55g

55 Gallon Cichlid Tank

This tank was given to me by a friend, had to take a couple fish with it and it was in dire need of cleaning...but still a great deal. Got the stand off of someone on craigslist.com and here it is :)

Originally I was going to split the cichlids apart and let the JD have the tank to himself...but I decided to leave them together.    I'm going to get some more rock for the tank, took out the caves I made out of ABS and lava rock...tired of looking at them.

So the fish now (as of 8/2/06):   A Jack Dempsey, several n. brichardi, two julies (transcriptus), one alto compressiceps, a common pleco and an apple snail.

8/2 was the big move...moved this tank from my bedroom to the living room downstairs. Looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself. Below are some before before pictures of when I first got the tank...eww! You literally couldn't see through the water after it got stirred up. There were UGF plates in the bottom, algae eaters weren't able to deal with the muck. I didn't include a before the move shot because it didn't really change.   I need to find some more rock still for the cichlids...they're all making use of the one rock and the brichardis have dug themselves a little den behind one of the other rocks lol

Back to fish

I had a terrible equipment malfunction with this tank in like September of 06. Heater got stuck on and basically I came home to boiled fish. They all died with the exception of my JD and the pleco. Needless to say I was very sad. After that it took me awhile to decide what to do with it. I was at my favorite local store and he suggested some geophagus (dont remember the exact type) and gave me 4 of them at 1/2 price. The three of them pestered one to death within a few weeks, and then were all good for awhile. Now lately they have been picking on another one...but so far so good. I think my JD got stunted from the trauma of the heat, he is still only about 4 inches long and doesn't seem to be getting any bigger. I could be wrong though, maybe he is just a slow bloomer hehe

8/19/07 - Need to get a new picture! I added a background, the fish are different (1 JD, 3 geophagus, 1 pleco), I added some rocks and some driftwood too! Although I'll have to do it right after a water change...the driftwood I put in there are really putting some tannins in the water.