New Year's Consolidation

There's been some non-fishy drama around the house, beginning just before Thanksgiving and not winding down until after the New Year, which I touched on in my last post, and I decided I needed to cut back a bit, which is part of my usual cycle. I'll set up new tanks for quarantine or to separate a troublemaker, or when I just get bored, then I'll like the tank so much I leave it up and turn it into a display. This can add up around the house, and it makes maintenance and feeding a bit of a chore, depending on how many tanks I have up and running at one time.

For Christmas we really had no practical place to put a Christmas tree, since any unused space is going to get a tank, right? Well, that's not a huge issue but I started to think about rearranging the furniture, and taking down the 45-gallon planted tank was really key in a more functional flow of household traffic, and a better utilization of space.

I have a friend who was looking for a tank makeover ("Make my tank look like your tanks!") and the timing was right, so I moved the fish, 3 pearl gouramis, a pair of Bolivian rams, 5 Bentosi tetras, a single surviving cardinal from a batch that I lost right after purchase, and a small female bristlenose pleco. The rams, gouramis and 2 of the tetras went into the 150, where I already have rams and more of these tetras (3 of the tetras went to my sister's tank) and the BN went into the 125 where its attention was sorely needed. I used the majority of the wood, rocks and plants in my friend's tank, which was close in size to this one, and took it down. I took everything outside, since with temps in the 60's you'd never know it was January, and hosed everything out, and sun-dried it; sand, filter media, filters, hoses, tank and all.

As an aside:  I don't recommend putting these shy gouramis in a bustling, busy tank like the 150. The 125 is a better choice, especially since I'm converting that tank over to an Asian "biotope" (ha), but that tank has a lot of strife right now with 2 breeding angel pairs, and much less hiding spots for top dwellers. The 150 has quite a bit of wood and rock structures that go all the way to the top, where gouramis like to hang out, so they have shelter there until I move them to the 125 later. Fortunately, they do come out to eat in the 150, and I target feed them where they hide so they're getting what they need. This is not a good long-term solution, though.

My attic eaves have times when they are empty, and times when they are full, and right now they're full! I have a 37-gal, a 40-gal breeder, and now the 45-gal in dry storage currently. I also have an assortment of small tanks, 2-15 gallons waiting for their next use.

I used to think I would sell tanks when I took them down, but now I don't consider it. There have been so many times when I was glad to have these tanks and stands ready and waiting. My husband has already found a temporary use for the 40-gal breeder. He asked me to go "bin shopping" with him one day. I asked him what kind of bin he was looking for, and he described a large tub that would hold two 5-gallon water jugs submerged in water for a project he was working on. He was thinking Rubbermaid, but commented that the sides would likely bow out filled with water. I suggested a glass box designed to hold water, and, lo and behold, a 40-gal breeder fits two 5-gallon water jugs perfectly! Now our hobbies are coming together, finally!

All of the fish are doing great in their new homes. Here's a couple of videos, one of the 150 and one of the 125 as they are currently.

The Angel Shuffle

Yesterday I added 3 juvenile angels, 50% wild x 50% domestic silvers, to the 150.

The single leopoldi angel rushed out to see, obviously excited to see angels that look similar to him. He has been interacting with them in a semi-aggressive manner, rushing toward them but never coming in contact. I think he is checking them out to see what they have in mind. They pretty much completely ignore him! They continue to poke around, eating voraciously, and don't seem to mind this giant angel getting into their business. I'm still watching things because this wild angel, who has been the only angel in the tank for quite a while, may not take kindly to conspecific interlopers. It might help when I add the extra two tonight, bringing the group of newcomers to 5.

I will then add the rest of the angels from the 45, which will be seven, to the 125 to grow out. Incidentally, when I used an aquarium volume calculator I determined that the 120 is in fact a 125 gallon, so I'll go back and edit my previous posts for continuity. I've got a SCHWEET piece of driftwood, a stumpy, branchy thing, soaking in my pool and I'm eager to get it waterlogged and in place in the 125 as a central feature. I really like how it looks now:

However, I simply must have this stump in the tank so this temporary scape will have to go. I never planned on keeping this arrangement, but was using the rocks from another tank as seed material, and the driftwood along the back is very nice that I collected from the James River, so I'll keep that, and some of the plants. I'll post pics once I get this stump in place.

