Starting a 55 Gallon Aquarium

I just started setting up my 55 gallon aquarium. Actually, it has been quite a few weeks since I began the project, but I'm finally getting around to cycling it. I am hoping that in a couple weeks that the tank will be ready to go.

This is not my first aquarium; I've been keeping fish since I was a kid (and I'm in my 30s now). Where I last lived, I had four aquariums going -- a 55, a 20 long, a 10, and a 5 gallon. I also had a 2.5 gallon tank on my desk at work. I am mostly interested in cichlids, though I enjoy killifish, catfish, and tetras as well.

My 3-year old son and I are working on this aquarium together. We started a few weeks ago by looking through some fish pictures in some aquarium books that I have. We settled on some fish from Lake Tanganika -- partially because I have had success with Lake Malawi mbunas in the past and would like to try some fish from the other rift lake. Also, my son liked the bright colors of some of the fish from that lake. We will probably end up keeping some small Julidochromis and/or some Neolamprologus species. It will depend on what we can find and what will best get along with each other. Personally, I am partial to Neolamprologus brichardi, Neolamprologus leleupi, and Julidochromis transcriptus.

After we had picked out the fish we were aiming for we started to set up the aquarium. First, we went out to a local state park and collected rocks (for caves). Then, we searched around a bit for a decent looking gravel in a large bag -- not easy to find. Most fish stores try to scam you with measly 5 pound bags of ugly colored gravel. (I should say right now, I go for a natural look in the aquarium.) We finally found a 25 pound bag at a Petco (not my favorite pet store, but that is another post), and bought two of them.

We put the rocks on the glass, then filled the tank with gravel. (Having the rocks right on the glass prevents cichlids from digging out underneath them and toppling rock formations -- and cracking the aquarium!) We probably ended up using 1 1/2 of the bags of gravel and many rocks. We filled up the water and left it for a few hours.

Without my son, I started the heater in the aquarium (set at 78 degrees) and hooked up a Fluval 304 canister filter to the aquarium. In the filter, I put crushed coral to try to bring up the pH. Tanganikan cichlids require hard alkaline water, and our tap water is about average. I tested it the other day -- 7.5 pH, 4 degrees GH. So, hopefully the coral in the filter will bring the pH up to where it needs to be, if not, I can add some baking soda to bring up the pH, as I often did when keeping mbunas. The filter has been running in the tank for 2-3 weeks now.

Today I started the cycling process using the technique outlined in this article. I started by putting 6 capfuls of Cycle (TM) into the aquarium, followed by 1/2 teapsoon of straight Amonia. I let it sit for a few hours and then tested the ammonia level. It is right up where they should be (according to the above article): between 1 and 2 ppm.

After reading the instructions, on Cycle (TM), I discovered that I should have put double the amount that I originally put in the tank. So a few hours after adding the ammonia, I added another 6 capfuls of Cycle (TM).

The only other change I made to the tanks was to add an airstone to help facilitate the growth of bacteria in the aquarium.

I plan on monitoring the aquarium for ammonia and eventually nitrite levels. And I will continue to post progress reports to this blog for this and future fish tanks.