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Need filter advice

Indigo

Learning How To Multiply
Ok, My cousin bought 6 tiger cichlids 3 male and 3 female I believe. And after a few days we notice some changes to the tank water. Its the filter. The filter can't do the job on the 50 gallon tank. Does anyone here have a 50 gallon tank and what filter you use? And also can Cichlids and algea eater in one tank? The Cichlids won;t eat them right????
 
I am not sure what you mean by Tiger Cichlids.......Tiger Oscars, convicts? What kind of algae eater (pleco?). Cichlids are big, hefty fish that can eat a lot, and therefore produce a lot of waste. A normal mechanical filter can handle waste only to a point. What is better is not to overfeed and do frequent, al least weekly water changes.............10-50% of the water, using a siphon that sucks all of the gunk out of the bottom gravel. Water changes will do far more to keeping your fish healthy and your tank clear than any power filter.
Believe it or not, I have a crowded 10 gallon of guppies in my office and a mixed 29 gallon tank at home....both with no filter....only an airstone for circulation. Fish are healthy and reproducing and the water is clear. I also have a 75 gallon with a large Oscar, ever breeding convict cichlids, angels and a few others. I have a small power filter, more for water circulation. Also clear, and the fish are great and have been together for a long time (The angels may seem a bad choice, but they are not bothered by the others).
 
It's usefull to know how much plants if any you got in the tank.
 
cichlids, especially the large south american ones produce lots and lots of waste. it'll be much better if you followed the 1.25x or 2x rule with these huge fish. by that i mean, if you have a 50 gallon, it will be much better for you to use a 75 gallon or 100 gallon filtration unit.
 
To be quite honest, if what you have are Tiger Oscars you are going to have problems really soon, since normally people would recommend at least 50 - 75 gallons PER FISH... so if you have 6 in a 50G you will more than likely soon end up with aggravation issues as they get older...

As for filtration, i would strongly suggest to aim for no less than 4X turnover, so if your running a 50Gallon tank, you want 200G+ turnover every our... i personally have a 200G tank and am running it at 4X turnover, and still want more... since as most people will tell you, you can NEVER have too much filtration...

In fact, i know a lot of people who do 12X turnover on larger tanks which are overstocked to help keep Nitrates, Nitrites, and Ammonia levels as low as possible...

Lastly, not to sound like a smart ***, but just cause you water is crystal clear doesn't always mean your water is fine, if your really serious about it, get a liquid test kit by API that tests those 3 parameters i mentioned above as well as PH... since these are all things that could come in very handy if you ever find yourself with sick fish in the future...
 
To be quite honest, if what you have are Tiger Oscars you are going to have problems really soon, since normally people would recommend at least 50 - 75 gallons PER FISH... so if you have 6 in a 50G you will more than likely soon end up with aggravation issues as they get older...

As for filtration, i would strongly suggest to aim for no less than 4X turnover, so if your running a 50Gallon tank, you want 200G+ turnover every our... i personally have a 200G tank and am running it at 4X turnover, and still want more... since as most people will tell you, you can NEVER have too much filtration...

In fact, i know a lot of people who do 12X turnover on larger tanks which are overstocked to help keep Nitrates, Nitrites, and Ammonia levels as low as possible...

Lastly, not to sound like a smart ***, but just cause you water is crystal clear doesn't always mean your water is fine, if your really serious about it, get a liquid test kit by API that tests those 3 parameters i mentioned above as well as PH... since these are all things that could come in very handy if you ever find yourself with sick fish in the future...
Yep.... this. I won't go for anything less than 5x turnover in my tanks, and none of my fish are anywhere near as messy as any cichlid. If they are tiger oscars, you'll soon find your 50 gallon woefully inadequate to keep them healthy and happy. A friend of mine had two in a 55... that only lasted a few months.
 
Big Fish=Big Waste=Big Filter.
It also sounds like you need to cut back on the fish, or up the tank size, big time. Never settle for "minimum" tank size.
The Marineland C-Series is hands down, the ultimate filter. Power and silence all in one.

