# Update on my 225 gallon tank



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

So far everything seems to be going well, the most aggressive fish in the tank are the angelfish and leluipi, the angels are oblivious to the trets, leluipi, calvus and copressiceps but chase each other and the jurapari frequently. The leluipi like to pick on the calvus and compressiceps. The trets chase each other but don't seem to bother any of the other fish. I added a few more plants, a brazilian sword, two amazonicus, some crypts and some micro sword. The Jungle val is growing the fastest. I replaced the actinic bulbs with four 65k plant bulbs but they seem to cast a yellow/green tint on the tank which Im not too fond of. I have some moss being shipped to me, christmas moss, taiwan moss and fissidens that I will attach to driftwood or stones. I also added some red claw crabs and a fiddler crab but they stay hidden all the time. Kind of regret adding the red claw crabs though because I think they will end up being a pain tearing up my plants, the fiddler is a better tank mate for plants. The five bristle nose plecos I bought are not showing any bristles, Im afraid Petsmart sold me regular old plecos. I may end up getting another set of lights to try to diminish some of the yellow tint the plant bulbs are putting off, haven't decided yet. All in all I think it's shaping up nicely.


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Nice setup and plants. Looks great. I noticed you titled this 'cichlid jumble' under the tanks/aquarium gallery... spot on.


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## cichlid-gal (Apr 27, 2012)

You have a way with your plants...your tank is awesome. Love it!


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

The tank is filling in very nicely, looks good.

FYI, only the males have bristle on their 'noses', the females are bare nosed.


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## rodriguez20 (Nov 27, 2012)

what type of substrate do you have? i bought some sand for my 180 and it turn out tp be darker then i thought but yours looks whiter. great tank


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Thank you for the comments and it is definitely a jumble. lol. I have been in the hobby most of my life. I received my first tank when I was about eight years old, a twenty gallon tall. My brother got one as well and he liked guppies, platties, swordtails and mollies. I thought they were boring. I liked the cichlids, Jack Dempsy's, Oscars, Jewels, etc and catfish. Back then I didn't know anything about how big they would get or much of anything else. The fish stores sure didn't want to tell you or they could lose a sale. We had under gravel filters and the tanks were cleaned once per year wether they needed it or not, lol. Its amazing the amount of misinformation and lack of basic knowledge we received from pet store owners. We didn't have the internet and computers were something you might see in science fiction movies. Basically it was trial and error. Over the years I have came to some certain beliefs that may be flawed or contrary to what some of the "experts" believe but I have had success breeding and keeping everything from plecos/catfish, malawi's, south/central americans and tangs. One of those beliefs is that as long as you have good to great filtration and keep your water clean, your fish will respond positively. Wether your ph is ideal or not makes little difference as long as it doesn't fluctuate erratically, same with your hardness etc. That is one reason why I chose to mix this tank up the way I did, that and the fact that I wanted to debunk the whole evil tretocephalus myth that I see continuously voiced, most by people who have never kept them but insist on continuing to spread this claim that they will kill everything in your tank. I have done species only tanks, location specific mixes, fretted over water parameters, bought buffering mixes, made buffering mixes, monitored and maintained the water parameters to the point it was like a mental disorder trying to make it just right and it worked. My fish did everything they were expected to do. Then one day, several years ago, I had so many fish that I wanted to keep them from spawning, I didn't have an outlet to get rid of them and didn't want to buy more tanks to keep more of the same fish. I dropped the buffers, I added plants, I added fish to eat the babies, I stopped everything but the filtration and water changes and they continued to spawn,they continued to do everything they were doing before I stopped fretting over the water parameters. The fish I added to eat the babies started making babies of their own and I concluded that the fish just want clean water, enough space to not be cramped and places to hide if they feel intimidated. All the rest is just fluff, not bad fluff but unnecessary fluff. Thats been my experience anyway.


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## Iggy Newcastle (May 15, 2012)

Thanks for the info. Makes me wish I had an auto water changer!


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

WVUfish said:


> that and the fact that I wanted to debunk the whole evil tretocephalus myth that I see continuously voiced, most by people who have never kept them but insist on continuing to spread this claim that they will kill everything in your tank


If yours pair up, you'll get to learn all about them. :lol: They won't kill everything in a tank of your size, but they are likely to claim a sizeable territory and protect it very aggressively from all comers. That it is heavily planted and decorated works in your favour. The tank does look great, and I've been keeping Tangs in planted tanks for decades. Keep in mind that in the wild, trets will defend territories of 2m square... They aren't evil, they are just like many substrate spawning cichlids that protect their territories very aggressively.


