My new favorite fish channel. I'm back into fish keeping after a 30 year hiatus. Picked up a gateway Betta and fell in love with the hobby and fish all over. Up to four tanks now including my first Rift Chiclids . Fell in love with them and now setting up a 150gallon after successful overstocking a 55. You are a wealth of info I will be sure to stay tuned. Thanks for sharing the knowledge!
Thank you so much, Richelle! Your content is so informative, and you've got a wonderful presence and delivery. I've been a hobbyist for most of my life, and I've had a few cichlids in tanks gone by. Admittedly, I focused more on keeping everyone alive than recreating optimal habitats. I've just started a "serious" cichlid setup, and I find your tips/advice to be invaluable! I can only imagine the money you're saving me in failure fallout (I promise to use the savings to improve the lives of my new fish). I'm watching everything and taking actual notes!!! Please keep up the great work. I know it takes a lot of time and attention (and years of hard-earned experience) to create these videos, and I just appreciate it so much!
i guess Im asking the wrong place but does anybody know of a tool to get back into an instagram account? I was stupid forgot the account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
I keep my tanks at the following. PH 8.5 GH 14 KH 12 I use the calcium reactor to balance GH. I don’t use any aquarium salts. My water comes from a natural spring this is mineral rich. So really gives me a head start when it comes to African cichlids it may be why my Frontosa are all over 12 inches females 14 inches males 😊👍🏻💞
@@QuebecCichlides and cheap to run easy to sit up between a canister and the return pipe or sump pump. But again it wasn’t my idea I can’t take credit for that. I just took the idea from commercial marine Centre set ups and adapted it to freshwater situations. There are a lot of things we can use from the saltwater hobby in the freshwater hobby. You could use a skimmer to lower nitrate. But skimmers are not cheap so that’s the only reason I won’t do it 🤣
Another great video that makes me want to move to Canada but here our tap water is 50ppm nitrate and water changes can be harmful so using nitrate filters and lots of plants just to keep it down
This is crazy. Since my last video about nitrates, I found out that many people have 50+ppm in their water, which is super dangerous. Good thinking getting those filters and plants
I am setting up a 75 gal tank for cichlids. I want to put in Mbuna only, and only males for color and to keep the tank from being less aggressive, I have a back filter and a canister,aswell as multiple air bubbles to install The tank will be set up with lava rock, corals, shells and crushed coral and coarse sand substrate, basically it will be a poor man's salt water tank. My water out of the tap is at a 7.3 ph and registers at 180 on hardness. In my livebearer tank I add 5%sea salt and drift wood to bring down the hardness and ph.
Hi there I’m getting 70 Gallon tank long. Stocking with cichlids. You mentioned crushed coral substrate will that raise the ph from 6.0 8.2 and if so if I do a water change with 6.0 ph from the tap will that not lover my ph? Or will coral buffer it out and not effect the ph?
I'm confused here with the KH and GH for African Cichlids. Are both parameters supposed to be in that range for the African Cichlids, or does one override the other because I have a 30 Gallon, which I know some say is too small to have them in but I know 3 people who have but I'm having a hard time getting in contact with them to ask this same question which the Cichlid Lake salt says only use about 1.5 teaspoons for every 10 Gallons my GH isn't changing from a Orange to a green after doing 1 drop at a time to make a total of 11-12 stays at a Redish Orange I've already added what I believe to be a total of 6x for the same amount of salt from what it says so 1.5 which should be about 3 teaspoons for my 3 gallon well after doing the same amount 2 more times still no change to the water. The KH went from a blue to a yellow around 11-12. But my GH isn't going green.
Thank you for your time, knowledge and ability to share so much useful info! I and I'm sure others greatly appreciate you! At time 0:57 in front of the foam filter is a blue cichlid with a white tipped dorsal, vertical barring and yellowish anal fin. What is it's ID?
One of the biggest mistakes fishkeepers make is chasing their pH. Put in a calcium source like coral or shells to stop it dropping too low if you like, but then just leave it. If your Tanganyika tank only reaches 7.5 it's fine as long as it's stable. Continuously adding extra buffers to the tank will result in pH swings, which is far more detrimental to the fish.
Hi honey how you doing I am John a member of your RUclips channel. I set up a used aquarium after giving it a Good cleaning. I transferred half my beneficial bacteria from my other tank and the cycle worked in less than 48 hours but my pH is 8.4 should I do a water change or leave it? I have 2 peacocks and 4 baby firefish in a 75 gallon tank to help the cycle.
