A Jewel of a Tank

[davrx]

Originally Posted by ua hua

That is a very cool and rare tank you have there. I never look in the planted nano section so I would have never seen this, but Radioman put a link in another thread. I wish there was more of those vintage tanks around. My dad used to have a vintage tank similar to that when I was young but his was a little bigger and really ornate. Is that all the original glass and slate bottom or has it been redone? By the way there is a replica of the tank you have on ebay for $750. Here is the item # if you want to check it out.

Item number: 120736334045

Thank you. Too bad your Dad didn't keep the tank. Do you have any photos of it? The Jewel company made some really ornate ones. One even had lighted stained glass ends. This has all the original glass and slate bottom. Unfortunately the glass has several scratches in it but this happens when tanks are over 80 years old. I saw the replica, did you see that it's not even sealed? Thanks for the link.

[davrx]

Originally Posted by madness

Wow.

Would love to see a picture of that.

As rare as these are I guess that we are fortunate that atleast one of the owners is willing to share the photos with people.

Seems sort of a shame to collect up rare and beautiful stuff and then squirrel it away somewhere that no one really sees it.

O.K. here's some photos of the keyboard:

[davrx]

Just took these photos of the newly rescaped tank: Jewel of the Nile

[Newman]

tank and setup looks antique and i love it, but fish choice look volatile.
A male and female betta in close quarters, open top and two SAEs? X_X

[Penny]

Originally Posted by Newman

tank and setup looks antique and i love it, but fish choice look volatile.
A male and female betta in close quarters, open top and two SAEs? X_X

Agreed... I hope your bettas get along and I hope that they are not jumpers! Nice tank though, I do think this scape suits it better than the first.

[nonconductive]

your desk is completely steam-punk

[davrx]

Actually 3 SAE's, three female Endlers, male and female bettas, and some Tylomelania snails. The two bettas mated once but I think one or both must have eaten the bubble nest as it was gone the day after. I probably should have removed them from the tank after they mated. I understand that you're not supposed to leave them together but these two seem to do fine. The SAE's were removed from my 60 gal. cube because they had become too aggressive. They had started attacking other fish, specifically some swordtails. I'm surprised as SAE's aren't supposed to do that. I should probably have gone with just Otocinclus but I don't know if they're as good at removing algae as the Siamese Algae Eaters.
I'm going to add some male Endlers into the tank later today.
No jumpers yet but if they do our Miniature Schnauzer will be waiting to eat them. I caught her one day barking at one of my tanks right up next to the glass which spooked the fish. Sure enough one of the fish jumped out and she promptly ate it! Amazing how smart these dogs are. Now she either can't get to the tanks or they're covered.

[davrx]

Originally Posted by nonconductive

your desk is completely steam-punk

Thanks, I love the steampunk look.

[Newman]

Originally Posted by davrx

Actually 3 SAE's, three female Endlers, male and female bettas, and some Tylomelania snails. The two bettas mated once but I think one or both must have eaten the bubble nest as it was gone the day after. I probably should have removed them from the tank after they mated. I understand that you're not supposed to leave them together but these two seem to do fine. The SAE's were removed from my 60 gal. cube because they had become too aggressive. They had started attacking other fish, specifically some swordtails. I'm surprised as SAE's aren't supposed to do that. I should probably have gone with just Otocinclus but I don't know if they're as good at removing algae as the Siamese Algae Eaters.
I'm going to add some male Endlers into the tank later today.
No jumpers yet but if they do our Miniature Schnauzer will be waiting to eat them. I caught her one day barking at one of my tanks right up next to the glass which spooked the fish. Sure enough one of the fish jumped out and she promptly ate it! Amazing how smart these dogs are. Now she either can't get to the tanks or they're covered.

Generally you remove the female after they mate, and leave the male with the eggs for 3 days until they all hatch. then remove him. I bred plakats before, and its difficult to take care of any fry in a non-breeding setup (because the fry shouldn't really be moved around and should stay in the tank they are born in until they grow up.) a Filter and gravel would not be good for fry, so personally i would not attempt to breed bettas in this tank, and would have done as you did (treat the tank as a regular community.)

I too left a pair of bettas in my 40 gal planted tank to try to see whether the female could consistently get away from the male via the dense vagitation offered in my tank, and live with a male. they did decently for a few months, there was some chasing but eventually the female disappeared so i assume she jumped out (open top tank like yours). I still have that male in the 40 (he is about 2.5 years old) and he is doing well on his own.

