Mark 3 fish tank, 220 litre Malawi cichlid

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Sometime in the spring of 03, my wife casually mentioned that a fish tank would be nice in the kitchen. Not being one to let a golden opportunity pass, I kept the negotiations open until the details had been settled.

We had various options as to what to do with this tank. They were :-

• Angel tank. Freshwater, heavily planted, six to eight angel fish and a large shoal of some small bright fish such as cardinal tetras. This remained a firm favourite for some time and has not been totally discounted. Maybe if we ever find somewhere to house a Mark 4 tank, this will be it.
• A marine tank. This suggestion caused some debate. On the one hand, marine fish are quite beautiful and striking, but on the other, we didn't like the tank set up much. Marine tanks tend to look (in our humble opinions) very messy. We didn't like the look of the rock generally used and felt that the overall effect was not pleasing. I'm sure marine fans would argue with this, but this tank was to provide a pleasing and soothing point of focus to our kitchen, so it had to be something that we felt was going to be attractive. Whilst we liked the marine fish themselves, we just didn't like the way marine tanks seem to be set up. This, coupled with the cost and complexity of setting up and running a marine tank killed off this suggestion.
• A Malawi cichlid tank. It didn't take too much persuasion after we went to the LFS to see some cichlids in real life. These fish are every bit as striking and beautiful as marine fish, but without the expense or complexity. The only downside to cichlids is that they are heavy vegetarians, making a planted tank difficult. That aside, this became the final decision.

All that remained was to buy the tank, build the stand, build a background, run in the filter, stock with fish ... actually quite a lot considering the lack of spare time available !! The first step was, or course, research. I posted far too many messages in the rec.aquaria.freshwater.cichlids newsgroup and generally made myself known !! Actually, the people there were extremely helpful and gave me some great advice. I also found a local cichlid breeder (NW England) who gave me some great advice, as well as having the fish at decent prices. I ended up designing a new web site for him, as well as getting my fish.

Tank details

The links below are to pages describing the construction (and destruction) of the tank, stand, background, etc. Hopefully these will be expanded to include the fish as well if I ever get chance to finish the whole thing !!

• The tank and stand
• The fake rock background and the Great Background Disaster
• The fish
• A fish keeper's diary
• Gallery of pictures