Help me "build" a tank

In My Humble Opinion
1

Fish tank that is. :slight_smile:

The boys (6.5 & 4.5) have both asked Santa for a fish. Santa however hasn’t had an aquarium since he was about the same age and would like his kids to have a much better experience than he did. In short the damn fish better last more than a month and I’m not interested in growing algae for fun and profit. :slight_smile:

So how do I do this so the whole family enjoys a beautiful aquarium with small colourful fish and nice looking plants? I don’t mind some expense since I’m at least a little interested trying my hand at it but these are kids and the excitement of fish might wear off faster than say the excitement generated by a LEGO Batcave :smiley:

2

Well, you need the algae to keep the fish alive.
Do you want it to be a surprise? Because you’d be better off if you filled the tank with water now and started “cycling” the tank. And get some algae scrapings from someone who has a healthy tank running. If you don’t know anyone, you should be able to get it from the fish store.
Here’sa really good message board to get you started.

3

Well, I don’t know about collecting algae scrapings, and I doubt you’ll have any problem growing algae of your own soon enough. But you will need to cycle your tank before just filling it with fish. My understanding is that bacteria is more important than algae, and you would be better served by borrowing a used filter pad or substrate from someone, but I’m no expert.

You’ll need to fill the tank for a couple of days before you add a couple of hardy fish (such as some tetras, danios, or platies) for the tank to cycle. Will probably take a week. There are ather methods of fishless cycling if you want to go that route.

I second the suggestion that you check out on-line forums dedicated to fish. I hang here, but I’m more interested in the plants than the fish. Adding plenty of plants early will generally speed up the cycling process - but you will need more light. But don’t walk into a LFS or big box and expect the clerk to be able to answer all your questions.

Plan on what you want out of your tank, so you buy the correct gear first and don’t need to upgrade right away. Think about the size - a 20 or 30 may not be much more expensive or more maintenance than a 10, but you can do so much more with them. Be sure you have a solid stand - a filled 10 will weigh around 500#. And plan on putting it somewhere that water changes and maintenance won’t be a PITA.

If you let your kids pick it out, you are likely to end up with clown-puke gravel and a bubbling treasure chest - which is fine if that is what you want, but may not be what you want in your living room. Also, decide if you want to have small schools of certain fish, or 1 each of a whole bunch of different kinds. And those painted fish are cruel - they just inject them with dye.

If you are just doing fish, a bio-wheel HOB filter and standard strip light will be fine, but if you want plants or certain kinds of fish, you may want different equipment.

The best place to get healthy fish is through local clubs/swap meets, if there are any in your area. If it is just for pretty fish for the kids, go with fish that are cheap and colorful. Platies and swordtails are a good choice, with the added benefit that they are livebearers and prolific breeders. Danios and some of the tetras are incredibly hardy. Add in a dwarf pleco and a couple of cories and you’ll have a nice little community tank.

4

? No…it’s about 100 lbs Roughly 8 lbs a gallon.

Great advice otherwise.

Okay, basics to remember. Bigger is better. The larger the tank is, the more stable the environment is and the simpler it will be to maintain. In that vein, always over filter. Buy a filter that specs twice the gallonage of the tank that you have chosen. Get at least a 20-30 gallon and enjoy the experience. 10 gallon tanks are near useless and don’t allow for any variety in the fish.

Filters: Canister and hang on back mechanical filters with a bio-wheel are good for most tropical freshwater applications. I LOVE the H.O.T. Magnum filter. It is a simple hang on canister filter that allows you to easily clean, and change media so you can play with your water chemistry, and it does a stellar job. It should run you about 75.00 and is worth every penny of it. Undergravel filtration systems are only good as additional filtration and probably aren’t worth your time right now.

To get your cycling jump started, I second the idea of getting some scrapings, but they also make a product that has live bacterial cultures in a pouch that you can pour into your tank. This will help loads in getting the nitrifying colonies up to snuff.

Get a decent full spectrum light. 10,000 k with a decent blue spectrum. Look on the side of the lights for the little graph showing the spectrum. Should run 10-30.00 depending on the size. This will allow you to truly enjoy the brilliant colors of the fish as well as grow plants in the tank later if you want to. It is beneficial for the health of the fish as well.

Your floor medium ought to reflect the environment your fish hail from.

For color and interest, I recommend African chiclids like lemon labs, blue zebras, and the plethora of other species. They are aggressive fish and will want to stake out territories. They are hardy, and breed readily and are loads more fun than tropicals. To keep them happy, use crushed coral as a base and place large rocks with lots of caves and holes in the tank. They are a blast!

5

:smack:

One other thing might be to contact the water company to find if there is anything really funky about your water. That might affect your ability to keep some fish.

On re-reading I see you want plants. You will definitely want more light than a standard strip. At a minimum you will want 1.5-2 watts per gallon (wpg). And most planted folk use canister filters instead of HOB - surface agitation, CO2 outgassing, blah-blah. Plus, you’ll probably want to dose ferts, and possibly CO2. And a substrate like ADA aquasoil, flourite, eco-complete, or soilmaster will be better than crushed coral. You can keep plants with cichlids, but it is more work, what with all the digging.

