. I have three of them, no idea about their sexes though.