Wrap Cave Cichlids

Wrap Cave Cichlids Showcasing the Aquariums we keep at Dizzi Decalz

265G Cade S2 Peninsula 1800 African Cichlids
+ fancy goldfish & betta tanks

31/03/2026

Zucchini time! They go crazy for it!

13/03/2026

This guy is such a camera hog!

12/03/2026

Venustus feeling spunky tonight

12/03/2026

Digging for gold!!

One of my venustus going hammer and tongs in the back corner of the tank. I fill this in almost every week

09/03/2026

loves coming up for “pats”. So trusting and playful.

09/03/2026

Time to wind down for the night

Meet “Bluey”, “BluBlu” our only South American Blue Acara in our African tankIt’s always argued that American cichlids s...
09/03/2026

Meet “Bluey”, “BluBlu” our only South American Blue Acara in our African tank

It’s always argued that American cichlids should not be mixed with Africans, but if your water parameters are in a range that is suitable for both, and you have a great temperament and personality of the fish, then sometimes it can work.

We’ve had Bluey for about 8 months, he was the biggest guy in the group of cichlids we started with, and was initially pretty reserved. But over the following few weeks he settled in and started being more interactive. He’s been in our main display since we had maybe 30 cichlids - and since then we’ve added 40-50 more over time and he has done amazingly. He does his own thing - goes where he wants, none of the Africans annoy him, he doesn’t annoy anyone else

He comes to the front glass when you catch his attention and “call him over”… he eats out of my hand and even comes up for “pats”.

He has such a chill personality and is a great example of a calm and confident Blue Acara

I have been tweaking the sump layout and configuration and fine tuning it as best I can. Its current configuration is, t...
09/03/2026

I have been tweaking the sump layout and configuration and fine tuning it as best I can.

Its current configuration is, the dual overflow used to enter 2x 400 micron socks (which I’ve changed now to be a stack of foam pads from 20-50ppi), the it enters 2x 200 micron socks (or 100 when I want extra polish)

Then it flows into the next chamber which I have divided so I can use the first half as a refugium (which as floating water sprite and hornwort), this is then baffled with polyfill and then there is two chambers full of ceramic brick bio media, orientated in a cross cross pattern so there is higher flow through the parallel orientated media to promote more aerobic bacteria colonies, and the perpendicular orientated ones have a lower flow through them to promote anaerobic bacteria.

Then if flows into the chemical media chamber which has some Seachem Matrix Carbon and Purigen (I also keep some sponge filters in there to keep seeded with bacteria if I need to spin up an emergency quarantine tank in a hurry, so it will be immediately cycled). Then flows into the return chamber which houses a Mantis Tornado 10000 return pump (set to approx 8000l/h) which gives me approx 8 times turn over of the water volume. This chamber has an AutoAqua Smart Duo ATO to keep the sump topped up when water is lost through evaporation (using the 15G ATO reservoir in the sump)

All-in-all it is very low maintenance, every week the filter socks get changed (and pads rinsed). With the refugium configuration - the plants are nitrate vacuums. Without them, and with the overstocked tank - nitrates can get to 80-100ppm in 5 days, but the refugium is consuming nitrates very well, and keeps the tank to about 15-20ppm after a week

It allows me to go from 1-2 big water changes a week, to one 75% change every 2-3 weeks

This is “Moey”. Named this because of his unique blotching that makes it look like he has a moustache. He started off th...
09/03/2026

This is “Moey”. Named this because of his unique blotching that makes it look like he has a moustache. He started off throwing his weight around, then got put in his place. Now mingles peacefully with the rest of the crew

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Glynde
Adelaide, SA

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