Thx for a great vid again! Good information although my opinion is that a nitrate level of 20 ppm is ambitious with a fully stocked tank. I have a 200g with 35 AC’s and as they gain size nitrates fluctuate between 25 and 40. I do 2 weekly wc’s of 40% and 60%.I learned i should not worry too much as long as levels remain under 50, as deadly doses are even way higher, or should i? 🤔
Hi. Have you tested your tap water? There is some cases with nitrate in the tap water. If so then it will be impossible for you to go lower than that when using the tap water. When I do 50% weekly water change i usually get 0 ppm Nitrat and after a week ~22 ppm (heavily planted). (When I get 0 ppm reading then i also know that the source from the tap is 0 ppm). But yeah 20ppm is conservative and better to be safe than sorry.
Thanks...I need a help ... Recent nitrogen cycle in one of my tank crashed as fishes were acting abnormal I checked water parameters and ammonia level was high...I changed 50 percentage of water and used stability and then I changed 80 percentage next day ..still the ammonia level has not come down..my tap water has 0 ammonia ..so wat do you suggest...For now fishes are fine..they are eating and swimming better but still worried..
Hi. Thanks for the great information. I’ve been discouraged from setting up a Lake Tanganyika cichlid tank due to the difficulty of maintaining proper water parameters for these fish that react poorly to very subtle changes in water conditions. I have a thermal mixer maintaining incoming tap water at a steady 79 degrees, so the temporary fluctuations during water changes would be in the PH and GH. If I kept the water changes to just 10%, twice a week, do you think it would harm these fish?
I have a 55 gal tank with 5 african cichlids. A yo-yo loach about 2-3 inches and a common plecotomous. About 3 inches long. Hide's all the time because it gets picked on. Sand. But I can not keep this reddish algae off the sand and the fake plants. Regular water changes. I got your favorite algae eater and after 3 days it died. Cichlids are about 2.5 inches. IDK the type of fish they are. There just fish store african cichlids. Any help would be appreciated. Love your channel ❤️
Very good info! I am a long time fish keeper but new to African cichlids. My parameters are all good except my nitrates. I have a hard time getting below 30-40ppm. My tap water does have about 10ppm. I have cut way back on the food. I do a 50% water change every week. I only have 17 juvenile peacocks and smaller haps in a 125 gallon. I don’t think that is to much. The tank is cycled I used a canister packed with media from another tank and it’s been running with 2 - fx6 filters for 7 months. Fish are all healthy and active but the nitrates worry me. Any suggestions?
Well, come to find out my tap water has a general hardness of around 100, apparently, and I never checked tap and ended up never having my water go from Orange to Green because I put way to much Cichlid Lake salt in it so I've drained the tank and I'm going to correct everything I did wrong.
@QuebecCichlides so you said in the video the problem was I didn't know my GH was perfect from the tap water so because I didn't test my tap water I ended never going from Orange to Green and couldn't figure out why the Orange wasn't changing and I guess if the water is to high of a GH it's not gonna change from Orange to Green even though my tap water is already Green after 10 drops the water never changed after I dosed my tank with half the bottom of Cichlid Lake Salt and I messed up and to to much buffer in which made the whole tank cloudy so I realize now what I was doing all along and I could have prevented me wasting time doing a crazy water change had I tested my tap water before adding half a bottle of the buffer and lake salt.
Isn’t it better to have a stable ph that chasing a higher one my ph is 8.0 kh 4 gh 8 where I buy my fish the ph is 7.8 do I just bring up gh and leave others ??
Great topic richelle! ,I have a question. I tested my 75 gallon African cichlid tank earlier this morning and here are the results, using the api master test kit, normal ph maxed out dark blue, so went to high range ph it maxed out at around 8.6 ammonia oppm nitrite oppm nitrate 0ppm. My substrate is Carib sea African cichlid mix supplemented with crushed coral, I also have 2 media bags in one of the 2 hang on back filters. I change 20 gallons per week 10 of those gallons I vacuum , and I feed moderately and carefully watching them eat. Rarely will any food hit the substrate and the fish are always hungry. My ph seems a bit high, what do you think? Thank you so much from Michigan 👍🏻
Hi I'm hoping you can give me some advice. I've seen the video about ammonia levels and how to fix them I did exactly what you said but I seem to still have a problem with ammonia still. I have a 55 gal tank?