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

I've kept them before in a heavily stocked 125 with Demasoni, Yellow Labs and several other species. Had a male and female pair up and spawn numerous times and they never did anything more than guard their cave that their eggs were laid in. They showed more conspecific aggression toward the other female tret that was in the tank than any of the other fish. Never was the aggression more than chasing the fish that had entered their territory out of their cave. Mostly it was flaring gills and shaking a bit to try to intimidate. Like I said, its been my experience that trets aren't any more aggressive than any other spawning cichlid and less so than a lot.


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## Fogelhund (Dec 3, 2002)

I guess that is one of the interesting aspects of keeping fish, people can have different experiences with them. Hopefully you get the same behaviour this time, but it isn't particularly typical.


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

One of my first fish road trips was a visit to the hatchery of a site sponsor and listening to a lengthy discussion between the owner and an experienced member of our group who was trying to get trets to spawn. They contributed to my impression that trets are more one of the more aggressive Tangs when spawning.


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## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

tank looks good still, hopefully the new plants root in well and begin to grow. Especially the crypts, I love them.


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## Blooper01 (Mar 1, 2013)

Really like your black background with the plants. Might be a nice alternative to 3D background. Did you paint it? Thanks in advance.


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## ozman (Sep 7, 2012)

stunning.....enough said :drooling:


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Substrate is pool filter sand, $12 for a 50lb bag about 5 bags. Background is store bought two sided hang on black/blue. Thanks for the complements, been doing this for a long time, think that practice helps.


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Little update, looks like the first ones to spawn in my new tank are the Leluipi. Noticed the other day that the male was acting like he was displaying for the female but she didn't seem interested. Well she disappeared a few days ago and I hadn't seen her, couldn't locate her at all. The male on the other hand was chasing anything that came near the openings to the caves he has dug out from under the large rock I placed in the center of the tank in front of the driftwood. Last night I opened the doors to the stand and looked up at the bottom of the tank under the rock. The male had cleared a nice bit of the sand from under the rock and I could see the female and the babies free swimming underneath the rock. I figure there will be a lot of casualties with keeping the babies in the tank but certainly some will survive.


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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Congrats on the new fry!!


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## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

how is this tank doing? The pictures are gone! I hope the tank isn't


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Tank is doing well, fish are growing and the Angels are still the tank bullies. Don't know what happened with the pics, guess photo bucket links only last so long. I'll try to post more pics when I get time. Went on vacation and came home and my java fern was a mess, looks like swiss cheese so Im trying to get it back to where it looks healthy. Have not had any issues with the trets being overly aggressive. They have figured out the pecking order. The Angels are the kings of the tank and are three of the largest I've ever seen. The trets don't really bother any of the other fish, one of them was having an issue with the male leleupi after the leleupi took up residence under one of the rocks in the tank as his breeding residence but it wasn't long til he gave up and left the leleupi alone. The jurapari are doing well, the largest is about 4-1/2" long now. The compressiceps and calvus are slow growing little buggers, the biggest one is maybe two inches long now and the smallest about 1-1/4". I feed them new life thera a, tetra flakes and dehydrated plankton with occasional frozen bloodworms, krill and misis. The filtration is an FX5, an XP3, one powerhead with a sponge and a submersible UV filter with sponge. I do bi weekly water changes of about 70 gallons using a python. I bought some pond water conditioner off of ebay in bulk for a fraction of the cost of what they charge for water conditioner at pet stores. The FX5 is a lot more cumbersome to clean than the xp3 but its a beast, really like it and am happy I bought it. The odysea light fixtures I bought are ok but I can't seem to find t5 bulbs that look natural and the led moonlights aren't very good, only two are still working from what I can tell. If I had it to do over I would buy something different. Other than that everything is going fine.


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

The Trets have spawned several times without issues other than the tank being too large to catch anything out of it. Lol. Each time I have just left them in the tank and they all eventually end up being picked off. The leluipi however have managed to take advantage of the Trets protective nature. Their babies actually mix in with the Tret fry and are doing quite well as they stay closer to the substrate and don't seem to get picked off by the Geophagus, Angels, Comps and Calvus's. Also the Petricolas are loving these giant spawns of the Trets, they just swarm the fry into a ball and feast. The big male actually grabbed one on the Petro's in its mouth and swam the entire length of the tank before spitting him out, unharmed other than some small marks on its side.


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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)




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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)




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## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)




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## Deeda (Oct 12, 2012)

Congrats on the spawn! The tank is looking great.


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