Aggressive SAEs is something I have seen because I started keeping them as a school of 5 tiny individuals in this same 40 gallon planted tank i was talking about. As they grew, they became more aggressive, but all aggression was contained withing their group. they did not touch other fish. Gradually i lost 2 of them so I have 3 left today (the first one was completely outcometed for food by the others, got stunted, and starved to death i think. the second one must have been chased out of the tank because he disappeared one day too.) As a trio they still contain their aggression withing their own group, not touching any other fish. These SAEs were raised in a planted community setting with fish like swordtails, a platy, mollies, oddly enough one goldfish (DOH), corydoras, otocinclus, and an angelfish throughout their lives in my tank. I do not believe they attacked any of those fish ever, except maybe taking small nips at the fins of the corydoras because both species occupy the same bottom tank level constantly.
All this leads up to my conclusion about SAEs - they do better in groups (I bet you started with a group too) and will contain their aggression within that group. possibly when their numbers fall down to 2-3 individuals, they might turn on other fish. The SAE is a peaceful fish only while its young and small. once they grow to a good size, they do become very...arrogant lol.
SAEs eat everything you feed to your tank, but they do take care of the algae as well. So as a group of around 5+ individuals, they can be a nice addition to a tank. That is what I think.

How large are your SAEs and for how long have you had these particular individuals? Perhaps you could get a school of them going in your 60 gal again. That should keep the aggression down.

[davrx]

I started with a dozen young ones in the 60gal. tank which is heavily planted. They have been aggressive towards each other once they became adults and then about 6 mo. ago a few of them started to turn on other fish. The three that are in this tank were the most aggressive. They seem to only be aggressive towards each other in this tank and I haven't witnessed the ones left behind in the 60gal. attacking other fish. I have had otos in the past and never witnessed any aggression from them but I never had enough of them survive long enough to get a school large enough to keep the algae at bay. For some reason otos seem to be rather delicate to me.

[Newman]

otos are interesting and extremely peaceful fish. they certainly do not eat as much algae as an SAE can, but they can choose to eat more algae than an SAE because that is all they usually eat! Confusing sentence, i know :P
Supporting enough otos to keep all algae away is complicated by the event of them all starving to death once all the algae is gone. there is no guarantee that they will accept algae wafers as supplement, and some inevitably will die, driving your overall population down. I guess the best thing you could try is to get the more common and hardy species of oto like vittatus or something like that...(I forget exactly which ones those are).
As for the most aggressive SAEs in this tank, have you thought about selling them on AquaBid? If you have no larger tank to put them in as they grow, you might as well sell them while they haven't jumped this tank yet.
I bet its cool to see all the other SAEs in your 60 gal though, starting with a dozen in awesome!

[PaulG]

I wonder if anyone/company would be willing to make reproductions of this tank? I shouldn't think it would be too difficult.

[davrx]

Originally Posted by PaulG

I wonder if anyone/company would be willing to make reproductions of this tank? I shouldn't think it would be too difficult.

It's already been done. See ebay 120736334045.

[davrx]

Supporting enough otos to keep all algae away is complicated by the event of them all starving to death once all the algae is gone. there is no guarantee that they will accept algae wafers as supplement, and some inevitably will die, driving your overall population down.

O.K. that's why I've had such a hard time keeping them. I thought they were omnivores like the SAE's.

[ua hua]

Originally Posted by davrx

Thank you. Too bad your Dad didn't keep the tank. Do you have any photos of it? The Jewel company made some really ornate ones. One even had lighted stained glass ends. This has all the original glass and slate bottom. Unfortunately the glass has several scratches in it but this happens when tanks are over 80 years old. I saw the replica, did you see that it's not even sealed? Thanks for the link.

Yeah I wish he still had it but he sold all of his tanks back in the early 80's. My dad used to have 40+ tanks and bred all kinds of fish ranging from swordtails, angelfish, South American and African cichlids. I have no clue if he has a picture of the tank or not, if he did it would be on slides. For those of you to young to know before they put pictures on cd's or these little plastic cards the size of your thumbnail people had the pleasure of sitting on their couch and viewing rolls of crappy, grainy pictures.LOL. That being said I just want to say this is one of my favorite tanks on this forum. It's not what everyone else has(ADA) and it has history and a style that is timeless. Maybe because it reminds me of the one my dad use to have. I love everything about how you have this setup from the light pendant to the Egyptian style cabinet. Now that you put the obelisk and statue it finishes the inside and fits the style perfectly. Thank you for showing the members of this forum what the tanks of the past used to look like and doing something very cool with it. By the way that keyboard is really cool also. How long have you been into Alchemy?