I have multis and hard water with a more moderate pH. My gh is 16dgh, kH=11dgH, and my pH hovers around 7.5. These fish were bred locally. Do you think it's worth it to work on increasing the pH? Or is a stable pH better?
Hi,im new to african cichlids, need your advise on the female peacocks.. Are they all the same even though they are from different species? How to indentify which species is which?
Yes. Send us an email with your full address and postal code and I will give you your shipping options. Next week is good shipping weather : www.quebec-cichlides.com/contact-us
If got a question, I like de Mbuma's but overall the female's are grey and I like a lot of male's for there colours. Is it a option to have only male's in my aquarium or will they fight because there are to many male's. Greetz Woody from Holland
I think that I can answer this question. I have a 55 gallon mbuna tank with 15 males and no females. I don't have any problems. I believe that the problem would happen if I were to add any females.
@@Shadow-wn5fw thnx for you answer ... already I found out that (as you we're saying) if there are no female's the male's got nothing to fight for ... I bought a couple of Labidochromis Caeruleus (both same color) and an couple Hemichromis Lifalili (also same color) they are beautyfull ... will look for more
My new favorite fish channel. I'm back into fish keeping after a 30 year hiatus. Picked up a gateway Betta and fell in love with the hobby and fish all over. Up to four tanks now including my first Rift Chiclids . Fell in love with them and now setting up a 150gallon after successful overstocking a 55. You are a wealth of info I will be sure to stay tuned. Thanks for sharing the knowledge!
Thank you so much, Richelle! Your content is so informative, and you've got a wonderful presence and delivery. I've been a hobbyist for most of my life, and I've had a few cichlids in tanks gone by. Admittedly, I focused more on keeping everyone alive than recreating optimal habitats. I've just started a "serious" cichlid setup, and I find your tips/advice to be invaluable! I can only imagine the money you're saving me in failure fallout (I promise to use the savings to improve the lives of my new fish). I'm watching everything and taking actual notes!!! Please keep up the great work. I know it takes a lot of time and attention (and years of hard-earned experience) to create these videos, and I just appreciate it so much!
Thanks for keeping us educated!
You're too kind :)
Beautiful video😃👍
You provide a lot of great information. Thank you.
“Intense smog” - best comparison I’ve ever heard!
i guess Im asking the wrong place but does anybody know of a tool to get back into an instagram account?
I was stupid forgot the account password. I appreciate any tips you can give me
@Trace Nathaniel Instablaster =)
Thank you so much for educating us.
I keep my tanks at the following.
PH 8.5
GH 14
KH 12
I use the calcium reactor to balance GH. I don’t use any aquarium salts. My water comes from a natural spring this is mineral rich. So really gives me a head start when it comes to African cichlids it may be why my Frontosa are all over 12 inches females 14 inches males 😊👍🏻💞
Great idea for the calcium reactor!
@@QuebecCichlides and cheap to run easy to sit up between a canister and the return pipe or sump pump. But again it wasn’t my idea I can’t take credit for that. I just took the idea from commercial marine Centre set ups and adapted it to freshwater situations. There are a lot of things we can use from the saltwater hobby in the freshwater hobby. You could use a skimmer to lower nitrate. But skimmers are not cheap so that’s the only reason I won’t do it 🤣
Another great video that makes me want to move to Canada but here our tap water is 50ppm nitrate and water changes can be harmful so using nitrate filters and lots of plants just to keep it down
This is crazy. Since my last video about nitrates, I found out that many people have 50+ppm in their water, which is super dangerous.
Good thinking getting those filters and plants
Great information,,, thanks QC
Very helpful advice 🤓
Thank you! it is greatly appreciated!👍
Great information... thank you so much
Glad it was helpful!
Awesome video!
I am setting up a 75 gal tank for cichlids. I want to put in Mbuna only, and only males for color and to keep the tank from being less aggressive, I have a back filter and a canister,aswell as multiple air bubbles to install
The tank will be set up with lava rock, corals, shells and crushed coral and coarse sand substrate, basically it will be a poor man's salt water tank. My water out of the tap is at a 7.3 ph and registers at 180 on hardness. In my livebearer tank I add 5%sea salt and drift wood to bring down the hardness and ph.
Hi there I’m getting 70 Gallon tank long. Stocking with cichlids. You mentioned crushed coral substrate will that raise the ph from 6.0 8.2 and if so if I do a water change with 6.0 ph from the tap will that not lover my ph? Or will coral buffer it out and not effect the ph?
I’m from montreal love your channel ,,, is it too risky to mix one frontosa with peacocks ?
