Aquariums in the playground

[Erloas]

So how many other fish keepers do we have around here?

We had a few tanks when I was younger but didn't do anything fancy with them. I had been thinking about one for a while when I stopped by a local pet store that was having an anniversary sale so I decided to pick up a 55g tank. (it wasn't until a little while later that I realized that even with their 30% off the tank still ended up being slightly more expensive then it was at Wal-Mart). As these things tend to go I have since replaced almost everything that came with the tank and I've probably spent 3-4x as much since as I have on the initial purchase.

After that I ended up getting another 55g and a flat 24x24x12 (~25-30g) tanks from my brother (left over from when he had turtles, he brought them up for Christmas because he lives 1000 miles away).

I have sent one of the tanks up as a heavily planted tank and so far the plants are doing pretty well. I'm in the process of moving the fish to the planted tank so I can take the old tank down and set it up as a river tank.

The planted tank has (or will have when I get them all moved) 9 dwarf neon rainbows, 6 serpae tetras, 5 zebra danios, 3 otos, 4 peppered corys, a crowntail betta, and 7 amano shrimp.

I've also go some pristella tetras but I'm going to give them to my stepdad and increase my schools of serpae, danios, and otos.


The river tank when I get it set up is going to have 6 Madagascar rainbows, and 5-6 zebra loaches (probably, not entirely sure exactly which type yet). Maybe some hillstream loaches as well.

The flat tank I've got lots of red cherry shrimp. I started out with about 14 adults and now I've got lots and lots of babies. At one point at least 7-8 of the shrimp were berried and about half of them have had their babies already. There are also 5 celestial pearl danios (some very amazing looking fish, if a bit small) in the tank. I've also raised out a zebra danio fry and neon rainbow fry that happened to get transfered to the tank, the danio has already been moved, the rainbow is close to big enough.
I'm really hoping to breed a few more rainbows, and zebra danios in the tank, and I'm really really hoping I can get the celestials to breed.
The tank has quite a few low light plants that are doing pretty good.

I've got some more red crypts in the mail right now, hopefully they are here today.

What does everyone else have?

[truemane]

We've got two tanks. Both quite small and simple. One is a little thing with a Beta fish in it that we took over when my older son moved out. And the other is a little larger, with two special needs goldfish (they each only have one eye) and one feeder fish. No idea what kind of fish it is, but we bought it for 25 cents over a year ago and it's quite large and very pretty now.

The one-eyed goldfish are the hungriest fish I have ever seen. You go near the tank and they go mental splashing about at the surface. It's funny.

Our youngest cat spends a LOT of time sitting on the tank and staring at them. But then, she spends a lot of time near the rat cage too.

[Erloas]

Well maybe some pictures will get things going a bit better.

First my planted tank.


http://ljfqdq.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pWpgxNsZmpq0YS91XavE_i2z83E9eeLMtq-1XwuqBcL4xQRR5RkvZ5d_whZivYzZNIsqvyiV_H3plZxTvY7z5 O9isoWDIzuMP/IMG_0941.JPG

http://ljfqdq.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pxtu-ZYHgBULGAET8695El7KeFoE0ctiHLlVAss1NtQ0lVUvZ5xck3J Ws1xqkAHfxI4QaVNH9bqUNFfvArwVlCUPCQfSQfl11/IMG_0942.JPG

http://ljfqdq.blu.livefilestore.com/y1ph_lhklO0K5xkBUyf1aDqcyMFiDERUum-STLptQZHMMbOYm9zbaP1qo43D7H5M1daUur2BJctv8kGsiBcEa DTkDvhCULdigly/IMG_0943.JPG

http://ljfqdq.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pvmr6aXomlfWwMmTWkcf5mUkIoFwqcKHQrhVuobv3K47BPZm OeRb-gKDEMVT7WPv_TYl8dF8au5u6l3x1DQjFh_sbWZzkhXxH/IMG_0954.JPG


And then my shrimp tank. I really wish I could get some better pictures of the fish in this tank. The celestial pearl danios really are an amazing looking fish, but they are really small and are always moving around. The one with the best color also is more reclusive.


