My MacQuarium.
NardoPolo, 5 goldfish is WAY too many for a 10 gallon. Goldfish are very messy fish and require about ten gallons each, bare minimum, to thrive, and can easily outgrow even that. I’d look into getting another, bigger tank for them, or putting 2 or 3 into the tank that you’re building and giving the rest to the fish store. 
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Point taken. (but they’re really small!) Perhaps ironically, I picked them from the store out of the feeder tank, where they were packed so tightly that they likely accounted for 1/4 the volume of the tank. But thanks for the info.
:smack: preview is my friend…
Pardon my missing quote tags. Mods feel free to correct it if you can.
beagledave, that is soooo cool! the wall are very nifty as well.
pet water… tee hee, good one.
i have a grape coloured betta in a large vase. his name is vino.
averie, according to fung shui, fish will sacrifice their lives to protect you from bad things. so it is not bad luck that your fish are dying… they are protecting you from bad luck. i had 5 goldfish die this summer, one after another. after consulting a coworker the conclusion was that the fumes from the painting during home improvement may have contaminated the water. if you are doing any home improvement be sure to cover the fish tank very well.
We have a 20 gallon freshwater tank with six fish in it: three guppies, two swordtails, and one blueskirt. One of the guppies and the blueskirt are over two years old, and the swordtails and the other two guppies were added last week. Assuming everyone doesn’t die horrifically in the next week, we’ll be getting more soon (we’ve had some bad experiences and are a little superstitious). We also have a fake shipwreck ornament, a couple of plastic plants, some algae (not TOO much), and a couple of snails. I’m surprised there aren’t more snails.
Upstairs, we have another 20 gallon tank that contains one female bearded dragon lizard, her plastic basking “rock,” a water dish, and some aspen chips as substrate. The whole family is working frantically on converting a second-hand display case (48"X20"X18") into a decent habitat for her.
I used to have actual fish (plus one yellow snail), but now have only glass fish (and other glass aquatic critters) floating around, suspended about 2 inches from the surface, buoyed by their little glass buoys. It would look better if retied them with varying lengths of fishing line, but I’m too lazy (and have no fishing line). It would also be more attractive if I installed a purplish fluorescent light, instead of the yellowish one that’s now there.
On the plus side, the tank gravel is festooned with silk and plastic plants, as well as a couple of fake driftwood-thingys. Best of all, this arrangement requires almost no maintenance.
There is a new addition to the tank. My son picked out a rather large shipwreck decoration for the tank. It has little fake sharks circling the wreck, and at first he was pretending they were going to bite his fish. Oh to be three again.
It’s good to see what everyone has in their tanks. I did notice that the preference definitely appears to be for freshwater tanks. I’ve had both freshwater and marine tanks before, but I always enjoyed the marine tanks the best. I loved the vivid colors on the fish. Plus, you could look in the tank and imagine yourself floating over a coral reef looking at the inhabitants. Instant island vacation.
I’m going to hijack my own thread here, but…
Tell me why you prefer your type of aquarium?
Shark
I have had a red belly piranah for more than 5 years now. My wife has several beta’s in vases with peace lilies dangling their roots into the water…
I really like the piranah my son got it for my on my 50th birthday… He’s very sociable.
Probably because marine tanks are much more expensive. Live rock is expensive, proper lighting is VERY expensive, and the fish are more expensive.
In my experience, they’re also more difficult to maintain, especially for a beginner.
This probably has a lot to do with it. I’d love to have another marine tank, but I just don’t have the money for it.
I have a 75 gallon wall aquarium. Mrs.Phlosphr and I have a living ecosystem with live plants, green algae, several crayfish, a few pumpkin-seeds, a medium sized small mouth bass and a small catfish. We try to duplicate our lake behind our house. It is very clean and practically self contained except for the minows we put in to feed the fish… The cray fish has molted twice and is perfectly healthy on bottom stuffs…
I have only a little tiny aquarium (3 gallons). It has nice gravel, though: a mix of dark blue and light blue, with a few random bright-colored rocks thrown in (pink, orange, yellow, green). It looks really good. There’s also a plant and a big coral rock in there. Oh, and two fishies: a rasbora het named Natuzzi and a black neon tetra named Boris.
Boris hasn’t been eating the way he used to. If he kicks, I think I’ll get some more hets; the tetra was kind of a bully, and Natuzzi seems to have more personality to me.