What's the best alkalinity for cichlids
I'm confused here with the KH and GH for African Cichlids. Are both parameters supposed to be in that range for the African Cichlids, or does one override the other because I have a 30 Gallon, which I know some say is too small to have them in but I know 3 people who have but I'm having a hard time getting in contact with them to ask this same question which the Cichlid Lake salt says only use about 1.5 teaspoons for every 10 Gallons my GH isn't changing from a Orange to a green after doing 1 drop at a time to make a total of 11-12 stays at a Redish Orange I've already added what I believe to be a total of 6x for the same amount of salt from what it says so 1.5 which should be about 3 teaspoons for my 3 gallon well after doing the same amount 2 more times still no change to the water. The KH went from a blue to a yellow around 11-12. But my GH isn't going green.
Thank you for your time, knowledge and ability to share so much useful info! I and I'm sure others greatly appreciate you! At time 0:57 in front of the foam filter is a blue cichlid with a white tipped dorsal, vertical barring and yellowish anal fin. What is it's ID?
Hi. Is it possible to make a video about how exactly to use the MALAWI BUFFER.....
Thanks.
One of the biggest mistakes fishkeepers make is chasing their pH. Put in a calcium source like coral or shells to stop it dropping too low if you like, but then just leave it. If your Tanganyika tank only reaches 7.5 it's fine as long as it's stable. Continuously adding extra buffers to the tank will result in pH swings, which is far more detrimental to the fish.
What is the name of the white and kind of yellow fins cichlids please. I want them
Hi honey how you doing I am John a member of your RUclips channel. I set up a used aquarium after giving it a Good cleaning. I transferred half my beneficial bacteria from my other tank and the cycle worked in less than 48 hours but my pH is 8.4 should I do a water change or leave it? I have 2 peacocks and 4 baby firefish in a 75 gallon tank to help the cycle.
Love the channel. Looking to open a small shop in New York. What kind of start up capital did you need for a fish store?
29 degrees or 29 syrups per moose?
Thx for a great vid again! Good information although my opinion is that a nitrate level of 20 ppm is ambitious with a fully stocked tank. I have a 200g with 35 AC’s and as they gain size nitrates fluctuate between 25 and 40. I do 2 weekly wc’s of 40% and 60%.I learned i should not worry too much as long as levels remain under 50, as deadly doses are even way higher, or should i? 🤔
Hi. Have you tested your tap water?
There is some cases with nitrate in the tap water. If so then it will be impossible for you to go lower than that when using the tap water.
When I do 50% weekly water change i usually get 0 ppm Nitrat and after a week ~22 ppm (heavily planted).
(When I get 0 ppm reading then i also know that the source from the tap is 0 ppm).
But yeah 20ppm is conservative and better to be safe than sorry.
Chlorine and chloramine can also be removed from tap water with a CBR2 filter block...
Great point. Not many people have these, so I didn't even think to mention it.
@@QuebecCichlides I got it from the Discus folk...
Thanks...I need a help ... Recent nitrogen cycle in one of my tank crashed as fishes were acting abnormal I checked water parameters and ammonia level was high...I changed 50 percentage of water and used stability and then I changed 80 percentage next day ..still the ammonia level has not come down..my tap water has 0 ammonia ..so wat do you suggest...For now fishes are fine..they are eating and swimming better but still worried..
Hi. Thanks for the great information. I’ve been discouraged from setting up a Lake Tanganyika cichlid tank due to the difficulty of maintaining proper water parameters for these fish that react poorly to very subtle changes in water conditions. I have a thermal mixer maintaining incoming tap water at a steady 79 degrees, so the temporary fluctuations during water changes would be in the PH and GH. If I kept the water changes to just 10%, twice a week, do you think it would harm these fish?
I have a 55 gal tank with 5 african cichlids. A yo-yo loach about 2-3 inches and a common plecotomous. About 3 inches long. Hide's all the time because it gets picked on. Sand. But I can not keep this reddish algae off the sand and the fake plants. Regular water changes. I got your favorite algae eater and after 3 days it died. Cichlids are about 2.5 inches. IDK the type of fish they are. There just fish store african cichlids. Any help would be appreciated. Love your channel ❤️
Hi, what are those clay like caves you have in the tanks?
Do you mean the Terracotta tubes?
