jaeger5
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- Apr 10, 2012
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Hi guys.
I thought I'd post a journal here as I'd like to keep a record of how I started with this tank, and I think the experiences I've had so far (some very bad but most good!) could be a lot of help to people starting out in the hobby.
I will admit to a lot of mistakes so please appreciate my honesty. I don't claim to be the worlds best fish keeper, I've made some poor choices and misjudged a lot of things but I'm writing this in the hope that others will learn from my experiences so that they do not make them as well.
A bit about my self first. I've kept fish ever since the age of 12, I'm 28 now and I like to think I've learnt a lot in that time. I started out where everyone did, the humble goldfish. Memories of me and my younger brother buying our first 20L fish tank from Argos, setting it all up, over filling it with fish that we had no idea how to keep. Fun times. Then the sibling rivalry kicked in, had a few arguments, someone got a tad too emotional and decided to pour bleach into the other siblings tank... Sad times. Never the less, me and my brother sorted out our differences and decided to start again, this time in the shape of a 150 Liter hand-me-down from our aunt. This was a proper fish tank, it had an external filter, light tubes, a spray bar and everything. We filled it Tetras, Cory's and lots of other exotic fish. Apart from some algae issues, things were going good for a long time, until my younger brother passed away.
It was a while after that incident that I decided to take up the hobby again, this time making sure I did things properly, making amends for the aquatic genocide I was responsible for in the past, keeping a tank that my brother would be proud of.
So off to Gumtree I went, buying the biggest thing I could find.
At the time, buying a second hand, 500 Liter tank seemed like a good idea. Until my landlord pointed out that the 200 year old floor boards of the 2nd floor flat I was renting from him were holding half a tonne of water. Deciding that it was either buy a new tank, or lower the water level, I opted for the latter and filled it half way and turned it into a turtle tank. My dreams were to have a lush, tropical planted paradise, turtles living with the types of fish me and my brother had kept in the past. Something like you'd find in a rain forest or a public aquarium.
Roughly 2 years later with a good quarter of my annual income being spent trying to achieve this dream, I was no where near the picture I had imagined. As with my previous tank in the past, things started out amazing. I had the Turtles, the plants, the fish, it was awesome. I just had to give the plants time to grow and it would have been exactly how I imagined it. Had I done more research on the types of turtles I bought, I would have known that this variety LOVE to eat plants as well as fish and also produce waste comparable to that of a nuclear power plant. There was no way anything was ever going to survive in that tank apart from the Turtles. And after they'd destroyed everything, they turned on each other. It wasn't pretty. I came home one day and of the two, one had clearly had some sort of disagreement with the other which, unlike me and my brother, they were unable to resolve.
Being left with a beast of a tank and an even bigger beast of a turtle, finding my self responsible for yet another aquatic genocide, I had just about given up.
Feeling guilty for the mess I'd made, I kept the Turtle and his tank for another year. It was an empty tank, it had nothing in it but bits of wood and substrate. I could tell the Turtle was as unhappy as I was, so I looked into giving him up for adoption. Being weary after hearing all types of animal abuse stories and what not, I made sure that he was going to a good home and wasn't going to end up being served as a side dish in a restaurant. I managed to find a very nice lady on Gumtree who ran her own turtle sanctuary. She still sends me pictures of him chilling out next to the pond, Pinna Colada in one hand, the finest of garden worms in the other...
Getting rid of the tank was a total relief. Ever since my Landlord had told me about it weighing half a tonne, I used to have so many sleepless nights. Waking up hearing the noise of my neighbors floor boards creaking, thinking it was the seals of the tank failing or the glass cracking... I can't tell you how happy I was to finally hear the glass smash when it was put into an Industrial sized glass recycler at my local dump. While moving the tank out of my flat, I discovered that my nightmares were not without reason as I found evidence that it had been repaired in the past. Part of the seal was a different colour to the rest of the tank and had clearly not been done as part of the manufacturing process. Had I known this when I bought it, I'd have taken my £50 else where.
Which leads me to the tank I have now.
A shiny, BRAND NEW and SMALL tank that I can hopefully turn into something that looks half decent, without increasing my overdraft.
So... first things first, getting rid of that GOD AWFUL stock light, I replaced it with a TMC Aquaray Mini 400 LED, along with the mount cost about £80. Substrate is 9 Kg of Eco-complete £30 and the rocks are 'Dragon Rocks' from ebay, about £30. £100 for the tank, I make that about 240 bills dropped so far... Think I'm going to leave out the money from here on.
The fish in this picture are Gouramis. I really did my research on these, no where on the internet could I find evidence that these fish eat plants. Turns out, they do... or maybe they don't; they just eat my plants to spite me for the atrocities I once committed against their kind? Back to the local aquarium with you.
Pulling the pin out of a grenade is on my top 100 things to do before I die. I think I can check that off after fitting the regulator onto this fire extinguisher.
Plants have arrived, a long with some small fish which don't have mouths big enough to eat my plants, even if they tried.
Only one thing on my cats mind, and it's not peeing on my bath mat for a change...
And here we are today, notice the lack of fish...
As beautiful as it looks, a lot of fish gave their lives to get it that way. The CO2 regulator I bought off ebay had a faulty needle valve which failed, releasing an unregulated amount of CO2 into the aquarium. I cannot take the blame this time. I spent a good amount of money on the regulator, did a load of research, and it was recommended by many others. It has now been chucked away and replaced by one with an English sounding name.
I'm going to write some more stuff about the plants and issues I've had with them, will update this tomorrow.
