My Epic Breeding Setup Build

[VickiandKev]

Thanks for sharing this experience - fun to watch! So these DIY tanks are strictly for breeding pleco and bristlenose? Do you have any clue how much money you just saved by building these with plywood?

They are strictly for breeding plecos and bristlenose - although could be used for almost any fish to be honest - the dimensions of our tanks are designed to maximise the floor space for the fish though. We may also be housing a few other dithers in some of the tanks but most plecos don't need dithers and in fact, don't like them, so we may not.
Well, as an idea, the raw materials (wood, pondliner, silicone sealant, nails/screws/bolts, glass) cost us £450 for 2 of 2ftx2ftx1ft tanks, 3 of 3ftx2ftx1ft tanks, 3 of 6ftx2ftx2ft tanks and 3 of 3 tier stands, one to hold the 2ft tanks, one to hold the 3ft tanks and one to hold the 6ft tanks. Purchased in glass brand new each 3ft would have been £103 from Poseidons (just about the cheapest aquarium manufacturer) and each 6ft would have been £160 - plus another cost on top for delivery from Yorkshire to London, and I wouldn't even know how much for these stands to have been made for us.
I would imagine we have saved over £400 all told.

The best bit for me is electricity-wise. The combination of plywood, pondliner and thick polystyrene for the backgrounds means that these tanks virtually lose nothing in the way of heat from the sides - hence lower electricity bills that we'll notice more in winter I would have thought.
They're also good because they are so light to move around as well - I know it's not often tanks will be moved but this will not be our final place and I don't want to run the risk of these being dropped and broken when we do move.

For anyone that is interested - the old setup is now up for sale in the classified section

Also, I will get some more pics as we have made more progress ... just as soon as I get a new lead for the camera - my puppy currently has a thing for electrical cables

 

[JenCliBee]

Did you opt in the end for all tanks been 12 inches high?. Gonna restrict you for alot of the larger plecs species.

They yes tend to stay hidden in day/light but do like to explore all places when lights out. Me personally just don't consider 12 inches high big enough.

The setup in general is superb, not sure i would be keen on 6 foot tanks built that way lol but i guess each to there own.

Good luck breeding the 128's and 200, 128's (200's are not bred very often either) are very difficult with on a couple of actual successful spawning (one only i know of been properly documented), i have the plan to try and breed 128's in a 400 litre tank, time will tell just how difficult they really are.

Anyways love the idea and good luck with ya future plans

 

[VickiandKev]

We spoke with Marina Parha (currently keeps and breeds more species of pleco than I could name - and is involved in lots of research to do with catfish too - you probably know the name?) about the dimensions of the tanks before finalising. She has kept plecos for more than 10 years I think, and all different species. For the species we are interested in - L128s, L200s, L114 - she assured us that 12inches is plenty of depth for these guys and if we pack the tanks with bogwood, we will probably find that these plecos will never go on the sides anyway.

From observing my 8/9 inch L128s in their current 2ft high accommodation, they never go above their length in depth - and only ever go on the sides if they are hungry or if there isn't enough in the way of bogwood/resting places for them, so I agree with Marina on this one.

6ft tanks reflect that we know these guys like to come out and explore when all is quiet - they will have plenty of space!

If we ever decide to keep plecos that grow over 12 inches in length, we would build some new tanks with the right height

We are hoping and hoping with our phantoms - Marina raised these guys and they are beautiful fish who have always had the best of everything. We feed Blueline as they love it, and it's a really good quality food as well.
Hopefully, good food, good living and a bit of peace and quiet should be enough - but we don't expect anything exciting to happen for a few years after they've moved into their new tanks and settled well. The waiting is half of what makes it so fabulous when it finally happens!

I know a lot of people who are trying to get their phantoms spawning but we'll see ...

 

[JenCliBee]

We spoke with Marina Parha (currently keeps and breeds more species of pleco than I could name - and is involved in lots of research to do with catfish too - you probably know the name?) about the dimensions of the tanks before finalising. She has kept plecos for more than 10 years I think, and all different species. For the species we are interested in - L128s, L200s, L114 - she assured us that 12inches is plenty of depth for these guys and if we pack the tanks with bogwood, we will probably find that these plecos will never go on the sides anyway.

From observing my 8/9 inch L128s in their current 2ft high accommodation, they never go above their length in depth - and only ever go on the sides if they are hungry or if there isn't enough in the way of bogwood/resting places for them, so I agree with Marina on this one.

6ft tanks reflect that we know these guys like to come out and explore when all is quiet - they will have plenty of space!

If we ever decide to keep plecos that grow over 12 inches in length, we would build some new tanks with the right height

We are hoping and hoping with our phantoms - Marina raised these guys and they are beautiful fish who have always had the best of everything. We feed Blueline as they love it, and it's a really good quality food as well.
Hopefully, good food, good living and a bit of peace and quiet should be enough - but we don't expect anything exciting to happen for a few years after they've moved into their new tanks and settled well. The waiting is half of what makes it so fabulous when it finally happens!

I know a lot of people who are trying to get their phantoms spawning but we'll see ...

Name rings a bell, runs a site or involved in one called MCH portal?.


Even with a recommendation i still think anything over a potential 8 inches will push a 12 inch high tank, 114 for instance is a potential 13-14 inch fish.

The natural behavior of plecs isn't just to stay at the bottom, the roam and free swim into open space, sides of the tank wasn't really what i ment it was purely height in relation to open space and swimming area, 6 foot, 12 inch would be fine for 8 inch plecs but when you have agile 12-14 inch plecs then i wouldn't consider 12 inches high to be anywhere near enough.

