Things You'll Need
- Water
- Lint-free cloth
- 20 to 30 gallon aquarium tank with lid
- 20 to 25 pounds brown or gray gravel
- 100 to 150 watt heater
- Air pump
- 3 to 5 plastic plants
- 6 feet airline tubing
- Backflow check valve
- 4-inch clay pot
- 2 5-gallon plastic buckets
- Gravel siphon
- Floating thermometer
- Cichlid flake food
- Small hand net
Instructions
Preparing the Aquarium
Clean the aquarium, lid, heater, air pump, plastic plants, airline tubing, backflow check valve, clay pot and floating thermometer with warm water. Rinse each item thoroughly, and dry their surfaces with a lint-free cloth. Then allow the items to air-dry for 30 minutes.
Label one 5-gallon bucket with the word "clean" and the other with "dirty." Rinse the insides of the buckets with warm water, so they both start out clean.
Place the gravel in one of the 5-gallon buckets. Pour warm water into the bucket until 2 inches of water stands above the gravel. Swish the gravel around in the water for 1 to 2 minutes. The water will become cloudy. Pour the water off the gravel and repeat the process until the water is clear when poured from the bucket. Rinse out the bucket with warm water.
Place the aquarium in the desired location. Pour and spread 2 inches of clean gravel over the bottom of the tank.
Fill the "clean" bucket with tap water. Pour the tap water from the bucket into the aquarium until it is approximately three-quarters full.
Set the heater to 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius). Insert the heater into the water along the back wall of the tank. Do not plug it in yet.
Insert the sponge filter in the back corner. Attach the airline tubing to the sponge filter and the air pump. Install a backflow check valve between the airline tubing and the air pump to prevent siphoning, in case of power failure. Plug in the heater.
Place the floating thermostat on the water's surface. Allow the water to heat 6 to 8 hours. Adjust the temperature control on the heater so it stays within two degrees of 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
Break the bottom out of the 4-inch clay flower pot. Place the flower pot on the gravel so the two open ends are on a horizontal axis. This is the location where the cichlid will lay their eggs. Place gravel inside the flower pot to hold it in place.
Decorate the aquarium with the three to five plastic plants. Bury the bottom of the plants in the gravel to prevent them from floating. The cichlid will dig the plants from the gravel, during its normal behavior. Just rebury them as needed.
Allow the water to heat for 24 hours. This stabilizes the temperature within the tank and allows the chlorine to evaporate.
Fill the "clean" bucket with tap water. Place the bucket in a safe location for one week, and then change the water in the tank using the settled water. To make room for the clean water, remove one bucket's worth of dirty water from your tank -- using the gravel siphon -- and pour it into your "dirty" bucket, before disposing of it. Repeat this step on a weekly basis.
Selecting the Cichlid
Purchase one male convict cichlid that is a larger, robust fish with no orange on the belly. Also get one female that is smaller, with a little or a lot of orange on its belly.
Place the plastic bag with both fish inside into the fish tank. Leave them there for 1 hour to adjust.
Open the plastic bag, and gently pour both cichlid fish into the tank. Feed them flaked cichlid food as recommended on the product's label.