Eric R

I agree to no on the pea puffer and dwarf frogs. I love h. formosa, but wouldn't mix male and female h. formosa in such a small tank as they breed readily. Even a single female h. formosa might be pregnant when you get it, and so you could still end up with fry. Unless you have another tank for the fry. I'd personally just do a heavily planted shrimp tank.

You can always add another filter if it seems like it's necessary. Sponge filters are effective and inexpensive. You can also look for used filters if money is tight. HOBs tend to be pretty bulletproof, I have used whisper power filters which still work great. If you don't need more filtration but just more flow, you can try adding a powerhead instead of a second filter. Or you can setup a spray bar on your canister filter.

Filtration is a funny thing. Some people run no filters and just keep heavy planting and light stocking. Clearly that works less effectively with larger, messier fish. Cleanup crews help break down waste. Plants make a great surface for beneficial bacteria. Filters accomplish multiple things: mechanical filtration, so removing debris from the water, water polishing to increase clarity, you can use carbon to provide chemical filtration, and biological filtration using bacteria to breakdown ammonia and nitrites. They also provide flow, which helps to keep your water oxygenated and helps to remove particulates from the water. Plants also provide oxygen though. You can probably (?) get away with a smaller filter as long as you plant heavily, do regular (weekly?) water changes, and clean your canister filter regularly (monthly?) by squeezing out your media in old tank water. Make sure you have flow throughout your tank, you want to avoid deadspots that allow debris to accumulate. Make sure you also have enough surface agitation for gas exchange. The best way to tell if you have sufficient filtration is to regularly check your water parameters and visually inspect your tank. If the water stays clear, and your ammonia and nitrites are at zero, and your ph stays stable and where you want it, and your fish and plants are healthy and active and eat well, I personally feel like that's a sign that your tank is working fine. With a smaller filter and messier fish it may just mean that you have to do more frequent and larger water changes and have to clean your filter media more often than you would with a larger filter. YMMV

I'm not sure if the LFS mentioned it, but canister filters on saltwater tanks require a lot of regular maintenance, otherwise they can become nitrate sources and cause excess algal growth. Are you planning on doing a fish only with live rock tank or a reef tank?

I personally like large schools of small, active, tightly schooling fish. Cardinal tetras, rummynose tetras, or green neon tetras all come to mind. I also think that schooling/shoaling fish show more natural behavior in larger groups, so I'd add (at least) another 7 panda corys. They are pretty fun to watch in larger shoals.

The buffer was basically just adding back in to the RO water the minerals that are already present in your tap water. With your tap water, you shouldn't need the Malawi buffer anymore. Your tap water may be a bit harder than your tank water, it's hard to tell with just the strips, you'll get more accurate gh and kh results if you have the liquid tests for those.

Calcium is part of the general hardness (gh). Most people don't need to test for it separately, unless they think they may have a deficiency. It's more common to test for it with reef tanks than freshwater tanks. I agree, you appear to have ideal water for keeping african cichlids.

Unless she's running a booster pumps, I don't think that most RO units come with anything like a motor that would make noticeable noise.

@Biotope Biologist, I just wanted to add that I'm very impressed with the quality of your responses!!

I'd run the air stone for water circulation and to encourage gas exchange, even if you don't have a sponge yet.

Rift Lake African Cichlids tend to like hard water. You may be wasting money and effort buying RO water just to remineralize it. You should test your tap water to get the parameters. You'll want to know ph, gh, kh, nitrates. Share them here once you have them, you can get either liquid test kits or test strips from aquarium coop or your lfs. You'll also want to know if your town treats water with chlorine or chloramines and if it needs to be conditioned.

There's a difference between kh which is a measure of alkalinity and has to do with carbonate hardness, and gh which is general hardness and includes calcium and magnesium. Adding crushed coral in a bag in your filter can add calcium and increase kh. Unflavored cuttlebone can also be used to increase calcium. What's your aquarium ph?

Cory has mentioned that there have been some problems with the suppliers having them available regularly for stocking, and so Aq. Coop no longer sells them. I imagine it may be similar with other retailers.

Depends on the fish and how much room there is for the baby shrimp to hide. I was more successful in my community tank when it was just cardinals and corys. I've noticed less baby shrimp since I added apistos.

If you're concerned about failing heaters (which unfortunately does happen and cook tanks) I highly recommend inkbird temp controllers.

I've gotten this recently from a Heterandia formosa colony in one female. I plan to do what Dwayne suggests, where I'm going to start a separate colony with a couple males, then selectively breed for it. If the CPD is white but doesn't have red eyes, then I believe it's called luecistic instead of albino, which is what I have.

Any pics of your blackworm setup? I tried keeping a white worm culture for a while but it didn't last. I've been relying almost entirely on my microworm setup to feed my elassoma.

Also, have you seen the visual chart of the different color morphs for Neocaridina davidi?

That's kinda cool too I think, now you are breeding different color morphs from your two types! I only have had Red Cherry Shrimp so far as color morphs go, though I've gotten some really nice reds out of my line so far. I'd love to try some blues or yellows some time. You should post pictures of the different color morphs that you're getting if you can, that would be interesting to see.

Sorry, I meant what species of African cichlids (if you know the species). There are a lot of different species of African cichlid, several hundred at least. Any pictures of your current tank?

@LaurieinIA What cichlid species are you currently keeping, and what do you want to keep with the upgrade?

Rocks came from the rock pile in my yard. Substrate is CaribSea Aragonite, I plan to mix it with pool filter sand once I setup the 55g tank, the aragonite/crushed coral is too white for my taste. I didn't grow the plants out in that tank, both were procured at a recent local club auction. We'll see how they adapt to the harder water/higher ph.

20H with 6 juvenile Julidochromis ornatus, waiting until I can setup the 55g Tanganyikan community tank, hopefully this weekend. Just anubias and corkscrew val for now.

I personally haven't had a lot of problems with fish jumping (knock on wood), but when I hear about it they always seem to do so through surprisingly small cracks.

Darn, too bad.