Home aquarium and natural behaviour is seen in pitch black conditions, try infrared/ night vision you will see the plecs in a whole new light (so to speak lol). or... try and get some natural behaviour in the wild vids, not many good ones about but worth a look.


Marina has raised 128's?, wasn't aware she had, have you got any documentation for this and 200's, be a really interesting read.

Anyways my view's are my view's, each will have different ones and the tanks look superb. I'm sure whatever you keep will be very happy and extremely well looked after.

 

[VickiandKev]

Yep, Marina runs MCH Portal

Thank you for your input - if we definitely are going to get L114s then we will make the tank 18inches in height It shouldn't be too much trouble to do that, as the 6fts are yet to be made

Sorry, I think I phrased that wrongly - she hasn't bred L128s or 200s - only bought them as littluns years ago and grown them to this size is what I meant.

I'm glad you put your thoughts on here though Obviously a lot of thought has gone into planning this setup and these tanks and any advice and suggestions at all are appreciated.

We are currently revising the way we are making our backgrounds as I really don't think the poly ones we made for the 3fts will stand up to the big guys!

 

[VickiandKev]

Sorry for the long overdue-ness of this update!

2ft tanks are now up and occupied (and my calico BNs are thinkng about having littluns ) ... my partner bought his colony of zebs he's been so excited about - 8 wild caught including some L173 and some heavily striped individuals too - 3 of those have taken up caves and one of them has a little harem of girlies sat around.

The 6fts were up at the start of last week - one is not yet watertight around the glass (we rushed the construction and the plywood isn't matching up to the glass right now - but hopefully will be watertight once this last lot of sealant cures). Two 6fts are holding water, with my new clown loaches in one, and we're just finishing the filters and backgrounds for these tanks. They should be stocked with their final stocking in the next few days with the help of some mature media.

The wood for the stand for the 8ft living room tank is being collected today and hopefully that stand will be up within the day. This is going to hold an 8ft x 4ft x 18inch tank for our living room - which will be stocked with clown loaches primarily. Underneath this, built into the same stand, will be a 6ft x 2ft x 1ft grow-out for our young plecos.

We've also installed lighting on all occupied tanks since we last updated - we've used DIY lighting kits and used 24W for the small tanks and 54W for the 6footers.
In the living room we plan to use 2 x80W for the 8ft placed parallel diagonally, and 2 x 39W in the same configuration for the grow-out underneath.

We've worked out that this setup is going to be using approx 230kWh per month once finished so we're looking into a small turbine for the roof to make us around 200kWh per month!

It's all slowly coming together and to top off the excitement, we (by fluke) found a perfect matched boy for our enormous albino girl, and after courting for a few weeks, Mr albino is fanning eggs so I'm very excited about that.

I also found (by fluke again) some green dragon bristlenose in a pet shop in the Midlands on one of my visits home. I just knew they were unpatterned bristlies when I bought them, but it seems that these are currently only found in the States and can be selectively bred to make some rather nice green-coloured BNs. Hoping that my 2 are male/female!! Time will tell on those!

We also hope to have some of our first common breeding pairs for sale soon - not proven but BIG sub-adults with the potential to breed within weeks or months - which is super exciting, as we've raised these from tiny tadpoles and they're now beautiful chunky fish!

So it's all very exciting - I will update with pics soon.

 

[coldcazzie]

Oh I'm so glad there's an update, I've been checking constantly! Cant wait to see piccies!

 

[VickiandKev]

I should have time to do piccies later. Just got back with the timber and finished cutting - so having a tea break

The ply for the 8ft and 6ft underneath arrived a day early too so we now have that. The 1 inch thick WBP ply is just epic - so heavy as well. We had to carry it sheet by sheet all around the back of the house and in through the back gate. I thought I was dying - the things we do for our fish

So now we have to get this stand up .... wish us luck lol!

 

[coldcazzie]

When you say it's 8x4 is that footprint? And then 18 inches high? Or am I misunderstanding?

 

[VickiandKev]

When you say it's 8x4 is that footprint? And then 18 inches high? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yep, it's an 8 x 4 footprint .... here's a pic of the frame which will hold it - and in front of it is the lid to the current 6 x 18inch tank! The fish won't know what to do with the space!

And a few pics of the kitchen as it looked a few days ago ...

Will take more pics over the next few days as things progress. I'm too excited about this 8ft though!!

 

[DiscusKeeper403]

Cool thread! Sorry if I missed it (lots of reading in this thread) but where those tanks cheaper to make then buying glass/acrylic ones from the store? Seems like a pretty cool tank building idea!!

 

[VickiandKev]

Yes they have worked out at around a third of the price of glass and probably more like a quarter or less of acrylic

They also cost less to heat as they sport backgrounds which are made of polystyrene which helps the tanks retain heat - so they save on bills every month too!

 

[coldcazzie]

When you say it's 8x4 is that footprint? And then 18 inches high? Or am I misunderstanding?

Yep, it's an 8 x 4 footprint .... here's a pic of the frame which will hold it - and in front of it is the lid to the current 6 x 18inch tank! The fish won't know what to do with the space!

WOW I am so very very jealous! That's going to be amazing once it's done!

 

[JoshuaA]

So the question is, how much water conditioner have you gone through?

Also are you on a meter for your water?

 

[VickiandKev]

So the question is, how much water conditioner have you gone through?

Also are you on a meter for your water?

Well, we have gone through 1.5L of pond dechlorinator and no, we're not on a meter thank God!


We couldn't really do this if we were on a meter I don't think. Weekly water changes alone use more than 600L, that's not including water testing ...