HenryC

Thanks for your help and @Cory's in yesterday livestream! Followed your advice, added salt and raised temp and now this morning he's back to normal! His kok is even bigger now lol.

pH - 7.6 Nitrates - <20ppm Hardness - 350ppm Nitrite - 0 Ammonia - 0 KH/Buffer - 230ppm Water Temperature - 78-80F 2 days ago my flowerhorn accidentally jumped out of the tank (I forgot to put the cover after water changing) while I was showering, he feel about 5 feet onto solid tile floor. I suspect he was about 5 to 10 minutes outside. When I came out he was nearly dried out but still alive. Grabbed him and put him back in his tank. He was very lethargic and hanged at the bottom in a corner for the remaining of the day, but next morning he was his usual self. I'd say he's completely fine, aside from his enormous belly that seems to be bloated. I am afraid he has any internal damage that would cause dropsy? To be honest I haven't seen him poop not haven't seen any new poop at the bottom. I fed him today but very little. What should I do? Other than his belly he's exactly the same, full of energy and aggressive as always. Notcied his kok is a tiny bit smaller too :(/ Any help is appreciated, thanks!

Some recent photos, my god the viejas are very hard to photograph! I love my american cichlid bois. So colorful and different personalities.

that's a perfect vieja tank!

I guess because most aquarium equipment lasts a relatively small amount of time? and sometimes they don't have the best QC... A heater has a life expectancy of a few years (depending on on/off cycles). Filters break, start rattling, become encrusted with mulm/sediment that is hard to remove without a good amount of elbow grease, suction cups deteriorate, gaskets dry out... same with aquariums. Rarely do I ever see someone selling an used aquarium cleaned up and ready to put fish in them. Seems that there's always lotsa work to be done when getting used aquariums? Feel it's more psychological than anything. A brand new FX6 costs what, $400? It takes a few months depending on your bioload, for it to become "dirty", which makes people wanna offer less, cause we associate dirty = abused, cheap, etc. even though the filter would be practically new.

Mexicali, Mexico. Straight in the middle of the sonoran desert lol! The weather was most likely around the 120's, but the car was parked in the sun for a bit so... lol.

Thanks a lot! Will do exactly that.

Aw it can't be zoomed in, but that looks real pretty even from afar. Love the color. Yes I forgot to mention I will put plywood! Do you think my stand is ok structurally? Someone told me 2x6's would have been better. Gonna go look for high quality plywood. Bet it can save a lot of staining time and effort lol.

My 300g is pretty much finished! While waiting for the silicone to finish curing, I wanted to see what people think of my stand. It's made with 20 2x4's, triple on the corners and doubles on the center legs. I think I will be ok, but as I live in earthquake area, I was wondering if anyone has any advice on how to reinforce it even furtuer (if needed). I am kinda uneasy on the smaaaaall wobble that remains when I push it a bit (can be seen in the video at the end). I was thinking on putting more 2x4's across the center, uniting the center legs with each other. Kind of like "bridges" Like so: | | | | | o |---------------| o | <-------- horizontal lines: 2x4 "bridge" connecting center legs on both sides | o |---------------| o | vertical lines: center legs | | | | o: screws Any suggestions:

That's right, it's not broken guys, just dusty 😅

The t-bar cichlid is getting a little bit rowdy with the smaller vieja, but other than that this is as peaceful as a tetra tank. Maybe because they're relatively small still, but the 2 grown oscars came out to be true gentle giants.

Back when my fluval 406 broke, I switched to these 2 20gal sponge filters (cycled from other tanks) as an emergency backup. Ordered a new impeller for the canister, but when it arrived, I realized i just.... didn't need it at all. While I'm building the 350g aquarium for the forever home of these big fellas, they're all living here temporarily. 2 grown oscars, 1 jack dempsey, a midas cichlid, a featherfin catfish, a t-bar cichlid and 2 vieja zonatus (medium and small). All run by just 2 20gal aquarium coop filters! Considering the massive bioload I have in this 75g aquarium, I found extremely mind-opening how all it takes is 2 sponge filters to keep these guys healthy as they can be. Ammonia and nitrites are at 0! I do 75% water change every week. Crystal clear water too, as you can see. Don't get me started on the maintenance. It takes 2 minutes to squeeze clean these each week. Never going back to anything else. My upcoming 350g tank is going to be filtered by 5 20gal sponge filters. The ultimate easy tank!

