The Aquarium Chat Thread

[Dawn419]

I talk quite a bit about our 2 aquariums over in our journal but thought it be cool to start a thread for aquarium enthusiasts to share pix of their tanks and to share experiences and knowledge.

I also hope that members who are interested in the hobby, but don't have a tank yet, will also join in the conversation!

A little background on how I came to be interested in the Habit, I mean hobby!

I didn't really have much interest in them until after doc_gonzo and I got together. Pretty much any aquarium I ever had experience with was freshwater fish with plastic plants (my uncle had several when I was a kid and I remember my aunt trying her hand at seahorses at one time). My sisters and I would win the occassional goldfish at the fair but they never lasted long.

When doc and I met, he talked a lot about wanting to start an aquarium maintenance business as his father always had a fish room, as did his grandfather. Our first tank, together, was a 10 gallon, low-light, live-planted freshwater set-up. Since I'd never really been around tanks that much, I jumped right in and started maintaining it and fell in love with the hobby! After a couple years, we moved to a nicer rental house and next thing you know, we're buying up a ton of used aquariums, stands and equipment for next to nothing cost-wise.

Since it was just the two of us in a 2 bedroom house, we turned the spare bedroom into a fish room. I so wish I had pix of it to show ya's...it was awesome! 3 of the four walls were covered in shelves filled with tanks ranging from 10 - 20 gallons in size. We used fluorescent shop lights for lighting and before I knew what happened, we're raising live aquarium plants and breeding fish (mostly Arican Cichlids). And the kid who couldn't keep a goldfish alive is doing almost all of this by herself since doc was working out of town. Yep, I was bitten hard!!! Besides the fish room, we had 4 tanks in the living room and I even set up a 10 gallon in the bathroom.

We were good friends with the owner of the local mom & pop pet store so we began selling live plants and fish back to the store for credit. Docs' out of town job fell through, he got a job at a local bar & grill and he talked the owners into letting us set up a 20 gallon freshwater tank behind the bar. We'd maintain it for meals for the both of us and the maintenance business was born.

Before long, we had several local tanks that we were taking care of within walking distance. We asked a friend to join this venture so we could expand, he readily agreed and off we went. We had clients in several doctors offices, added another bar & grill and then the private home clients began showing up!

Our first phc had a 120 gallon saltwater "reef" that was nothing but live sand and live rock. He asked the owner of the mom & pop shop if he knew of anyone who could/would be interested in taking over the tank and we ended up with the job! And what a dream job it was as we were pretty much given the go ahead to do what we wanted with it, didn't matter how much it cost the client just wanted it full of eye candy!

280 gallon saltwater fish-only phc set-up:

Doc and I eventually changed the 280g into a freshwater tank with mixed African Cichlids as the client was tired of spending so much money on the salt system. By going with the AC's, he got the popping colors of saltwater fish with freshwater fish and saved a lot of money, too.

Have to admit that we enjoyed the cichlid tank much more ourselves, too, as when it was the fish-only salt, we had to pull the decorations out every week and bleach them, which was aggravating and time-consuming.

Well, gonna end this post and hunt up some more pictures!

 

[mississippifarmboy]

I just LOVE that first one!

I know nothing about aquariums, but Em managed a fish store and owned a salt water fish store until about a year ago. She brought a huge corner saltwater tank when she moved here. We are going to set it up and raise sea horses as soon as money allows. Once we get everything caught up I'd like her to do a reef tank too.

 

[so lucky]

Wow, that reef tank is gorgeous! Couldn't you just sit and look at it for days? One of the drawbacks of African cichlids for me is the lack of variation in shapes. And their agression, of course. But the colors are as bright as the marine fish. I know it sounds pretty mundane, but if I were to get another tank, I think I would try raising fancy guppies. Ya gotta love those babies!

 

[Denim Deb]

And guppies are pretty easy.

 

[doc_gonzo]

solucky, etal,

i don't know... after breeding so many species of african ciclids i find it hard to believe that someone wouldn't be able to see a "a varation in shapes". of coarse my backround is marine biology and taxonomy, so the diferences are quite stark to me as opposed to a hobbiest. the difference between a pseudotropuius zebra and a lamprologus brichardii are dramatic. when people refer to "african ciclids" most don't realise that they come from 3 seperate rift lakes. within those 3 lakes there are rock dwellers and open water dwellers, so the varyations grow exponentialy. yes they can be agressive, but with proper care and habitat this is not an issue, at all! rock dwellers need a big pile of rocks (a reef) in order to "stake out" teritories, a large population with rock dwellers also helps to spread out the "agression". the open water dwellers require a sand bottom and open water swimming spaces. research on the species you want to keep is essential, this holds true with any troplcal fish that anyone would want to keep in an aquarium. it's just like a dog or a cat or a chicken or a goat. you are taking responcibility for a VERY limmited resource, when you go to "messin" with tropical fish you are PROBABLY NOT skilled enough to propigate this species, so you ARE putting a bane on the natural population.......food for thought, do you're research, just sayin......

doc

 

[Dawn419]

mfb and so lucky,

That salt tank (first pic) was our baby...we loved it! We did maintenance visits to that home twice a week, and babied the fish and corals with plenty of healthy live and frozen foods. We treat any aquarium we have ever dealt with that way, including our own. It's no different than taking care of pets or livestock, to us. The critters/animals/fish/corals are dependant on you for their care and they come first.

