ok, so I put in an additive to clean up the water and two days later added in fish (I know, I know)... They've been in there for about 4 or 5 days now with only two slight problems:

1. the heater was messing up. all fixed now. set perfectly at 78 degrees
2. the fish wouldn't eat at the beginning. Now they're eating perfectly.

The type of fish are 3 tiger barbs and 3 yellow (I believe platys)... I've been adding in cycle to help the fish move along in the process and everything seems to be going wonderful. I'm also testing the water every day, the PH is high but it is falling slowly. Everything else is in safe levels. There is also three live plants in the tank. The Tiger barbs really enjoy eating them.

That is really all I have to say, keeping with the trend i'll be picking up some scavengers a lil later this week.

oh, and added some black slate and rocks into the tank, removed the skeleton with the rum and replaced it with a 24" bubble bar in the back.

Here's some pictures:

can you get a better picture of of thoes yellow fish they look more like Yellow lab chiclids
to tell you the truth.
and whst are your current water test readings

you guys are actually correct, they're yellow labs. Although, I have not seen them be agressive at all actually. Could that be why the tiger barbs are hiding so much? they seem to always be under the rocks. You're correct, that guys kinda of a dick for selling me chichlids. If I wanted to go chichlids, I would've gotten my crushed coral and all that shit.

My water test ratings are all coming up good on nitrite and nitrate, the hardness is basically where it's supposed to be at now.. but my PH and alkaline levels are terrible. I went to the store tonight and bought something call tankbalance I believe, by tetra. Supposed to balance that all out. I had put in the cycle tonight and I didn't want to mix the two, so therefore, I'm waiting a lil bit to put in the balance.

That cycle stuff seems to chill the fish out, they come out from hiding when I put that stuff in, the next day they're right back to hiding, then I put in that shit.. an hour later they're back and having a merry old time. Probably going through stress for sure since my ph is so high.

Suggestions? Do I HAVE to get rid of the labs if I want to go with other types of fish? I really like their color.

Yeah, that guy was ridiculous for selling you cichlids without telling you. You aren't seeing their aggression right now because they are so young. As they grow and reach sexual maturity, they start to get aggressive. Yellow labs are pretty mild mannered WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER MBUNAS, but you still can't keep them with other non-Africans. They'll slaughter them. If you like their color, then go with cichlids. There are a billion different species and they look great. It almost looks like a SW tank with all the color you get. But again, you can't just go to the store and buy whatever cichlid you want. You have to put in a lot of research.

You don't have to have crushed coral and everything to keep cichlids (look at my tank). I think you said your pH was naturally high in your water so that is good. You can add some bags of crushed coral to your filter or hide some rocks of petrified coral underneath your slate. It's up to you, but you need to choose between either a cichlid tank or not. If you decide to keep other non-cichlid species, the labs have to go.

For some mbunas that do well with yellow labs (in case you go that route) look up the following on the web so you can get an idea of the range of colors:

- red zebra (actually orange in color)
- yellow-tailed acei
- rusty cichlid
- powder blue cichlid
- Kenyi
- Demasoni (although these guys are VERY aggressive so they have to be kept in groups of at least 12)
- orange-blotch (OB) zebra
- hongi
and so on . . .

If you aren't going to keep exclusively cichlids then you need to take those suckers back.

Don't use pH adjusters in your tank ever. They just temporarily fix your problem, but can cause huge swings in the pH. Most fish can actually adapt to a pretty wide range of pH, but it is the swings that kill them. What is your pH reading? If you really need to control it then use natural methods that actually work. In general, lay off the chemicals. They do more harm than good. Trust me.

Here are some pics. The top one is a hongi. Then the next one is a red zebra (the males get a beautiful blue sparkling in their fins that is hard to see in pics, but awesome in real life). The last one are some demasoni.

Here is a link to a nice acei picture: http://www.cichlid-forum.com/profiles/s ... hp?id=1460

This will give you some sort of idea. As I said before, these are but a few out of literally thousands of species.