The great rebuild of my 55 gallon fish tank.

[Jdogs]

Another update on my 55gal tank, I moved the canister filter back to the 55gal tank as well at the pleco. I am pretty sure it isn't a pleco but some sort of catfish, either way I think it is somewhere around 10-15 years old!

filter hooked back up to the bigger tank.

nubs is doing good, he got all his color back.

and some random picks of the rest of the tank.

 

[MattW]

Glad to see everything is doing well. Nubs looks beautiful

I am pretty sure it isn't a pleco but some sort of catfish, either way I think it is somewhere around 10-15 years old!

Looks to me like a Raphael catfish. Beautiful markings too

 

[Jdogs]

Glad to see everything is doing well. Nubs looks beautiful


Looks to me like a Raphael catfish. Beautiful markings too

Yeah that looks like it! Guess I better stop calling it a pleco then!

 

[Jdogs]

Another update,

The gold fish have gotten too big and eaten all the underwater plants as well as killed one of the plants above the tank "they ate all the roots". I have moved all the gold fish including Nubs to a small pond outside, they are doing fine out there. I pulled the dead plant from above the tank and put in a cape sundew plant that my local Green Acres Nursery had for sale. It is currently catching the little gnats that are flying around in there.

I also got 4 new "king fish algae eaters" from my LFS. I was worried that the remaining old catfish had eaten them, but on the second day they came out of hiding. They are tiny! here is my best attempt at getting a picture of one of them....

I plan on adding more gravel to give future plants more room to anchor their roots and getting some more fish that will remain small.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Can we see a better picture of your algae eater? Do you know the species? I've never heard of a kingfish algae eater before! Looks like it might be a panda Garra.

 

[Jdogs]

Can we see a better picture of your algae eater? Do you know the species? I've never heard of a kingfish algae eater before! Looks like it might be a panda Garra.

I will try to get some more pictures, as you can see from the one I posted my tank gets some wicked reflections that make taking pictures hard. Also these guys are tiny right now "less than an inch long". I wish I had taken pictures of the names of the fish as the receipt just says algae eaters.....

 

[Jdogs]

I have attempted to take a better picture of one of my new algae eaters. I will try to get some better pictures when I remember to. They are really going at the algae on the back wall of the tank, I can't get at that wall with my scraper..... they are definitely some type of panda garra.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yep, that's a panda Garra. Lucky you! One of my favorite fish, and IMO the best algae-eater in the hobby. They like not-too-warm temps (though they'll do OK at normal tropical temps) and they enjoy some water movement if you can provide it.

 

[Jdogs]

Yep, that's a panda Garra. Lucky you! One of my favorite fish, and IMO the best algae-eater in the hobby. They like not-too-warm temps (though they'll do OK at normal tropical temps) and they enjoy some water movement if you can provide it.

Yeah they look really cool! I got 2 in the picture above, and two more that have slightly different color patterns. This tank isn't heated so it hovers around mid 70's so maybe that will be good for them? I have a little waterfall circulating the water in the tank.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

That should be fine for them.

 

[Jdogs]

DISASTER!!!!!!

I had taken the day after memorial day off from work as a kinda chill day, or so I had planned. I woke up put my feet on the carpet only to realize that the carpet was wet right next to my fish tank. The fish tank was leaking along a bottom corner! I had to drag out a new fish tank I had bought that I was going to set up as a new planted tank with shrimp, I will be posting a separate thread about that build when it happens. I drained the water from the leaking tank into the new tank and transplanted all the fish and a snail into it. I then drained the rest of the water out of the leaking tank.

While I was contemplating what to do next I saw that my LFS had a sale on all their glass fishtanks, so instead of $180 for a 55 gal it was only $90. bought one got it home and "swapped" it in. Of course since I built the top part to the old tanks dimensions and the new one was 1.5 inches taller I had to modify it to match.

Temp tank set up..

I am currently waiting for the water to settle and then will be adding the fish and snail back.... all in all not the chill day I had planned.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Whew, close call. I'd hate to have something like that happen when I'm at work or on a long trip or something...

 

[Back in the fold]

Whew, close call. I'd hate to have something like that happen when I'm at work or on a long trip or something...

That’s when something like that usually does happen . Mr. Murphy’s law don’t you know .

 

[Jdogs]

Alright the new tank is set up and all the fish and snails are back in it. One of the fish I had bought the day before the disaster died, but honestly moving all the fish around and the stress that probably caused I am happy with only losing one...

I also got rid of the green "rug" thing I had covering up the stained carpet and bought a new rug which I think looks kinda cool..

stained carpet

new rug...