Aquariums

[HARDTRAILZ]

Seeing the interest in the What do you do thread, I thought we should start a thread to discuss and show off our tanks.

I dont have pics now, but will get some.

Currently just have a 75 gal tank since I gave my buddy one of the 29s when his sprung a leak. I do have a couple 55s and a 29 and 20 to setup, but waiting until we move. I may have a line on a 180 but depends on fitment when we get a new place.

I dont do saltwater, but do like cichlids and have had some pretty cool fish over the years.


What you all got?

 

[fishguy1123]

Here are a couple install pics. View attachment 18549

First 2 are of a custom 370 gallon reef system in a local car dealership.
Next are a custom 160 fresh water planted tank in an office building.

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Hopefully when I build my basement I can get some ideas/info from you since I would like to put a tank in a bar.

Very nice work by the way.

 

[fishguy1123]

Thanks, be happy to help. Just let me know when you're ready.

 

[MichEnvoyGuy]

Well this sucks - Im too embarrassed to post pictures of my 46g bowfront f/w aquarium now, after seeing those pics!! I feel like a little amateur, although Ive had tanks ranging from 5g to 75g since I was 9 years old...lol.

 

[fishguy1123]

Haha.. No worries! Big or small has nothing to do with nice. If you enjoy them thats all that matters.

 

[MichEnvoyGuy]

Haha.. No worries! Big or small has nothing to do with nice. If you enjoy them thats all that matters.

Haha, ok then if you say so!
Well for my 46g F/W tank, I chose sand this time around for my substrate. I love it!! Ive always used aquarium gravel and hated the look. Cleaning the gravel was easy, but something about sand always interested me.
Here is a pic that is a few months old - I bought the tank last fall. My Silver Dollars outgrew the 29g tank quickly so I had to upgrade and found a cherry of a deal on CL. Ill take some more recent pics soon.

View attachment 18577

Dont pay attn to the mug in the left corner, I was seeding the bacteria bed

In the tank I have an 8" common pleco, 2 XL Silver Dollars, 1 gourani, a school of zebra danios, 3 cherry barbs, 2 peppered cories, a mystery snail, 2 raspboras, 1 black molly, 3 red platies. Yeah, I always keep my tanks at max bioload! Filtration by 1 Penguin 330 & 1 Emperor 280.

 

[fishguy1123]

Are you still planning on gravel vaccing? If not make sure you have some decent flow near the bottom to prevent waste from settling as much as possible. Also, watch ur ph as the tank matures. Is it arragonite sand?

 

[ItsOnVoy]

I wanted to get a tank and have some fish but never had the time to go with it or the money! they get expensive

 

[fishguy1123]

I wanted to get a tank and have some fish but never had the time to go with it or the money! they get expensive

The time is more important than the money. Deep pockets don't keep fish alive! lol

 

[MichEnvoyGuy]

Are you still planning on gravel vaccing? If not make sure you have some decent flow near the bottom to prevent waste from settling as much as possible. Also, watch ur ph as the tank matures. Is it arragonite sand?

Ah ha, you've caught on to my master plan I see

I do vacuum the sand about 1x per month. However, I bought the mystery snail to stir up the substrate (and he/she does a great job) and the cories do a good job too. I was worried about detrius building up but I havent had any problems at all.
And its Quikrete commercial grade medium coarse sand from Lowes. It is aquarium safe, kiln dried and very clean. It was so easy to set up originally with little dust. Ill never go back to gravel!

Here is the sand I used, its highly recommended over on the aquarium forums I belong to, its cheap and at almost every Lowes!
View attachment 18583

 

[fishguy1123]

Ah ha, you've caught on to my master plan I see

I do vacuum the sand about 1x per month. However, I bought the mystery snail to stir up the substrate (and he/she does a great job) and the cories do a good job too. I was worried about detrius building up but I havent had any problems at all.
And its Quikrete commercial grade medium coarse sand from Lowes. It is aquarium safe, kiln dried and very clean. It was so easy to set up originally with little dust. Ill never go back to gravel!

Good deal! Been around the block a time or two. Arragonit will raise ur ph after a while since it dissolves in f/w due to the lower ph levels is all. Glad it's working out! We used to use a "play sand" for s/w systems a few years ago. Don't sell it anymore but it was made at the same place as the name brand stuff at a 1/3 the price. Dang can f/w fish poop!

