starting an aquarium again-tank redesign

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akane

akane

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I had lots of tanks at one point with many very complex. I had a 90g and 55g planted with co2 injection, brackish 29g bumblebee goby tank, 5g dwarf puffer tank, aquatic frogs at one point, 10g ram breeding tank, 20g long nano saltwater.... Many other temporary tanks. Moving, space restrictions, etc... I haven't set up a serious tank in getting close to 10 years. I had dreams of a 75g predrilled saltwater reef but I came across some local orange spotted sunfish and I just can't resist throwing together a small freshwater tank. (this is small for me) I have $0 to spend except I think rabbit and guinea pig sales will pay for acquiring the fish.

This is the cheap thrown together start of my tank. I've got another 2 buckets of river rocks to dig thru for the right sizes and any noteworthy large pieces for the future. Then I got some large quartz cuts that need sprayed down. I have big plans for this tank when I have money but for now it just has to function. I put 3 female and 1 male platy in there along with a betta. Low bioload that should be easy to manage while cycling without harming any fish. The betta gets his own 10g when the sunfish move in.





 
That is very interesting,
I like the way that you are acquiring the needs for your tank.
I have recently returned to the hobby of tropical fish keeping.
At the moment I have a 3 and 1/2 gallon aquarium purchased at Pets-mart.
I have a Pleco Cat two male Guppies and one female, two Sword-tails,
3 Platy and a corri cat and a female Betta, the Male has his own home.
I am working on setting up a 5 gallon and a twenty long tank.
I will first remove and reseal these two to insure NO leakage.
It may be a while since I am in the middle of other things.
I will post in the future as time allows.
Maybe Tropical Fish are just as infectious as Rabbit!?
Ottersatin. :eek:ldtimer:
 
I had to reseal this tank after it had rodents and my job works but it looks horrible. I should have used the masking/painter's tape trick to get clean lines. The worst of it is on the bottom at least so add an inch or 2 of pebbles and no more silicone chunks visible.
 
At one point I had several aquariums. All freshwater, I had a 55g, 29g, and 3 or 4 10g.
I had those tanks in the house with several types of tropical fish and goldfish, and I had a 3000+/- gallon pond in the front yard with koi, goldfish and a very large plecco. The plecco was about 4 inches long when I put him in there late spring, when I brought him into the house that fall he was 11 inches. He went back to the pond next spring, but when I pulled him back out in the fall, I had to sell him to a pet store, he was just shy of 19 inches long. Way too big for any of my tanks.

I have been tossing around the idea of getting another tank set up. Just something simple, maybe a 29g, and just have a few orandas and maybe a couple black moores.
 
We used to have several freshwater tanks. :)

We had butterfly loaches (love them, they look like mini stingrays!) that would jump into the filter housing and keep it clean. :p

We had neons that laid eggs... loved our orandas... learned not to bring home very small fish or they would be snacks for the glassfish...

Fish are fun!
 
Hey math people my advanced algebra is missing. If I have 2ppm ammonia in a 40g tank and I change out 10g with .25ppm ammonia what do I get? Finding 2ppm to be an oddly high amount I tested my tapwater to find it contains ammonia already. I should have more thoroughly tested it but I've never had this happen to myself. I am going to cut my water changes with bottled water at least until cycled.
 
As a youth, my Brother and I had 17 tanks
with a variety of fish: Including live bearers. Angels, Discus,
and many of the oddball fish like Oscars, Piranha etc..
I don't want to get too crazy with it! I'm planning on Fancy Guppies,
Mollies, Platy's and Sword tails. Soon as I can reseal my twenty long and five gallon.
I have most everything I need. Filters, heaters and thermometers.
I will need a light for the twenty long if I don't have one tucked away somewhere.
I always let my water stand at least overnight before using it in the tank.
i guess I'm lucky I have well water.
Ottersatin. :eek:ldtimer:
 
akane":dhh4q7xi said:
Hey math people my advanced algebra is missing. If I have 2ppm ammonia in a 40g tank and I change out 10g with .25ppm ammonia what do I get? Finding 2ppm to be an oddly high amount I tested my tapwater to find it contains ammonia already. I should have more thoroughly tested it but I've never had this happen to myself. I am going to cut my water changes with bottled water at least until cycled.
Click to expand...

Migraine brain might be steering me wrong here but I make it ~1.56ppm. If I wake up in the morning and decide I'm talking rubbish I'll edit this :oops:
 
When I had my tanks, I used to fill up 4 5 gal buckets to do water changes and to top off the tanks with. I let them sit for 3+ days before I ever used them.
 
ack I spent money I rather need on a grocery store water refill container being quite certain filtered water would not contain ammonia and I could use this for all my future tanks as well. Nope. It is a lot lower than my tapwater but it's still there. It doesn't have nitrates. If I did all water changes with that water it would work but you can't cut existing ammonia much with water that contains even low ammonia so mixing it with my tapwater doesn't help much. I would have no problem using the refill water for everything but the 40g by itself will need a minimum of 10gallons changed at a time. I don't want to haul 10g from the store constantly and I want to add a few other tanks so the amount would only increase.