They're kind of hard to get, but I have some at the shop if you are from around Montreal
Very good info! I am a long time fish keeper but new to African cichlids. My parameters are all good except my nitrates. I have a hard time getting below 30-40ppm. My tap water does have about 10ppm. I have cut way back on the food. I do a 50% water change every week. I only have 17 juvenile peacocks and smaller haps in a 125 gallon. I don’t think that is to much. The tank is cycled I used a canister packed with media from another tank and it’s been running with 2 - fx6 filters for 7 months. Fish are all healthy and active but the nitrates worry me. Any suggestions?
Well, come to find out my tap water has a general hardness of around 100, apparently, and I never checked tap and ended up never having my water go from Orange to Green because I put way to much Cichlid Lake salt in it so I've drained the tank and I'm going to correct everything I did wrong.
Check the video, high GH is good for African cichlids
@QuebecCichlides so you said in the video the problem was I didn't know my GH was perfect from the tap water so because I didn't test my tap water I ended never going from Orange to Green and couldn't figure out why the Orange wasn't changing and I guess if the water is to high of a GH it's not gonna change from Orange to Green even though my tap water is already Green after 10 drops the water never changed after I dosed my tank with half the bottom of Cichlid Lake Salt and I messed up and to to much buffer in which made the whole tank cloudy so I realize now what I was doing all along and I could have prevented me wasting time doing a crazy water change had I tested my tap water before adding half a bottle of the buffer and lake salt.
Isn’t it better to have a stable ph that chasing a higher one my ph is 8.0 kh 4 gh 8 where I buy my fish the ph is 7.8 do I just bring up gh and leave others ??
Great topic richelle! ,I have a question. I tested my 75 gallon African cichlid tank earlier this morning and here are the results, using the api master test kit, normal ph maxed out dark blue, so went to high range ph it maxed out at around 8.6 ammonia oppm nitrite oppm nitrate 0ppm. My substrate is Carib sea African cichlid mix supplemented with crushed coral, I also have 2 media bags in one of the 2 hang on back filters. I change 20 gallons per week 10 of those gallons I vacuum , and I feed moderately and carefully watching them eat. Rarely will any food hit the substrate and the fish are always hungry. My ph seems a bit high, what do you think? Thank you so much from Michigan 👍🏻
Hi I'm hoping you can give me some advice. I've seen the video about ammonia levels and how to fix them I did exactly what you said but I seem to still have a problem with ammonia still. I have a 55 gal tank?
Is 1 300 watt heater enough to keep my 75 African cichlid aquarium warm
It should be.
I have multis and hard water with a more moderate pH. My gh is 16dgh, kH=11dgH, and my pH hovers around 7.5. These fish were bred locally. Do you think it's worth it to work on increasing the pH? Or is a stable pH better?
Thanks for the video. What are the pale blue / yellow dorsal fish shown at 6:18?
These are Neolamprologus pulcher - Daffodil
When you Add new water to your tank after you Do a water change or when you top of your water evrat do you add perim
Yes. When adding new water, always add a water conditioner to remove chlorine & chloramines
Hi Rochelle!🥰😍🤩😘
Plis subtitle Indonesia🥰
Hi,im new to african cichlids, need your advise on the female peacocks.. Are they all the same even though they are from different species? How to indentify which species is which?
Here is a video that will help you out :
ruclips.net/video/jJCwX9FqfYg/видео.html
Can you use Malawi Buffer and Cichlid Salt weekly with each water change?
Of course!
My pH is 7.4. Do you suggest using seachem lake salt and Malawi buffer to raise the pH to the 8 ish range?
Yes
Ship to Toronto?
Yes. Send us an email with your full address and postal code and I will give you your shipping options. Next week is good shipping weather :
www.quebec-cichlides.com/contact-us
If got a question, I like de Mbuma's but overall the female's are grey and I like a lot of male's for there colours. Is it a option to have only male's in my aquarium or will they fight because there are to many male's. Greetz Woody from Holland
I think that I can answer this question. I have a 55 gallon mbuna tank with 15 males and no females. I don't have any problems. I believe that the problem would happen if I were to add any females.
@@Shadow-wn5fw thnx for you answer ... already I found out that (as you we're saying) if there are no female's the male's got nothing to fight for ... I bought a couple of Labidochromis Caeruleus (both same color) and an couple Hemichromis Lifalili (also same color) they are beautyfull ... will look for more
What's kh and gh
I explain it in the video
Hey hey you
✅👍Thanks
🐟🤓
,👌👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼🤘
🐟🐟🐟
3rd 😭
Can we get more frontosas?? Plz
Next time😅