 

[ItsOnVoy]

Haha.. No worries! Big or small has nothing to do with nice. If you enjoy them thats all that matters.

Very true!! At first I really wanted to get the finding nemo gang but then I found out there salt water fish and that salt water is really hard to maintain etc. So I left that and was going to go with fresh water and like a 20gal tank! But I love how the built in ones look!

 

[fishguy1123]

Very true!! At first I really wanted to get the finding nemo gang but then I found out there salt water fish and that salt water is really hard to maintain etc. So I left that and was going to go with fresh water and like a 20gal tank! But I love how the built in ones look!

Once you get used to manageing the water quality in a f/w system s/w is only a baby step away. It does cost more for sure, but the things u learn to do in f/w will help u if u ever decide to switch/add a s/w system in the future.

 

[Short Bus]

I wish I had a pic of my old set up. I had a 20L some of the fish were an oscar, a rope eel, a clown knife, a ghost knife, a needle nose gar, a gourani.........and I can't remember the rest.

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Lotsa fish for a little tank

 

[Short Bus]

Lotsa fish for a little tank

I had an under gravel filter (never again) with 2 heads, and 2 power filters, I think they did OK. I didn't have all those at once, but I also had other miscellaneous fish. Another one of my favorites was an albino channel cat.

 

[TexazReece]

I had a 55g setup with sand bottom with puffer fish. I think they are the koolest fish from watching them feed to them greeting u when u come up to the tank lol. I had a brackish water setup with 2 green spotted puffers and 2 fugu puffers ( pretty kool coloring ). They are aggresive as hell tho. My wife tried putting here koi in there with them and they picked her to death They died on me tho while i was out of town my water heater went out and the water got to cold for them.......It's so hard to say good bye....but I will get back into it but my wife will hate it because I found myself in the aquarium stores 3 times out of the week

 

[Short Bus]

I had a 55g setup with sand bottom with puffer fish. I think they are the koolest fish from watching them feed to them greeting u when u come up to the tank lol. I had a brackish water setup with 2 green spotted puffers and 2 fugu puffers ( pretty kool coloring ). They are aggresive as hell tho. My wife tried putting here koi in there with them and they picked her to death They died on me tho while i was out of town my water heater went out and the water got to cold for them.......It's so hard to say good bye....but I will get back into it but my wife will hate it because I found myself in the aquarium stores 3 times out of the week

That's how feel about oscars. If you would touch the surface of the water with a finger tip he would come bite it. He would come check you out when you came in the room and if you had a bag he would get excited and start doing fast laps around the tank, damn he ate a lot of fish I didn't think he would be able to.

 

[jeremym]

Some pics of the tank I had before I left Maryland..

 

[TexazReece]

Nice setup

 

[2001FZ1]

Is there anything an Oscar won't eat? I had a 14 inch oscar in our tank a few years ago. It could eat several (10) feeder fish in one day. It ate my wife's Beta in about 2 seconds. She thought it would be ok to put it in there for a little bit while she cleaned the beta's tank.

A few things I remember dropping in the tank to see what it would eat....
Tree frogs, night crawlers, spider, moths, cicada (spit the wings out), baby mice. It also chased the laser pointer around the tank.

 

[fishguy1123]

Is there anything an Oscar won't eat? I had a 14 inch oscar in our tank a few years ago. It could eat several (10) feeder fish in one day. It ate my wife's Beta in about 2 seconds. She thought it would be ok to put it in there for a little bit while she cleaned the beta's tank.

A few things I remember dropping in the tank to see what it would eat....
Tree frogs, night crawlers, spider, moths, cicada (spit the wings out), baby mice. It also chased the laser pointer around the tank.

They are kinda like the postal box's..... If it fits... It ships (eats) it...

 

[DARKASS04EXT]

Over the years ive had tons of different fish, some of the ones that i remember were...

