I have put drinking glasses in the aquarium, filled with stones and put plants in them . Is this a good idea.

[Long1234]

My late father had a bar and I've put some of his favourite glasses in my aquarium filled them with stones (as the fish seemed to get trapped in the glasses.) I also put plants in some of them.
This has been done for about 4 months now. And in last 3-4weeks I've lost 6 guppies.
My nitrite level is a little high so I've done a water change.
Do you think having the glasses in will cause too bigger build up of chemicals??

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Are they real glass? Do they have any paint/markings on them? Did you wash them super well with hot water before adding them to the tank?

As long as it’s actual glass, you shouldn’t need to worry...

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

Fish getting stuck in glasses - that is too funny. I have 8" Dojo's (long snake like fish) that don't seem to know how big around they are that get stuck in small tunnels and will swim around with them on until I help them remove them - luckily they actually learn NOT to do that after it happens once or twice so they are daredevils but not stupid. Once one was stuck at an angle and I had a hard time pushing him backwards out of that tunnel - backward swimming isn't something fish often do - but I got him out.

I would be concerned about the dying off of your fish - I'm having the same problem with some Gourami but my water is perfect I just think that it's not as soft of water that they require and I need to give up on raising gourami's - some seem to do just fine in my semi-hard water but it's probably not good long term. . Guppies need semi-hard water - so if you haven't already you might test your GH and KH and PH of your tank (your fish store may be able to do it) and compare that to what guppies require. Unless you just recently got some fish from a new source you probably don't have a disease they may have caught but you might read up about them and see if any of your fish might be infected with something. Finally perhaps your tank isn't fully cycled so those nitrites aren't getting converted to nitrates for some reason. An easy solution would be to change your water more often or do bigger water changes when you do change your water

Glass is great just don't ever wash it in dish detergent - that will kill your fish for sure. A mild bleach solution is OK to as long as it's rinsed very well. Sounds like a cool idea for an aquarium design.

 

[mcordelia]

I like the scape, very unique and clearly has meaning to you unless the glasses were dirty or had residue on them, I doubt it is the glasses. However, there could be a concern that you have anaerobic conditions in the glasses that would be releasing toxic gases for the fish. To combat that, you can make sure you have a lot of circulation in the tank so that it diffuses out quickly. Alternately (and this may be the better approach) is to split your airline (you may need a second air pump since there are a lot of glasses) and put air stones in at least the deeper glasses; this will prevent anaerobic conditions inside the glasses (at least for the most part).

I know @AbbeysDad has done a lot with aerobic/anaerobic stuff so he might have some thoughts too.