# New cixhlid addict........



## seanh2008 (Apr 14, 2012)

Hello all, well I have a 40 gallon setup now and a 78 gallon tank ill be setting up over the next few months. They will both house afican chiclids.In thetank now I havea kenyi,two albino peacocksand a jewel.Itsbeenrunning foralmosta month. Yeaterday I had a huge spike in nitrite. Did a 50% water change and a 25%today. All is better. Also I added rift salts and got.the ph up by .3 dont want to jump to high at once. Right now ph is 8.1, nitrite is almost 0 and nitrate is 10. Anybody have input? Im running an aquaclear 70 and have tons of rock in the tank. They seem to love it so far look forward to input,thanks


----------



## navigator black (Jan 3, 2012)

I'm not going to comment on the water issues - I'll leave that to the experts in chemisty on the forum. However, you have another issue in there.
Your Malawis will love your pH 8.1, but your jewel is a river cichlid from thousands of km away from Malawi - it's a west African coastal fish from extremely soft water. It is an aggressive fish, but not in comparison to a Malawi. It's an open spawner, in a mouthbrooding tank.
A lot of hobbyists figure if it's "African", it needs hard alkaline water, but they don't stop and consider the size of Africa. You've mixed a rainforest fish from maybe 30ppm, pH 6 water with 180ppm plus, pH 8 fish. 
When I kept a jewel pair with Malawis (I learned the hard way), the Malawis tolerated them til they claimed territory, at which point they were slaughtered.


----------



## JohnniGade (Dec 22, 2011)

navigator black said:


> I'm not going to comment on the water issues - I'll leave that to the experts in chemisty on the forum. However, you have another issue in there.
> Your Malawis will love your pH 8.1, but your jewel is a river cichlid from thousands of km away from Malawi - it's a west African coastal fish from extremely soft water. It is an aggressive fish, but not in comparison to a Malawi. It's an open spawner, in a mouthbrooding tank.
> A lot of hobbyists figure if it's "African", it needs hard alkaline water, but they don't stop and consider the size of Africa. You've mixed a rainforest fish from maybe 30ppm, pH 6 water with 180ppm plus, pH 8 fish.
> When I kept a jewel pair with Malawis (I learned the hard way), the Malawis tolerated them til they claimed territory, at which point they were slaughtered.


Wow, tough story.


----------



## freeasabird (Mar 21, 2012)

Once your nitrates register you should be solid as far as cycling. Continue to monitor to be sure ammonia and nitrite stay at 0, but you should be good from here. Once Nitrates hit 40 start water changes to keep it at or below that amount. Hopefully someone can confirm as I've just learned all this myself recently.


----------



## Crazy (Mar 1, 2012)

well ideally you want to keep it below 40ppm if at all possible. 40ppm is when it begins to be concidered poor water quaility.


----------



## zero (Mar 27, 2012)

75 gal New World cichlid tank-
2x Gorgeous Firemouth breeding pair
1x Tiger Oscar
1x Green Terror
1x Red Jewel Cichlid
2x Silver Dollars 
4x Giant Danios 

wouldnt put a green terror and firemouths togeather, especially if there breeding...also the danios will be eaten by the oscar......and pretty much everything else in there!!!! id have just the oscar on its own. or rethink your set up. also a jewell is from the rivers in africa, not america he shoudlnt be there.


----------



## SuckMyCichlids (Nov 5, 2011)

CrazyMFFM said:


> well ideally you want to keep it below 40ppm if at all possible. 40ppm is when it begins to be concidered poor water quaility.



Heck when I see mine get to 20 I do a wc lol


----------