Google for low-tech planted tanks, or natural aquaria for plenty of info.

6

So would you say that it’s better if I assemble a tank, filter and everything else or go out and pick up an all in one kit?

7

As for fish the boys really like Rainbows and Tetras…basically anything that schools and is flashy

But should we only have schooling fish or do we need some bottom types?

8

If you want something nice, I definitely recommend assembling the pieces after you figure out what you want to do. I’d be glad to discuss here or in pm, or you could get more expert advice at many forums. But if it is just for the kids to mess with or a starter tank, you would do fine with most “starter” kits.

One think I personally like is keeping as much equipment as possible out of my tanks. Using a canister filter you can run a heater in-line, keeping both out of the tank.

I have bosemanii rainbows in one of my tanks. Really nice fish. The males really display nicely. Many rainbows get pretty big. I believe praecox - dwarf neons - are relatively small. Rainbows are pretty easy to breed also, but it takes a bit of attention.

Some tetras school better than others. I’ve heard many folk say rummynose school well. Some tetras are much hardier than others as well. I’ve had really good luck with serpae. Finally, some folks complain of some tetras being fin biters, which might affect what other fish you have.

I generally have at least 1 bristlenose pleco and a small school of cories in each of my tanks. I think of them as my cleaner crew.

For interest, you will probably want fish that inhabit all levels of the tank. For example, hatchetfish stay near the top, cories near the bottom. Rainbows, most tetras, and danios go all over. A lot of it goes to personal preference, whether you prefer scools of a small number of different types of fish, or one or two each of many kinds. Many fish seem happier in schools.

9

See what you are getting for your money. For instance, the discount on the tank and stand might be made up for with a crappy filter and lights.(usually the case in “kits”) However, if the boys like rainbows and neons, a 55 gall kit will do nicely for a good sized school. This may seem like a big tank, but in reality it really isn’t all that large at all. Do not pay more than 100.00 for the tank. A kit will cost more with lights and stand, they used to go for around 300.00. Just be certain that you are getting decent equipment for your investment. Sometimes it only boils down to a 20-30.00 difference between a kit and a piece together. I’d recommend taking a deal on a tank stand a lights kit, and purchasing a separate filtration unit. Best of both worlds. If you’d like live plants, you and the boys can make homemade CO2 injectors from used 2 liter bottles, sugar, yeast, warm water and tubing. Instructions can be found online and they work great.

10

You might consider getting them two seperate small tanks and bettas. Bettas are interesting and colorful and have tons of personality. Plus, you don’t need to cycle the water and bettas are pretty tolerant of crappy water if you get behind on changing it.

11

I suspect from your OP that you are not fanatical about fishkeeping, and so we may be scaring you off so far.
I’m not really that into fish. It was a lot of fun to plan and set up the tank, and the best part is picking out the fish, but once you’ve set up your tank and tweaked it so that your fish don’t keep dying, it’s not a lot of work.
I’d think about what kind of fish you want first of all. Then do some research and see what substrate they like, whether they need heated water, how big a tank they have to have, and etc.
I have a tank that’s almost all tetras and cories. They aren’t as colorful as I would like, in a perfect world, but they move around a lot, which is good, and most of them are really shiny and attractive.
Guppies didn’t work out well for me when I first started my tank, but I suspect now that the tank is established they’d probably do better.

12

Very good advice. But I think you can make the process even easier if you do a certain amount of research up front, instead of expecting to walk into a single store, walk out with everything you need, and have a fully set up aquaria by the end of the weekend.

In many respects it would be almost just as easy to buy a tank of the desired size, make a single purchase of all the gear at one of the many on-line vendors, and then cycle it with $1 fish from a big box store. OTOH, if you have a quality LFS, by all means, provide them your business - tho it will cost more.

This is just a WAG, but I would bet that if you looked at everyone who bought an all-inclusive set-up, within a year 30-40% of the folk would have stopped maintaining it, and another 30-40% would have changed/upgraded at least one significant aspect of their set-up.

I’ve got a planted 3 gal in my office that cost me less than $20 to set up (I used lots of odds and ends, and trade stuff with other fish-heads) with breeding communities of endlers and red cherry shrimp. I wonder if it even takes 5 minutes a week.

13

Nano tanks rule! I had managed to do a single anemone and percula clown in an Eclipse six for a few years. :smiley:

14

Well yeah, but nano-reef?! :eek: My hat is off to you!

Eclipses make it so easy, there’s no reason anyone couldn’t have a nice little ultra-low maintenance set-up in their apartment, dorm, whatever.

15

Eclipse? You mean one of these tanks? They seem small considering people are saying water stability is harder with smaller tanks. Does the canopy provide enough light for living plants? Have to admit it looks like a nice kit.

16

Note: I’m not recommending this particular brand/model and have never had one myself, but they do seem to be an easy way to have something a lot nicer than a goldfish in a bowl. If I were setting up a small tank, I’d probably buy the components separately, but an Eclipse would be an easy way to start. Never having had one, ISTR hearing that the covers are limited in how much they open, which may be somewhat less than optimum for maintenance.

