no pics today :(
I have been designing a new tank for use under a coffee table in my family room, and all I have to do now is build it! the tank will hold about 142 litres, so no biggy, and the dimensions are 40"x16"x13.5". It should hold small fish, probably some more corys and a few fancy goldfish. In other news, soon I'm going to trade my current, hyper comet goldies for one or two Black Moor goldfish. I like a quieter tank :3
so, I'm going to have an inboard pump filter in the tank, taking up 10%, or 4x12x12, and of course I will have a one-way flap installed so there's no backwash from the goldfish poop :P
I am going to order the silicone and tempered glass at my school, and build it at home. The reason for this is that me and my dad have wood at our house, which will make up the corner lips and the top.

Finally got around to writing the rest of this, i've been so busy haven't had the time. And my tank hasn't looked good enough to photo

So after i got the tank delivered i finished building my shelves, lots of space for my books Then came filling the tank. To make a good substrate i decided on aquatic compost and sand on top. Needed 2 and a half bags of compost and one and a half of sand, but that has given a good even layer about 2 inches. Then came the scary part, filling it up. Attached a hose to the tap and filled it slowly, fingers crossed. The floor didn't collapse and my tank disappear into Lloyds bank, so i'm happy. The sand got very stired up and took about a week to clear. This gave me enough time to build the lighting bar out of a strip of 2x2. I'm using 4 54w T5 tubes suspended over the tank. They are arranged in two pairs and overlap slightly in the middle. Hope this will be enough light, we shall see. Also got some LED strips from Ikea which attached to the bottom of my lighting bar and provide moonlighting. Once the tank had cleared i added the bogwood and ornaments. The bogwood turned the tank really brown with the tanins, as seen here. Ignore the heater stuck on the glass, thats just temporary until my hydor external heater arrives.



And here is my crashed fighter plane for the bottom



I then set about planting the tank. I'd grown some plants myself from cuttings ready for the tank and they have done quite well. They were a bit twisty from growing in a small tank, but are growing out now. Spent a happy few hours up to my shoulders in water planting them all, but it looks great now. Also added a large sunken battleship. I like them, and they provide nice caves for the fishys. And its funnel bubbles away too



Here is the fighter, now planted around. I'm trying to get a look and fell that its been there for a long time. I'm also going to get some shorter carpeting plants for this bit.



I've also made a little cave with bogwood on this side. the tall plants you can see here still have a ways to grow. I have tried to plant something tall every foot or so to break up the tank and provide cover for my angel fish, as advised by lHG.



This is my ship. The area in front will remain clear largely to provide a good rummaging/feeding point for my corys and plecs. The funnel is powered by an airstone, with the pipe buried in the sand.



Better view of the front of my ship.



And on the left side i have made a sort of bogwood forest. This will give plenty of hiding places for the plecs and lots of wood for them to eat. I am getting some 'vampire' plecs which eat the bogwood. Again the tall plants will grow up here and make some more cover.



Now i'm just waiting for the tank to cycle. I filled my two filters with some mature media from my other tank and some bactinetes to seed it. Think i was a bit impatient and/or over enthusiastic with the ammonia, which is holding my cycle back for a bit. Anyway the ammonia is falling, the nitrites have climbed and are falling again and i hope to be adding fish this week. I will transfer some fish from my current tank at first, and then stock the tank with some nice cichlids.

EDIT: I am not going to be making the new stand for a while, so I'll start on a weekly blog post.

