5ft Fish Tank

Hi Maz..... and welcome to the forum   

5ft?  WOW!!!!!! Lucky you    I hope you will post some pics in the gallery!

I cant help with your tank being for cichlids. I dont keep them. So if someone with experience on this species comes along to help, then please listen to them and not me! But in the meantime, to give you an idea of how volume and filters are generally worked out:

Ive popped your measurements into the calculator on here and it comes back as approx 300 litres. You can check this if you like - at the top of the page theres a "calculators" tab, point your mouse on it and a drop-down menu will reveal "volume (aquarium)" option. Click on that and you will find a very useful tool where you can enter your aquarium measurements (in cm). I used a tape measure to convert your measurements into cm!

Dont forget that your substrate, decor, plants, etc will reduce that volume. I recommend that if you fill your tank via bucket, then count how many buckets it takes to fill it. That way, you will have a better idea of how much water there is actually in there - very handy later on for working out medication or plant food etc, without overdosing the tank.

Meanwhile, it is generally recommended that the filter turns the tank at least five times per hour (or ten times if heavily planted). So, five times 300 litres = 1500 litres per hour filter. Whether that be one stonking 1500 LPH filter, or two at 750 LPH is up to you.

By the way, in case Ive confused you, I tend to use the "empty tank volume" (ie. the 300 litres) for the filter size calculation because manufacturers use maximum LPH for their products. Therefore, if a filter claims to be, say 1500 LPH, then that would be its maximum performance. In real life, by the time the filter has media in it and starts to collect gunk out of your tank, that 1500 litres is no more! It would be more like, I dunno, maybe 1300 LPH or something? By using the maximum tank volume to calculate the filter needed compensates this.

Hope that made sense!!! 







EDIT:
An afterthought - I notice you say you want coral sand and live rock. They, I believe, equal a brackish tank. Which might require something completely different to what Ive said above.
If, however, you meant that you want sand, live rock and coral then you're heading into marine world. I have no idea about marine tanks or whether you can even keep cichlids in a marine tank......... 

To be perfectly honest, I thought you could only have live rock in a marine tank. So you've well confused me with your setup!!!!!! 

I assume you want Rift Lake cichlids if you want to use coral sand a live rock?
Those fish are a bit beyond me, I'm not sure if we have any members who keep them? About all I know is you don't have plants in the tank and they are usually kept overstocked to cut down aggression (too many fish for any of them to set up and defend a territory). And that most of the ones in shops are hybrids.


Chucklett - one thing I do know about the Rift Lakes is that the water is very peculiar compared to 'normal' freshwater. Coral sand is common in RL cichlid tanks. The water is very hard and alkaline, so much so that very few other species of fish can be kept with RL cichlids. That's why I don't know much about them, my water is too soft so I'd have to add RL salts at every water change, somthing I can't be bothered doing 

Im 99% sure live rock will only remain live in a marine enviroment. The bacteria that live on the rock and provide nitrate removal require a salt enviroment. However the ocean rock its self can be used in a rift lake tank