I'll be adding Acarichthys heckelii (threadfin acara) to the 125 for the bottom. I was going to have them, then I wasn't, and now I think they'll be a good choice for this setup. I'll give up on the rooted plants, I think.

Then I'll have the 45 to empty out and redo. Am thinking about loaches and/or gouramis for that tank, since I have not had an Asian setup since my dwarf puffer tank. I know there are Denison barbs in the 125 (for anyone who is even remotely paying attention to this....) but I still consider the 125 to be essentially a SA tank.

More to come..

Enter the 120

It's here, it's here, it's here! A few days ago I picked up a pristine 120-gal aquarium with stand and canopy, and got a very, very good deal through Craig's List. It came with TWO Rena Filstar XP3 filters, along with an Emperor 400 HOB, plus media, fitted hinged glass tops, and a 4x36w (?) T5HO fixture made by Solar Systems Lighting, a company with which I am not familiar and I can't locate any information on them online. There was also quite a few other items that were sent along with the tank, including a large pirate ship wreck bubbler decoration, a skull decoration, a large cave decoration, air pumps, powerheads, plastic plants, a 5-gal bucket of gravel, etc., etc.

This is a 4' tank so it fit quite easily into the intended location, and the space looks meant for it. The tank is completely unscratched (erm, at least it was before I took ownership.....) and is a great dimension, being 25" front to back and 24" high.

The cabinet was brought in, and then Rick and my next door neighbor, Paul, who was kind enough to help, brought the tank in. Interestingly, as indicated in my post below, 30 Gallons, Shmerty Gallons, the tank holds 30 gallons less volume than my 150 (amazing feats of mathematical wizardry, I know!) but the glass is thinner than the 1/2" glass of the 150, and it weighs half as much empty, at about 200 pounds. This is a huge issue in terms of moving a tank this size. I guess going up that 30 gallons plus being longer, at 5', means it required thicker glass and a glass brace. I don't know, but am glad this tank is almost as big and nowhere near as heavy. Rick is happy as well.

Rick then began working on leveling the tank and being sure it was sound, and there were no issues - I think we found the one single piece of floor in our house that is actually level.

Meanwhile, I began scrubbing out the XP3's that I would use on the tank. I'll save the Emperor 400 for another setup or sell it at our club auction. The filters had been drained out but they were still wet, stinky and gunky with mulm, so the pads and ceramic rings needed a lot of rinsing with the hose set to "power wash." I noted that the previous owner did not utilize much in the way of mechanical filtration, but both filters were loaded up with very coarse gravel and ceramic rings. The tank used to house oscars so I know they were right on target to have so much filtration, of whatever type. I will use a bit more in the way of mechanical filtration to polish the water, with regular poly floss. It requires a bit more attention but is worth it.

I then decided to take the second black acrylic overflow box out of storage, which used to be siliconed to the inside of the 150 (a drilled tank when I got it) and park it in the back left corner of the 120 to hide my filter intake and outflow, similar to what I did with the first box in the 150. For that tank, I cut slots into the acrylic corner box to permit flow of water to the intake, but that tends to clog with bits of debris and the subwassertang and java moss plants that sometimes go rogue on me. I decided to drill holes into this box, and that's what I did. The box is just two sides, meant to be siliconed to the side of the aquarium to create the box, but I just prop it against the side of the tank so I don't have to commit to the location.

I spaced the holes and put what I consider to be enough of them to permit flow of water, eyeballing their placement more or less evenly, and placed it in the tank, hiding the equipment, which is my goal in life when setting up an aquarium. It truly is the foundation of my aquascape and that's where I always begin. The design of the setup always kind of declares itself, in a form follows function sort of way, once I determine what I will use to hide the hardware.

It is important to hide the hardware, but at the same time care must be taken not sacrifice proper flow of water to the intakes and not block the outflows, though the intake is much more important. The outflows will blast the water no matter what you've got jammed up against them.



In this pic you see the holes drilled into the short side, but there are also holes drilled in the long side as well. I did pretty well eyeballing the grid pattern! I am SO impatient and could not be bothered to lay out a grid before drilling away. I got lucky this time, but recommend careful planning to anyone - this is something you'll be stuck with for a long time so it pays to do things right.


Next I gathered up the substrate, which in this case, as in most all of my tanks, sand. I just love the way it looks, and since this tank will most likely house eartheaters of some species or another, I'll stick with sand to be safe. If I keep natives they encounter sandy bottoms in their natural habitats so it won't hurt there, either.

