My Home Project

[Chaydell]

Hello all, if  you have decided to read and follow my blog you are incredibly brave.  It will tell the tale of an inexperienced (I'd like to say young but my children no longer let me) fish keeper who is preparing to build and stock a custom tank.  Along the way I am hoping to receive advice and learn the ways of the fish masters, or at least decrease my ignorance in the field.  I actually started this journey 6 months ago ad never even though to journal it.  I must say that this journal is being written for purely selfish purposes, mainly I want to keep track of my journey for me.  With that being said I could never hide the experience from anyone else who may want to peek on what happens when someone with zero experience decides to shoot for the moon and create a purely custom tank and ecosystem.  One last warning.  This blog is bound to be filled with boring diatribes, countless failures, moments of ignorance and bliss and the occasional drunken rumbling.  I cannot promise that it will be educational, humorous or even entertaining.  However I do hope that someone other me considers it worthy of looking at.  With that being said I must catch you all up on how I got into the fish keeping hobby.
 
My journey in fish keeping started in a little known restaurant parking lot.  My 3 year old daughter found of all things a baby red eared slider turtle.  Long story short my better third (I am substantially larger than her) made the mistake of saying we could keep it as a pet.  Further research revealed that keeping a turtle would require much more equipment than we were ready to purchase.  Later that weekend I explained my desire to my fish loving neighbor.  He told me that he had a 55g aquarium setup complete with fish that he could sell me for $100.  And that is when my adventure began.

 

[Chaydell]

So if you are still reading this I must have done well so far.  Needless to say I took my neighbors offer.  I acquired a 55g aquarium with an Aqua-Tech 30-60 and Marineland Penguin 350B filtrations system, heater and lights.  The aquarium even included fish.  A pearl gourami, common pleco and rainbow shark.  All approximately 5 years old.  Of course as a new aquarium owner I wanted to put my personal stamp on the system via purchasing new fish.  After researching for approximately 5 minute I was determined to add a school of neon tetras to my tank.  I bought 10 and added them to the mix.  A short 6 days after acquiring the tank (3 days after buying the tetras), my wife (the better 1/3) and I decided we didn't like it's location.  So I removed the fish and water and we moved it.  I am sad to say that 30% of my newly acquired neons did not survive this transition.  I was still undeterred from my mission.  This was going to be the best turtle tank with fish and live plants the world had ever seen. 
 
So once the tank was moved I made the most common mistake.  I proceeded to stock my tank to too high of a level too fast.  I also added species that I new would not do well in my tank but allowed my LFS to talk me into buying.  I started by replacing the neons I lost.  Then I added 8 gold dust mollies.  This should not have been a problem but I failed to consider the Gourami's territorial claim.  Being that it was int he tank for 5 years with nothing but bottom dwellers he did not enjoy the initial addition of new comers.  After 5 gold dust mollies were nipped to death I learned to rearrange my tank and turn the lights off before adding new fish.  I rounded my gold dust mollies out to 5, with 2 males and 3 females before moving on to the next species of fish.
 
The next things I added were 10 glow light tetras followed by a combination f zebra and pearl danios (7:3 ratio).  I let my LFS convince that the danios would school together and that the pearls would not miss their own kind.  I added 3 bronze cory cats to help me keep the substrate clean and 3 flying foxes to help keep the algae at bay.  At this point in project things were going well.  The rainbow shark barely poked his head out unless the lights were and the little fish were accepted by the big pearl.  I thought I was the king of fish keeping as I was able to add so many fish the aquarium so quickly with what I thought was so little effort. 

 

[Chaydell]

Still reading? 
 
