Part 1 – Introduction to my African Cichlid Aquarium
My passion for fishkeeping started when I was about 16 years old and my father built me an aquarium constructed by placing glass panels in a steel angle iron frame and sealing them in place with window putty. Since then my passion has grown and through the years I have kept most species of fish and had some reasonable success in breeding tetra, gourami, cichlid, guppy, platy and swordtail to name a few. My favourite freshwater fish has always been the African Cichlid and since I was born in Zimbabwe and lived there for 36 years I thought it appropriate to keep the link to my heritage and build an African Cichlid display tank, here in New Zealand. People ask me, which is your favourite, my answer is “why should I limit myself to a favourite?”.
Africa is an amazingly diverse continent with so many unique places, people and wild life. Although Zimbabwe has some great species of fish none quite compare to those found in Lake Malawi nor are as readily available in New Zealand. In my personal opinion the variety and colour of the freshwater fish in Lake Malawi is amongst the world’s best. For this reason I decided the African Cichlid aquarium was the option that fills all my needs, specifically an aquarium with species from the Mbuna group and the Haplochromis group. Many articles suggest that the two groups are not compatible, which may be the case for specific species within each group, however I have seen many aquariums with fish from the two groups coexisting without problems.
I view an aquarium as a challenge, a form of fascination and enjoyment, a piece of living art, all of which I have realised from building my African Cichlid aquarium. Though not yet complete the system is running well and is achieving a healthy balance which allows me the time to be fascinated and enjoy the goings-on within the aquarium. Happy healthy fish breed and I am pleased to have 1 to 3 females holding at any given time.
Due to the rock scape in the aquarium there are many places for the fleeing babies to hide once released by mom, to the extent that I have around 15 survivors that I see darting out for food. Several more have entered the overflow and have had to be fished out of the drain area of the sump and placed in the refugium. These are the lucky ones that do not have to hide under the rocks as the big fish swim over. Since I do not have any suitable breeding tanks and I am not able to tend to or target feed the babies they have to fend for themselves as they would do in nature.
The challenge for me comes from designing and building a healthy self-contained eco-system that grows, evolves and sustains itself with minimal maintenance. I prefer to build aquariums that give me options to expand and improve for the benefit of my aquatic inhabitants. One of my goals is to build an aquarium that is stable and requires less maintenance than normal. Maintenance is important though, not only to keep fish healthy but also enables you to keep in sync and connected with your aquarium.
Thank you for reading my post and please give me your feedback and comments below as this helps me focus my writing to areas that are important to you.
Next Post: Part 2 – The Design Overview