I thought I'd post a journal here as I'd like to keep a record of how I started with this tank, and I think the experiences I've had so far (some very bad but most good!) could be a lot of help to people starting out in the hobby.
I will admit to a lot of mistakes so please appreciate my honesty. I don't claim to be the worlds best fish keeper, I've made some poor choices and misjudged a lot of things but I'm writing this in the hope that others will learn from my experiences so that they do not make them as well.
A bit about my self first. I've kept fish ever since the age of 12, I'm 28 now and I like to think I've learnt a lot in that time. I started out where everyone did, the humble goldfish. Memories of me and my younger brother buying our first 20L fish tank from Argos, setting it all up, over filling it with fish that we had no idea how to keep. Fun times. Then the sibling rivalry kicked in, had a few arguments, someone got a tad too emotional and decided to pour bleach into the other siblings tank... Sad times. Never the less, me and my brother sorted out our differences and decided to start again, this time in the shape of a 150 Liter hand-me-down from our aunt. This was a proper fish tank, it had an external filter, light tubes, a spray bar and everything. We filled it Tetras, Cory's and lots of other exotic fish. Apart from some algae issues, things were going good for a long time, until my younger brother passed away.
It was a while after that incident that I decided to take up the hobby again, this time making sure I did things properly, making amends for the aquatic genocide I was responsible for in the past, keeping a tank that my brother would be proud of.
So off to Gumtree I went, buying the biggest thing I could find.
At the time, buying a second hand, 500 Liter tank seemed like a good idea. Until my landlord pointed out that the 200 year old floor boards of the 2nd floor flat I was renting from him were holding half a tonne of water. Deciding that it was either buy a new tank, or lower the water level, I opted for the latter and filled it half way and turned it into a turtle tank. My dreams were to have a lush, tropical planted paradise, turtles living with the types of fish me and my brother had kept in the past. Something like you'd find in a rain forest or a public aquarium.
Roughly 2 years later with a good quarter of my annual income being spent trying to achieve this dream, I was no where near the picture I had imagined. As with my previous tank in the past, things started out amazing. I had the Turtles, the plants, the fish, it was awesome. I just had to give the plants time to grow and it would have been exactly how I imagined it. Had I done more research on the types of turtles I bought, I would have known that this variety LOVE to eat plants as well as fish and also produce waste comparable to that of a nuclear power plant. There was no way anything was ever going to survive in that tank apart from the Turtles. And after they'd destroyed everything, they turned on each other. It wasn't pretty. I came home one day and of the two, one had clearly had some sort of disagreement with the other which, unlike me and my brother, they were unable to resolve.
Being left with a beast of a tank and an even bigger beast of a turtle, finding my self responsible for yet another aquatic genocide, I had just about given up.
Feeling guilty for the mess I'd made, I kept the Turtle and his tank for another year. It was an empty tank, it had nothing in it but bits of wood and substrate. I could tell the Turtle was as unhappy as I was, so I looked into giving him up for adoption. Being weary after hearing all types of animal abuse stories and what not, I made sure that he was going to a good home and wasn't going to end up being served as a side dish in a restaurant. I managed to find a very nice lady on Gumtree who ran her own turtle sanctuary. She still sends me pictures of him chilling out next to the pond, Pinna Colada in one hand, the finest of garden worms in the other...
Getting rid of the tank was a total relief. Ever since my Landlord had told me about it weighing half a tonne, I used to have so many sleepless nights. Waking up hearing the noise of my neighbors floor boards creaking, thinking it was the seals of the tank failing or the glass cracking... I can't tell you how happy I was to finally hear the glass smash when it was put into an Industrial sized glass recycler at my local dump. While moving the tank out of my flat, I discovered that my nightmares were not without reason as I found evidence that it had been repaired in the past. Part of the seal was a different colour to the rest of the tank and had clearly not been done as part of the manufacturing process. Had I known this when I bought it, I'd have taken my £50 else where.
Which leads me to the tank I have now.
A shiny, BRAND NEW and SMALL tank that I can hopefully turn into something that looks half decent, without increasing my overdraft.
So... first things first, getting rid of that GOD AWFUL stock light, I replaced it with a TMC Aquaray Mini 400 LED, along with the mount cost about £80. Substrate is 9 Kg of Eco-complete £30 and the rocks are 'Dragon Rocks' from ebay, about £30. £100 for the tank, I make that about 240 bills dropped so far... Think I'm going to leave out the money from here on.
The fish in this picture are Gouramis. I really did my research on these, no where on the internet could I find evidence that these fish eat plants. Turns out, they do... or maybe they don't; they just eat my plants to spite me for the atrocities I once committed against their kind? Back to the local aquarium with you.
Pulling the pin out of a grenade is on my top 100 things to do before I die. I think I can check that off after fitting the regulator onto this fire extinguisher.
Plants have arrived, a long with some small fish which don't have mouths big enough to eat my plants, even if they tried.
Only one thing on my cats mind, and it's not peeing on my bath mat for a change...
And here we are today, notice the lack of fish...
As beautiful as it looks, a lot of fish gave their lives to get it that way. The CO2 regulator I bought off ebay had a faulty needle valve which failed, releasing an unregulated amount of CO2 into the aquarium. I cannot take the blame this time. I spent a good amount of money on the regulator, did a load of research, and it was recommended by many others. It has now been chucked away and replaced by one with an English sounding name.
I'm going to write some more stuff about the plants and issues I've had with them, will update this tomorrow.
xxx
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