So my next move was t lay off of adding fish and to start adding plants and invertebrates.  So I bought a clump of anacharis and a java fern as well as 20 ghost shrimp, an apple snail and a zebra nerite snail.  I managed to keep the plants alive (I am sure this is more to their credit than mine) and they are still alive to this day.  Unfortunately I somehow managed to kill both snails in less than 3 weeks.  The shrimp I am sad to say were destroyed by the fish.  This is something that I knew was possible but thought would never happen to me, after all I was a "great fish keeper,"
 
After killing my invertebrates I grew bored with them and decided to attempt to take the easy way out of killing the ramshorn snails that had began to build up in my tank.  Hind sight being what it is I know the snail onslaught was brought on by my overfeeding but I refused to admit that.  I immediately bought a clown loach on the LFS' insistence that they really didn't need a large tank or decent sized school.  I must say at this point that despite the LFS' advice I knew deep down when I was making bad decisions, but I wanted to find the "easy" way of the same bad decisions.  I am in no way blaming the LFS as I had armed myself with more than enough knowledge from this forum as well as others.  I simply let myself be persuaded that one guy who said what I wanted to hear knew more than every post I read to the contrary.
 
So after the clown loach was added things still moved along quite peacefully.  I added more java ferns and anacharis and an anubias and cryptocoryne.  Driftwood and a castle and man made cave from neat looking rocks was fashioned.  I was just above stocking level as long as the clown loach and pleco didn't grow too fast.  I should have held my ground and stayed happy, but I decided to push the enevelope.

 

[Chaydell]

I think the breaking point was when I accepted 3 goldfish that my other neighbor (not the one who sold me the tank) caught from her pond.  I knew that goldfish typically need cooled temps than the fish I had and accepted them anyway.  I also knew that I was close to my filtration and stocking limits (if not over) and still made the decision to put the pond fish into my tank.  If that wasn't to win bonehead of the year I decided that my clown loach needed a school after all and added 2 more.  I also rounded my school of zebra danios to 10.  So now I was severely over stocked and under filtrated.  I was in a bad way and the fish were about to let me know about it. 
 
The first sign was the disappearance of the oldest clown loach.  He simply vanished without a trace.  A goldfish followed, then a bronze cory cat and then I began to have danios dying off of various random causes.  Some had swollen bellies which I chalked up to dropsy and some were obviously ravaged by other fish.  I came to the startling conclusion (at least to me.  I am sure my better 1/3 knew this for quite some time and had tried to tell me) that I was not an excellent fish keeper.  I took a good look at my tank and decided to make some changes quick, fast and in a hurry.  I knew I had to reduce my population further and I also knew I needed sturdier fish.
 
Before I could enact my new plan I lost 2 more neons, both of the remaining clown loaches and the pearl gourami.  At this point I collected the pleco (which I now could admit would get too large for the tank), the gold dust mollies, the remaining goldfish, the remaining danios and the rainbow shark.  I took these to my LFS and traded them in for 7 white cloud mountain minnows, a juvenile rainbow shark and 7 tiger barbs.

 

[Chaydell]

Upon adding the new fish I began to lose white clouds daily.  After 5 days I scooped the last two white clouds, along with my now ragged looking glow light tetras and brought them to the LFS.  I traded them for a pair of bolivian rams, 2 bronze cories and a water testing kit.  Upon my return to home I found that although my ammonia and nitrite levels were both 0 ppm, my nitrates were at 80 ppm ( this was 2 days after a 50% water change).  I immediately performed another 50% water change and completely vacuumed the entire substrate.  I allowed the new fish to acclimate to and added them to the tank.  An hour after I emptied the bag I decided to count my fish to be sure nothing had happened to the new guys.  I had determined that I was missing a bronze cory and try as I might I could not locate him.  Knowing I had just bought a pair I reluctantly decided to check the bag I brought home from my LFS.  When I saw the cory cat still in the bag I knew he was dead, but I couldn't help myself from adding him straight to the tank anyway.  To my surprise as soon as he hit the water he shot to the bottom and has remained active ever sense.  I suddenly remembered that cory's will shoot up to the surface to grab air.  I now understood how lucky I had been in all of my fish choices thus far, as well as how lucky I was that so many fish had survived my ill gotten attempts to "create" an underwater ecosystem.
 
