Rebuilding a tank w/ a Jack Dempsey and a Firemouth

So I should start over, yeah?

I forgot to mention: I don't have any live plants in my tank.

It sounds like I'll need to bleach the rocks and plastic plants. Man, what
a pain. That's 100 lbs of rock or so...

"Rick" wrote in message
...

"Leo J. Hart IV" wrote in message
m...
Hello,

I'm hoping you guys can give me some advice. I have a 75 gallon
fresh-water tank that used to have mostly African cichlids in it. 6
months ago I moved into a new home and I lost all of them except 1
Jack Dempsey, 1 Firemouth and two catfish. The catfish are 2-3 inches
in size (head to tail), the JD is 6-7 inches and the Firemouth is 5-6
inches.

I'm now looking into rebuilding my tank.

Now, I realize that traditionally JDs and Firemouths are mean *******s
and that they'd normally kill African cichlids, but I guess since the
group of them group up together they were all fine. But ever since
these two have had the tank to themselves they've become MEAN. I'm
wary of sticking some more fish in there and I'm guessing that if I
did, they'd have to be some BIG suckers.

Should I even try re-populating my tank with larger-sized Africans
while these fish remain or should I sell these fish back and start
over? Of course I'd like to keep the fish; I've had them several
years and am fond of them, but if they're going to kill everything I
put in the tank, I'd rather start over. Note: the guy at the pet
store said I could try some Oscars or more JDs, but I'm really not
interested in those fish as much as the more colorful Africans.

On another topic, the rocks in my tank have recently been getting
covered with black fuzzy algae. I've never had this problem before.
The tank generally only gets an hour or two of light a day, so I doubt
that's the problem. The fish store guy tested my water and said all
looked fine. From what I understand, this algae is some sort of
bacteria and is a challenge to remove. I've tried scraping it from
the rocks, but it always grows back. Is there some chemical I can
throw in the tank to rid myself of this nasty stuff?

Thanks for your help.

Leo Hart



I have Firemouths and the last place I would put mine is in with my
Africans
as I believe it wouldn't be long before that Firemouth was shredded.
Personally I think you should stick to either Central Americans or
Africans.
They do not mix well together. The algae you describe is likely dark red
in
colour and not uncommon growing on rocks and slow growing plants like
anubias. I get some in my planted tank and simply remove the rock(s) or
plant(s) and bleach them in a solution about 20-1, works wonders.

Rick