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went to a co-workers house the other day and checked out his 150 gallon tank (a little jelous cause mine is only 125) and i could not beleive what i saw. now mind you most of them are small but here goes the list:

1 oscar, 1 gt, 1 jd, 1 flower horn, 1 texas, 1 blue acara, 2 dinosaur eels, 5 corry's, and about 50 young convicts. i hinted that he was over stocked and he told me it was fine, so i dropped it, but he will find out soon enough. i just thought it was crazy, exspecially compared to my 125 witch looks crowed with 1 oscar, 1 gt, 1 geophagus, 3 syno cats, and 5 giant danios.


chris

Does he use a sump filter? A lot of people who keep large cichlids and such tend to overstock (you almost can't help it with monsters like that) and they make up for it with sump filtration that increases total surface area dramatically, and makes for extremely efficient filtration. You should go visit www.monsterfishkeepers.com And see the kind of crowding that goes on with a full-grown collection of fish like that.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

no, he uses no sump, he runs 1 cansister filter and i belive that is it. i told him he will have major problems when they start growing.

chris

Hmmm... then yes, that may become a problem eventually.
I'd suggest finding a way to get rid of the prolific convicts (I assume he has that many because they breed like rabbits). Convict fry might make good feeders for the others as they become monsters, but in the meantime, they're just going to take up space and make a mess. The Dinosaur eels (I assume these are polypterus-something/Birchirs) may have to go, too. They should be able to hold their own, but the other tankmates may simply be too aggressive for them. Other than that, it actually sounds like a really cool collection. And the corys will probably become food for someone eventually, unless they are one of the huge Brochis species that get to be 5+ inches long.

You and/or your friend should take a look at MonsterFishKeepers.com. They have a cichlid forum for people just like you, and they can give you tips on "Overstocking without overstocking."

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

not just like me. i am an understocker

chris

Well, I meant in terms of the huge monster cichlids you like to keep, not necessarily the stocking.


Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

ahh, ok, did not mean to take offense

Maybe not necessarily crazy but just a lack of knowledge? A lfs employee said the stock would be just fine?

Who knows...and I'm jealous of both the 125 and the 150

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

Tell me about it. I got one very mean convict, one even more mean texas, one extremely irritating salvini, one GT, that's getting beaten up by the other mean fish, one female jewel, 2 raphael cats and 2 feather fin synos in a 56 gallon. I am thinking of what fish to let go

My 55 that I bought with cichlids in it used a pinguin 330 with all the biowheel equiptment ripped out and he was keeping 1 electric yellow 2 zebras paired 3 rather large convicts and a foot long pleco all the cichlids were at least 4+ inches in length, so I moved the electric yellow and two zebras into a community and there doing great and the two convicts are alone with the pleco.

I am jeolous because will all 8 of my tanks combine I am pushing about just over 150... I want my show tanks in my new house to be at least 80g. I am hoping for a 150g Reef and a 90g Fresh and an 80-90g Brackish

it's strange how i got my tanks. my biggest tank was a 29usg before i moved. i saw a used 55 with a stand in someones front yard and bought it for 50 bucks, got home and seen the stand was warped so i bought a new stand then a few weeks later the tank started leaking so i had to buy a new tank, wasted 50 bucks there. the 125 i bought used for 250 bucks. i had to replace the tank because it leaked but i got an oak stand $$$$, aa couple large peices of drift wood, an eheim canister filter and a bunch of other fish stuff, so i think that one worked out in my favor.


by the way, the person just told me that their fish are starting to die off, the flower horn has killed one already and beaten up a bunch more and now the whole tank has ich. drives me nuts.

chris

I dont want to imagine even a 150 with 50 odd salvinis in it, sounds like it will be carnage when they get bigger. What the hell is he gonna do with them all? Hes got quite a bit of rehoming to do!

People do crazy things. I am just worried about my two convicts in a 55g together the bigger one is being pushed around a lot by the younger one

Your co-worker with the tank, yea maybe his lfs told him that would be ok? because some store's tell you some false info just so you buy there fish etc. The other day when i purchased my green terror, i bought one and i said to the lady about how many fish could i put in my tank (55 gallon) of that size and she goes......"OO about 20 of them" i could't believe what i was hearing, with my knowledge i knew that wasn't right....so you never know

I think power may be right. My coworker bought fish by the dozen... literally. He had 3 dozen barbs, 2 dozen zebra loaches, a couple of dozen tetras and a few other fish thrown in together in his 2 feet by 1 foot by I dont remember how much height. The reason, the LFS folks told him, in a 2 feet tank he can keep atleast 200 fish

Ofcourse, he then lost of a couple of dozen barbs and some other fish fell like flies, but he has still not learnt his lesson. Some people just never learn