A short 2 days later I noticed that my remaining neons had become the target of harassment from the tiger barbs.  I knew this was coming but held on to the naivety that my neons may somehow survive with my barbs.  A friendly poster on this board gently nudged me to see that this was impossible.  Shortly after that conversation I brought the neons and 2 of the 3 flying foxes to my LFS for another trade.  I must mention now that the flying foxes had quit grown up and become very territorial.  They had no problems attacking each other and everything else in the tank.  They had managed to kill the juvenile rainbow and were terrorizing the barbs (I know this is hard to imagine but it is true).  I bought 7 albino tiger barbs this time. 
 
So this brings everyone up to speed on my less than incredible journey in fish keeping.  Although I am sure that many people have made the same mistakes I have made so far, I doubt seriously that anyone has made as many or the combination of mistakes I have made.  I plan on chronicling my experience of stocking and planting the 55 gallon aquarium from this point forward.  I know this will seem boring to many of you.  More importantly I will keep track of how I build and stick and plant a roughly 300 gallon aquarium of my design.  Be mindful that this whole process will likely take longer than a year.  Updates are likely to be boring at worst but full of dumb mistakes at best.  I will pose questions to anyone who dares follow this journal as well as do my own research.  The big difference is I will follow what I know is right this time.  I have an idea of where I want to go with tis creation, but I now know that the idea is likely to change in the journey.  What I do know is that I will a 270-300 gallon aquarium (this depends on where I am living at the time I build the aquarium), it will be filled with low light, low tech plants and will be built around a school of 28-35 tiger barbs.  I know that this is an odd fish to build an aquarium around but I love the tenacity they pack for such little guys (although I hate how they pick on weaker fish).  I hope that thus far in the journal I have not bored you to death and that even though things will happen very slowly you will check in every now and again to see if/how things have progressed.  I will say right now that I am open to criticism of my choices going forward but that I will also research them very heavily and follow what the majority of people say.  I know that this is hardly science but I cannot bear to try and impose my will on my finned community any more.  I will also refuse to go high tech on my plants.  I know that doing so would open doors to more beautiful plants but I honestly do not have the funds or desire to go that route.  So what is my end game?

 

[Chaydell]

As I stated earlier I plan on building my own custom freshwater tank.  The dimensions will range from 8ft long x 3 ft deep x 3 ft tall to 6 ft long by 2 ft deep by 2.5 ft tall.  This will of course depend on where I am living at the time I build my tank.  I plan on having enough filtration to have enough gph to completely turn over my tank volume 12-15 times per hour.  I will use a combination of canister filters and sponge filters to meet this goal.  I intend to have the tank heavily planted with low light plants and will attempt to have no fish casualties while stocking up to that size.  With that said my current tank is a 55 gallon and so I must focus on that.  I currently have 7 tiger barbs, 7 albino tiger barbs, 1 flying fox, 4 bronze cory cats, 2 Bolivian rams and 1 flying fox.  My next fish purchase will be a small school of otocinclus catfish or a plecostamus that fits well in my current stock.  I do not wish to dwell upon what I might fill the big aquarium with until after it is built.  So as of now please limit any suggestions you have to what fits in my current setup.  Also, be warned that the end game is to transfer any fish I will have in the 55 gallon to the big tank once it is complete.  So keep that in mind when thinking of stocking recommendations for the large tank.  So, if you have made it this far through my rambling and embarrassing fish keeping history, I hope that you have the patience to see the project all the way to the end of building and stocking the "big" tank.  I am hoping to have constructive criticism and peer input along the way.  I feel like if I lay everything out for others to see I will be less inclined to make the same mistakes of letting myself be persuaded to believe the answers I want to hear opposed to what I know to be true from my own research.  I want to say thank you for those who have read this far, thank you for those who will read until the end, and the biggest thank you for those who will help guide me to a successful end.  I am more than sure this will be stressful for all of us as we debate decisions that will be made, but I hope that it is a fun and enjoyable experience for anyone involved.

 

[Xzavier247]

All this writing and no pictures?

