Long time no see…

Hey guys and gals.

hope all is well. I’m just about to get started on up sizing, moving and setting up the new tank.

Using the same stand, but I’m upgrading from a 20 long to a 38 tall boy that has the same dimensions for the base.
Changing out my driftwood, as the one I have is just ready to crumble and fall apart.
My remaining fish and plants all look to be healthy and doing well. But I’ve got that damn leak at the top of my 20 that is getting worse.

anyways, here’s a look at the current setup one last time…

terrible picture, but I’m letting light in so I can have a better work space.

its time to get to work for now, but I’ll post some updates along the way.

I thought I’d drop by and say hi, let you know that I’m still out here, just busy as can be.

as I said before I hope all is well with everyone, feel free to say hi below, and I’ll catch up with you guys soon!

Good to hear from you, Nate. Glad to hear all is well and that you're busy--in your line of work that's usually good news. Keep us posted on the new tank.

Things are good in Wyoming, except for all this dang smoke. I'm about geared up for my annual effort to perforate an elk. Tanks are steady as she goes. I rebuilt the dentist office 150g into a Rio Negro flooded rainforest. Pretty fun project.

Looking forward to hearing more about the new build. T

Welcome back. Nice to see you still have fish and are still active and working

Thanks Colin. Things are going well. Busy, so unfortunately my participation here is what suffers. In the grand scheme of things I guess it’s acceptable.
WB, I’d like to catch some pics of that new setup, sounds interesting! Good luck with the elk, I’m hoping in the next 1-2 years to get my hunting and gun licence, I would love to bag a deer or moose and put some good meat on the table.
Step one is done, tank drained, fish and decor in a tote, tear down equipment, getting ready for stage two. Fix the under cabinet lighting.

lights are fixed under the cabinet. Time to move the stand, level, place tank and scape.

Much luck with the upgrade

That's going to look great! Pics of mine in my signature.

Is that the same cabinet you built a while back, or did you do another one?

It’s the cabinet that I built for my sons tank, the other one you might be thinking of was a custom build for a client, that one was for a 120g, but similar design.

Welcome back, it will be exciting to see your new scape!

Naughts said:

Welcome back, it will be exciting to see your new scape!

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The new scape is nothing to be excited about. Keeping it very simple, want to let the low tech plants fill out.

dumped most of the big box store black “sand”

giving the Seachem planted substrate and sand (1 bag of each) a try.

had to run new pipes for the fluval filter because of the new tank size.

ditching the digital timer power bar for the tank, that thing can’t keep time for s**t. Have to reset the damn thing every two weeks. That’s with fresh back up batteries and no power outages. And you have to wait 24 hours every time to reset the damn thing. That’s the coral life one too, not exactly cheap for the price point.

anyways, new tank is up and running.

it’s cloudy as hell right now, but I’m going to let the filter run for a day or two, then change the filter floss, possibly add some carbon for a day as well. Just to clear up the water.

filter media, plants, rocks and some gravel were all transferred to the new tank, should have enough cycled media to sustain the new setup.

I added a 250ml bottle of seachem bacteria to the tank as well. I’ll check water parameters tomorrow, but I think everything should be alright.

we’ll see though. I spent 2 hours acclimating the fish to their new water, and that was about 20g.



didn’t get to re attaching the doors. Not sure I’m going to, theyre pretty warped. I may just tack them on and build new ones. But the under mount cabinet lighting is working again.

this was a huge job, I should have given more time for it, but here we are.

I had similar issues with the expensive digital power bar timer. Give me the cheapo analog ones from the hardware store. They actually work. And they only set you back ten bucks.

WhistlingBadger said:

I had similar issues with the expensive digital power bar timer. Give me the cheapo analog ones from the hardware store. They actually work. And they only set you back ten bucks.

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Right?!

Damn thing worked great out of the box. But after two months, it just randomly resets itself and throws my whole lighting schedule out of whack.

we can put a man on the moon, but can’t manufacture an affordable timer without having the thing go wonky.

I digress, there taint nothing wrong with good old mechanical dependability. Works every time until it don’t, then it’s real easy to fix.

Carbon and partial change did the trick to clears up the water…

still need to re secure the doors and stock the stand.

it’s very plain looking, but the fish are loving the new space, still might add something to hardscape. But I’ll be looking to add to the stocking. Bigger school of neons? Maybe going to add to the school of panda cories, or let them run it out and find a more hardy cory species to stock. Not sure. That’s open for debate.

here’s how it looks now:

needs a month or two to let the plants fill out more, unless I get some dieback. Shouldn’t be a problem, the same water went back in. Parameters are still holding. You never know though.

it’s a lot of new water to add in with this upgrade.

There's going to be nothing plain about that when the plants fill in.

I love panda cories. A lot of people say they're inbred and unhealthy. Look into adolf cories. They are really cool looking and seem fairly durable. A huge school of neons, cardinals, or ember tetras would look great in that space. What's in there now? Did I miss that?

WhistlingBadger said:

There's going to be nothing plain about that when the plants fill in.

I love panda cories. A lot of people say they're inbred and unhealthy. Look into adolf cories. They are really cool looking and seem fairly durable. A huge school of neons, cardinals, or ember tetras would look great in that space. What's in there now? Did I miss that?

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Right now I have 9-11 neons/diamond neons. That’s down from 15 originally. Had a few that just went all wonky from a genetic defect from what I could tell. Water parameters were great. Plus it was a heavy stocking for a 20 gal.

I went from a a healthy population of at one point 8 panda cories. I’m down to 3. Again, battling illness and otherwise poor genetics.

my main marker is my oto cats. I had six. Thought I only had 2 left, but once I tore down the original tank I found that I have 5. Much of my research has led me to believe that otos are hard to keep because they are so sensitive to water parameters. So I’m taking it as a win that I have had been able to keep 5 for more than 7 months. All with plump bellies and good colour.

then I have my 2 amano shrimp, found the third one dried up behind the tank stand, but that was probably a year ago….

both of those guys have already molted in the new tank. Not sure if that has anything to do with them being comfortable in the new setup or not. But the fact they haven’t jumped out yet is a good sign.

then there’s the assassin snails… I’ve got well over 40 of those guys, but my LFS is willing to rehome them for me. Whether or not I get a credit or not, not sure. But at least they’ll have a place to go, because apparently i can breed those guys like they owe me money.