Tank Problem, Am i overstocked ???

Starting to get sick of with my Juwel 240ltr. tank, but could it be down to being overstocked ???

I am keeping American Cichlids (No plants)

Basically i was running it with the standard filter with about 20 1.5" fish and i always new i had to get a decent filter to keep the water good and pass on some fish when they they got bigger

So finally 6 wks ago i got the jbl e1501 Green line external filter (which to me should have been enough for any waste)?? for the tank size, (i did put the old media in it for 4wks. to get it going and its now running on its own)

I added filter floss at the first stage and the last stage of the filter system But im still not happy

My water is always a bit (Cloudy), and it has tiny bits of stuff floating around all the time

No point putting up a video of it cause the cam i have does not show it

I do a 40ltr water change every wk. half gravel vacuum and half mid range water,
My water is as follows, (with a API test kit)

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 35-40ppm
Ph 7.2 - 7.4

Fish List:

4 Sevs 3"
4 Synodontis 4"
3 Green Terrors, 1. 4.5" and 2. 2.5"
2 Firemouths 2.5"
2 Convicts 2"
2 Kribs 2.5"
2 Keyholes 1.5"
1 Texas Blue 2.5"
1 Blood Red Parrot 3"
1 Tilapia 4"
1 Balla Shark 4.5"
1 Red Tail Shark 2.5"

Any taught`s with my nightmare would be great,

o yeah. i feed a mix of food `everything, but never over feed (never any food not eaten)

Thanks in advance,

Jeff
(Basically i would love to see clear water in this tank)

I would say really overstocked. Cichlids are messy eaters. In our tanks we need to do a 50% wc at least once a week and we have no where near as many fish in them. Also with that mix of fish i'd be very suprised if you didn't end up with a slaughtering match sooner than later

Jeff,

Try adding some carbon media to your external filter.
This always works for me and the water is crystal clear after a couple of days.

Greg

As Greg says, use Carbon, or IMO, use Seachem Purigen. It lasts for a few months and can be re-charged about 12 times, making it good value too.

CrustyCrab wrote:

As Greg says, use Carbon, or IMO, use Seachem Purigen. It lasts for a few months and can be re-charged about 12 times, making it good value too.

Ok so number 1 thing ill do is bring the number of fish down and do a bigger water change weekly, cheers bonzo

Thanks greg adding carbon is a good one will look into that for my filter

But have to say had a look on line at the Purigen and it sounds the bizz and it lasts much longer than the carbon would

crustycrab
were can i get my hands on this stuff

Hi Jeff,
Seahorse Aquariums have it, as does Aquapaws Aquatics, I am sure some of the other sponsors do too.
It's one of the best products I have ever used, that and Easylife.

CrustyCrab wrote:

Hi Jeff,
Seahorse Aquariums have it, as does Aquapaws Aquatics, I am sure some of the other sponsors do too.
It's one of the best products I have ever used, that and Easylife.

Excellent Cheers mate

bonzo wrote:

I would say really overstocked. Cichlids are messy eaters. In our tanks we need to do a 50% wc at least once a week and we have no where near as many fish in them. Also with that mix of fish i'd be very suprised if you didn't end up with a slaughtering match sooner than later

Hey bonzo what would you class as the right amount of cics kept in a 240 with my filter,(for now) and being around the size they are
At the start i was not worried about the potential size of fish because ill be getting a 8ft. tank the end of next year or earlier when me house is ready for it and i taught the would be grand in the 240 till then

Well i picked up some Seachem Purigen today out in s/h and its in now so i'll see how it go's over the next few days


Would still like to hear a few views on how many fish others would have in this size tank

Which species of Tilapia is that?

ian

igmillichip wrote:

Which species of Tilapia is that?

ian

I reckon it's this one
allrecipes.com/recipe/lemon-garlic-tilapia/

It all depends what fish you,d like to base your tank round.

