Confused.

kablamo

kablamo

Member
My tank is in dissaray, and has not had fish since january.
It is a 29 gallon SW tank with lots of hair algae, and about 50 lbs of live rock. 96 watts of PC lighting, 2 powerheads, emperor 300 power filter, skimmer, blah blah blah, so on so forth.
I'm getting really busy these days but I need my fish fix...
Does anyone know anything about converting an ex reef tank to a cichlid tank? I really don't have time to maintain a SW tank, I don't like mixing saltwater, and it's a long drive to buy SW from LFS...
Do many LFS buy rock back? Also, (it was pretty expensive, so I don't know if I want to do this) has anyone ever had experience with killing rock? The shapes are awesome, and i think it would look great in a planted cichlid tank.
Does a protein skimmer have any use in a FW tank? Also, is there a way to clean sand?
Is this an incredibly stupid idea? I picked saltwater because I like the fish better, they are cooler, have nicer colors, and so on, I would really like to have fish again, but I got in way over my head with the reef thing. After about a year of having an aquarium, I don't need fish to be from the ocean, I just think It would be a lot easier to keep freshwater fish happy.
Please lose your bias against FW when you reply. Also, if some of you guys have experience with cichlids, I'd like to hear about them.
Anyway, thanks, in advance for your replies.
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
Not sure about ciclids,though I had them yrs ago. I know they love lots of rocks to hide in, and brine water, not sure about PH, and LR might keep the PH to high, though i think you may be ok there. You could always do mollies? Ask your LFS.
 
farmboy

farmboy

Active Member
I do the freshies.
Protein skimmer won't work on fresh.
You won't need the power heads. Emperor 300 will cover it.
I don't think you can clean sand the same way you vacuum gravel.
In fresh or salt, keeping the bio load way down will keep the tank maintenance to a minimum. I do a 25% water change on my 55 gallon fresh about 1/month.
Say. . . you wanna sell some of that stuff?? :D
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
Yeah, to LFS for credit. So live rock is good for buffering? I'm going all of the tank stuff today to get it set up and get the cycle started, so I have to make my decision quickly
 
farmboy

farmboy

Active Member
The combonation of aragonite sand and live rock in my aquarium keeps my saltwater at 8.2 on the money. I believe this is within the acceptable range for cichlids.
Hope that helps.
 
puffer32

puffer32

Active Member
Yep, had LR with my africans, they have alot of personality, and some species are very colorful!
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
Are you going with African cichlids or South American cichlids? If you want south american, you generally do not want the "hard" water that you would get with the carbonate rocks, etc. Those work for African Cichlids...though I don't think I would do sand. All cichlids can be "diggers" of some sort, and the sand might make it rather constantly cloudy. So I would probably reconsider that.
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
Yeah I am doing african and have decided to was my sand and dry it out in case I do another sand bottom tank in the future.
 
55gsw

55gsw

Member
You can use your rocks but you're going to have to bake them first. All the life on the rocks need to be killed off so they don't foul the water when added to fresh. The best and easiest way is to place all the rocks out in the sun for a week or so. Then you go in with a stiff brush and take off any thing clinging to the rocks, give it a good rinse and you're set.
BTW, african cichlid salts and marine salt are two totally different things. Cichlid salts are not really salts, they're used to keep the pH up, they're a type of buffer, and your rock will do the same thing so you won't need to worry about adding any buffers unless your normal tap water has a very low pH (below 6.9) in which case you can go the cheaper route by using baking soda.....check out some of the african cichlid sites for more info on that....
Sorry to hear that you're leaving the salty side but I DO understand about the expense!! Good luck to you!! :)
 
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