Anyone here keep fish?

[A.Nonymous]

Not sure where this belongs, but the lounge seems as good a place as any. I'm just getting back in to this hobby really hardcore. New job, extra money means I can put the time into the hobby I want to put into it.

I'm in the middle of two pretty big projects at the moment. I overhauled my 75g tank in my living room and am turning it into a planted tank. I've got pressurized co2, tons of plants, etc...... that I'm working the kinks out of my delivery system and getting all the planted stuff organized before I add any fish.

The other project is a brand new 29g that I'm setting up as a saltwater tank. I've kept freshwater fish for 10 years, but never saltwater fish so I have no clue at all what I'm doing. No fish in there yet, still working on getting the thing actually set up right. I think I mixed way, way, way too much salt into the water. This is the main reason I have no livestock yet. Still struggling w/the basics.

I've got two other FW tanks that are working just swimmingly though so four tanks total. Anyone else on here keep fish?

 

[SiempreTuna]

Only until I get around to cooking it ..

 

[shelliewnj]

my first thought was, "There's a fish app?" lol. I used to, but it got to be too much work with three littles running around and a full time job. sounds awesome, though. can't wait to see pics

 

[A.Nonymous]

I've got pics of my new SW setup as it is now, but it's a tank of water at the moment. I'll have to take some pics of my 75g planted. I have some before pics before I added everything, but no after.

 

[A.Nonymous]

So, this is my 75g planted tank from start to finish. You can see it from before I tore it down to where it is now. This has been a 3 month process so far as I get one component working and another falls apart and I've grown a crap ton of algae. My Co2 regulator comes in tonight and I'll be able to get my pressurized co2 system working. If I can work out the kinks over the weekend I can leave it running all next week and if I have no issues I can start stocking it. I didn't want to stock it and have the co2 go haywire and kill everything - https://plus.google.com/photos/1008...s/5841909009243850913?authkey=COK1i-_PrJDtwgE

And this is my 29g saltwater tank that is still a work in progress. I'm waiting for my test kit and refractometer to come in. Once I get a good base line, then I plan on stocking some live rock to cycle the thing. My ultimate plan is to have a pair of clown fish in there.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1008...ms/5841457835739737009?authkey=CIW096XEmNqGLw

I've tried to caption all the pics so you at least know what you're looking at.

 

[ocnbrze]

you know i used to be in the hobby big time. i owned tanks ranging from a 250 gallon saltwater tank to a 5 gal mini reef. i have done reff tanks, salt water fish only, african cichlids, plant tanks, goldfish, koi, and even bred bettas. so you name it, i have most likely have done it.

i still have my own business licence for my own aquarium setup and maintenance business i had going.....that is until the economy went to poop.

lately i have had that itch to setup and a 40 gal aquarium i still have.

 

[ocnbrze]

So, this is my 75g planted tank from start to finish. You can see it from before I tore it down to where it is now. This has been a 3 month process so far as I get one component working and another falls apart and I've grown a crap ton of algae. My Co2 regulator comes in tonight and I'll be able to get my pressurized co2 system working. If I can work out the kinks over the weekend I can leave it running all next week and if I have no issues I can start stocking it. I didn't want to stock it and have the co2 go haywire and kill everything - https://plus.google.com/photos/1008...s/5841909009243850913?authkey=COK1i-_PrJDtwgE

And this is my 29g saltwater tank that is still a work in progress. I'm waiting for my test kit and refractometer to come in. Once I get a good base line, then I plan on stocking some live rock to cycle the thing. My ultimate plan is to have a pair of clown fish in there.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1008...ms/5841457835739737009?authkey=CIW096XEmNqGLw

I've tried to caption all the pics so you at least know what you're looking at.

LOL i saw the first few pics and i was like ummmmm that is not a plant tank but an algea tank but that last bunch of pics......looks amazing.....nice job

curious on your plant tank what kind of water did you use?