If the larger tank isn,t planned until the end of next year all your fish will be nearly full grown.
Theres a lot of potentially large fish in there and some potentially aggressive ones. I say potentially aggressive as cichlids tend to ignore the rule books at times

Tilapia Buttikoferi, strangely enough when i got him at around 1.5" he was trying to be top dog but now at nearly 6" he backs away from everyone he's more interested in cleaning my bog wood

@crustycrab haha good one

bonzo wrote:

It all depends what fish you,d like to base your tank round.

If the larger tank isn,t planned until the end of next year all your fish will be nearly full grown.
Theres a lot of potentially large fish in there and some potentially aggressive ones. I say potentially aggressive as cichlids tend to ignore the rule books at times

see this is the thing i like them all and at the moment their is never any fights as such, just more of a quick chase, 1 of my gold (yellow) sevs id say is king or he would be the one who gives a lot of the chases (2sec darts) and its over, i get the odd face off between the texas blue and a green terror
so im kinda going on the basis that who ever gets out of control (starts fighting allot) then they have to go asap

jeff wrote:

Tilapia Buttikoferi, strangely enough when i got him at around 1.5" he was trying to be top dog but now at nearly 6" he backs away from everyone he's more interested in cleaning my bog wood

@crustycrab haha good one

Strangely enough that is what I was expecting to hear.

Really, to be honest, if a 240 litre isn’t big enough for your mix then an 8 foot tank will not be big enough with that Tilapia in there.

Normally, you’d hope that the Tilapia would have its brains kicked in to teach it a lesson by the other cichlids before it got too big to become a relentless aggressive body in the tank.
It’s level of relentless aggression is not much more than many other African river cichlids…….but its shear size makes it a big problem.

Your other problems are that the American cichlids have differing retreat and threat behaviour to that of the Tilapia: a retreat signal given out by an American cichlid is most likely to be read as an Attack Signal by the Tilapia (and to an already aggressive fish, that is simply asking for trouble).

Ian

Your right ian, and ive decided to decrease my number of fish and the Tilapia is the first on my list, i have to plan ahead,

What do yez think of my new list

Im going to keep

4 Sevs 3".......... 3. of them (2 reds and 1 yellow)
4 Synodontis 4".......... 4. of them
3 Green Terrors, 1. 4.5" and 2. 2.5".......... 1. of them 2.5"
2 Firemouths 2.5".......... 2. of them
2 Convicts 2".......... 2. of them
2 Kribs 2.5"..........
2 Keyholes 1.5"
1 Texas Blue 2.5".......... i love this fish so keep him for another while
1 Blood Red Parrot 3".......... keep him
1 Tilapia 4"
1 Balla Shark 4.5".......... keep him
1 Red Tail Shark 2.5".......... keep him

So 8 have to go
So ill have 12 swimmers and 4 on the bottom
What do yez think of that stock for now, or is it still to many fish?(please say no)ha

Forgot to say that my water is looking good already id say its 80% better after 24hrs of adding the Purigen so id say in a day or two it will be clear as can be, Thanks CrustyCrab thats good stuff

OK lesson learned, its only when you de-stock your tank that you kept adding too, you cop on and really see what you were doing to your fish, and tank, i have brought the stock down and i am enjoying my fish more, and my tank is actually looking a lot better and the fish are becoming alot more interesting, its a very easy mistake to make when your addicted to fish, so hope this helps some people like me that wants everything that they see when their small and want to put it in a single tank. Research Research Research

In about 6mts. i will have to bring my numbers down again but for now in a 240 i have,, and can be seen in the Photo link

1 Terror. waiting to go to new home
1 Gold sev. waiting to go to new home

Stock:
1 GT
3 Sevs (2 red 1 gold)
2 Firemouth
1 B,R,P
2 Convict
1 Texas
1 Balla
1 R,T,S
4 Synodontis

hows your water looking at this stage with the purigen?

how much and often water change?

yeah its perfect now purigen is good stuff i used 2 100ml sacks in my jbl 1501 external and put them in the middle tray

i do a 40.ltr water change twice a week wednesday and saturday, 20.ltrs of the 40 is a gravel clean other 20 is mid range

should mention that i use the API test kit and my Nitrate before using purigen was 40+ and now its always 10 which is an added bonus cause i dont have plants in this tank

must get my hands on some purigen myself