Silver Arowana (approx 14"+)
Red Belly Piranhas (family of 8)
Albino Oscars
Red Oscars
Black Belt Cichlids
Green Terror
Red Terror
Florida Gar
Freshwater Moray Eel
Red and Blue Freshwater lobsters (crayfish)

Ive had many others, cant remember all the others. Whenever I get my tank set back up, I wanna set it up with small tropicals. Instead of having the tank filled w aggressive fish i want to have a really colorful tank loaded with small bright fish. Having more colorful fish swimming around will get the kids attention more than some fish hiding behind stuff.

 

[fishguy1123]

Over the years ive had tons of different fish, some of the ones that i remember were...

Silver Arowana (approx 14"+)
Red Belly Piranhas (family of 8)
Albino Oscars
Red Oscars
Black Belt Cichlids
Green Terror
Red Terror
Florida Gar
Freshwater Moray Eel
Red and Blue Freshwater lobsters (crayfish)

Ive had many others, cant remember all the others. Whenever I get my tank set back up, I wanna set it up with small tropicals. Instead of having the tank filled w aggressive fish i want to have a really colorful tank loaded with small bright fish. Having more colorful fish swimming around will get the kids attention more than some fish hiding behind stuff.

If you want color, try the glow fish. Basical a neon danio thats geneticaly not died to be neon. Just ad an actinic light to the tank and watch them glow.

 

[fishguy1123]

Some pics of the tank I had before I left Maryland..

Very nice! Are those pc or t5 bulbs? Gotta love maxima clams.

 

[jeremym]

Very nice! Are those pc or t5 bulbs? Gotta love maxima clams.

I think in the pics they were PC, but that fixture was a POS and almost caught on fire so I went with an 8 bulb T5 setup. I miss the tank but not cleaning it.

 

[Irishboy02]

Heres my little setup right now. 20 gallon high, freshwater. Wisper 30 with two air stones. Planted with live rock. 2 blue guaramis, 2 silver dollars (herbivore pirannahs basically), 2 tiger sharks, 2 bala sharks, 4 tiger barbs, 4 neon tetras, plecko and albino algae eater.

Thanks for the move mods, sorry about that mixup

 

[Short Bus]

Here's the thread you missed in your search

http://gmtnation.com/f18/aquariums-1770/

BTW Nice tank

 

[blazinlow89]

Oh the amount of aquariums we have been through. I will try and dig up some pics, but as of now I am down to the smallest aquarium I have ever owned. When we moved out of the apartment we had a 37 gallon reef/red algae (ugh) tank. The list of what we have had would be long. As of now we are using a 12 gallon nano cube, we used the LR out of the 37, and most of the coral. No matter how much I tried to prevent the tank from cycling again, it did. Its a green hair algae disaster right now. Working on getting the PH and ammonia levels normal. Pics will come when I have a chance.

 

[Black_tb]

i just have two tanks one 55 gallon with some angels, a tiger shark, a iridescent shark, ( could spelled it wrong ) a rope fish, and some small others , and the other is a 35 gallon that has some 4 cichlids in it

 

[Uncle Blazer]

Is there anything an Oscar won't eat?

Had a red/black Oscar in college. Called him "Red October" because he was an underwater killing machine. At feeding time (and in our best/worste Sean Connory voice we would say "Some things in here done react well to Oscars".

 

[drkhead]

Here's the thread you missed in your search

http://gmtnation.com/f18/aquariums-1770/

BTW Nice tank

OMG circular reference!

 

[AquaLady]

This is why my name is AquaLady...
View attachment 32832
View attachment 32833

 

[blazinlow89]

Wow, forgot this thread existed, thanks fro bringing it back AquaLady.

Here are a few shots of my saltwater tanks, kind of random but all of my pics are from my old Bionic and all the photos are on my old hard drive.

These are pics from my column tank, and the reef tank we have in the apartment. Also the lion fish shared a tank with a lunar moon wrasse, they killed each other. We also had several freshwater setups, and we raised sea horses that a local fisherman caught in the bay. They gave a few to a local museum and we went and helped them set up the tank and taught them proper care techniques, they are on their 3rd generation all captive born to this point. The ones we had, eventually had babies but we only got one to survive for a month.

 

[richphotos]

I have a 3 year old red eared slider (female) Currently in a 55 gallon setup.
I am soon going to be moving her into a 125 gallon. When that one is finished I will put up some pictures

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Man its been awhile. I only have two tanks currently set-up. A 36 bow front and a 75. Need to take a few pics.