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Aquariums

mikefromchurch

mikefromchurch

Guest
Jan 23, 2014
180
207
#1
I've seen a few other people with fish in their avitars. Wondering how many of you are into aquaria. I've been fishkeeping for about 15 years now. Currently, my only setup is a planted 10g with amazon swords, ludwigia, crypts and hairgrass. Only fish a 7 neons, and a few khuli loaches. I'll be setting up a 30 gallon for a pair of wild caught A. compressicepts (sp.) shell sumbu after my promotion kicks in next month. AT one time I had a 10 g with wild A. cacatuoides, a 10 gal planted simmilar setup to what I have now, a 55 planted community, a 5 galon dwarf puffer tank, and a 5 gallon nano reef.

Anyone else have some cool setups?
 

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#2
I kept a 20 gal with various tropicals, mostly cichlids, through middle and high school. When my son is older I'll probably introduce him to it and if he's into we'll have another aquarium.
 
#3
Kept a 75 gal with African cichlids for a while then switched to fish from local rivers and ponds.

Wifey wants a tank but so far we've not decided to go for it.
 
#8
When I was a lad, I had a Piranha. He was a lot of fun, but also extremely brutal. He did not play well with others. His only roommate was a glass cat that spent the majority of his time hiding in the grass by the filter.

In later years I had goldfish in a 20 gallon long aquarium. The nice thing about goldfish is that when they die, you just buy more of them that look the same. Comets are 10 for $1.00 for feeder fish........
 
#11
Phalex said:
...When I was a lad, I had a Piranha...
Click to expand...

Girl I went to HS with had a pair in a 20 gal long tank when she was in college. She would take a chicken thigh and splash it in the water at the middle of the tank and the fish would go to opposite sides of the tank, turn and wait for her to drop the chicken. She'd drop it and they would go after it in a frenzy and leave a clean bone in no time, then go back to opposite ends of the thank. She said the trick was to reach in and get the bone as soon as they finished. I watched her do it a few times but I turned down the offer to try it myself.
 
#12
fhm555 said:
Girl I went to HS with had a pair in a 20 gal long tank when she was in college. She would take a chicken thigh and splash it in the water at the middle of the tank and the fish would go to opposite sides of the tank, turn and wait for her to drop the chicken. She'd drop it and they would go after it in a frenzy and leave a clean bone in no time, then go back to opposite ends of the thank. She said the trick was to reach in and get the bone as soon as they finished. I watched her do it a few times but I turned down the offer to try it myself.
Click to expand...

I used to stick my hand in the tank all the time. It was a fun game to grab it's tail and pull my hand out before it could get me. It never did get me, but in retrospect it was probably a pretty dumb game. (I suspect it never intended to take a hunk out of my finger because that thing was FAST!)
 
#13
@KCLR- I've seen a few of the self cleaning tank designs, or easy cleaning ones. The issue with the Avo is I'm not sure of any way to remove nitrate without water changes. Plants do help, but untestable things get into the water such as pharamones that get removed during the water changes. In a closed system those pharamone cause stunting as well as other health issues. I take weekly tests of all my water parameters, and base water change percentages on that. Lets me know if I have major issues. It's important to know when you are dosing ferts as well as injecting CO2.

I have a friend with a 90 gal saltwater tank he wants to give me................. I would have to get rid of my loveseat to make it fit, but the kids can sit on the floor right?
 
#14
mikefromchurch said:
@KCLR- I've seen a few of the self cleaning tank designs, or easy cleaning ones. The issue with the Avo is I'm not sure of any way to remove nitrate without water changes. Plants do help, but untestable things get into the water such as pharamones that get removed during the water changes. In a closed system those pharamone cause stunting as well as other health issues. I take weekly tests of all my water parameters, and base water change percentages on that. Lets me know if I have major issues. It's important to know when you are dosing ferts as well as injecting CO2.

I have a friend with a 90 gal saltwater tank he wants to give me................. I would have to get rid of my loveseat to make it fit, but the kids can sit on the floor right?
Click to expand...
When I was keeping fish I never did water changes and never had a problem. I used an under gravel filter with powerheads and an external filter rated for twice the capacity of my tank. If you use this and don't over feed, you will need to break your tank down once a year and do a good cleaning and full water replacement, but otherwise all you will need to do is top off your tank as required.

I did this because cichlids are more prone to spawn in old water. Same for the native species I kept, they do better in well broken in water.

This is a very effective method of keeping a tank but because it requires a complete breakdown as part of the routine, it has fallen out of favor with both aquarium enthusiasts and equipment manufacturers who push regular partial water changes and no under gravel filtration. The current method is certainly more convenient but certain species are stressed by regular water changes, which are done because an outside filter alone is simply not enough to keep the water healthy so partial changes are necessary.

Also, you can "recharge" your activated carbon by drying it out, placing it in a microwave for a minute or so then rinse it well in fresh running water. I made up bags of carbon tied up in old pantyhose that went into the raw side of my outside filter and it really helps "polish" the water molecules.
 
#15
fhm555 said:
When I was keeping fish I never did water changes and never had a problem. I used an under gravel filter with powerheads and an external filter rated for twice the capacity of my tank. If you use this and don't over feed, you will need to break your tank down once a year and do a good cleaning and full water replacement, but otherwise all you will need to do is top off your tank as required.

I did this because cichlids are more prone to spawn in old water. Same for the native species I kept, they do better in well broken in water.

This is a very effective method of keeping a tank but because it requires a complete breakdown as part of the routine, it has fallen out of favor with both aquarium enthusiasts and equipment manufacturers who push regular partial water changes and no under gravel filtration. The current method is certainly more convenient but certain species are stressed by regular water changes, which are done because an outside filter alone is simply not enough to keep the water healthy so partial changes are necessary.

Also, you can "recharge" your activated carbon by drying it out, placing it in a microwave for a minute or so then rinse it well in fresh running water. I made up bags of carbon tied up in old pantyhose that went into the raw side of my outside filter and it really helps "polish" the water molecules.
Click to expand...

Method is debatable, as it has it's merits and downfalls. However, heavily planted tanks are tough to do breakdowns on, as root systems become intertwined as they are established. Further, I use UGF plates, but reverse the powerhead to push the water up out of the gravel, then the external filter to remove the debris. This avoids the anaerobic pockets from constantly sucking all the waste into the substrate. The ultimate setup would be to have the reverse UGF with an auto fill refugium plumbed through a canister filter. The refugium being a plants only tank used as a sump to add volume as well as nitrate filtration. The auto fill would top off as needed, and allow you to drain a small amount of water weekly, keeping the pheromones down, without the stress of intruding on the fishes space. A lot has changed even in the last 5-10 years on the chemical science. It's hard to keep up, and even my methods are outdated.
 
#19
I'm on the MAN. Been at aquariacentral for quite some time. Since before Neoprodogy took it over. UN is somethin fishy over there. I like some of the bigger stuff (my LFS has P-bass right now that are awesome looking) , but my thing is dwarf cichlids, if for no other reason than I don't have room for larger tanks.
 

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