Just wanted to share this amazing video I came across. Those are som beautiful bois. And damn, now I want a hair algae carpet. That thing looks like an underwater steppe. @Cory come to Yucatan and collect some!

they're transparent, and very small, they don't get too big. Mine rarely reach sesame seed size. Just like their bigger bros, they will help you eat algae off the glass!

they're called limpets, are actually micro snails. If I remember correctly they're harmless, got a ton of these in my shrimp tank https://www.google.com/search?q=aquarium+limpets&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwi-1aj66r74AhWhIjQIHSmsC7QQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=aquarium+limpets&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIFCAAQgAQyBggAEB4QCDIGCAAQHhAIOgQIIxAnOgQIABBDUN4EWKkcYOccaAJwAHgAgAGWAYgBvg-SAQQ1LjEzmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=duCxYr7CJqHF0PEPqdiuoAs&rlz=1C1CHBF_enMX842MX842

Does anyone know any other places where you can buy similar, rocky-like backgrounds like the ones Cory and Dean have in their tanks? I think they bought them from Univ. Rocks but they had bad experiences with shipping, etc. Plus I dunno if I'm being a cheapo but they seem super expensive for what they are? Like +$100 to set up my 40gal, plus they charge for the side covers + clamp thingies. @_@ Do you knows have any other options you like?

When I say toughest, I mean like hard, thick leaves that can take a beating! I'd love to have plants in my big cichlid tanks but they all munch on them and only the stem remains after a while (vieja and blood parrots are the main culprits!). What are some of the absolute toughest, most robust plants around?

Johnny the lovebird and Max the Chi!

One of my dream fish, I live in 115F summer climate, they would be the prefect pond fishy for my place.

I would move the pogostemon plants you got on the right, all the way to the left. Seems to me the giant vals will stunt their growth because it is shading them down below. If I remember correctly Pogostemon needs medium to high light? They would grow much better to the left where the vals isn't blocking the light. The cryptos are fine there since they're super low light. Other than that I wouldn;t change anything, it's a great looking tank. Perhaps a pop of orange would make everything more vibrant. I would personally get more boesemanies, or perhaps one single big king kong parrot.

My absolute favorites are American cichlids, they're like puppies, especially the bigger Central American ones. But you need big tanks for them. Favorite fish of all time: Blood parrot

Aaaand they ate their eggs LOL. I'll see if they spawn again.

Has anyone tried to put any small fish with blood parrots? I've always liked the idea of BIG american cichlids along with a huge school of tetras/other small fish, but most of the time they're so big that the tetras are at risk of being eaten. Well we all know how the blood parrot's mouth is extremely small and cannot do much harm right? I was thinking of mixing a bigger kind of tetra with them to form a beautiful community of big parrots + tons of smaller fish. What do you think about this? My candidates are: Skirt tetras Buenos Aires Tetra Monk Tetra Tiger Barbs (worried about blood parrot fins) Congo tetra (too expensive though, and want smaller fish than this) Wagtail platies

So I've had the female blood parrot for quite a while now (2+ years) and she's big and plumpy. Recently got this stunner of a midas juvenile and after feeding xtreme big fella for a few weeks his hump went BEAST MODE and now they were cleaning up a corner of my 75g and shooing away everyone, including my big oscar. They both have their reproductive tubes sticking out, so it is safe to assume they're about to breed? I have no experience at all with big cichlid breeding, less with a specialized fish like a blood parrot, but I remember the females can reproduce right? It is only the males that are sterile. Well I moved the couple to a 20g long all for themselves and placed a clean, flat plate for them to spawn. This is the way to do it with these big fellas rights? Anyone with any experience with these guys that can give me any tips, like what to feed, what chemicals to put in the water (if any, I read it is ok to put meth blue for the eggs right?), should I have more/less flow? Light? and should I take away the parents after they spawn? Also, do you think 20g is too small for them to breed? Should I move them to 40g breeder or will they be ok here just for breeding? Thanks! I hope this comes thru, would LOVE to have some hybrids of these guys!

Thanks! I got it from a local fish store here in Mexico.