quinnARIUM
New Member
Hi all,
I recently joined this forum so I thought I would share with you my story and most recently completed project.
About 10 months ago my sister got a betta fish in a 4 gallon aquarium. This sparked the memory of my first ever fish tank. A ten gallon aquarium in which we had several generations of guppies and endler guppies, a ravenous dwarf gourami, and a lonely otocinculus. I know, I know, there were so many problems with it, but I was 8 and... Yeah... It was chaos.
But, despite the hectic nature of my aquarium, I spent hours pouring over aquarium books and articles imagining how much better if a tank I could create. But alas, eventually we got a leopard gecko and I moved on from aquariums.
That is, until my sister got a betta. Still deathly afraid of keeping aquatic plants, I helped her plan out a plastic plant jungle, and when it was completed, I know it had bought an obsession. Over the next few months I researched everything I could find about aquatic plants, water chemistry, fish care, and biological filtration. And I decided I wanted a discus community tank.
As I am sure you all know, discus need quite large aquaria, and it takes a fair bit of work to convince you household to let you put thousands of pounds of water in the home.
So, to prove my dedication to the hobby before campaigning for a 75g, I built a small, 5 gal cube aquarium. I loved rimless tanks but noticed their steep price tag, so I picked up some free window glass I found on ebay, grabbed some silicon, and got cutting.
It was much harder than I thought, and the aquarium is far from perfect, but... It worked! A rimless tank for less than $10 (USD). I set it in my room, got a cheap desk lamp, and got scaping.
The result was... Okay. At least for my first real scape. It was largely composed of various Anubias glued to a dragon rock mountain. I just used a fine gravel, so I primarily used epiphite species, but I thought I would try my luck with a tissue culture of bacopa carolinia (A few of them grew, but most are just surviving). I also put in some really nice looking manzanita branches we had had in the house for a while. But, when they were submersed they quickly became fungus-ridden and rotted.
Planting aside, I bought 4 Chili Rasboras a pea puffer. They get along very well, that is until I feed the puffer a bloodworm and all the rasboras try to get a piece ?.
Now the tank is doing well, as you can see I added some java fern windelov but am having a serious mulm outbreak. I put a couple of baby ramshorn snails in (expecting the puffer to eat them) but instead they grew up and have been helping the mulm issue.
Regardless, I will be rescaping it here soon and possibly moving the rasboras.
However it was enough to show my family the "wonders" of aquaria and convince them to get me a 75 gallon aquarium. I will try to add a link to it's tank journal once I start it.
Well, there you go. That's how I got into aquariums. I only have a total of 4 aquariums and only a year of experience, but I sort of dove in headfirst and spend hours each day researching and thinking about aquaria. So you'll probably be hearing more from me!
I recently joined this forum so I thought I would share with you my story and most recently completed project.
About 10 months ago my sister got a betta fish in a 4 gallon aquarium. This sparked the memory of my first ever fish tank. A ten gallon aquarium in which we had several generations of guppies and endler guppies, a ravenous dwarf gourami, and a lonely otocinculus. I know, I know, there were so many problems with it, but I was 8 and... Yeah... It was chaos.
But, despite the hectic nature of my aquarium, I spent hours pouring over aquarium books and articles imagining how much better if a tank I could create. But alas, eventually we got a leopard gecko and I moved on from aquariums.
That is, until my sister got a betta. Still deathly afraid of keeping aquatic plants, I helped her plan out a plastic plant jungle, and when it was completed, I know it had bought an obsession. Over the next few months I researched everything I could find about aquatic plants, water chemistry, fish care, and biological filtration. And I decided I wanted a discus community tank.
As I am sure you all know, discus need quite large aquaria, and it takes a fair bit of work to convince you household to let you put thousands of pounds of water in the home.
So, to prove my dedication to the hobby before campaigning for a 75g, I built a small, 5 gal cube aquarium. I loved rimless tanks but noticed their steep price tag, so I picked up some free window glass I found on ebay, grabbed some silicon, and got cutting.
It was much harder than I thought, and the aquarium is far from perfect, but... It worked! A rimless tank for less than $10 (USD). I set it in my room, got a cheap desk lamp, and got scaping.
The result was... Okay. At least for my first real scape. It was largely composed of various Anubias glued to a dragon rock mountain. I just used a fine gravel, so I primarily used epiphite species, but I thought I would try my luck with a tissue culture of bacopa carolinia (A few of them grew, but most are just surviving). I also put in some really nice looking manzanita branches we had had in the house for a while. But, when they were submersed they quickly became fungus-ridden and rotted.
Planting aside, I bought 4 Chili Rasboras a pea puffer. They get along very well, that is until I feed the puffer a bloodworm and all the rasboras try to get a piece ?.
Now the tank is doing well, as you can see I added some java fern windelov but am having a serious mulm outbreak. I put a couple of baby ramshorn snails in (expecting the puffer to eat them) but instead they grew up and have been helping the mulm issue.
Regardless, I will be rescaping it here soon and possibly moving the rasboras.
However it was enough to show my family the "wonders" of aquaria and convince them to get me a 75 gallon aquarium. I will try to add a link to it's tank journal once I start it.
Well, there you go. That's how I got into aquariums. I only have a total of 4 aquariums and only a year of experience, but I sort of dove in headfirst and spend hours each day researching and thinking about aquaria. So you'll probably be hearing more from me!