Now that I think of it, I have a picture of 'em: Natuzzi and Boris. Isn’t that gravel cool?
We have 3 goldfish in a 10 gallon tank (too many, ay Bre’r Lappin? Probably why I have to clean the blasted thing every time I turn around).
Two of the fish are ancient, big and frightening. The other is ornamental and floats upside down at the top. We’ve tried food that doesn’t float and feeding it a pea but no dice.
I often threaten to trade them in for some useful fish, like seahorses, but they seem unconcerned.
I have freshwater because a) salt water fish are expensive (like Bre’r Lappin says) and b) because I think the collection of wild fish on the reefs is bad for the reef’s health. I suppose I would keep clowns or some of the other salty fish that can be raised in tanks, but I prefer that the more exotics stay on the reefs, or in public aquariums.
Don’t give up on getting rid of the snails just yet. If you have enough room (you didn’t mention the size of your tank), get a couple of clown loaches. Not only are they a ton of fun (they do synchronized swimming and dance around the tank making all kinds of circles and figure eights and stuff!), but they LOVE eating snails! I had a HUGE snail problem, much like you describe, so I got 2 clown loaches and within just a couple of days they’d pigged out on them all, leaving nothing but a bunch of empty shells mixed in with the gravel. (Buy them in pairs, at least, though, as they’re schooling fish and get terribly depressed when by themselves – seriously.)
To answer the OP, we currently have 2 tanks, a 10 gallon fresh water tank with the above-mentioned clown loaches (Jasper & Pierre), 3 neon tetras (Larry, Darryl & Darryl), 3 red phantom tetras (Ran, Neptune & Poseidon), an African Dwarf Frog named Bob, and a black Mystery Snail named Stanley.
We also have a 3 gallon tank on a bookshelf that is currently fishless, as our petsitter killed the 3 silver-tipped tetras we had in there when we went to Denmark for the holidays and it’s still cycling the high ammonia levels down before we put more fish in it. When we do restock it, we’re planning on putting in some tetras (I can’t recall the name of them right now – I have it written down at home, so I’ll check later, but we found them at a local fish store and I’ve never seen them anywhere else before), a small, yellow, mystery snail and another African dwarf frog.
Typing this for Shayna, as I’m currently at the computer: They’re called Furcata Rainbow or Popondetta furcata and they look very cool indeed, with a pair of fins where their ears would be – if fish had ears, that is. Said fins sort of flap as if they’re flying when they swim. Ok, it doesn’t make sense in writing – click on the link and you’ll see.
It’s possible that your fish’s swim bladder problem could be somewhat linked to the small tank size, in addition to the more apparent cause of being a semi-deformed ornamental fish: Swim Bladder Disease in Goldfish.
FYI, there is a myth that fish will only grow to fit the size of the container it is held in, but it is only a myth (sort of). It appears that way because if a fish that can reach a large size is kept in a small tank, either it will die way before reaching its full size, or the water quality in the tank will become so bad that the toxins will stunt its growth. So it’s true, but not in the way you are led to believe. Not that I’m accusing anyone in this thread of believing that, I just figured I’d throw it in while we’re sort of on the topic.
And Jpeg Jones, those snails aren’t all bad, they eat the food that is missed by the fishes that would normally rot on the bottom of the tank. Therefore, if you wish, the best way to get rid of them is to cut back the amount of food you’re feeding and they will starve to death.
Alternatively, you can pick them out one by one and sell them on AquaBid!
Also, I want to try this smilie out: :dubious:
Er, sorry if that post isn’t the most coherent thing in the world. Lack of sleep and all that.
Four words: Try a clown loach.
37 Gallon Eclipse 3 System
6 Guppies (4F, 2M)
4 Cardnal Tetra
1 Pleco
4 Clown Loaches (More sensative than some, but as others have mentioned…WAY COOL!!! Just get three or more if the tank is big enough)
12 Gallon Breeder Tank
Right now I’ve got about 20-30 guppy fry.
Looking to get a few more Cardinals, but after that I think that will be about the carry capacity of the 37…
Thanks Bre’r Lappin. The fish now has 3 guineas and a tank of her own. In addition (since peas don’t work) we’re trying frozen shrimp (!) and romaine lettuce. This fish eats better than I do. I will go to almost any lengths to avoid solution number 3 on the site you provided: periodic aspiration of the swim bladder .:eek: