Hmmm.... I don't know if I want to be the fish lady! But I've been paranoid I might be "the cat lady" in time as much as I love Paisley LOL! I guess I'd rather be the cat lady than the fish lady. Hmmm...
For the filters, in the 38g, I don't really have the filters I'd most like, but this tank has to be flush to the wall, so I cannot use hang on the back filters. What I have in it are two Whisper 40i Internal Filters, which both supposedly can filter up to 40 gallons, but I don't think they really have that much water flow and I want to over filter. With them, you cannot fill the water up to the frame of the tank or the outflow will be under water. So, I took black electrical tape and did a couple rounds of that at the top of the tank just below the frame. It's in the pictures that way, so you cannot really tell it's tape (at least my eyes can't), and it hides the water line.
For the 75g (and for the 55g's we're setting up) I have two Penguin 350 BioWheel filters for each. They supposedly can do 70g each and they have a lot of water flow. They are pretty inexpensive ($35 or so each) and, at least for now, were less intimidating to me than canister filters.
The cartridges I've started using are called "ReeFresH2O" (formerly Cell Pore) and they are not disposable and last basically forever. They look kind of like rigid sponges and have tremendous surface area to grow the good bacteria that actually keeps the tanks clean. Between those and the biowheels, there's a lot of room for the good bacteria to grow. Apparently most hard core fishkeepers don't use carbon at all, unless they are removing medicine and carbon only lasts 2wks or so max. These ReeFresH2O / Cell Pore and another sort called Super Cartridges seem to be what they recommend, or some other kind of high surface area bio media that goes in canister filters.
The way I have the blinds in the living room, the tank in there doesn't get sunlight and I don't think the one in the hallway will, unless I leave the bathroom door all the way open (which I nearly never do). So, I'm hoping there will not be algae problems in them but if so, at least in the living room, I think we can put some bristle nose plecos with the fish that will go there after the red zebras move. Bristle nose plecos eat algae but they do not get massive like the common plecos will. They come in albino or brown, maybe other colors, too.
Not all cichlids are aggressive and the kind I get don't need to eat live food. They wouldn't really even be big enough to efficiently eat feeder goldfish when full grown. They are actually vegetarians! Which surprised me. You have to be careful to not feed mbuna cichlids like I have too much protein or they get "Malawi Bloat". They're a specific type of cichlid from the same lake and region. The other cichlids I have, the hybrid blood parrots and the rainbow cichlids, are compatible to each other but not to the mbunas. They are, however, more peaceful than the kind of mbunas I have (which are the milder mannered mbunas you can get by far).
I also love fancy goldfish. We have two 20g tanks of them (with Penquin Biowheel 200's in them, can do 50g each). I didn't realize how much space fancy goldfish need when we first got them and ours are still small so are okay for now, but goldfish are supposed to have 20g for the first one, and 10g for each additional one. Once we found that out, we planned to get a 150g tank for the Florida room, however, after setting up the 75g tank this weekend, we decided one that size will be enough. It's one thing to see the tanks in the store and another to see them set up in your house. Ours seems to have grown on the trip home. Right now, 75g seems HUGE in the house and I don't want a 150g for the goldies anymore. We have 12 of them total.
You know, in consideration of what I just wrote, maybe I should be the fish nerd, vs. the fish or cat lady?
