3 replies to this topic

[Tonster76]

Please fill out as much as possible below and give us a description of what is wrong with your fish.

Type of fish: Electric Yellows, Dolphin, Red Empress
Symptoms:
Other tank mates:
Tank size / capacity:240l
Type of Food fed:
Feeding frequency/amount:
Substrate:Small Gravel
Type of filtration:
Frequency of filter cleans:
Frequency and % volume of water changes:
Last water change:
PH:
KH:
GH:
Nitrite:
Nitrate:
Ammonia:
Phosphate:
Water temp:
Medications used recently to date:
Any recent changes..new fish/filters/power outages etc etc:

 

Hi Guys,

 

I'm very new at this and have started exploring the forums and information.  There is one conflicting thing in my mind...  I have a nice amount of Holy Rock and the Cichlids are loving the caves and seem to be adopting them as their den.  I've read I should leave the environment as stable as possible so they all maintain their territory and feel content... and even breed.

 

But it bothers me the fairly fine gravel substrate can't be sifted and cleaned under the rocks.. Should I be removing and or re-organising the rocks once in a while to give the substrate a good clean out below?  If so, how often and does it upset the Cichlids?  Does it harm the water if I neglect to clean that substrate?

 

Tony

[jjm66smokey]

Hi Tony

If you're siphoning out the water for your water changes, if you can raise the rock a little bit, it does give a chance to suck out a bit more of the fish poo that accumulates around it and probably has sand put on top of it in the course of "Cichlid-scaping" (that's where they play their game of moving things around to dig up dig out dig under).

I don't make a point of pulling the rocks out of my tank as this does disturb it heaps.

Keep a regular check on your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels, do frequent and regular water changes (and siphon out the poos), don't overfeed, and you should be ok without having to uproot all your holey rocks. 

[Tonster76]

Thanks a lot jjm66smokey, I've ordered some test kits and will keep a close eye.  My holey rocks are stacked... I'm already worried they might topple... but I'm worried about nothing it's all solid.   Sounds like the key is to continue to monitor the exact conditions in the tank.

I do siphon, so I'll try to get in under there as much as possible.

Edited by Tonster76, 26 February 2015 - 11:23 AM.

[malawiman85]

Maybe remove small sections of rock one week and another section the following week to minimise disturbance and workload whilst still ensuring the substrate gets cleaned.