125g Cichlid tank

[55gallon]

* If yall dont want to be bored by my novel below, just skip to the video / pictures at the end *




I joined HFB in Jan. '11 but other than hanging out in the for sale forum Ive never posted up my tank(s) so before I do, heres a little background about me and fish. I had a yellow lab cichlid tank back in 2000 for almost a year before I had to get rid of it. My brothers friend worked at Petco and taught me a little on how to take care of my cichlids but as you can see, when it comes to aquariums and fish I dont have that much experience like alot of you guys / gals do.

Now....lets fast forward to 2010. My daughter said she wanted a fish tank for Christmas so in November we went to Petsmart to buy her an early Christmas present and she decided on a little 5g / guppy tank. I set it up that night and the next morning I was looking at it sitting on our kitchen counter and was thinking if Im going to do this Im doing it right!! We brought it back the next day and I ended up buying a 60g setup w/ stand from Petsmart. I started doing some research about filters and decided I was definitely going with a canister as opposed to a HOB. I ended up buying an Eheim 2217. I got the Eheim home and wouldnt you know it, it didnt fit under the stand. So I returned the tank and stand since there was no canister that was going to fit under it without cutting into it.

I looked on craigslist and found a decent 55g setup (tank / ceramic heater / 2 holey rocks / AQ110) with a basic 2x4 solid wood stand w/ doors at a local pawn shop for $100. I bought it, sanded the paint and repainted it satin black and added some brushed nickel hinges and 15" pull handles to the doors to try and spruce it up. It looked nice and I was happy for about a month LOL. Im a sucker for cherry stained furniture so I went back on craigslist and found a really nice 90g Oceanic tank w/ a custom made cherry wood stand and canopy Jan. '11. I ended up giving my Mom the 55g setup and I bought the 90g setup. Ive had that 90g setup for almost a year now but about 6 months into it I started seeing some nice pictures of 6ft setups on different fish forums so the search began for my next setup.

I knew I wanted another cherry stained setup but I wasnt going to pay $1500+ new so I started looking online and after searching for several months I found a practically brand new Oceanic 72" cherry stand but the guy had already sold the canopy!! (which by the way Im looking for a Oceanic cherry canopy, so click on my sig link if you have one OR know where to find one, new or used doesnt matter). I never could find a matching Oceanic cherry trimmed tank to match the stand so I settled on a black trimmed tank and timing couldnt have been any better because I found a brand new black trimmed Aqueon 125g tank on craigslist for a good price. I swear what would we do without craigslist!??

It took me about 2 weeks to gather up the patience to do the swap and honestly it wasnt that bad. I swapped everything over last Friday and it took me about 4-5hrs and another 1-2hrs cleaning everything up from the mess I made. Heres the details and a video of my new setup, I'll be adding some more fish soon...what do yall think so far?


Tank
Aqueon 125g
5% tint on the back glass

Lighting / Controller
Coralife 48" T5HO lunar / quad fixture
2x: Coralife 10K bulbs & 2x: Hagen Power-Glo bulbs
ReefKeeper Lite
2x: PC4s

Filtration / Heater / Circulation
FX5 w/ a custom made 3/4" PVC intake and 5ft spraybar
Hydor ETH-300 inline with the FX5
2x: Koralia Evo 750s
Maxi-jet 1200

Substrate / Decor
75-100lbs of Leslies PFS
3x: Resin rocks with lots of holes & caves

Stock
-Male Peacocks
Bi-Color - Ngara Flametail - German Red - Blue Regal - Benga Yellow - Sunburst - Firefish

-Male Haps
Makonde Yellow Blackfin - Fireline Mloto

-1 lone Mbuna Yellow Lab ( I kept this single Mbuna because it was the runt from the 55g and was constantly getting picked on; I currently have 32 yellow lab fry in a 10g tank below my 125g so I'll be adding a few more yellow labs soon )

Some pictures I took 2 days ago



















































EDIT:

Day shot with 2x: 10K bulbs and 2x: Power-glo bulbs


Night shot with the 4 LEDs on

[Mandocruz06]

Nice fish man I miss my peacocks..lol...

[Crude]

Looks great! how bout a full tank shot?

Btw, I read the whole thing! Haha

[eklikewhoa]

Not only is this one helluva upgrade story but your pictures are amazing!

[Complexity]

Very pretty tank and fish! Where did you get your peacocks?

[beto]

nice ! can definitely put more in there.

[55gallon]

Thanks everyone! I bought my German Red and Flametail from Ultimate Fish, if youre in his store at the right time youll find some beautiful colored males but they are pricey. I bought my Firefish from aquabid and the rest came from livefishdirect.

I placed an order for 9 more Peacock / Hap males from livefishdirect.

Peacocks
Masoni
Sulfur head
Some hybrid; it will look similar to my Bi-color when grown

Haps
Yellow blaze
Mbenji
Ericotaenia
Livingstonii
Insignus
Star Sapphire

My 9 juveniles arrived safe and sound yesterday. Theyre so fast it was hard for me to get good pictures so I took a short video. I cant wait until they start to grow and mature and color up more.

I was too impatient to wait until Friday so I stopped by Ultimate this past Wednesday to see what he had in stock and ended up leaving with a Taiwan Reef male. He had some NICELY colored males when I was there but I already have the same species.


Taiwan Reef

[tunedis95]

Really nice! Looks very clean and fish look so calm. Nice picture taking!

[rmalford]

Great photos and videos

[eklikewhoa]

Really nice!

More impressed with the use of the RKL! Love nice equipment to finish off a nice tank!

[MichelleRenee68]

Being new here, after seeing your beautiful aquarium, I know I pick the right fish to work with (Cichlids)

[rmalford]

Curious as to what camera you are using, 55gallon.

[Hangman]

* If yall dont want to be bored by my novel below, just skip to the video / pictures at the end *

Hi Can you tell me what kind of fish this is? It is a very beautiful fish. I m starting a cichlid tank and would like to know what this fish is called.

Thanks,

Hangman

[sountfc]

I have seen that listed as both a sunburst and a strawberry peacock. They're not too hard to find these days. I have one that's about 5-6", I believe I originally got it at Fish Land.

[55gallon]

Curious as to what camera you are using, 55gallon.

Canon SD870. I bought a D80 the other day though, so I should have some better pictures up soon.

Hi Can you tell me what kind of fish this is? It is a very beautiful fish. I m starting a cichlid tank and would like to know what this fish is called.

Thanks,

Hangman

Thanks. Its called a Firefish or dragonblood. I also have a sunburst. The sunburst is usually a solid color, the firefish / dragonblood has white mixed in with it and usually has a burst of color right behind the head and fades along the body. Theyre both considered hybrids and are named alot of different things. :)