The tank's been doing fine, I've been feeding the fish, and so far nothing's seemed to be a waste of money. I'm trying to get more decor as the fish seem a bit bored at the moment, the goldfish are eating, or attempting to eat, bubbles, and the corys are eating the goldfish's poop. What a wonderful cycle! XD
Ah yes, I can make my own models for the bottom. Do you think seven-month-old plastic cement would be fine? I have a model ship that I don't have any other use for.

so, I am pretty fluent in caring for coldwater fish, and today, my first project in a while has come into full swing! Let me explain.
A few weeks ago, I told my dad I wanted to get a fishtank. So we surfed the web, looking for good fishtanks, when my dad came home with a charming, yet slightly worn, 15-20 gallon fish tank! So, for a couple weeks, we just cleaned it out, tested the caulk's integrity, among other things. So, finally, I had time to go buy fish! I took the opportunity, and before long, the tank was up and running! There, ordered from smallest to largest: Edward, the male cory cat; an un-named albino comet; Cheeto, the male comet goldfish, and Chicken, the fat female cory :3.
So, without further ado, some pics:
















Questions, comments, drunk rages?

Hi guys,
Things are still going well. Maintenance is manageable again and touch wood the tank is healthy. Nitrates went up suddenly right before the puffer went in. Up to 20ppm. Not sure exactly what happened there but they're back down to zero again. I've learned about ionic balance and all the parameters are being kept right spot on what I want without problems. One help was using kalkwasser for top ups, this maintained the KH and PH. Another was the TMC calcium, possibly because it also contains organic carbon which I don't really understand very much but read something about it when I looked up "vodka dosing" and seems to be to do with redox.... whatever it is, since the TMC Calcium and the kalkwasser things have been a lot stabler between water changes. oh, I also swapped the 80W T5 on the sump for 11W and the algae is growing properly now.

Behaviour wise there have been a few surprises, first Lenny the Algae Blennie has quite an attitude. Often biting my hand when I reach in to refresh the algae on the clip but also taking the occasional peck at the puffer. The puffer doesn't appear to notice or mind and that's another surprise. I was expecting a little bit of carnage when he went in there. Realising that my corals, crabs and snails where all at risk but also being advised by LHG that the puffer may turn on the fish was a bit of a worry. I know its early days but currently he's not showing any signs of being a threat. Quite the opposite in fact which is a little concerning. I noticed the night before last that his tail was a little frayed. Nothing severe but not right.
Several hours of tank watching later and eventually last night I see the culprit. While the puffer hides in a cave most of the day he is looking out the front of the tank in the evenings and early mornings and occasionally Dory (the cowardly regal tang) will bite his tail.
This is a problem, partly because its stressing and damaging the puffer although he seems not to worry too much but also because if he does decide to retaliate it would probably be the end of Dory. Not sure what to do about this but if it doesn't stop then I guess one of them is going to have to be rehomed.
Another surprise was the puffers swimming ability, daft really seeing as its a fish but I've always read they're such poor swimmers that flow should be kept down at least for part of the tank. Looking at him, well to put it delicately he's not the most streamlined of creatures is he? Yet, I've held his food directly in front of a 3000lph powerhead and he wasn't phased by it in the slightest. Watching him he swims ... well, like a fish, more or less. Actually its more like some sort of mutant underwater hummingbird but effective enough that he can keep pace with dory when there is food at the far end of the tank.

As for being messy eaters... wow, aren't they just. He'll take half a North Atlantic prawn in one and then clouds bellow out his gills making the entire tank into a snow storm. It's an unbelievably quick and effective way of getting shredded prawn into every corner of the tank.



Devil's Fingers, relocated after being attacked one night - before puffers arrival. Was that Dory the regal tang or Fozzie the teddy bear crab? Fozzie got the blame but since then I've placed a new peice of live rock where it was and seen dory smack the rock around with her tail obviously very offended at its existence.




Still like the mushrooms, cant get over how much they flouress under the moonlights. They've grown well... will they spread off their rock naturally, or is this as far as they go without human interferance?



Decided to try a Xenia, thought it might have been a huge mistake as it was going in only days before the puffer. It's doing quite well though and I'm hoping it will start to spread up the rock its next to.



Dory and "the puffer", I've been calling him "the puffer" in this post because we are still arguing about a name. My wife wants to call him Beaky, the kids want to call him Porky or Bloat and I've started calling him Puffy which we all think is a really bad name, but it seems to have stuck.



