My mini tank room...

3014 Views 24 Replies 7 Participants Last post by jhays79, Jul 21, 2014

jhays79

Discussion Starter · Apr 1, 2014

8

I'm lucky to have a decent sized utility/laundry/storage room so over the past few years I've had a few tanks set up in there. Lately though I've wanted to neaten it up and get a little more organized and serious. Over the past month I painted the walls white (still have a little more to do) to brighten everything up, built a new stand for my 55g tank with empty 40g long below it, and I got one of those metal shelving units to hold 3 ten gallons and a 20 long. The shelving unit is rated for something like 800 pounds, but I added some cross braces underneath each shelf just to be safe. I've got some light grey concrete floor paint I'm going to put down to as soon as I'm done messing around with the walls and shelves.

Tanks are as follows:
55g with a bunch of Firemouth Cichlids of various ages and a few Silverdollars. It's bare bottomed for ease of cleaning, with a shop light hanging over head. The Firemouths never seemed to pair up, but they're fun to watch.

10g grow out tank with two DIY co2 bottles running, dirt substrate with Safe T Sorb and two Coralife T5HO fixtures above it. I just added the second fixture, and the tank's really only been setup for a few weeks, still trying to blance everything out.

10g shrimp tank with black diamond sand, crypts and some ludwigia. I'm waiting for this tank to cycle before I add my shrimp. This is my first tank with Black Diamond and it's pretty nice stuff to work with. Lighting is two clamp on worklights with CFL bulbs for now.

20g long is going my most recent tank purchase. Waiting for a new heater and light, then I'm hoping to move some of my Bolivian Rams in there, and hopefully they'll pair up. The 10g tank along side it will be a fry rearing tank eventually if I can pull it off.

I also have a well established planted low tech dirted 10g in my daughters room and a 46g bowfront in my living room as a display tank, and as soon as the weather warms up enough I need to start cleaning up the koi pond in my backyard. I get carried away with my hobbies I think.

My daughters shrimp snail and guppy tank

I need to take some pics of my 46g...
Thanks for reading!

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1 - 20 of 25 Posts

annyann

· #2 · Apr 1, 2014

Wow really nice tanks!!

jhays79

Discussion Starter · #3 · Apr 1, 2014

Thanks! I'm going to try and keep this updated as the tanks progress.

Duck5003

· #4 · Apr 1, 2014

Very nice room! After my recent move last june, i have a similar little room in my basement as well. My favorite place in the house

looking forward to seeing yours progress!

jhays79

Discussion Starter · #5 · Apr 1, 2014

Duck5003 said:
Very nice room! After my recent move last june, i have a similar little room in my basement as well. My favorite place in the house looking forward to seeing yours progress!

Thanks! I know it's great having rooms like this, it's like a fortress of solitude with fish!

AGUILAR3

· #6 · Apr 1, 2014

I have a question about your guppy tank.

I have 7 Guppy's in a bare bottom(soon to be planted) tank and have to siphon out the bottom every other day due to the huge mess left behind. How do you combat the excessive waste? Do you just let it settle in the gravel and let it be? My other planted tanks are all homes to Bettas so waste isn't an issue

jhays79

Discussion Starter · #7 · Apr 1, 2014

AGUILAR3 said:
I have a question about your guppy tank.

I have 7 Guppy's in a bare bottom(soon to be planted) tank and have to siphon out the bottom every other day due to the huge mess left behind. How do you combat the excessive waste? Do you just let it settle in the gravel and let it be? My other planted tanks are all homes to Bettas so waste isn't an issue

The Guppys in my daughters tank are all fry except for the mother. I removed the male because he was harassing the female too much. I don't have much of a problem with excessive waste. maybe feed less? what size tank?

AGUILAR3

· #8 · Apr 1, 2014

It's a 10g and I feed a small pinch of flakes a day. I cant see feeding them any less. How much do you feed?

I'm going to dirt the tank next week and I think I need to settle on a trio and stick with them. I have about 10 Jungle Val, 10 crypt and a bunch of Hornwort and guppy grass so I thing the waste the 3 produce should be ok.

jhays79

Discussion Starter · #9 · Apr 2, 2014

That's quite a few guppys for a 10g, and bare bottom tanks make the waste a lot more visiable than a dirted tank. I think you'll be happy with the lighter fish load, dirt substrate and those plants you listed. I have my 55g bare bottom and it does look like there is a lot of waste on the glass bottom. It probably wouldn't seem like so much if it was a tank with substrate.