Aside:  I am almost against the idea of natives for this tank now. I know I had plans to turn a large tank into a native setup, with sunfish, darters and whatever else I might find, but mainly sturdy sunfish of some description. In my research I'm just not feeling excited about them, though the pumpkinseed and blue spot sunfish are very appealing. I just don't know how to discern where to collect them locally - all we seem to have are bluegill, and I'm definitely not a fan - something about their faces! I think I'll start out with a few of the G. red-head Tapajos I already have, some of the angels I'm growing out, and, for a schooling species...... I'll get into THAT later.

I dug around in my eaves where I store all my aquarium equipment, past and present, and found a sack of clean, dry cichlid sand, which is black and white, like salt and pepper. I also had a sack of clean, dry Aragamax sand from my friend, Deborah, who had some extra and gave it to me for this tank. The two collections of sand, blended together, make a nice mix, so I added that, and it is just about enough. It took remarkably little sand to cover the bottom. I think for eartheaters I'll need a bit more for them to play with, but I can rob more out of the 150, which has too much sand. I also have more Aragamax sand up in the eaves that used to be in the 37-gal stored up there.

The tank came with some Mopani driftwood, which is always nice, and I took some leftovers of my own and propped them with some rocks against the overflow box. I have A LOT of rocks in my possession, after a few very fruitful collection trips to the mountain streams in Bath County and nearby.

I think I will go on a hunt for more driftwood, or, more specifically, a small stump that will still have branchy roots. Or, at least something pretty branchy and not slab-like, which is what you typically find commercially available for the aquarium trade. After that I will plant some valisneria and maybe cabomba, with rocks protecting the rooted bases from the geos, and call it a day. I like the simple and clean look this tank has, and I'm not going to jam it up with cairns or rockwork and plants stuffed everywhere, like in the 150 and the 45, which is so cluttered up I honestly don't know if I'll keep it like that. I'm picturing some moody dim lighting, sand, and round, smooth river rocks, plus driftwood. If I can have some branchy pieces of wood that go from the surface down to the substrate, it will mimic a SA river, like Rio Orinoco, for instance, which doesn't have much in the way of plants but has reeds and branches submerged. Rick commented that the tank looked "Zen-like" after I placed a few round rocks and a single valisneria plant, and I'm going to try to keep it this way. Try. It might be hard, as my tendencies are to move the aquascape up and down and all around the tank, but I'll really make an effort!

I forgot to mention that this tank came with a canopy that matches the stand. The canopy is simply a frame that rests on the top rim of the tank, and is open on the top in front, closed in the back, so apparently you would reach into the opening at the top to lift the glass top to feed, etc. Well, for someone who is 5'0" tall this is not very practical. The stand is not terribly tall, not nearly as tall as the stand for the 150 (this is why that tank looks so much more imposing than the 120) but adding this canopy, which is not hinged and does not lift away from the tank easily, makes it more of a challenge for me, and I'd have to get on a stool every time I wanted to feed the fish. I won't use it now, though maybe someday in a different location I will. I'm keeping it in storage, like everything else! It is in perfect condition so it will prove useful someday.

As for lighting, the fixture that came with it is a 36" fixture, which is short for the tank from a visual standpoint, and it has a silver polished aluminum surface like a Coralife fixture. It has 4 CF straight-pin bulbs, 2 actinic and 2 6500K. I am not using the actinic and will have to replace those for FW use.

 I have a Current Nova Extreme fixture that is 48" long, 2x54w T5HO and is slim and black, with legs, which would look nicer on this tank. This fixture is essentially new, sitting in storage for years, but the bulbs were burnt out so I've ordered new bulbs and when they come in I'll try that on this tank. The tank is viewed from a distance in the kitchen so you really notice things like the light fixture propped on the top, so I'd like it to look neat and tidy. The 150 has a hinged hood that hides all sorts of things, so it doesn't matter much what I put up there for lights, or how I attach them.

Here's a pic right after setup and filling, and you can see the shims on the floor, which have since been chiseled off flush and the ends of the shims colored in with brown magic marker to make them less conspicuous against the floor. The tank is a bit cloudy right now with some sand dust, but that since cleared.

The rocks and wood are not in their final position. More to come....