30 Gallon Flatback Hex, Freshwater

[Circus]

Here I shall chronicle the progress of my 30 gallon flatback hexagon tank. It is a long and low tank, measuring 36" long and only 16" high.

 

[Circus]

My process of getting it together today.

The stand is concrete blocks and 3/4" plywood, topped with a waterproof tablecloth.

The substrate is about 40 lbs of play sand which comes out to around 2" deep.

Then I have my light, which is an Optibright+, and my filter is a Quietflow 30.

 

[Circus]

Tomorrow I will be picking up a 200 watt heater, letting the temp come up up to 77°F and put all of my GloFish in here, which is a GloShark and 6 GloTetra, which I eventually want to bring up to 9. I eventually want to add some danio too, but not glofish, just regular leopard danio.

 

[Mick85]

You didn't rinse the sand?

 

[Circus]

You didn't rinse the sand?

Only twice since it isn't going in a tank with fish already in. Play sand is just very dirty. I put very fine polyfil in the filter, which will suck up and hold all the dust overnight.

 

[Utar]

Looks like a very nice setup. I like how you made a simple but sturdy stand. Do you have a hang on the back filter? If you do then you can set it up, fill it with poly-fill, and fine clean your water.

 

[Circus]

Looks like a very nice setup. I like how you made a simple but sturdy stand. Do you have a hang on the back filter? If you do then you can set it up, fill it with poly-fill, and fine clean your water.

Exactly what I did, lol.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Interested in seeing how this turns out... following!

 

[Circus]

Okay, so for the next couple of weeks, this will be a quarentine tank. Before I added my current qt fish, I had added some stem plants including money worth and bucopa (I think), a strand of guppy grass, some hornwort, a single sword plant, some Java fern, duckweed, water lettuce, and some other floating plans.
I also added a piece of driftwood from my 25 gallon.

The current qt stock is 5 pearl gourami and a single female guppy that was caught in the net with them.

The gourami love to nibble on the hornwort needles, so those are looking a bit stubby right now.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Tank actually looks really good for a QT tank, lol.

 

[Circus]

Once these guys are healthy (I think I have fungus or ich outbreak) they will be going into my 55. Then all of my glofish are moving into this tank. I might out goodieds in the 25 that is currently housing the Glos.

 

[PorshaF]

I love the shape of the tank and your ingenuity for a stand! Go you! Can't wait to see the glofish in there and plants spreading

 

[Circus]

I love the shape of the tank and your ingenuity for a stand! Go you! Can't wait to see the glofish in there and plants spreading

I fell in love with the tank when I saw it in an ad. It was only $15, so a steal. The tank has a very large footprint for the number of gallons it holds, so I can put my gloshark in it (he should be a lot happier in there).

As for the stand, I got tired of paying $150-$250, which is usually as much as or more than I spend on the rest of the set up. Altogether this homemade stand cost $52.

 

[PorshaF]

Dang! That's a great deal for it! I've tried finding one but only found 20gal or smaller, which isn't ideal to what I want right now. Glosharks are such fun to have, I'm sure he'll love it ? I'm thinking of making my own stand also now haha we've just got a 75 to start our pond babies in but stands are incredibly expensive and I don't want it setdown low since we have a troublesome cat

 

[Circus]

I wanted to show just how fast some of these plants are growing. I added Thrive caps, flourish tabs, and easy green liquid fertilizer.

Here is a pic from today. The plants have been in for just a few days!