I think all of us involved with that tank cried a bit when the request to tear it down came up. We put tons of work into making it what it became and keeping it a healthy system and just as much love and research went into it, too!


When we made the deal on our land out here, I was ready to break our tanks down, sell what we could out of them and be done with the hobby for a while. I happened to say something about it in front of my parents during one of our trips out here and my mom started asking questions about how big where the tanks, how much trouble were they and the next thing she said is "will they fit over on that wall and if so, what will I have to do?". When she found out that we'd take care of all maintenance and any supplies needed, she told us to bring them out and set them up at her place.

I was sure that we'd end up loosing the Percula Clownfish during the 8 hour trip and that our Daffodil Brichardi African Cichlids (living in the 60g hex at the time) would survive the trip. That's what I get for thinking...we lost the Cichlids and the Clownfish are still with us.

Some pix of the 60g hex tank while the Daffodils lived there:

The little yellow dots on the lower left corner of the rock are Daff fish eggs:

One of our breeding Daff pairs.

I was worried that our small reef system might creep her out and it has turned out to be her favorite tank. That really suprised me but who can resist the charms of a pair of "Nemos".


Been going through fish pix that I've got stored on-line and realized that a lot of them are on discs, so I'll slowly go through them as it's a storage box full of pic discs of aquariums and orchids as we eventually added the orchid habit in with the fish biz.


mfb,

You may know nothing now about aquariums, but you'll learn so much about them through osmosis, just like I did! We've drooled about eventually getting into seahorses, especially since they are now available as tank-bred/raised and have been "trained" to eat frozen mysid shrimp.


We've had several tanks of guppies, due to me fawning over the fancy-tails. It may sound horrible to some, but, I got to the point of raising them to use the babies as live-food. I kept at least one 10 g tank for breeders, one for grow out and it just evolved from there. Since we keep our freshwater tanks full of live plants, it's amazing just how many escaped being a meal and went on to keep producing. Kinda self-sufficient, in a way. Mom recently discovered the fancy guppies and told her how we used to raise them as live food and in stead of freaking her out (like I was going for), she said "really" and I could see her hamster-wheel going into over-time!


One of these dyas, we love to incorporate growing our own Talapia out in the heated green house, that we have yet to build.

Well, I've rambled on enough, yet again!

Night, all!

 

[Denim Deb]

We used live plants in the tanks I had growing up as a kid and had just plain guppies. And it was amazing how many of the young managed to survive that way.

 

[~gd]

solucky, etal,

i don't know... after breeding so many species of african ciclids i find it hard to believe that someone wouldn't be able to see a "a varation in shapes". of coarse my backround is marine biology and taxonomy, so the diferences are quite stark to me as opposed to a hobbiest. the difference between a pseudotropuius zebra and a lamprologus brichardii are dramatic. when people refer to "african ciclids" most don't realise that they come from 3 seperate rift lakes. within those 3 lakes there are rock dwellers and open water dwellers, so the varyations grow exponentialy. yes they can be agressive, but with proper care and habitat this is not an issue, at all! rock dwellers need a big pile of rocks (a reef) in order to "stake out" teritories, a large population with rock dwellers also helps to spread out the "agression". the open water dwellers require a sand bottom and open water swimming spaces. research on the species you want to keep is essential, this holds true with any troplcal fish that anyone would want to keep in an aquarium. it's just like a dog or a cat or a chicken or a goat. you are taking responcibility for a VERY limmited resource, when you go to "messin" with tropical fish you are PROBABLY NOT skilled enough to propigate this species, so you ARE putting a bane on the natural population.......food for thought, do you're research, just sayin......

doc

You keep talking like that and we will have to wash your mouth out with soap! But really there are times that only tech talk will do the job. I am lucky I am a Chemist [Ret.] so most people have had some exposure to our special talk, that and the fact that I spent the last 15 years of my career translating PhD talk to something a lab tech or even a bussiness major could understand. Even now I get tagged as talking down to people on this board. I like your point about how many fish are doomed to die in a tank due to people not being able to care for them properly that is the real reason for me wanting to start with commom fresh water fish. Actually I have been there and done that, 60 years ago one of our neighbors had a great pool of goldfish both common and exotic. This was in the frozen north [western NY] and he had to board out his fish over the winter. Sneaky he would approach a household with kids and offer free fish over the winter with the deal that he would remove the fish he wanted in the spring but leave some behind in the bowl if they survived. Each fall the fish were more exotic and pretty if you returned healthy fish in the spring. I had some nice fish when I went off to join the Navy but I never got back to the hobby. ~gd

 

[pinkfox]

beautiful tanks!

right now i have 1 7gal mini bow that "kai" my betta lives him...
and a 55 fresh community

heres the 55 before "stock"

it now has a background and the heater is layed down horizontally behind the driftwood...i hate seeing the "mechanics" lol.

right now its home to 2 gold veil angels
a dozen neon tetra
5 brilliant rasbora
and 3 julli corydora

i need some more corydora, a team of ottos and would love a couple of veiled koi angels.

ive got dreams of a jellyfish tank one day...

 

[Denim Deb]

I've always like neons. Love the color of them.