Starting a fishroom

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

My wife and I are finally buying a new house, part of which is a large shop which will become my fishroom and workshop. Move in starts this weekend so in preparation I'm breaking down my existing tanks.

So far the fish don't seem any worse for the wear with my removing all the plants, hardscape, and substrate but it sure looks awful in the meantime!

The irony of the move is that despite all the space and the grandiose plans, I'm going to be cash poor for a while, so I can't start filling it with tanks and fish.... yet.

[bekateen]

Good luck with the new fishroom! Looking at your photo, I'd say you've really recreated a classic American urban stream biotope there. <JK of course>

Cheers,
Eric

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Good luck with the new fishroom! Looking at your photo, I'd say you've really recreated a classic American urban stream biotope there. <JK of course>

I didn't even think of that, but it sure does!

Those are my substrate scooping instruments, and stepped back from working on it for a bit and realized I should capture a snapshot of the utter destruction for posterity's sake.

[MarcW]

Good luck, hope the move goes well.

Once you have time it'd be great if you could share a few pictures of the new fishroom.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Once you have time it'd be great if you could share a few pictures of the new fishroom.

We should be getting the keys today, so if I the presence of mind before the chaos starts I intend to get some photos of the empty space to share .

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

The roughly 600 square feet (~56 sq meters?) I have to play with

Some of it will need to be reserved for regular shop stuff like a workbench, table saw, drill press, etc... but the rest I will eventually be filling with fish tanks and totes of some sort for sumps.

Of course it'll be slow going because buying the place sure put a hurt on the savings.

[Woodh]

Congrautlations, will be very interesting to follow!

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

All the tanks and inhabitants are moved over to the new place. Had only one fish lost so far, one of my big female pictus cats. Which that loss hurts a bit as I've had her for a while and was looking forward to setting up a bio-type setup for them (still will, just now need to group out more fish).

Since the thread started with my 75gallon in a terrible state, I figured I'd show it off in its new home.

As the tank is rebooting, I'm not putting everyone back in there right away, but I did move one C. paleatus female in there who was getting beaten up in holding. Tonight she laid eggs despite being entirely alone. It'll be interesting to see if they turn out to be fertile.

Then because I enjoy it, the morning sun casting rays through the tanks

The perugiae were hungry after their move, even coming out despite the lights being on.

[MarcW]

Thanks for the update, sorry to hear you lost a fish which meant a lot to you.

Looks like you'll have a nice space there, as you mention there will be noisy/dusty tools in there will you be putting up a stud wall or partition? I'd recommend insulating it as best you can. It'll really help with the heating bills!

Good luck with the project.

[Jools]

Ditto! Will be great to hear how you get on. I'm hoping (planning) to build a fishroom (my 4th!) next year, so will follow this thread with interest.

Cheers,

Jools

[Amelia Belli]

Good Luck for your new fish room, very interesting to follow!!

[fishguy1978]

Any updates? I would say keep an eye on CL. I was able to set up my fish room with all free tanks initially. I have replaced a couple leaky 29g.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

No meaningful updates yet. Lots of planning, dreaming, and then life just steals all the time to do anything away. I've completed a few small tasks like installing GFCIs. But everything else is in the just started phase of things; like pulling down the old 8ft fluorescent tube fixtures, where I got so far as putting back up a single LED strip before deciding that I have to redo some of the wiring in the ceiling first to finish it properly.

The other thing I'm trying to do is clear a spot to start working on drilling the empty tanks, and then find the time do actually do it. Once they are able to be plumbed I can start moving them off the floor and into their intended spots. Which I hope will be a virtuous cycle where the more that gets into place the easier it will be do to the tanks that follow.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Since the thread started with my 75gal it's time for an update. With the 75gal being drained and put into storage, an era has ended...

This was the tank I started with when I got back into fish keeping as an adult 8 years ago.

It's a fortunate thing too, I've been noticing for the last year or so that the silicone I could see was looking rough, but only once empty of all substrate and drained did I find that the silicone along the bottom was bubbling and in dire shape. I hate to think what would have happened if I had stayed in the old house for a few more years, at what point would it have sprung a leak?! But tearing it down now was lucky and will give me an opportunity to do a reseal before disaster had a chance to strike.

