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The Fish tank/aquarium thread

Peter King

Peter King

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Well, I have not found a thread for fish tank fans here so I decided to start one.

I have a relatively small tank (63 liters so about 16.6 gallons). Last week we noticed a good deal of water coming from below the tank and we thought it was leaking water.

I wasn't happy with my tank, the gravel I had in there did not work well (2 very different sized gravels which meant the waste of the fish and the food not eaten slipped in between the gravel and made it very hard to clean. I also had issues with keeping the water quality up to par and had algae problems.

So I decided to restart my aquarium as soon as I had fixed the leak. I only had 3 fish in there left so I decided to adopt them out to someone who wanted those 2 kinds of fishes and as soon as I put them on the internet website that Dutch people use to sell and trade stuff, it was quickly snapped up by another aquarium fan and he came to pick them up.

Then I emptied part of the water into a fish tank I had left (a smaller one) and put the plants in there as well as the filter material from my aquarium plus the air stone and put in there 2 old pumps to keep the water quality up to par in the days I thought I needed to fix my aquarium. I also put all the ornaments I had in the aquarium in that fish tank too and the three snail eating snails I had in there.

Then I removed all the gravel, washed it so I could put in in the garden and cleaned the aquarium fully. Then to find out where the leak was, I transported the empty fish tank to the garden, put in on a table there, had put down newspapers to see where the water would come and out filled it fully. But to my great surprise after 15 minutes all the newspapers were as dry as can be. The same after 1 hours and even after 3 hours not a drop had leaked out. Later I was advised that it could also be evaporation fluid that could have pooled under the aquarium and then came out.

So I put back the aquarium, washed the gravel I had newly bought, added the plants, the filter material, the ornament and the snails and added the 8 to 10 gallons of water I had saved into the old fish tank. I then added quick start bacterial fluid and plant fertilizer, CO fluid and added clean water to the tank until it was full (it has not leaked since) and started measuring the water quality.

The quick fish tank starter allowed fish to be put in after 24 hours but I waited 5 days (because I had used old water, old filter material and old plants and added daily bacterial booster fluid (for quicker aquarium feel) and my aquarium was ready.

This is how it looks now with the 6 harlequin rasbora I added

CIMG1894.jpg

Now I am curious whether or not I am the only fish tank fan here and how your tanks look.
 
Goldfish Koi pond for me, 470 gal, big ass waterfall.
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Goldfish Koi pond for me, 470 gal, big ass waterfall.
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That is also a very interesting hobby, it also depends on keeping the water quality nice and even so that the fishes survive. But Koi fish live a lot longer than my rasbora's (they only life about 7 years). I have heard about Koi fish living decades (to even over 100 years and older).
 
Peter King said:
That is also a very interesting hobby, it also depends on keeping the water quality nice and even so that the fishes survive. But Koi fish live a lot longer than my rasbora's (they only life about 7 years). I have heard about Koi fish living decades (to even over 100 years and older).
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Rats and cats dont let mine live that long.

I have known some people big into aquariums...they seem to love it. The people upstairs from us in Munich had a 200ish gal tank right in their livingroom. With mood lighting.
 
I've had many tanks, fresh and saltwater....I gotta build a reef tank soon. I do have a pond with some Koi, but not the same.
 
I want to set up a 20 gallon with native freshwater fish. That way, I can bring the river into my livingroom:)

The crayfish are very cool
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Hobbies often are, unless you get into slinging:) String is cheap and rocks and wheelweights are free!
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Ya but with this one a lot of folks dont seem to correctly factor in the daily carrying costs of the hobby, they think once they set it up that they are about done spending real money.

Often times not.

I HEAR
 
Hawkeye10 said:
Ya but with this one a lot of folks dont seem to correctly factor in the daily carrying costs of the hobby, they think once they set it up that they are about done spending real money.

Often times not.

I HEAR
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Freshwater and native fish! I kinda want a water moccasin again!
 
I've fiddled with freshwater tanks, but it was getting too expensive so now I'm just down to one 4ft tank with a turtle and a couple of Clown Loaches.
 
I had a small 4 gallon aquarium in my office when I was working full time but I gave away the fishes and now its sitting in storage somewhere. When I was a kid I used to hate cleaning the damn thing and the fish would only last for a few months before they died.

I remember the first time I had an aquarium (around 8 or 9 I think), I didnt know you needed one of those air bubble makers for it and all my fish died due to low oxygen in the water because I didnt buy one.
 
I've never had an aquarium but have built my own DIY reciruclating systems in my basement to augment my pond operation hatching and rearing bluegills, yellow perch, black crappie, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, tilapia, brook trout, brown trout, and tiger trout. (For those of you that don't know recirculatings systems are essentially oversized aquariums for commercial fish production.)

Here's a tank with feed trained yellow perch.

TEdcBVKm.jpg


Here's one with tilapia as part of an outdoor aquaponics system I built.

Cn3xMK7m.jpg


This is one of my two businesses where I supply trophy size gamefish to taxidermists, replica makers, and taxidermy schools from coast to coast. (Actually sold some fish to a taxidermist in Hawaii.)

Recently this taxidermist won first place at the national level with a brook trout he purchased from my farm.

4CPYIILl.jpg


Ironically I will probably use aquariums in the future to hatch some of my fish species vs. the outdoor ponds which are labor intensive to plant broodfish, fertilize the pond, and seine the fish out.
 
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I haven't done fish in years but I've done a ton of them, both fresh and salt water. I had a 200 gallon reef tank for a long time but when we moved about 18 years ago, I bagged all the fish, took them with us and left the live rock and coral in the tank to be picked up later. Someone broke into the house, I guess they saw us moving, and dumped a gallon of bleach into the tank and killed everything. I wound up selling all of the fish because I didn't have a tank to put them in and never got back to it.

My new house has a big koi pond in the back, I haven't put anything in it, but I probably will one of these days.
 
Slingshot Bob said:
Bet they aint got any cheaper, either!.
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Nope, they're still expensive, depending on how crazy you go. I still have a 30 gallon salt setup in the garage, complete with all the filters and sump, I just haven't had any interest in restarting it.
 
Cephus said:
Nope, they're still expensive, depending on how crazy you go. I still have a 30 gallon salt setup in the garage, complete with all the filters and sump, I just haven't had any interest in restarting it.
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I want to get a 50 gallon, freshwater with native fish in it. I can be to the river in 8 minutes, better yet? Bring a piece of the river home. No pesky gators!
 
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