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I just picked up a 75 gallon tank. My lighting is going to be minimal for a little while till I can afford better lighting. I will be doing plants and getting more fish. I'm so stoked! I can't wait to get it up and running.

Awesome!


Some low light plants can work for now, it'll give them plenty of time to anchor, and you plenty of time to plan out the tank.


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Hopefully getting my new filter tomorrow and am looking at gravel. Does anyone know anything about CaribSea Aquarium Sand? Is it like regular sand and develop the toxic gas pockets? Sorry if it's a dumb question lol.

Well I went ahead with regular gravel. Got all my old tank water and gravel put in the new tank and added more water to fill it up. Put in AmQuel Plus and dosed it with beneficial bacteria hopefully I don't kill all my fish this go around lol

Regular gravel has always worked for me.

The gas pockets can form in any substrate, but sand especially so because of the way it compacts combined with how hard it is to clean with a normal gravel vac. I tried sand once and don't think I'll ever be doing it again.

Just keep an eye on your water test results and you should be fine, the bacteria helps jumpstart the cycle. If you stock the tank with the hardiest fish you're planning on first it is usually enough to get them through. Larger tanks give you more leeway as well.


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Thanks Babel I already put all my original fish in the new tank and man do they look awesome despite the slight PH drop and trace ammonia. They have colored up so much and are totally lost with all the space but loving it.

I went and bought some Electric Blue Jack Dempseys and I shouldn't have, but for the price I couldn't resist. Even they are still looking awesome Not to get better lighting for my plants

I hope those plants are robust ones. Because Jack Dempseys like to dig when they're in breeding mode. They're not the worst offenders amongst the Cichlids by any stretch of the imagination, but they can shift gravel on an industrial scale when the mood takes them, especially once they grow large. Of course, if you were keeping something like Jaguar Cichlids or Parachromis dovii, you'd really have something to worry about, because these fish are like open cast mining excavators once they get going, but that's partly because of their sheer size as adults and their powerful musculature.

Basically, any medium or large Central American Cichlid is a potential plant hazard. This is because Cichlids are intelligent fishes, that know what they want, and when in breeding mode, are strongly motivated to achieve it. Which means that if they want to engage in wholesale rearranging of your tank to suit their likes and dislikes, they'll do precisely that, and there's precious little you can do to stop them, short of cementing your decor in place. If they decide to uproot your plants because they want to dig lots of pits for breeding purposes, they will, so unless you have big, sturdy plants that are well anchored (possibly weighted down with strategically placed pieces of slate) then you might want to start planning for the moment when your Dempseys start thinking about family matters, and as a consequence, think about rearranging your aquarium wholesale.

If you want plants that will survive in low light AND be relatively resilient to attack, try attaching Java Ferns to large pieces of bogwood. Large enough pieces of bogwood will be too heavy for them to move (especially if you cement them to slate bases first) and the Java Ferns will root deep into the wood, making them a little more resilient to all but determined attack. Plus, in my experience, even dedicated herbivores find Java Ferns distasteful, and leave them alone, though if the Dempseys decide they don't like where the Java Ferns are growing, they might decide to trash them anyway.

Plan ahead for this possibility, and while you can't guarantee that you'll avoid the heartache of having your nicely planned decor ruined, you can take steps to reduce the impact if the Dempseys go haywire with refurbishing when in breeding mode.

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

i found a 48" deep blue pro dual t5 at my lfs for under $100. works great on my 75

Well It's been a long while since I post last. RL has been super busy, but here are some updated pics of my tank.

looks awesome. i bet the fish love it. what lighting are you using?

Not sure what lights I have lol. I did a total tear down today cause my PH was all over the charts, but it hasn't seemed to help and needless to say my tank doesn't look this good anymore

Zeke that's too bad!

Tank did look nice and lush! Are you using anything to adjust the ph?

What do you mean by all over the place? Does it keep swinging or has it made a big spike or fall just once?

Have you tested your tap water? It could not even be your fault if the water company is screwing around with their chemistry.

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I hate it when the water company does that It cost me about $800 worth of discus once