An overview of the tank, a little too much algae but I did say there was a small nitrate spike and I wanted to keep Lenny well fed, now he seems to only want to eat from the clip so its not going down very quickly!

So what where my targets... fish only tank with live rock and all for under £100. I've probably spent closer to £4000 over the last year and I've got a reef tank all be it a light on corals. I've had lots of bright ideas and most of them have cost me a considerable amount of time and money. I've learned loads and love my tank, not because its the best (obviously its not) but because its all mine, mistakes and all.

That brings this series of blogs to a close. No doubt I'll post more about my tanks development but from initial half-baked design through complete failure of budget and finally to half-baked completion this is my tank.

So, what's the next plan? Well, actually I want to put a 5' tank in the living room to replace this one but the sump will stay in the dining room. That's some way off though as I need to recover my credit , with the bank and the wife!

Ok so finally got some time to get around to writing part 4 of my tropical tank blog

I left off with my small tanks cycle started and me preparing to find something for my larger tank, well first off here are some pictures of the tank at that phase, you can also see a couple of the new smaller plants that I placed in my large tank





These were some twisting vallis , floating riccia and Bacopa monneiri




so now the tank stayed basically as it was for another week or so, and I decided to check out the Aquatic design centre on Great portland street ( off from oxford St. ) this was a very nice store from what I had seen they have a huge marine section downstairs and a large tropical section, the staff were helpful and I purchased a couple of new things

which were : 1x red finned shark 6x emperor tetra 3x amano shrimp small 2x crystal red shrimp and some Java moss and a small plant to go in my cycling rasbora tank

now all was well, everyone seemed happy the java moss looked rather cool in the tanks and the new shark and shrimps went in, everyone seemed happy and fine, oh oh also I had a problem with my shrimp previous in that they went into hiding for several days, I was very worried but apparantly they can do this if there is plenty of food around for them and no competition so i reduced the food into the tank and they seemed to respond and become more active again

And sure enough they went back to normal or so inside of a week, once I had added the new shrimp to the tank this was exacerbated and they really spend all their time cleaning and feeding as per usual.

SO, the shark and the shrimp were settling in and everyone seemed happy, great stuff.













Ok so
everything seemed well, all new fish were happy right? wrong

now I knew that the shark could be aggressive towards the other fish, and I intended to monitor it , but it seemed not at all interested in any of the other fish, and they were not bothered by him at all, So great i thought, two or so days later I was doing a head count and hmm i seemed to be a couple of tetra short, curious I thought.

but they are small and theres plenty of places to hide in my tank so I thought no more of it and decided to check in the evening... still no sign of them. strange

next day 1 more has gone, alarm bells ringing ? and then what did i find, hmm two shrimp having themselves an early breakfast, on what? a half eaten tetra

panic and what to do next !!!! well i decided to monitor things and see how they went whilst i worked out what to do, well what happened was I continued to lose tetra at about 1 a day !!! so I placed the remainders in a large piece of lined in the tank for 1 day and the next day I took the shark back to the Shop rather begrudgingly because I really thought it was an awesome addition, and on the whole it was very relaxed and unaggressive I guess just when the lights went out !

So, what to do next . Well on the positive side whilst all this had been going on my other tank had cycled, Again curiously only took about 11 days, which seems fast compared to other people but I checked them over and over for several days i had also been closely checking my main tank every other day for any changes also.