They are very small - which can be very nice for an office or small apartment, but it really limits what you can do with it. (We have not yet discussed stocking. Basically, the smaller the tank, the fewer, smaller fish. In a 6g, you will only want a couple of medium sized fish, or 5-6 smaller ones. If you go with a 20 or 30, you can really have a decent number of interesting, good-sized fish.)

I did a little searching and it looks like Eclipse’s 3g has a 5w T5 bulb, and the 6g has an 8w. You will want to confirm that. So with either, you are getting around 1.5wpg. You can grow a lot of plants in that light - especially given the small size of the tank. And besides, in a small tank you do not want your plants to grow too quickly. You could easily maintain anubias, crypts, java fern, java moss in such lighting.

In my 3g I grow plants with a 4w compact flourescent screw-in bulb, adding no ferts.

17

Lots of good ideas here, but since it sounds like you haven’t had a fish tank in a while, let me add a couple of things.

If at all possible, avoid the big box chain pet stores. On average, the employees know very little. Find a neighborhood mom and pop pet store, go in on a slow afternoon, and pick their brains. Especially when it comes to types and numbers of fish.

I’d suggest talking your kids along. Make this part of the present. Standing in front of rows of tanks, in a store, and deciding which fish you want is part of the fun.

I’m probably going to find dissenters here, but… If you go with hardy small CHEAP fish and expect to lose a few, you don’t really need to worry about algae scrapings. Fill your tank with water, put in all the equipment and the decorations and let the pumps/filter/heaters/lights run for a couple of days. Then go out and buy 6 or so small small fish. The 3 for $4 kind. I used neon tetras. Add them to the tank, with their water. That should be enough starter for the bio load. Wait a couple of weeks, and repeat. When you notice that you are getting some algae growing on the sides, get yourself a pair of chinese algae eaters, or something similar. Get a couple of bottom feeders. They will eat the food that the schooling fish don’t. I like loaches for this.

For ease of maintaining, keep the fish load light. The lighter the load, the easier it is to care for it. I’ve got a 30 gallon tank, and I’ve got 8 neon tetras, 2 loaches and 1 algae eater in there. I could easily double, or more, the number of fish in there, and I probably will after we move. But for now, I just went on a 3 week vacation, had someone feed the tank once, and didn’t lose a single fish. Also, a light load lets you get away with cheaper equipment.

As said above, larger is easier. A larger tank will survive better if you neglect it for a little while. Also, in your location you will probably be getting a fair amount of evaporation in the winter. (I actually restarted up my tank at least partially because I wanted the extra humidity.) Think of it as a large humidifier. You have to keep a closer eye on the water levels and cleanliness in a small tank. That doesn’t mean you have to have a large tank. Pick one that works for you and work with the pet shop owner to pick out the best livestock.

Some random stuff…
If your tank is anywhere near a window, you will have a lot more algae growing.
I suggest getting a timer for you lights. That way you don’t need to remember to turn on and off the lights.
Since it’s been a while, I’d look at fake plants to start with (please, don’t shoot me). Get the hang of keeping the fish alive, then decide if you want to add live plants. Again, planning and picking them out can be something your kids help with. In the mean time, there are some very good looking fake plants. Also, lighting is much cheaper/easier if you don’t have to worry about keeping the plants alive with it.
Air pumps will make noise. They just do. If you house them inside the stand, you will hear it a lot less.

I kept salt water tanks for years. For now I want a simple set up.

TOC’s cheap basic low maintainance tank setup:
30 gallon tank with hood and stand
undergravel filter (a plate that sits under your gravel, allowing water to flow through it and junk to collect at the bottom)
with 2 lift tubes (tubes that run up from the undergravel filter. An airstone at the end of an airhose releases bubbles that add air to the water and moves water from the bottom of the tank, up the tubes and out through the top)
1 carbon filter and 1 ammonia filter on top of the tubes (filtering the water drawn up the tubes)
an in-tank heater
1 air pump
1 florescent light on a timer

18

Good post, ToC.

I’ve kept fish for some while, and never heard about “algae scrapings.” Would someone please explain this to me?

I’m not a fan of undergravel filters - and they have no place in a planted tank.

19

I cheated. I used water and substrate from my big tanks to stock it, then played with it for a few weeks to get the chemistry right. After that it was easy! I used a chem rate for a ten gallon which was a little high but i never had any issues with it. I changed the bulb out for a compact fluorescent which gave me a little sparkle power. Never gave me a bit of trouble with weekly maintenance. :cool:

20

Here’s another factor: some fish want tall tanks (angel fish), and some fish want long tanks (African cichlids). This is a good reason to figure out what kind of fish you want first.

Re: algae scrapings. I just couldn’t think of the terminology they use; it’s been a while since I’ve been on the fish forums. I just meant getting some of the bio-goo that gets all over the filter. You put it in your tank to help your tank cycle faster. By the way, you have to keep it wet or there’s no point in adding it.

Another miscellaneous note: I change 20% of the water in my tank weekly and I’ve had much better luck at keeping fish alive than my dad or my stepfather did with their tanks when they had them.