Please can I see photos of your tanks

[shiftingsands]

Hi, I am getting a tank very soon and have loads of questions:

As I cant start my tank off just yet I am trying to work out what to buy besides fish. Its gonna be expensive setting up the tank so I want to buy a few things every week, then when I've actually got the tank I will have most of the gear already.

1)If you have pics of your tanks please would you post them ( or links to already posted photos/threads please) so I can get some ideas of how I want my tank to look. If the fish are very colourful ones, what sort of background of rocks/plants/gravel etc looks best - should it be plainish to make them stand out?

2)Should a beginner start with artificial plants or are real plants fairly easy?If I start with artificial is it easy to add real ones later?

3)Also can I use stones/rocks from my local area? If I can how do I clean them so they are safe? We have natural slate too - can you use that?

4)There are so many types of sand and gravel and glass beads - how do I choose?

5) I like the idea of white sand with some colourful pebbles-is white sand hard to keep looking clean and nice? What quantities would I need to buy for a 3foot tank?

I'm gonna cycle the tank with Zebra Danios, and then add tetras and guppies and then add a few slightly larger more exciting fish later on that will all live happily togther. What habitat do they like and what would look nice.

I also really like the idea of having a little crab and some shrimps - is this a good idea? All advice very welcome , thanks in advance

 

[houndour]

for pictures you're better off looking yourself in here: http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showforum=22 There are loads of peoples tanks.

Design is down to personal preference.

IMO natural planted tanks looks the best. A shoal of cardinal tetras look fantastic against a planted background.

You could start with some easy real plants, java fern (attached to a bit of bogwood), java moss (also attaches itself to wood/rock) or anubias. These don't require a lot of light.

Slates fine I think. I think theres a sticky in one of the forums about which rocks to use and not to use. Some stones/rocks dissolve slowly in water so can alter the water parameters.

Substrate...again personal preference. I prefer either natural looking sand or black gravel.

I have sand and in my opinion it is hard to keep clean. Especially with real plants. And the fishes poop all over it. *sigh*

Shrimps are cool. People say they dont produce much waste (mine seem to poop all the time). Just remember to include them in your stocking plan.

 

[boxman]

1)If you have pics of your tanks please would you post them ( or links to already posted photos/threads please) so I can get some ideas of how I want my tank to look. If the fish are very colourful ones, what sort of background of rocks/plants/gravel etc looks best - should it be plainish to make them stand out?

Take a look in the gallery, lots to look at there! I like jimboos tank, excellent example of plant use!

2)Should a beginner start with artificial plants or are real plants fairly easy?If I start with artificial is it easy to add real ones later?

Artificial plants.... what's that? If you've got good strong lighting then you'll be fine with live!

3)Also can I use stones/rocks from my local area? If I can how do I clean them so they are safe? We have natural slate too - can you use that?

Natural slate should be fine - there are serveral threads and I think pinned topics on this.

4)There are so many types of sand and gravel and glass beads - how do I choose?

BE CAREFUL!!!!! If you're wanting to setup a tropical tank and not an african cichlid / brackish / marine then you'll want to use inert sand. I used silica sand which is pure white - you can use play sand but it HAS to be inert otherwise you'll be putting sand in your tank which wouldn't do regular tropical fish much good!

5) I like the idea of white sand with some colourful pebbles-is white sand hard to keep looking clean and nice? What quantities would I need to buy for a 3foot tank?

White sand is darn hard to keep looking nice, infact, the only time it will look really nice is when you don't have fish in there or you've just vaccumed it.

I bought 2 bags of silica sand for my 14gal and 2gal - the bags were 5kg I think - so I would imagine you'd need 4-5 x 5kg bags.

If you do add sand (which does look amazing and with a moontube it looks stunning) get a pair of old tights, cut them in 1/2 (down the crotch) so you've got two separate legs, then fill up with sand to about 1/3 of the way in the tight, tie it so you can undo it (as you will need to re-use it) and rince it under hot water, or soak and give it a bit of a shake (some will come out, don't worry, it goes a long way).

You'll want about 1.5-2.5" of substrate if you're going to grow live plants - they do well as the light reflects off the sand as well as coming from above.

I've rambled, hope that helps a bit.

 

[shiftingsands]

Thanks so much for your replies.
Boxman: Thanks for the info. When you put the sand in the tights -is this to clean it before you put it in the tank?
I'll go for real plants then!!

Houndour: Yeah I'm planning on getting some cardinals and other teras, I think they are stunning. Its great that shrimps will be ok, I'm looking forward to those as much as the fish Thanks for all the info about the sand and other stuff,

I'm blown away by the beautiful pics of tanks - its quite daunting to try and live up to those.

Thanks guys

 

[jimbooo]

daunting, but still just a simple process. once you know what your doing (3/4 months of trial & error/web research) it all kind of comes together.

best of luck with the tank and feel free to ask any questions you like in the planted section. we've got a good bunch of knowledgeable (sorry cant spell) people over here.

Jimbooo

PS: read my sig!!!!

 

[shiftingsands]

Thanks for the encouragement.

 

[OohFeeshy]

I'd not go for the crab, they eat fish if they can catch them, some are brackish and most need part land to get onto. What larger fish were you thinking? I'd probably go for gouramis or dwarf cichlids, but obvioulsy this depends what else is going in and in what number.

 

[shiftingsands]

30-35 galls
Gonna start with 4 or so zebra danios, then add cardinal neons and guppies, about 6 each.
With the ones above I prob wont have many "fish inches left" but would like some of these: Banded Rainbow, Pearl/Honey Gourami,Black Molly, Rosy Barb, Red Line Torpedo Barb. Would any/all of these mix well with tetras and guppies?

Frog: I was thinking of a dwarf african frog? Any good? After reading a few froggy posts it sounded like fun to have a clown in the tank. If you think a daf would be ok, can I mix him with shrimps? I like the idea of a multi species tank.
Sorry if my newbie questions are idiotic - I am not meaning to wind anyone up/troll.
Thanks for all the advice

 

[Allix]

25 gal -

5 gal (fry/hospital tank)

 

[Allix]

My 25 gal has about 4 more plants in there to provide abit more cover for the fish, the platies like to play in the plants as well

 

[Erised]

30-35 galls
Gonna start with 4 or so zebra danios, then add cardinal neons and guppies, about 6 each.

If you're gonna start with danios, can I recommend you get at least 6 of them? They're very active fish, and 'playful' (some say aggressive). They chase eachother and nip eachother all day long, and if the shoal isn't large enough (thats why a min. of 6) they'll start harassing and nipping your other fish. Guppies with long flowing tails are perfect for that ... they'll love it, but I don't think you or the guppies will. I'm not sure if I'd try guppies in with danios at all for that reason actually. But usually when in a shoal of 6+ they ignore the other fish and just mess around with other danios

6 danios = 12 inches
6 guppies = 9 inches
6 cardinals = 12 inches
---------------------------
33 inches.

So yeah, you're right, you're pretty much on your stocking limits already then. If you can push it to a 40G though, you could probably add a gourami (I don't know anything about them, and don't know if they can go with your other fish).

I wouldn't add any mollies (they're semi-brackish water, which your other fish wont appreciate), nor Red Line Torpedo Barbs, they get slightly too big for that tank and need to be kept in adequate shoal size. (They could probably live in a 35G, when nothing else in it).