To help you out, check out petmountain.com
 
I reccomend an Eheim personally. An Eheim classic 2217 is about 200 gph, can house a lot of media (you'll need that bio and mechanical media for large, messy fish) and bypass is low to nonexistent, unlike with other filters.

The eheims tend to move lower GPH rates, but that's in order to move water more slowly through the media. They really hold an almost silly amount of media. I'm running a 2215 on my aquarium and love it.

That all said, you should still get rid of the fish :p
 
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I am not sure what you mean by Tiger Cichlids.......Tiger Oscars, convicts? What kind of algae eater (pleco?). Cichlids are big, hefty fish that can eat a lot, and therefore produce a lot of waste. A normal mechanical filter can handle waste only to a point. What is better is not to overfeed and do frequent, al least weekly water changes.............10-50% of the water, using a siphon that sucks all of the gunk out of the bottom gravel. Water changes will do far more to keeping your fish healthy and your tank clear than any power filter.

Sorry I didn;t memtion the name correctly. The fish is Black Cinvict cichlid, and no it wasn;t the pleco algea eater. and the algea eater didn;t last a day in there, they cinvict only see them as appeitizer.

It's usefull to know how much plants if any you got in the tank.

No live plant just 2 plastic plant and 3 decoration

To be quite honest, if what you have are Tiger Oscars you are going to have problems really soon, since normally people would recommend at least 50 - 75 gallons PER FISH... so if you have 6 in a 50G you will more than likely soon end up with aggravation issues as they get older...

As for filtration, i would strongly suggest to aim for no less than 4X turnover, so if your running a 50Gallon tank, you want 200G+ turnover every our... i personally have a 200G tank and am running it at 4X turnover, and still want more... since as most people will tell you, you can NEVER have too much filtration...

In fact, i know a lot of people who do 12X turnover on larger tanks which are overstocked to help keep Nitrates, Nitrites, and Ammonia levels as low as possible...

Lastly, not to sound like a smart ***, but just cause you water is crystal clear doesn't always mean your water is fine, if your really serious about it, get a liquid test kit by API that tests those 3 parameters i mentioned above as well as PH... since these are all things that could come in very handy if you ever find yourself with sick fish in the future...


Sounds like a nothing can go wrong situation. They bought a 75 GPH filter for the tank but it doesn't see to be doing any good. and haven't test the water yet, will get them check at the petstore this weekend and hopefully find out whats wrong with it. my instinct tells me it has to be the water. because I have a 20 gallon tank at home, after i gave away the gold fish leaving the tank with 2 algea eater and 1 turtle. and the filter were off the whole time for about a month the water is still very clear. no cloud or anything just kinda yellowy. and at the top theres a bunch of bubble. look kinda nasty. so if the water condition is meet a 1x or 2x filter will do the job.
 
  • #10
Once a pair of those convicts hook up and breed all hell will break loose.
 
  • #11
I guess i should have also asked did they cycle their tank before adding the fish??? coz if they didn't cycle the tank then that could also contribute to a lot of problems... such as spikes in water conditions...
 
  • #12
Cycle the tank?
 
  • #13
got live plants? heavily planting with live plants will cycle the tank even faster---even up to the point where some people have skipped the cycling process entirely! that being said, use common sense--- feed your fish very VERY lightly initially to prevent an ammonia spike (plants will need to establish themselves before up-taking the fishwaste)

________________________________________

FORGET IT. I REMEMBERED YOU'RE WORKING WITH OSCAR CICHLIDS....yeah, you'll need to cycle the tank. you can do this though without fish, by either (dumping an ammonia source into the water) or throwing a serving size of fish food into the tank, and let nature take it's course. once the tank is cycled, you can place the fish in.
 
  • #14
  • #15
Cycle the tank?

yeah, cycling a new tank is a very very important step that most people who haven't been in the hobby long, or are completely new to it tend not to know about...

So if you haven't already done so i'd check that link posted above, and if you still need help then i can throw you a few more links which go into a bit more detail...
 
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