 

[A.Nonymous]

Yeah, the before was bad times. The substrate was too fine. Kept trapping detritus and I couldn't control the algae blooms no matter what I did. So I added the

I'm just using regular old tap water. Dechlorinated of course. My Co2 regulator came in tonight. So hopefully I can get the pressurized co2 dialed in right by this weekend.

 

[ocnbrze]

well the thing is (of course i'm not sure how bad your tap water is) with tap water you get a lot of carbonates (hard water deposits) that will prevent the co2 from staying into that water which is what you want. you will be using a lot of c02 before you get any ph change. i recommend that you get reverse osmosis water. i know that it is expensive but it is worth it in the long run if you want your plants to grow and thrive. and when you do water changes you will only be needing 20 gal of clean water for water changes. other wise i do not see the advantage of using a c02 dispenser.

 

[ocnbrze]

and you actually want fine gravel. the finer the better actually. that is not to say that what you have will not work. i'm just going by one of the greatest aquarist and photographer of planted tanks.....takashi amano.

you should get this book:
Nature Aquarium World: How You Can Make A Most Beautiful Aquarium by takashi amano.

 

[A.Nonymous]

Our water around here comes from limestone so it can be fairly hard. I've got a KH of about 17. I don't know that I agree with you on the RO water just because it's going to flip in the breeze with a co2 injection not having any buffering capacity. That's my thinking anyway though I've never used RO/DI water in my tanks.

Every time I have tried fine gravel it has bit me in the ass. It just traps everything and you can't clean it w/o sucking up the gravel too.

 

[ocnbrze]

Our water around here comes from limestone so it can be fairly hard. I've got a KH of about 17. I don't know that I agree with you on the RO water just because it's going to flip in the breeze with a co2 injection not having any buffering capacity. That's my thinking anyway though I've never used RO/DI water in my tanks.

Every time I have tried fine gravel it has bit me in the ass. It just traps everything and you can't clean it w/o sucking up the gravel too.

a kh of 17? that is pretty hard for a plant tank. you should really think about ro water. your ph will never get low enough to keep co2 in solution and thus will not be very effective. i have setup and maintained planted tanks for almost 15 years and i have always used ro water(i do not recommend DI as it is to pure) in all of my planted tanks and have had really good success.

here is a great article about water chemistry for planted tanks:
Aquarium Water Chemistry Planted Aquariums

 

[shelliewnj]

Wow, looks like a nice set-up to me! We had 10 and 20 g tanks when we did fish, mainly for two reasons... one, i don't have a place for a bigger tank and two, i don't have the time to keep up with them!

 

[ocnbrze]

Our water around here comes from limestone so it can be fairly hard. I've got a KH of about 17. I don't know that I agree with you on the RO water just because it's going to flip in the breeze with a co2 injection not having any buffering capacity. That's my thinking anyway though I've never used RO/DI water in my tanks.

Every time I have tried fine gravel it has bit me in the ass. It just traps everything and you can't clean it w/o sucking up the gravel too.

you are correct in that ph will drop if you are not careful with how much co2 you inject. however, if you water is very hard your ph will not drop not matter how much you add co2 in the tank. this is do to that fact that you have a lot of carbonate in the water. the c02 will just bind with the carbonate and it will not be able to be used up by the plants. so you will get no co2 in the tank. you will have to buffer the hardness down before you will see any positive effects of co2 in the tank.

now i have used tap water that is fairly hard before with plant tanks. you will just need to add hardy plants that grow quick and are not picky with hardness. stick with anubias plants, swords, and my favorite rotala plants.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I know what you're saying, but my water isn't that hard. It dropped down .5 over night running the Co2. I need to get some timers and a couple of power strips so I can time everything properly as it makes no sense to run co2 overnight when the lights are out.

 

[ocnbrze]

funny i just got done watching finding nemo and all this talk about aquariums has got me itching to get back into the hobby. i have been wanting to do an african cichlid tank again. i might look into doing it this weekend. if i have the time and energy to dig out my old tank and clean it that is.......LOL

what kind of fish do you plan on putting in your tanks?

