Fish tank from hell

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

My stepdad's friend is moving away and so he gave me his fishtank. He has money so it has Eheim Professional canister filters and such, but everything inside the tank is complete and utter #%$&. Also, this was set up by an alleged professional aquatic design/maintenance guy.

So I go downstairs to check out what "professional" aquatic guy left behind for me, because I heard it was a really nice African cichlid set up. African Cichlids are beautiful, intelligent marine-looking freshwater fish. Instead, I stepped into AQUATIC HELL!

The tank is set up pretty much like this one...only worse (and that tank is ranked #528 out of #533).


Multi-colored plastic "rocks" instead of sand. Three huge volcano "airstones." About 6 little plastic divers. A massive ceramic shipwreck and hot pink plastic plants. Nothing in this tank is natural at all...

Now, onto the fish...
2 parrot cichlids (1 with a tumor...these are a mutant-deformed, ink-dyed breed of fish)
a few beat-up Yellow Labs
a couple beat-up peacocks
1 red zebra (actually in good shape)
1 convict cichlid (should not be kept with African cichlids

I have a bunch of Texas Holey rock and cured coral in my garage. I want to destroy everything inside and start anew. Get rid of the parrots and convict and try to get the africans back to life. With the exception of the red zebra, all the fish in there worth keep look half-dead.

Basically, this is what I want to do with the tank (and I have all the stuff already sitting in the garage).


However, my family all thinks I'm crazy because it's such a nice "colorful" tank, especially the "rocks" on the bottom. GAHAHHHHHHH!!!!! By the way, African cichlids also need to be in a natural tank for survival.

[Deja Q]

1. The pink one is cool. And comparatively appropriately natural.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

2. It's actually white. The lighting makes it look pink.

They live in a sandy, rocky environment. That tank is just sand, coral, and rocks. Also, by using the coral & certain kinds of rocks, it naturally "buffers" the water to the hardness, pH and minerals that they would have in their African lank.

I had a beautiful African cichlid tank for a few years. My roommate killed it off in 10 days of her care. Some of the fish were worth like $60 at the size I had gotten them to and they were consistently breeding (traded the offspring back to the petshop).

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

3. Update...it gets worse

It's a damn good thing I'm an insomniac, because I came home from the bar to find the tank draining and the rug soaked. The "professional" apparently doesn't know how to put together the fittings on a filter.