Bruno

Was looking for a 30" - found them on Amazon.ca for a good price

Anyone locally stock and sell the Finnex Ray2 lights?

I have done WC in all my tanks, but increased the amount of Prime I was adding, and have had no more issues

No more deaths, and water test today showed 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites so - again assuming it was chlorine related - my BB in the filters appear to be fine. Did a WC in the 55G community tank - double dosed the prime - and everyone seems OK and it has been a couple of hours.

Sand substrate, no more then 2 inches deep, though the cichlids change that all the time by digging holes so some areas are bare bottom, other a little thicker

I will monitor ammonia/Nitrite the next few days to see if any harm came to my BB. My filters were off during this so if the issue was extra chlorine I am really hoping the double dose of Prime did the trick and everything will be OK. I dont want to move too quickly on relocating filter media or putting additives in until I am confident of what happened and if any other harm was done. Are there any other possibilities other then chlorine that I should be aware of? Or anything else to watch other then water parameters and general health of fish? I will be trying WC on the other tanks tomorrow, though I might go back to the bucket brigade for tomorrow while I try to figure out what happened.

is there a chloramine/chlorine test available at the LFS? I have been keeping tanks for less then a year, so this is my first spring - had no idea I had to worry about this. There have been no more deaths, and in fact everyone is acting back to normal coming to the front when I walk up, begging to be fed, colors are back to normal. I'll keep an eye on water parameters now in case the extra chlorine (assuming that was what caused my issue) has done any damage to my BB.

I lost my Male OB too but no more since - so is chlorine the suspect? I have 3 more tanks due for a WC but I am a little afraid...

I use a python, so I add the Prime to the tank before I start adding new water. I did about a 75% water change, which is what I do every week. I have double dosed since starting this thread. Now just watching to see if anyone else has issues or is acting weird...

I added 2 capfuls of Prime to a 90G

An Albino Pseudotropheus Socolofi can be added to the causality list

I am doing a WC - tested water first, nitrates were getting up but everything else is ok, now as I am adding water, 2 demonsi suddenly went belly up - swam a little then died. Now a female has just died (not sure which one she was). A coupel of the yellow labs are acting strange. I added Prime, temp going in is good. What is happening????

Sorry to hear that Pat

wow, that has really filled in since I seen it maybe 2 weeks ago. Great looking tank!

I purchased a 90 gallon along with a stand and canopy from another AA member to become the new home of my cichlids. It is has been running for a coupel of months now and is home to some yellow labs, rusties, yellow tail acei, albino socolofi, red zebras, blue zebras, demonsi, bumblebee, red jewel, yellow peacock, an OB peacock and a Red Tail Shark. Here is a recent pic:

Time for an update - the sand was getting nasty looking (turning green) and my son wanted to redo the tank, so we pulled everything out, put in gravel, some new decor and put the fish back in. Stocking is now 2 Angelfish, lemon tetras, rummynose tetras, Albino BN pleco, dwarf gourami's and soon the rams, cardinal and other gourami's will be back (they were moved out for the substrate swap as I was worried it might trigger a mini cycle so I wanted to lessen the bio load). Here is an updated pic:

Time for an update... the cichlids were rehomed into a 90G (purchased from a fellow AA member) and for a while this tank was shut down. It recently was setup again to play QT for some new additions to the 55, and once they are all in their new home I am going to try a planted tank again, with the goal of starting low tech and progressing... how far we will have to see. Here is a pic of the tank now doing QT duty to a school of Cardinal Tetras, a German Blue Ram, 2 Electric Blue Rams and 2 Powder Blue Gourami's.

Been a while and time for an update.... so this tank was retired (in fact it became a QT tank for my dad who bought a 75G setup) so no more updates for it.

I'd love those links please as far as substrate goes, anyone know of a cheap place to get it (assuming flourite for example) or am I stuck paying whatever the LFS charges?

Sorry, should have said 'besides the api freshwater master I already use' Just wondering if there are tests I 'should' be doing right away, or if tests like iron, phosphate, gh, kh etc are more of a concern as you move away from low tech?

lots of good things to consider. So next question, what test kits do I want to do this right?

My concern with upping the lights to t5ho is I then increase my need to add c02 dont I? I thought I had read that too much light with no co2 and I could be facing algae issues.

Do you layer the ADA as well? If so, any issues with it getting messy looking with plant moving?

Thanks for the advice so far... and please keep it coming. I had been leaning toward Fluorite this go around and may try mineralized dirted another time. The lighting will probably be the first thing I change as I know it is going to be low light for the 37 since it is a deeper tank. I'll have more questions on that soon enough, but for now thought I will start with some low light/easy plants while I do more reading. I was considering Java Fern and Anubias as I had good success with them last time... any other plants to put it a low light/low tech? I had amazon swords that grew great last time that were moved to my 55 and are still going in there. For carpet, I was under the impression I would do better to wait till I addressed the lighting before going that direction... good idea?

I tried some plants a while back with a 20G, but stayed low tech with a single t8 bulb, some eco-complete and excel dosed once in a while. The plants actually did great, but the 20G was taken down to make room. Now I am considering trying a planted tank again with a 37 G that has been serving as a QT/Hospital tank but not really getting much use. So my plan is to empty it, start fresh and go planted in it this time. It has a single t8 bulb right now and a fluval U4 and a AC70 running. I thought I would start out low tech and work my way up the planted ladder from there. So first question is substrate. I used Eco-Complete before and the plants did pretty good, though I found it was a little course and light for getting plants to anchor at first. I don't think I am ready to go dirted as I expect I will be uprooting and moving plants around as I learn about them and try different combinations, so I am looking for options that are a little easier for now. I would also like to try a 'carpet' of some sort, so a substrate that will promote horizontal growth of some type of short grass/plant would also be on my wish list. Any suggestions as to what I should consider for substrate? I expect to exchange all the equipment on the tank as I move forward with better lighting, maybe trying Co2 (so I think a canister filter will be better then HOB as I wont want to have so much surface agitation?) Right now just working my way around web resources etc to try to take it all in before starting.