Aquarium photos

[fisheater]

Wow!!Now those are some tanks!!!Im just and amature at best to this.You are definutely out of my league.What happen to all your fish?
What kind of lights do you use?Are those freshwater rays even available around here and if so i wonder how much are they?What size tank is that and how many tanks do you have?
Man that was a bombardment of questions wasnt it.
Nice stuff man.

[JD7.62]

Well I fell asleep at the wheel that resulted $3k of body damage on my car so I had to sell some fish to pay for it.

The tank is a 125gallon tank...WAY too small for most of the fish Ive owned. I just use normal single tube fluro lights.

The rays I had I had to special order, Ive never seen any of that quality around here. The only ones you see are called "tea cup" rays and they run about $50. They are one of the smallest ray species "only" getting up to 18" in diameter but they are the most difficult to keep alive. All rays are difficult but motoros are the best for beginners. They are pretty hardy and reasonably prices at $75-150 for small ones in the 6-8" range. I had 'marble' motoros which have a much better pattern. I sold my trio for $2,000 but that included nearly $300 for freight. Some rays cant cost over $30,000 for a breeding pair. Motoros get up to 36" in diameter and require a very large tank. Most breeder use the plastic stock tanks commonly available at store such as tractor supply co as they are cheap, have large floor area (important for rays) and can be drilled for filtration very easily.

Check out www.monsterfishkeepers.com. The site is mostly dedicated to large, rare, predatory fish but there are sections for all types of fish keeping. Its a great site! There is at least one member besides me here that is also a member there...my name is the same, JD7.62

[JD7.62]

Datnoids. RARE! The large one is one of the biggest of its kind in N.America. I sold him too and had a fellow drive over 1600mi to get him!

[JD7.62]

Peacock bass (a cichlid NOT related to native bass who are centracids).

There are over 20 species of peacock bass these two are Cichla orinocensis.

[JD7.62]

Hydrolycus armatus, this was my favorite fish ever. He was so mean and had the dental work to back it up! When I purchased him, at the time, there were less then 50 in the U.S. I was also one of the first person in the world to get this fish off of live food and onto to prepared food (shrimp from the grocery store) and probably the first to have hand fed this animal! This fish now resides alone in 10ftx5ftx5ft aquarium in Columbus, OH.

[JD7.62]

A shot of his dental work and an adult.

[fisheater]

Some new pics and new tank.

[fisheater]

Couple more.

[fisheater]

All for now.My camera stinks.

[JD7.62]

Couple more.

Looking good, those peacocks have some great color What are you feeding?

A suggestion, take out the gravel, throw in some black sand and white Texas Holey Rock, it will look **** good with cichlids like yours! And with that surfline tank itd be a show winner at the fair for sure!

Here is a little planted project I have going on...
grrr...I cant get the pics to load!

[fisheater]

Im feeding Aquadine spirulina in the morning and Dainichi Color Surpreme in the evening.I was thinking of taking out the gravel and replacing with some darker sand but i didnt know how to go about it without stressing them out real bad.Plus the Mbuna love sifting through the gravel.
I put some rainbow rock in there and bought it thinking it would make some cool looking caves but now that i have it in there i dont care much for it in this setup.Im glad i didnt buy more.I had a bit of fake plants in there but i didnt like the look but the smaller fish and eels and loaches loved the cover,still undeciding about putting just a little back in.
Im pretty happy with the Surfline,thought it was unique and havent seen too many and was definutely worth the cost after i set it up and looked at it..I wonder how good that holey rock would look under the moonglow leds.I bet real nice.I been keeping my eye out for some quality peices but there high so im looking for the right peice.
Id like to see your project if you can find a way to show it.Or some of the fish and set ups your running now.

[JD7.62]

Afro Cichlids are pretty hard to stress out, how new is the gravel that is in there and how old is your bio-media in the filter?

Removing the gravel is easy, I just use a net and scoop it out. Two things to worry about though. One, scratching the tank (dont scoop the gravel up against your glass...use common sense, youll be fine) Two, ammonia spikes, your gravel holds lots of bio-media so removing it will remove some bio-media allowing for a chance for an ammonia spike. Add some Seachem stability and feed very little for the first week or so after your change and all will be safe.

Afro cichlids love sand too, its more natural then peagravel, they will still exhibit the same sifting behavior. For Texas Holey Rock East End Aquatics cant be beat, they have some good pieces for good prices, still expensive though. It would be nice under some moonlights for sure.

I got another Hydrolycus armatus, and loving it. Im not powerfeeding to maximize growth like my last one though. Im in an apartment and I cant put a tank bigger then a 125 in there as Im on the second floor. His tankmates, are, well, hated by the .gov for no reason so they are my own little secret!