http://ljfqdq.blu.livefilestore.com/y1phCKbb8uJrMtcbgxPvvLM-DU6_RcfdoHCb5rnDOYXg6cvpXRnXs2tSU6OPr9vlRz1xLIUy3W 8nNtLHXaDjrdgG4-cSrcmwUAX/IMG_0959.JPG
http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1ppwLnelSkB84_XGTzx04mmwbWOXT7eMQuVZafcjwS5hjz0a_ k8sQl6DoAOZidxb6Lozc8x2giTMK7J7vWQWWwzg/IMG_0969.JPG
A bunch of baby red cherry shrimp on some christmas moss.
http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pgOP9wAWCKYPJId_vLok5nFdfGNhSvn7Dd7JRyCPUz7FNEkb QHYaLLxV1WPg4bKD9VdU1QXTSiDgfdQXe4ewjVA/IMG_0983.JPG
http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1p6_BM4sZWUDdrEDeVc_mOvUN-3ReXV3ww50HHT0esPRn6sfAgrTFwfGgF8IhOz3sHt7340cgr6N oLnBdlOmDmxQ/IMG_0987.JPG

[bluewind95]

Nice tanks there! I only have one tank. It's a 10g one with 6 bettas. Yes, the males are separated. I was only gonna have one separated male and 5 females together, but one of those "females" turned out to be male and I'd like him to get his own tank, but I haven't had the money/space for it, which is a real shame. Thankfully, he and the girls actually get along pretty well. You know... as far as bettas can get along. There were nips at first, but no longer. They do chase each other around once in a while, but not much, really. When I can, I'm gonna let the girls (well... the 4 plus a new one) get the whole 10g for themselves and gonna get another tank and I'm gonna let the males have that. And then I'm going to try to breed bettas.

[_Zoot_]

Woot! Other fish people! I own three big fat fishes (there just gold fish), but I fear that my tank is not nearly as impressive as the ones on display here.

[308HTR]

I don't have the space for an aquarium right now, so currently my 55 gallon tank is housing my friend's zebra danio in my other friend's study. Currently I have a 2 gallon fishbowl with some gravel and elodea that my little cousin is convinced has an invisible fish in it.

[valadil]

I've got a 10 gallon with some guppies, platies, danios, and a pleco. Had a snail that lasted for years and was approaching tennis ball size but he died and his replacements haven't been much better. My plants are a little ragged because the pleco likes them more than algae. I might some day get a bigger tank, but not while I'm moving apartments every odd year.

[Ilena]

I used to have a fish tank and was thinking about getting another one, but like all things, costs money i dont have :D But anyway, my tank DID have a massive goldfish (at least massive for me), probably about the length of my hand, so ... a few inches at least. Had some bottom feeders and a few snails, a bunch of neo tetras (i love those things! so cute!) and had some frogs, apparently one was female and laid some eggs but i think they were eaten by one of the males or fish, it was kinda unexpected. Would LOVE to have had baby frogs!

Also a couple of questions, how do you oh master fish tankers, keep the tanks clean? and the water clean? just empty a few buckets or something and then refill or what? because when we had the tank i helped mom drain most of it and then refill it with water before and i was wondering if there was an easier way. Oh and it was like a 20 letre tank if i recall.

[Erloas]

Well to keep a tank clean it mostly comes down to having decent filtration. How much filtration will depend on the types of fish and the size of the tank. I've gone to canister filters for my big tank and just a simple sponge filter with a power head for my shrimp tank.

The shrimp don't make a whole lot of waste so not as much is needed there. Gold fish tend to be very dirty fish, and some other types are worse then others. A lot of time cloudy water can be the result of over-feeding fish and/or cheap food. Having a good clean up crew of scavenger fish, snails, and shrimp can clean up some times of things (like leftover food).
Things like poo generally just has to be vacuumed out once in a while.

I do water changes once a week, mostly because of the fertilizers. Even without I probably wouldn't go more then a month between water changes. Especially on smaller tanks it shouldn't take long at all to do. Maybe 1-2 5-gallon buckets worth and it should take all of 10 minutes to do.


If the tank is dirty because of things like algae, well it takes a bit more to deal with algae and it depends on the specific type. Generally though algae is caused by too much light, either running your lights too long, or having the tank get direct sunlight, that will grow algae like crazy.

[Ilena]

Cool, one day ill get another fish tank, i know the desire wont go away anytime soon :P

also do they make sand for fish tanks? i cant remember if they did, or if its just the rocks, i mean im sure sand would be troublesome though just as it would hold all the poop and whatnots in it wouldnt it?