Design and stocking of a 55g and 29g.

[sneasle]

Thanks! I've always been good at building with rocks. The is a stream near my house and when I was younger I'd go out and build dams at different points.. pissed the neighbors off when it would rain .

My mom's side of the family is from Germany and every 2 years they have family reunions. We try to make it every 4 to 6 years and the last one we made we had it up in the mountains. The cabins we were in didn't have fridges so we had to find places to store the drinks. Well, there was a little steam that ran right by it, but it wasn't deep enough so I took 2 hrs and built a dam that raised the water level in that steam by about 2ft. Needless to say the drinks were nice and cold!

Ya, my serpaes are fast as he11. It's almost scary. I think the CAE is faster when he wants to move.

Wait till I am done with these tanks. I plan on making TOTM and several POTM submissions once I am done.

The wood came from the lady I bought the tank from. Not sure what kind it is, but it is huge. Sadly, it hasn't water logged yet..


Any comments on heater and media choices?

[sneasle]

Umm.. it looks like my angels laid another batch of eggs.. and these look like they survived... I am seeing eggs with tails stuck to a leaf trying to swim away.............

oh boy....

so... what do I need to add to my DR F & S order to take care of them?

[COM]

I would order a breeder net to keep the fry in if you want them in that tank and some food designed for babies, like Hikari First Bites. I also feed my fry Cyclop-eeze, recommended by TheOldSalt. Good stuff.

It's always best to get two smaller heaters rather than one big one. That way, in case of failure, there won't be enough wattage to boil the tank. I only have one on each of my tanks but if I were to do a bigger tank (like a 55) I'd get two smaller ones.

I like the pictures of the tank. It looks to be shaping up nicely. Do you plan on keeping all the rocks on that one side?

[sneasle]

What kind of breeder net do you recommend? I don't find anything from Dr F & S that looks like a breeder net..

Thanks for the food input, I'll check it out and see if I can find it.

Ok, on the heater idea. That's kinda what I was thinking of originally.

I'm not sure on that yet. I'm going to mix in the laterite tonight in the 55g and do a bit of rearranging, so we will see what it looks like in a few hours.

[sneasle]

Updated stocking lists:

55g:
2 Angel Fish
8 Glo Lite Tetras (and the 1 neon)
6 Swordtails (2 male, 4 female)
6 Guppies
6 oto cat algae eaters
6 Hillstream Loaches.
4 BN plecos

29g:
7 Serpae tetras
5 Buenos Aires tetras
1 CAE
3-5 small cories
3 oto cat algae eaters
3 BN Pleco's

2 Black skirts: wherever they seem to prefer to be.

[COM]

http://www.bigalsonline.com/StoreCat...Type=0&offset=

That breeder net should do fine. I always buy from Big Al's because since they ship from 25 miles from my house I get my stuff tomorrow.

[sneasle]

Thanks COM. I ordered something from DR F& S. Lets see if I like it and we will go from there.

[sneasle]

Well, my angels have laid another batch of eggs... this is set number 3..


but.. I've had to separate the fishes because mr. male angel has been beating the crap out of mrs. female angel..

She is all alone in the tank with the CAE at the moment. I dosed it with stresscoat... I hope she will be ok.

[sneasle]

Ok.. it is now ~2:30 am saturday morning. I started redoing my tank about 7pm friday night, and I am just now finishing....


I am so tired....


Pics to follow when I wake up. I hope I still like the look in the morning :/

[justintrask]

I'm excitedd!!!!

[sneasle]

UPDATES!!!!!

55g pics:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v2...%209th%202008/


29g pics:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v2...%209th%202008/

[sneasle]

55g Pics

55g overview



big hunk o wood









rock pile

















Happy angel



PLECO!



RAVER! (we named the neon)



Pleco on wood!



Swordtail/platy



random fishies:

[sneasle]

29G pics


29g overview:





Caves:







Random pics

[RSidetrack]

I notice on a picture you have the top air intake on your filter shut (I have the same kind of filter) - should this be shut? I have mine half way open figuring it would filter two layers of water then, maybe I am wrong.

BTW Lovely Aquariums and great fish!

[sneasle]

I vary whether I keep them open, partially open, or closed. I find that those middle level ones tend to get more gunky then the bottom intakes. (Like when my surface plants flow into the filter output and get pushed under the surface right into that mid level input.)

I also vary how I have them open based on how I want the water in the tank to flow.

It doesn't need to be open as you can run these filters without the extension per the manuals, so I don't worry about damaging it if I need to keep it closed

[Blue Cray]

I really like the 55g sneasle its great but the blue gravel just doesnt work in it IMO but other than that it really looks great.

[Ghosty]

Nice tanks, I really like your set-ups.

[sneasle]

Originally Posted by Blue Cray

I really like the 55g sneasle its great but the blue gravel just doesnt work in it IMO but other than that it really looks great.

What! Blue Cray doesn't like blue sand?

What happened is I needed 60+ lbs of sand, and the place only had 40 or so of black.. so I had to get the blue to make up the difference. So by weight, there isn't a lot of blue in there, a 3to1 black to blue ratio total, but the blue stands out so much it's crazy.

I may change it one day, but it won't be in the near future.

[sneasle]

Originally Posted by Ghosty

Nice tanks, I really like your set-ups.

Thanks Ghosty