Third Aquarium – Cichlid Tank
Seems that I blog about my forth aquarium earlier than my third aquarium. How come?
Well, after my mini planted aquarium (which is my second one), I decided that I’m ready to start another planted aquarium at bigger scale. So there it was, I’m blogging about my “third” aquarium.
Remember my first aquarium? I have guppies, neon tetra and panda corydoras in, where I transfer them all to my matured “community” mini planted tank. So my first tank is empty now, and I was thinking of getting new fish.
Went to the nearby fish shop. Bad thing about these small fish shop is that, they don’t have the label telling the name of the fish. It’s no use also to ask the owner, as they will start giving “kampung” name to the fish, like ikan muka kuda (cichlid), ikan DBKL (pleco), ikan tulang (glass catfish) and plenty of other funny names.
I just happened to be attracted to that ikan muka kuda, and get a few of them, and place it in my first aquarium. With the help with the fish species book that I bought long time ago, I finally managed to identify the fishes that I just bought. Oh my. All of them are cichlid.
Cichlids are very aggresive, and very territorial. My small first tank wouldn’t be suitable at all to put cichlid in. I saw them quarrel a lot. This is when I decided to get another aquarium, which I will setup first before I started another planted aquarium. So I was getting this cheap aquarium and tank (without the top).
So this one becomes my third aquarium now, and the previous one that I blog (used to be third) now become forth aquarium.
Different from my community aquarium before where I can virtually mix any species of fish that is peaceful, cichlids are advised not to be mixed with other species. So people call this species tank. And here is my new cichlid tank.
Cichlids that I have are Malawi species, which naturally came from a rift lake in East Africa (Lake Malawi) that is very much alkaline, pH 7.5 to around 8.8. Good. Rocks that I put inside has helped to make the water alkaline.
And what happened to my first tank? Here how it looks now, really empty.
I have a plan already. I will turn aquarium to goldfish tank. I never had goldfish before. Been reading a little about goldfish – very sensitive fish, prone to disease, not suitable to be mixed with other species. Sounds fun. So stay tuned to see the development of this tank.
