Here's a youtube video of my 150g Cichlid tank. What do you think? It's hard to tell if I can add more fish -- I'm assuming they'll all grow a bit bigger. I'd like some more bottom and top dwelling fish, but not much else survives long with teh cichlids and the high PH.

-bunches of assorted african Cichlids.
-Few "peacock" cichlids I believe they are.
-pleco
-catfish
-one clown loach
-4-5 live plants, rest fake.
-limestock rock, branch in back is real.

Very nice video, beautiful tank. is that a Parachromis managuense - Jaguar cichlid, that charged the camera ?? I love that fish for his attitude, but warn you in my experience, he will sooner or later kill or cripple everything else i saw in your tank. Extremely aggressive fish.

Nice tank! Beautiful Aquascaping!

Great job! I like how you set it up w alot of different hang out spots for them. Good luck!

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90 gal freshwater- Jurupari & Goby community (the Lizard Lounge)

5 gal freshwater- SS Shiny at Threadie's beach

He probably contributed to a few deaths, but he doesn't seem to be top of the food chain anymore. A few of the other fish seem to enjoy bugging him by darting in and out of his "territory" and stealing his food. For awhile I saw some chewed up fins but lately all fish have healthy fins and no signs of fighting.

your fish tank looks BARE compared to mine! IMO you could deffinitly add more fish! I got all kinds of fishies in my tank and they're all happy!

I love the tank

Although you could have a lot more live plants I'd go with Amazon Swords, and brighter lights of course. But your setup looks gorgeous Are you thinking of putting in more live plants and less fake plants? If you are going to, trust me water wisterias grow rapidly even without strong lighting. It engulfed my tank so much I had to put in silver dollars to eat them.

And I didn't even use plant fertilizer!!

Anyways, do you have any south american cichlids there at all? South Americans have more rich dark colors, while African Cichlids have more solid like colors that look like pastel-like colors Both of them are neat to look at, but I definitely would go for South Americans

They aren't as aggressive and they usually don't tear up all of your plants like Africans where they just uproot the plants and they usually attack at the roots. So they are similar to Silver Dollars xD

Anyways. I hope you can put up more videos on the forum here I will soon of course!

Btw, do you use a SUPER long siphon to do a gravel wash?

Oh neat! Are you going to post some videos, or pictures? That would be AWESOME if you could I'd love to see your tank

I'll have mine up later on when I am not too busy

Well all of the fish have just about doubled in size since I bought them, so i wanted to see how full it was once they were all fully grown. Also, I get bored of something once I fill it and no longer can go out on the weekends and buy new fish, so I left room to grow.

As far as live plants, the only thing we have here in town is the two kinds I have-- anubis and the other one (forgot). I haven't had the guts to buy online yet.

Don't know what I think of sand and live plants...once they all get rooted, how in the world would you clean the sand and churn it every once in awhile?

Yes, I have the biggest gravel wash they supply at petsmart. Works great.

I deep vacuum between the plants.. I think the plants help clean too by using the nutrients in there, and only really fine particles can sink down into the sand anyway.. I don't get much dirty stuff coming up where I can vacuum deeply, most litter to vacuum is on top.

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90 gal freshwater- Jurupari & Goby community (the Lizard Lounge)

5 gal freshwater- SS Shiny at Threadie's beach

Oh I see. Why doesn't your pet store not have different types of plants?? My pet store is loaded with almost all the plant species found all around the entire world! They get them in every week. And they are beautiful! Although I have to stick to the green ones because I don't have strong enough light yet.

you should probably ask your pet store to see if they can get different types of plants in because the more plants you have, the nitrite level (i believe) will be at zero, or not as high because live plants consume nitrites which are like Carbon monoxide for us oxygen breathers (humans, dogs, birds etc) but fishes Nitrites is just like Carbon monoxide, and plants consume small amounts of Nitrites all the time. If you have more plants, your chances of Nitrites are lower. I am going to be buying more live plants today for all of my tanks except for my 10 gallon since I don't have a lot of good light either. My other tanks have strong enough light to support different colored plants.

I hope you can order online sometime Although I don't because I don't have a credit care (never did, and never will) and my pet store has so many varieties of plants and fishes already Oh, and if you have stronger light, and Flourish or C02, then that would be better I use Flourish all the time to help fertilize my plants. Since African and South American Cichlids love to eat plants. My swords have lots of holes because my plecos, severums and other fishes love to pick on the leaves. But an over filling cap full of Flourish Trace or Excel does the trick along with Aquarium Salt and water changes

Oh and for sand, you can just quickly dip the vacuum gently into the gravel and lift back up quickly. Then most of the sand will not get sucked up.

Also, fish waste is great for your gardens my strawberries are extremely sweet and my tomatoes are wonderfully red and large along with my herbs and mints they are definitely doing well.

I have flourish and I have the highest rated lights you can buy at Petco.

Highest rating lights? Like T5?