AGUILAR3

· #10 · Apr 2, 2014

and to make maters worse, one of the females must have been pregnant before we got her because we have 5 fry.

Love your 10 btw.

talontsiawd

· #11 · Apr 2, 2014

Looking good. I don't think you need to worry about the shelving, I know my father has similar shelving and it holds a lot of weight.

I know it would be a pain with the tanks setup but I think if you painted the shelves, repainted the walls, and cleaned or painted the floor, you would have a super classy place in a weekend to spend time with the tanks.

Crazy4discus

· #12 · Apr 2, 2014

Nice little tank room you have there!

jhays79

Discussion Starter · #13 · Apr 2, 2014

talontsiawd said:
Looking good. I don't think you need to worry about the shelving, I know my father has similar shelving and it holds a lot of weight.

I know it would be a pain with the tanks setup but I think if you painted the shelves, repainted the walls, and cleaned or painted the floor, you would have a super classy place in a weekend to spend time with the tanks.

I've got epoxy floor paint I'm going to be using, and I still need to finish painting the walls. It's hard to get real classy with a washing machine, dryer, and hot water heater sharing the space, hehe. I'm going for more utilitarian than classy though.

Crazy4discus said:
Nice little tank room you have there!

Thanks!

AGUILAR3 said:
and to make maters worse, one of the females must have been pregnant before we got her because we have 5 fry.

Love your 10 btw.

Yep, that's what guppys do!

jhays79

Discussion Starter · #14 · Apr 7, 2014 (Edited)

2

Got my 20 long setup, added a 24" Coralife fixture above it, a couple potted plants, 1 Wisteria clipping and a couple of baby Jungle Val runners. Also scattered a few leaves on the bottom. I'm hoping they'll gently lower the ph a bit. I might end up putting a little peat in a filter bag and float it in the tank as well. Second sponge filter was added which had been running on my 55g so it should be well seeded.

Finally took a crappy cell phone photo of my 46g bowfront...

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jhays79

Discussion Starter · #15 · Apr 7, 2014

2

Finally got my 10g growout tank on the verge of being balanced. I added the second Coralife HO fixture, so now it's two 56 watts over the tank, with two 2 litre bottles of DIY Co2 being diffused through the powerhead. I turned the powerhead down pretty low, so the bubbles are getting chewed up super fine. They're so tiny I can barely see them when they come out. Today I noticed a bunch of the plants pearling. I also added a few month old Guppy fry from my daughters tank, and a couple Ramshorn snails to the tank. I love the look of the tiny guppy fry amongst the jungle of plants.

Not the greatest pics. I need to start using my wifes DSLR more.

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jhays79

Discussion Starter · #16 · Apr 14, 2014 (Edited)

5

A couple new shots I took. 55g is getting redone with sand and big river rocks. Bolivian Rams are settling into the 20 long. I'm hoping they par up!

A couple more random shots I took

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jhays79

Discussion Starter · #17 · Apr 14, 2014

2

Finished putting sand in the 55 and started adding some large river rocks. Not 100% set on the layout, but it's a start. I'll probably add some peat moss to my filters just incase the rocks raise the PH. I did a vinegar test on them and none of them bubbled. Plants are going to be real simple. Dwarf Sag, some taller corkscrew Vals, and Rotala. I also have a bunch of Java Fern I could use, but I'm not sure yet. Trying to keep this real simple.

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jhays79

Discussion Starter · #18 · Apr 16, 2014 (Edited)

2

Messing around with the new scape in the 55g with some cool driftwood I found. Still tweaking it though.

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jhays79

Discussion Starter · #19 · Apr 17, 2014

Still messing around with the 55g scape. Any thoughts or advice is appreciated.

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jhays79

Discussion Starter · #20 · Jul 7, 2014

6

Updates to the room. I painted the concrete floor with grey floor paint which really helped brighten the room up. Doesn't look like a dungeon so much. I've got another ten gallon on the rack with month old Firemouth Cichlid fry, another ten I set up to house a pai of apistogramma cacatoides, and I rearranged my 10g shrimp tank

Cichlid fry

Cherry shrimp tank

My 10g grow out tank I dirted and use 2 coralife dual t5ho fixtures and two 2l diy co2 bottles on. Stuff grows like crazy!

20l with some Bolivian Rams I'm trying to breed.

I need to take a few pics of the 55g and the apistogramma tank.

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1 - 20 of 25 Posts

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