 

[Chaydell]

So from today my next fish addition will be in approximately 4-6 weeks.  I am interested in acquiring a fish that will help keep the aquarium glad clean as I am sometimes gone for weeks at a time and cannot ask my wife to tend to my hobby more than feeding and topping the water off.  I am thinking a school of 4-6 oto's but may get a smaller variety of pleco if the tiger barbs would nip the oto's to death.  Any input is welcome.  Again, I just want to mention that this blog is going to be very slow to develop.  My next post will be to put up pics of the tank as it is, but it will take at least a year until I am ready to build the "big" one.

@xzavier I know right?  I actually didn't know I would be doing this until everything I have written about had happened.  I will include pics from now on.  My wife is wanting to make photography her hobby so I plan on employing here to take pictures of the project as it goes.  I won't promise anything about quality as neither she nor I have ever done this before, but I will promise that the pictures are forthcoming.  I must also say thanks for reading all of that.  It was a chore to write, but I imagine it was even worse to read.  Even if you read no further than this comment, thank you.

 

[Xzavier247]

I love reading on my spare time 

. But I do have to say we have the same plans. When my wife and I buy our house we plan on getting a 200+ gal for it.
Also planning a 300+ for my business. 
My wife won't ever touch the tank lol. She will only watch it with our daughter.

 

[Chaydell]

Well my wife will feed while I am away and I assume if I were gone for long enough she would do a water change.  Hopefully the kids will let her take some pictures for me.  As of now my tank isn't super impressive but it is special to me.  And of course my kids love it, even my 11 month old likes to sit in front of it and watch the fish go.

 

[Xzavier247]

My daughter is 19 months. So when she looks at the tank all she does is point and say OOOOOOHHHHHHHHH.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Wow! Thats some tank stocking choices you have made in the past there 

 
Lessons learned and research is the policy of the day. 

 
I'll be following this as it does sound intriguing and would like to know how things turns out.
 
Will wish you guys the very best of luck an hope things goes smoothly. 

 

[Ninjouzata]

I did read through everything, but can't quite remember if you still have the turtle or not. Do you?
 
Everyone makes mistakes, and am glad to see that you can admit that and are trying to do what is best for you & your fish.
 
Using the calculator at the top, seems you plan on either 224g, or 539g.
 
Quite big, I can't wait to see whatever you end up doing! Will also be following this. Good luck!

 

[Chaydell]

As promised guys here are some pics of the general setup.  I tried to get some shots of the individual fish but the combination of low tech camera and shoddy photography skills just yielded blurred images.  It didn't help that the fish wouldn't stop moving.  My wife has promised to get some close ups in the near future, but I can't  make any promises on when that will be.  This will be my last post for a while.  I won't be making any additions to the tank until after the new year is kicked off. 
 
 
 

@ Ninjo  We do not still have the turtle.  As it turns out, turtles require specialized lights and sunning structures that my tank wouldn't have supported.  I am happy to say we released him into a little stream near our house.  As far as the volume of the tank, it will be quite large.  I can't say exactly which dimensions I will be using as there is a potential career move for me in the near future that will likely require a move to a new city.  The dimensions I listed earlier are more of a range than a set of options.  I just have a spot in my house that can support a tank at the large end and don't want to build anything less than the smaller end.  It looks to me that once you drop below 200g you may as well just buy a tank because it isn't really cost effective to build.  Obviously I don't know what kind of space I would have there so the really large tank may be out of the question.  Another factor is what my wife will allow me to have

.  When the time comes to purchase materials she may realize just how big of a tank the larger dimensions will create and ask me to scale it down. 

 

[Ninjouzata]

I hope he does well in the stream! I don't know anything about turtles, except that they shouldn't be mixed with fish, so that is why I was wondering 

 
OoOo that sounds exciting! I hope you get it. Whatever tank size you end up with, I'm sure it'll be lovely.
 
Your barbs are super adorable! I really want a barb tank one day. Looking forward to the next time you update