Advice for newbie - community Tang tank 350L

[bulletbill88]

Hi guys

New tank I have setup is 350 litre Juwel 300 tank - oversized 4ft (1200cmx50x66)

500w in-tank heater

Fluval G6 filter

Lighting is 2x 4ft LED XB 12000k marine tubes from makemyled.com.au using a TC420 led controller to simulate delayed sunrise/sunset. Set to ramp up and down to max 75%.

Also a Tunze Nanostream 6020 powerhead behind the rockwork to get more water movement and get more of a shimmering effect from the led lighting.

I have planted back of tank with Vallisneria up the back and painted back of tank black. Some clay pots hidden in the rocks for a few more caves and shells at either end of the tank. See attached photos.

 

Tank has been cycling for a few weeks now and I am just after a bit of info on what I might have success in keeping in it. Will be display tank in the lounge room and don't care about getting fry. Looking to stock it with Tang fish. Have not kept African cichlids before or had tank of this size before, but have kept smaller tanks with usual Amazon and Asian community fish. Want some activity in the tank but would prefer it not to be too aggressive (i.e. fish getting bad beaten up/killed)

I'm keen to get shellies and some calvus as I enjoy their behaviour but this tank big enough to take more I think.

Was thinking something along the lines of:

- 1 or 2 pairs of Lamprologus Brevis depending on what local breeder willing to part with

- 5 calvus or comps

- 3 Synodontis multipunctatus

- Pair neolamprologus mustax (Yellow Mustax)

Wondering if I might also have room and mix would be ok for some feather fins and/or julies? Have Opthalmotilapia ventralis, julidochromis dickfeldi and julidochrois regani Gold Samba available locally.

Appreciate any advice you can provide. Cheers

[Link2Hell]

look at Syn petricola rather than multipunctatus  if you want Synodontis

also consider Cyp malasa or utinta maybe Cal strappersi for top water area

for Juli look at regani Kapili or ornatus for yellow/black, dickfeldi have a fine pattern with blue tint in fins

or transcriptus for dark pattern , other regani and maleri get larger

N caudopuntatus , brevis , multis and mustax all share the same biotype so I would only go 2 species

of shell dwellers and if you don't want the substrate moved into an excavation site maybe reconsider

multis as that is what they do dig and dig and dig

maybe some sifters like macrops,  or if the budgets larger enatiopus kilesa

tank is too small for featherfins when they grow out

 

[bulletbill88]

Yeah I got petricola instead - now I have 5 juvies of them. Great catfish. Even perhaps my favourite catfish, very pretty with that white stripe on their fins and white whiskers. I am interested to see if they are true petricola or lucipinnis but as both so similar doesn't really matter.

Have 5 similis juvies - will be fun to see what they do with their shell territory in one corner of the tank.

Have 4 juvenile dickfeldi. Have read conflicting things about whether I will need to remove the other dickfeldi if I get a pair, so will just have to play it by ear. I have lots of caves in the tank so may be ok from some of the info I read as fish will have lots of hiding places.

Have also 5 aulonocranus dewindti juvies. Not much info out there on these guys, seem to be one of the smaller featherfins but will have to play it by ear as they grow out. Like to dig pits in the sand apparently to breed.

Will try to add some cyps down the track but hard to come by in my area it seems.

I would still be interested in adding some calvus once the similis have grown a bit more, but not really sure how you go about adding them? Sounds like most people buy a group of juveniles and then strip out all the males bar one? atm nobody except the petricola seems interested in the smaller rockpile on the right side of the tank so there may be some room for them.

 

[Link2Hell]

keep the  coming on this

[bulletbill88]

Have made a few changes to the tank since the fish went in. Similis needed more shells so most of them over on their side of the tank. Even with heaps of shells the littlest still getting chased off so did a bit of research and found that it is good to have some satellite piles for the weaker ones to flee to, so added a second pile near the main one.

Rearranged some of the plants so that they will break up the sight lines a bit more between the two rockpiles once they grow. Val seems to be doing ok. No idea what the plants in the pots are (came with the tank when I got it second hand) but they aren't dead yet. Now I need to resist temptation and keep my hands out of the tank for a while.

Took some more snaps, this is with light at 2% so the colours a bit muted. 

Dewindti hard to get a shot of, petricola basically impossible as have gone into hiding now (where everywhere when I first put them in but keeping out of the way now).

Last thing I will say is that Tunze nanostream 6020 I am very impressed with. Has an oscillation effect so the val moves around similar to a natural current. Dead silent after it has been running a day or two and you can easy hide it behind rockwork. Helps a lot with water circulation.

[Link2Hell]

[jasperwall]