210gallon suggest Cac stock

[JimM]

Hi! I'm new here but i've had my eyes set on apistos for a while.. I recently cleared out my predatory fish from a 210 gallon all glass megaflow tank (6x2x2.5).. so..

I added a thin pool filter sand substrate, a whole bunch of driftwood im waiting to sink, 40 cardinal tetras and 3 marble hatchets. I'll probably collect some oak leaves to use in the next few days.

from what I've been reading here cardinals seem to be a veracious fry predator but I guess I dont mind so much.

my tap water is pretty rough, PH 7.6~ KH15~

I decided to go with cacs. from what i've read they dont seem to mind the harder water as much as others, and these were visually my first choice anyway.

can anyone reccomend how many and what sex cac to add to my setup? can I mix orange flash with the triple red / double red? I'm not really too concerned about breeding with my hard water / tetras, just a nice show tank.

Thanks!

 

[fishgeek]

basic rule of thumb(i think i read it in one of ted judy's articles long ago) that i use and have had pretty good succes with si

2 square foot of floor space per male territory
with harem breeders like cac's you can then have female territories within this , females need approx 1 square foot of floor space

in theory that would allow you 6 male territories to work with
though i would be inclined to split the tank length ways into 3 landscaped territories and just have 3 males and perhaps 5-6 females to start

ensure you break the line of sight with your scape and provide lots of dense foliage for cover

as for colour morphs they are fine to be mixed

enjoy apisto's they are very vool fish
and your tank sounds like it will be pretty awesomne with such a large school of cardinals

andrew

 

[JimM]

Thank you very much for your advice Andrew! by the way, may I ask which type of apisto is your avatar? its very pretty

here are a couple pics of the tank so far:

 

[fishgeek]

the avatar is a trifasciata male that i used to have , he is still my favourite fish

WOW
that tank looks hugh or those cardinals are dwarf!
if you intend to leave the bottom open as you have then i would not load the tank up to the maximums i have suggested , you will need to break the lines of sight along the bottom to help establish multiple territories

also with such a deep tank some more surface dwellers maybe useful, did i see some hatchets amongst the wood?

oops i forgot the wood is being water logged in an attempt to arrange it on the bottom right?

 

[JimM]

the avatar is a trifasciata male that i used to have , he is still my favourite fish

Thanks! I feel myself wavering on my choice of apistos already.. can these beautys do ok in hard water? would you suggest the same stocking guidelines if I decided to go with Trifasciata instead?

WOW
that tank looks hugh or those cardinals are dwarf!

Haha.. thats exactly the look im going for with the smaller fish in this tank, what a big change to the overall look of the tank from a month ago where it seemed tiny for my 24" silver arowana. :biggrin:

if you intend to leave the bottom open as you have then i would not load the tank up to the maximums i have suggested , you will need to break the lines of sight along the bottom to help establish multiple territories

Very good advice thanks! I would never have thought of breaking the line of sight between camps but I'll be sure to keep it in mind once I make the final layout.. still I may go with slightly less fish than the maximum you suggest because I dont want it to become a warzone in there.

also with such a deep tank some more surface dwellers maybe useful, did i see some hatchets amongst the wood?

ya, I think I got some weak stock from a chain retailer here notorious for low quality fish... but I hadnt seen them anywhere else so I decided to save a few of them, ended up with a sad 3 out of 9 left.
with such a tall tank Its going to be tough to fill in the center area as the cardinals seem to like the bottom and hatchets the surface.. with about 2ft in between. I think the addition of the apistos and hardscape might force the cardinals to swim more midwater and fill the gap. I had considered angels but I want to keep this tank as low maintence as possible. I'll probably add some type of cleanup crew as well, I prefer otto over bushy nose plecos but with a tank this size I'm afraid I might need a /ton/ of them to notice any difference.

oops i forgot the wood is being water logged in an attempt to arrange it on the bottom right?

yep! :crossesfingers:

 

[fishgeek]

try some elevation in your hardscaping and planting

maybe something like two lines coming down from the back toward the front

i'm thinking root's growing out of a river bank(your back glass)
you could then divide you tank into 3 territories
and
force the cardinals to swim upward over these obstructions

bn may predate apsito egg's
oto's would be a better option to allow any chances of fry survival , saying that your already aware of the cardinals

the trifasciata , i think, are white water fish and prefer softer water
they are however smaller and less aggresive than some
the stocking rule i gave is a pretty rough guide for all apisto's

your going to have fun
where are you based jim?

 

[JimM]

Thanks again for the great advice, I cant wait to get some apistos in there. :biggrin:

oh and I'm in a suburb outside of Chicago, IL

 

[karl]

hi try useing thin slate half the width of the tank the fish cant see each other but you can still see all the tank

 

[JimM]

hi try useing thin slate half the width of the tank the fish cant see each other but you can still see all the tank

good idea! thanks! I actually have such a piece of slate I will use along with the wood and leaves.. but I'm still waiting for the wood to sink :sigh: and possibly not so freezing weather for shipping the Apistos.

 

[JimM]

well my wood finally sunk and I got my trifasciatas! 10 total, some are pretty young its either 4 males 6 females, or 3 males 7 females.. hard to see them all at once to count but they seem to be getting along great.

a couple pics:

young male trifasciata:

thanks again for your advice!

 

[Konigwolf]

I'd work on getting some plants in there quite soonish just to help things a bit more in working out territories and maybe some coconut shell/plant pots for caves as well, say two or more caves per female. Wish we could get the nice fish (and range) you yanks do oh well oneday maybe (most popular thing here is africans, yukky :biggrin: ).

Andrew

 

[JimM]

hehehe, well you wont see these fish in any shops around here.. mostly africans like you say.. mail order was my only option, but i guess its better than none.

from the first picture it only shows about 2/3 of the tank, the other 1/3rd is equally if not more piled with wood and leaves, I boiled an entire shopping bag full of oak leaves to place inside which seems to work good creating natural caves and such.. Im trying to get a biotope look by only using the wood and leaves. so that means no artificial caves or slate in with the dead plants, or even live plants. I have 2 high tech dedicated planted tanks already, but for this one im going a very low maintence approach.. so I dont really have the money or desire to invest into making this big deep tank a successful planted tank.. dead plants are fine for me and the fish. :biggrin:

thanks tho!

 

[tjudy]

Awesome... Makes me want to sell my midas cichlid pair and set the 110 up that way. Unfortunately the midas pair are like 'family members'. A family member that gets pissed at you every time you walk ino the room and would just as soon bite you as be friendly... like my Uncle Bob.