So I decided having lost some of my neons to restock, I also wanted to get the first fish for my small tank I had decided on Emerald eye rasbora

I also wanted to get something else for the big tank and having been to the shop several times in the past week I decided on two of the Pearl Gourami, also managed to FINALLY get my hands on an assassin snail, so all those pesky snails in my tank had better run for their lives

you will notice also perhaps that my amazon swords are not looking so hot, this is something that I am currently looking into and trying to establish how to bring them back to a much better condition

so here we are what youve been waiting for the pics of how things are currently yay etc


























Thats all folks stay tuned we'll see what happens next and how the rasbora get along they seem happy at the moment, plan to add another 5 at the end of the week to get them a bit more comfortable and mayb add 2 amanos

small edit also : the two gourami are already looking more happy tonight they were both up and about and actually moving around the middle and front of the tank

AND also omg my shrimp are getting pretty big now i guess at about 3cms the big ones
tonite i broke an algae wafer into 4 and put it into the tank in the 4 corners, I like to spread it out so they dont all charge for it.
one of the shrimp picked up the whole quarter !!! and Carried it back to his cave ! ! !

so only need to sort out the amazon swords and have a general think on things,
so there we go

My new tank is now finally arrived and installed. Had to get a firm of piano shifters in in the end to get it into my flat and into place. Really heavy and getting up to my flat is not straight forward Its all done now though and sitting in place Its really really big, i didn't really ken it would be so huge TBH.

Just need to finish the shelves now, then fill it with compost, sand rocks, bogwood, water, fish.......
Ordered my filters so they are on their way now, hopefully DHL will turn up soon.

Just some more photos of the pond, as it was, and is today..

About 8:00 this morning:



And about 4 in the afternoon:





Got to wait a week for the mortar to set properly, then I will backfill and plonk my liner in. I've ordered a Hozelock Titan 3000, which will power the filtration. (Two filters will be used), and this will run alongside a Blagdon minipond 2000, which will be used to power the waterfall & features.

Been doing more work, playing with my power tools

To make all the filter connections easier and neater i've concealed pipes in the middle section of the bookcase, along with wires for lighting and the elctrics needed. This way you shouldn't be able to see any of the filter plumbing or wiring at all.

Also done plumbing in the cupboards underneath. The two filters will be fed from a common feed system draining from both ends of the tank. Thats all the piping marked in red. Each filter feeds from a sepaerate cut of valve to allow maintenance. I've also included an extra valve to facilitate water changes. Each filter will then have a separate outlet, the green marked pipes. I'm planing on spray bar at one end and a sort of jet flow at the other.

This is where i left it today, its really sprung up now. To finish the book case i will put beams across the top with shelves on top of that up to the picture rail. Lots of room for my books Then a couple of doors for the cupboard under the fish tank to hide stuff. Tank is delivered tomorrow, can't wait to see it and start fantasising what to put in it.

As promised i've started a blog of building my new big tank. I'm v excited.
Spent the last few days visiting homebase far too much to buy all the stuff i need, or so i thought, but i'll be back their tomorrow Oh well. Today Jewsons delivered me a large pile of big bits of wood to build the tank frame. The tank is going to be part of a large floor to ceiling bookcase so its all being built from scratch. This is the wall its going against all freshly painted.

First i laid long thick beams to support everything. Its all 2x4 redwood so v strong and will distribute the weight fully across the floor. The beams are screwed to the floor (hence pulling up the carpet) and everything is screwed and glued to them.

Next were 12 risers for the under tank cupboard. This will hold all the filters, heaters and a uv system. I've only installed 8 of tem here.

On top of these risers sit four big beams, also 2x4 redwood. These beams are screwed onto the risers so won't move. The whole thing will be topped with 18mm planks which the tank will sit on. Gave it a good shake this evening and its rock solid, doesn't budge an inch. One of the beams will easily hold my weight so they'll defiently take the tank no worrys.
Still need to add two more uprights in the centre. The beams that extend out either side of the tank frame will be a bookcase. Now i've started to build it i'm getting an idea of the final size. The main beams the tank sits on are 210cm long. I left it here for today as my knees were knackered (note to self: buy knee pads). its taken about 4 hours to this point. Thank goodness for power tools, with out them i'd still be sawing up the wood.

Also ordered the tank today through LFS and it will be here on Friday apparently. Seems the people making it haven't heard of the metric system so the tank will be 79 inches long, 18 wide and 24 tall.