I am running boiling water tests. The ammonia has a lower boiling point than water. Test one was moderately successful. I got it from 1ppm to .5ppm but boiling the water for longer periods doesn't lower the ammonia more and it concentrated the water to 9ph. I didn't even bother testing hardness. I'm going to do a shorter boil test and then boil some of the grocery store water to see if that will still go lower. I have other experiments to try.

__________ Wed Jun 17, 2015 1:31 am __________

So boiling water initially causes a chemical reaction to raise ph and convert ammonia into the compound not picked up by test kits. Give it 12hrs and it tests back the same as straight out of the tap. People were getting false results. Sadly female lyretail platy died of a nitrite spike. On the other hand luckily the bacteria to convert ammonia to nitrite is growing fast and the tank should cycle quickly from this point.

This is tank design 2. Added a cork board wall for attaching moss, sorted more river rock, added some quarts, played with shale piles (in process), forced my ancient refugium to run in order to increase water movement and aeration, ordered a bag of purigen cheap off amazon to put in refugium (very superior chemical filtration), and added the heater. Waiting on temp and circulation before adding fish again.
<br /><br /> __________ Wed Jun 17, 2015 3:16 am __________ <br /><br /> Stupid fish. I left them in a bucket with the internal filter while the tank background cured and it turns out 2 committed suicide by leaving the bucket. Down to 1 betta and 1 female platy.
 
You're going to have ammonia until you're through your cycle - just wait it out, and keep adding in your water conditioner (I use Prime - it's expensive to buy but you use SO little of it that it's worth it).

I run 4 tanks - a 75g, a 20g long, a 10g quarantine, and a 5g betta tank. All freshwater.
 
Sorry about your fish. You should try looking on CL. I sometimes see free fish on there (and sometimes some really nice free tanks with them).
 
I'm going to keep having ammonia forever. It's in the tapwater.
 
But once your tank is cycled, it will be able to convert that easily and quickly.
Plus you'll be adding your water conditioner when you add the tap water, and that de-toxifies the ammonia until the good bacteria can convert it!

It's a brutal waiting game while the cycle establishes, but it's worth it in the end.

Bug4H and I cycle our tanks before adding any fish, by using regular non-detergent ammonia added daily, until the nitrogen cycle is fully established.

The big tank cycled in about a month - the smaller tank (20g) in about 2 1/2 weeks I think. It's been a while now, but that is pretty close.
I kept track of all our details on a spreadsheet at the time - how much ammonia we added, and all the water test results too.
 
:yeahthat:

If it's anything like saltwater, you'll see an ammonia spike and then it will bottom out very quickly.

One thing I would do before adding a lot more fish is get your rocks/landscape how you want it. The rocks are a good medium for the good bacteria, and if you move them around a lot you can disrupt them and end up with another mini-cycle.

Oh no. No.

*starts looking for a spot for her 100 gallon show tank...we don't need a dining rom table, do we?*
 
I have cycled many tanks with and without fish. The tank may process the ammonia faster when cycled but it will still be there for a day and then it will make some extra nitrate. Plus the nitrate already in the tapwater. It will be hard to keep my tank below 20ppm nitrate like I prefer. At least until I get it planted. I am looking at exchange resins normally put on RO filters for something that removes ammonia. Stand alone units seem uncommon though. I can't invest in a full RO system yet. I may have to put off any plans for unplanted tanks until I can get a full RO unit with DI resin and chloramine removing cartridge.

I'm thinking the cork background is going to be very good for bacteria and reduce problems with losing any bacteria on other objects. There's also a small biowheel and 2 sponges in the internal filter. The refugium is going to be part of my filtration. I can't run much mechanical or I'll just overflow the thing but methods like higher quality carbon and purigen will work. Biological filtration could also be increased. If any of my small lights work I also debated turning it into an algae scrubber. For now the extra water movement and aeration will help reduce the effects of ammonia and nitrite.

__________ Thu Jun 18, 2015 4:28 pm __________

Went back to the local fish store and they have a wall of zeolite. Zeolite removes ammonia. Go figure. I grabbed a pouch for a 55gallon. Reduce the tank ammonia and then I'll see if I can find a way to filter it out of the tapwater before use. I might need a bigger water storage container. <br /><br /> __________ Tue Jun 30, 2015 11:05 pm __________ <br /><br /> I put 10g of lake water in my tank and then went back to the grocery store filtered that has lower ammonia and no nitrates. It's getting stable. I did give my tank some green water from the shallow parts of the lake which is now gone but we have gained planaria. Completely harmless flatworms. I don't mind them. To me it's like setting up a saltwater tank with live rock. All the hitchhikers just add to the interest of the tank. Freshwater people tend to be squeamish and perfectionists about what is in their tanks unlike many saltwater aquarists. I find the threads of people who wouldn't go near a tank of planaria to be amusing. If you ever go to a beach there are planaria. You just don't see them.
 

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