 

[A.Nonymous]

funny i just got done watching finding nemo and all this talk about aquariums has got me itching to get back into the hobby. i have been wanting to do an african cichlid tank again. i might look into doing it this weekend. if i have the time and energy to dig out my old tank and clean it that is.......LOL

what kind of fish do you plan on putting in your tanks?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. In the SW tank I'm keeping it simple since it's my first SW tank. I'm going with a pair of clowns in a FOWLR setup. In the 75g I'm not sure. The CO2 regulator I ordered came in and is working far more beautifully than I imagined. I honestly thought, in the back of my mind, that I'd constantly struggle with getting the plants all straightened out and would never be able to stock. That's all falling in place now. I'm going to let it run a week or so and if the plants keep having no issues and the fish I've got in it are fine, then I'm going to start stocking.

I had considered two schools of 25 or so cardinals and neons and a school of cory cats. I'd also considered angels as a center piece and perhaps some swordtails or platies or rainbow fish. I had thought about kribs or rams as well. I really have no idea.

 

[Rxpert83]

I've kept everything from guppys to African cichlids to pufferfish.

I really enjoy having fish. Since I moved up north here I haven't had any but I've been looking for a pet store nearby

 

[ocnbrze]

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. In the SW tank I'm keeping it simple since it's my first SW tank. I'm going with a pair of clowns in a FOWLR setup. In the 75g I'm not sure. The CO2 regulator I ordered came in and is working far more beautifully than I imagined. I honestly thought, in the back of my mind, that I'd constantly struggle with getting the plants all straightened out and would never be able to stock. That's all falling in place now. I'm going to let it run a week or so and if the plants keep having no issues and the fish I've got in it are fine, then I'm going to start stocking.

I had considered two schools of 25 or so cardinals and neons and a school of cory cats. I'd also considered angels as a center piece and perhaps some swordtails or platies or rainbow fish. I had thought about kribs or rams as well. I really have no idea.

for me my favorite all time fish to use as a center piece is altum angels. the are very beautiful but hard to find and hard to keep as well.

i found this awesome video of mr amano feeding his altum angels in his awesome tank. check it out:

here is a close up of them:

and i do love blue rams, but i could never keep them long enough so i always gave up on them.

as far as clowns go, i would try and get a pair of gold maroon clowns myself. or true percula clowns(they have more black in them).

 

[A.Nonymous]

I kept rams for a while many years ago. They were difficult to acclimate and very shy until they settled in. Even then they seemed to startle easily, but were really, really pretty fish. Honestly, I'm probably going to lean toward the neon/cardinal species tank. The two look very similar, but don't school together so I think it'll be interesting.

As for the clowns, I was looking at the smaller species (3" max length) though I don't recall the exact name.

 

[ocnbrze]

I've kept everything from guppys to African cichlids to pufferfish.

I really enjoy having fish. Since I moved up north here I haven't had any but I've been looking for a pet store nearby

are we talking about fresh water (though they are really brackish) puffers?

do you remember what kind of africans you kept? malawi or tanganika?

i have a 40 gallon tank i might be setting up. trying to decide which way to go.

 

[A.Nonymous]

More than once I've toyed w/the idea of a faux reef tank. Aragonite sand. Coral base rock, Africans.

 

[Rxpert83]

are we talking about fresh water (though they are really brackish) puffers?

do you remember what kind of africans you kept? malawi or tanganika?

i have a 40 gallon tank i might be setting up. trying to decide which way to go.

Yes, brackish puffers. Green spotted to be exact.

Malawi cichlids- Electric yellow

 

[ocnbrze]

Yes, brackish puffers. Green spotted to be exact.

Malawi cichlids- Electric yellow

that is one type of tank that i have not done yet.....brackish. i never really liked the brackish fish except for archers and puffers. i had a green spotted puffer acclimated to saltwater. he was in my 20 gal salt tank that i had along with a couple of maroon clowns and a royal grama.

any ways i'm thinking of keeping these:

Altolomprologus compressiceps

i might even try and breed them as well.......still thinking though.

 

[Rxpert83]

Eventually the plan was to work mine up to salt as well, but I had to donate them to the local fish store when I moved.