# The Evolution of my 90 Gallon



## Ital_stal (Jun 4, 2010)

*The Evolution of my 90 Gallon *new pics**

2006-2008:

As you can tell my tank was originally an overstocked atrocity. Riddled with Malawians, Tanganyikans and even a slew of oddballs (Clown loach colony and Apollo sharks), this tank was the result of an early hobbyist's insatiable appetite for variety. The large driftwood was more to benefit my beloved clown loach colony to assist in lowering the ph, seemed to work and the African mix didn't seem to mind. Funny side note, every rock in the tank at this time came from my backyard.










2008-2011

My tank took a pleasant turn for the better when I saved up and bought 150 lbs of texas holy rock. I removed the driftwood and swapped out my rocks. This addition really brightened up the tank but the dense fake plants really didn't follow the traditional rift lake setup. During this period I tried out cyps and feather fins but realized they weren't my thing and slowly returned to a Malawian only setup (though I wouldn't mind tossing in a nice pair of calvus and some shelldwellers any day). Pictured is a nice WC pheno "tanziania", demasoni, shelldwellers (in shells) and an assortment of peacocks. Slowly but surely I removed most of the plants leaving only 3-4 larger ones in the backdrop.










Today
After neglecting the tank this past school year and losing a bunch of fish I decided to take my tank in a different direction. I've always wanted white sand but thought that converting would be a huge hassle. Boy was I wrong. I vested a few hours last night taking all rocks, eggcrate and gravel out of tank (to let it settle overnight), vacuumed all the junk/sand sediment. Spent an hour or so rinsing the silica sand and in it went. I think the hardest part was putting the eggcrate back in without trapping any fish under it, as mine is one solid four by a foot and half piece. It turned out exactly as I was hoping, the sand is a really nice off-white and has some nice specks of black here and there. Really brightens the tank and I wish I had done it a lot sooner. Instead of stacking the holy rock as I've always done I layed it out barely touching so it creates some overhangs for hiding but still gives an open concept encouraging the fish to swim in the open. Fun fact; The lab colony that I currently have were given to me in the original sale of my 90 gallon (2006), I raised them from fry and I sold them in 2008 only to buy them back a year or so later. I like the idea of having 3-4 species with predominantly blue/ yellow contrasts, so I was planning on contrasting my lab colony with demasoni and some larger blue haps. In saying this I now have 7 pheno tanazia and 3 mdoka juvies in there alongside my labs and 20 or so demasoni fry growing out in a fry tank waiting to hit the 1.5 inch mark to get tossed in the mix.










Just added some anubius:









phenochilus tanzanias starting to color at a mere 2.5 inches:


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## gem (Oct 19, 2010)

wow it does look good. 
Thanks for sharing.


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## Ital_stal (Jun 4, 2010)

gem said:


> wow it does look good.
> Thanks for sharing.


Thanks!

In addition to the 88lbs of silica sand i recently added 15 lbs of araganite to help buffer my ph for my africans. Once it all gets mixed together it really has a nice natural look.


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## Riceburner (Mar 14, 2008)

looks great. Though there's a lot of open space up top now....that's why I like low wide tanks for my Africans. I can fill the vertical space with structure to provide hideouts.


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## Techie (Nov 5, 2011)

Riceburner said:


> looks great. Though there's a lot of open space up top now....that's why I like low wide tanks for my Africans. I can fill the vertical space with structure to provide hideouts.


wow!!! very nice tank!!


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## Y2KGT (Jul 20, 2009)

Looks great A.J.,

My only recommendation is to lose the Mdoka juvies because from my experience when they reach maturity they're far more aggressive that the Tanzania not to mention the chance of hybrids. My Mdoka male killed my Tanzania show male along with any other blue hap in the tank before he finaly got beat himself.

Havinf seen your tank and various stages over the years I always liked the Holey Rock the best.
--
Paul


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## Ital_stal (Jun 4, 2010)

Thanks guys!

Paul, 
Thanks for the heads up, weird thing is the tanzanias seem to be picking on the mdokas moreso.
I'll definitely keep that in mind though and if they start gaining aggression they're an easy sell for the most part.


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## kuopan (Sep 6, 2010)

great looking tank! i have a similar problem where i am just gathering all kinds of cichlids and maybe i need to consider a species only tank too..


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## Ital_stal (Jun 4, 2010)

kuopan said:


> great looking tank! i have a similar problem where i am just gathering all kinds of cichlids and maybe i need to consider a species only tank too..


Thanks!
For sure.
I've had my fun over the years mixing all kinds now i've got it down to just labs, clown loaches and phenochilus tanzanias. Looks good can't wait to grow them out its going to be a stunning tank.


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## Ital_stal (Jun 4, 2010)

New pics

update: So now its just phenochilus tanzanias, labs and a couple of BN plecos.


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