Newbie-Push me in the right direction

[rnall]

Hello all,

I will apologize for rambling off the bat. I have been keeping reef tanks for about ten years now. My first tank was a community freshwater....eveything after that has been reef.

I now want to set up my first Cichlid tank. It's exciting to try something new. :D My motivation is less maintenance, changing gears a little, cost and I have just wanted to for the past year or so. I know the result of jumping into something like this blindly and would greatly appreciate any direction/help any of you may have.

Let me tell y'all a little about what I'm looking for. Be kind...remember I am new to cichlids. I am not new to aggressive fish and all the things that go along with keeping an awesome aquarium though. My future cichlid tank is a pre-existing 140 gallon drilled tank with a 30 gallon sump. I want to make this tank as beautiful as possible. I do not want to cut any corners. I'm a fan of DIY though. I want this thing full colorful fish. All of my reefs are primarily coral and I want fish. Imagine that...fish in a fish tank. I'm prepared to over filter (if there is such a thing) and aquascape the heck out of the tank to keep all those critters happy. Malawi, Tang, Americas.....I do not know which way to go to get this type of tank. Hope I don't open up a can of worms....

Here are a few questions.....

Where can I find good cichlid related 'required reading'?

What would you consider too much flow for a cichlid tank? I'm used to a ton.

Where can I find a great source for cichlid compatibility that will shed light on setting up something like I want?

Any pitfalls you see me headed for or anything to watch out for?

Unfortunately, my tank I will be using is rather tall. Are there cichlids that will primarily hang around the upper column of water?

That's it for now. haha. If some of you have ideas on how to stock a tank like this please share your thoughts.

Congratulations on making it to the end of this post!

TIA,

Ron

[tom]

Hi Ron; welcome to the forums.

1. Assuming you mean websites, here are, in my estimation anyway, three source sites for starters:
Cichlid Room Companion (http://www.cichlidae.com)
Cichlid Research Home Page (http://www.cichlidresearch.com)
Cichlid Fishes of Lake Malawi (http://www.malawicichlids.com)

2. Short of your fish being pinned against the sides of the tank, I'm not sure of a maximum flow rate since the species kept would be one guide. Were you to keep Malawi haps, for example, they'll do fine with a rate as high as 15x vol., although for a 140g tank, you could certainly do with a lot less (as little as 4x): But keep in mind that flow rate and effective filtration are not necessarily synonymous; you can never have too much of the latter.

3. A cichlid compability chart that seems to be popular can be found here: http://www.cichlidrecipe.com/cichlidchart/noflashchart.htm
A caveat: The chart is too generalized to be used as a final-decision making tool: After you've made some preliminary choices, solicit opinions in forums (this or others) from people who've actually kept x species together. Note also that the chart includes only those genera found in the African lakes.

4. I don't see you headed for any problems in particular: You obviously want to do your homework before beginning your tank.

5. No, I've not kept any, although many will go as structures go (high rockpiles, for example).

[bluoval1]

http://www.malawicichlidhomepage.com/aquainfo/index.html
The above is probably not the best source of info for "beginners" butyou have been keeping fish for a while so it should be easy to understand.
It's a LOT of info to read, but it is an excellent source of knowledge as well as those listed by tom.

[SGypsyMermaid]

look here, also: http://www.cichlidforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=153