After my angel fish died I have had a very hard time deciding what direction I want to take my 45 gallon planted tank. I have thought about getting rid of everything, and starting over with either a malawi tank, or Tanganyika. However after much thought and reflection, I really do not want to just get rid of all my plants and all that I have work for with this tank. So I have come to the conclusion that I will make this a planted Tanganyikain community tank.
All the current stock will either be moved, sold, or given away. So I can start fresh when it comes to stocking.
As I am leaving all the plants in there, I will not be making large rock formations, but rather several smaller ones. I also cut off the Co2 injection about a month ago to see where the ph and hardness of the water would stabilize at. Its turning out good so far; PH 7.4, GH 8, and KH 14, so I will have to buffer very little.
As for stock, idealy I want a few species in this tank that act different than the N. brichardi and N. brevis that I already have. I still do not have the guts to order fish online and shell out big bucks, so Im sticking to what my LFS can get. She recently changed her supplier, and the N. brevis are the first fish I bought from them and they came in excellent condition, so I am all up for spending the money with them.
I am thinking of going with trios of all of these at the moment: Alto. Calvus (black); Neo. leleupi; and J. transcriptus 'bemba'.
I have not had any first hand experince with any of these, so all experinces with them are welcome. From what I have read, these sound like they will be ok in there. And this will be a project that I will have to save for and take some time to complete. Good quality fish, but I pay for it too. The leleupi will be an est. $14 each, the calvus $15, and the julie $15. That will be $132 in fish. heh, unless thats the only thing I want for Christmas, then I will have to save for it.
All the current stock will either be moved, sold, or given away. So I can start fresh when it comes to stocking.
As I am leaving all the plants in there, I will not be making large rock formations, but rather several smaller ones. I also cut off the Co2 injection about a month ago to see where the ph and hardness of the water would stabilize at. Its turning out good so far; PH 7.4, GH 8, and KH 14, so I will have to buffer very little.
As for stock, idealy I want a few species in this tank that act different than the N. brichardi and N. brevis that I already have. I still do not have the guts to order fish online and shell out big bucks, so Im sticking to what my LFS can get. She recently changed her supplier, and the N. brevis are the first fish I bought from them and they came in excellent condition, so I am all up for spending the money with them.
I am thinking of going with trios of all of these at the moment: Alto. Calvus (black); Neo. leleupi; and J. transcriptus 'bemba'.
I have not had any first hand experince with any of these, so all experinces with them are welcome. From what I have read, these sound like they will be ok in there. And this will be a project that I will have to save for and take some time to complete. Good quality fish, but I pay for it too. The leleupi will be an est. $14 each, the calvus $15, and the julie $15. That will be $132 in fish. heh, unless thats the only thing I want for Christmas, then I will have to save for it.