ace61502

My venture into fish keeping began in the summer of 2010 when I got a text message from the estranged husband that my 3 year old would be coming home with a 12&quot; goldfish he had caught out of a pond. Best I could come up with on a short 3 hour notice was a 10 gallon tank. I convinced lil man that &quot;Nemo&quot; was not happy and wanted to go home, and if he'd take him home next time daddy came to get him we'd go get some little fishies. We made a few mistakes along the way, but are well on our way now. Still far from mistake free, hence the joining of this forum.<br />
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The inhabitants of that 10 gallon tank eventually moved into a 38 gallon homemade tank. The old 10g now homes a school of Glofish (I am not debating the ethics of GM fish <img src='http/www.fishforums.net/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> For the record, I am vehemently against GM as a general rule, especially as it pertains to our food). I also have a 10g hosp/quar tank. I keep an extra small filter on the 38 that can be moved to the 10 at a moment's notice when needed, so I don't have to &quot;feed the tank&quot;. I hope this is a good idea. When used as hospital (or I guess a failed quarantine if that ever happens) I clean it real well and then put it back on the big one to be re-cycled.<br />
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Update: I've moved up to a 75 gallon tank housing 4 zebra danios, 8 Glofish, 7 red wag platies (2 of which are graduates from the nursery tank!), 6 emerald cories, 6 clown loaches and 6 angelfish. I'm in the process of going planted, too! So far I have java fern, hornwort and Brazilian elodea.<br />
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Update 10/22/11: Got the 38 gallon tank back in business! I had slowly moved all the platies out of the 75 into a 10 with a Penguin 200 that had already cycled with a smaller load (baby platies) and starter media so when I found a tank stand on Craigslist I was ready to bring it home, set up the tank and add fish right away. I've used Black Beauty as a substrate and moved a few plants from the big tank. It's a little sparse for now, but will be a work in progress, as they all are. My plan is to move the danios (zebra and Glo) and cories back into this tank so the Angels and loaches can do their growing in the big one.<br />
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Lighting on each of the big tanks consists of 2 $8 clip on desk lamps from Walmart with 20w, 6500k CFLs. Seems to be doing well enough in the 75 for the selection of plants I have. I expect it will do even better on the 38.<br />
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