In place of the 75gal, I got one of the new Aqueon 60gal breeders. It's the same foot print, so it went right onto the same stand. I'm going a step further and expanding on the existing stand and adding a 55gal over the top of it.

That's far from the finished product, I still have some blocking to add, then disassemble, sand, stain, and finally reassemble.

I've had some other projects in flight as well, albeit they've been moving slowly. Shortly after moving into the new place, I was able to pick up a 72gal bowfront with a broken brace for free. So I cleaned it, drilled it for an overflow, and resiliconed it before tackling the brace...

Step one was solvent welding strips cut from a busted aquarium frame. The idea being similar plastic should solvent weld together better. Water testing the tank with this repair shows that it was holding, but I wasn't satisfied with that, fearing the plastic welding may not have bonded as strongly as needed for long term use, so...

Step two was then cutting a glass brass and siliconing that in underneath the plastic brace. Now the load was shared between the two, and whether I'm right about that or not, I sleep more peacefully believing that is the case

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

The 72gal bowfront, is my P. armatulus tank, with the hope that they will some day spawn.

But so far all that's happened is my C. paleatus have been spawning like crazy.

Interestingly, the raphaels don't seem to like to eat cory eggs, as I've witnessed them run their whiskers and mouth by them without even so much as a pause to investigate further. Nor do they seem to like to eat the cory fry despite them being very much bite sized morsels. In comparison the corys themselves ravage their own eggs on a daily basis.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

My other tank that is now up and running as desired is my attempt to get my D. perugiae spawning again.

A couple of years back, they were so prolific and bullet proof that I moved them to a tank I didn't feel needed as much attention and they suffered from that neglect. Now they are back into a tank that's going to get significant attention from me, they're fattening up and back into little torpedoes that race around when food is dropped in during the twilight hours.

I've been doing a timelapse of sorts, taking a weekly photo (image below is a gif). The idea was to track the Bacopa caroliniana growing in, but it turns out the Riccia fluitans is out pacing it.

[fishguy1978]

Very nice. How did you match the curve of the bowfront with your glass brace?

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Very nice. How did you match the curve of the bowfront with your glass brace?

We bought a cheap glass grinder and eyeballed a very slight curve, with lots of stopping and checking the fit.

Though at that scale, 2" at the apex, it's effectively nearly flat, and so if you can get your last scribe and crack done just right, it could work. But when you don't get that last cut done just right, the grinder becomes necessary anyway .

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

It's been a long two weeks of sanding, staining, and finishing for the 55gal stand...

Next step is some extra blocking to ensure the vertical 2x4s stay parallel. For those I'm probably going to skip the extensive sand/stain/finish, instead it'll be a much coarser sanding and just paint.

Not too much longer and I can get that tank started! It's going to be a heavily planted tank; I'm planning on planting sagittaria and just letting it go crazy and take over the whole tank. With the fish stocking at least initially being Hypoptopomatinae and Loricariinae, though exact species tbd.

Oh, and the lower 60 breeder is going to be home to my pictus cats. We'll see if a sand and pea gravel environment, combined with raising temps and increasing the flow in late-winter/early-spring produces any interesting results.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Progress continues; Blocking installed. Moved into position. Placed under load and final screws installed. Fingers crossed I don't wake up tomorrow to a disaster of about 100gallons on the floor.

But assuming everything is still standing tomorrow, I have a filter and fish I'll be moving over to the bottom tank tomorrow evening.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Nothing too remarkable today. Everything is holding. So I went ahead with moving the juvenile pictus cats into the 60 breeder, along with all their hardscape and filter to bring all the beneficial bacteria over from their previous holding tank. I'm feeling I went a little heavy with the gravel, so I may have to devote some time to thinning that out.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

The absolutely insane growth plant growth is really making me wish I still had male/female pair of Tatia reticulata.

I could only image that the egg scatterers would really appreciate that thick mat of Riccia fluitans. Not to mention the roots from the emergent plants. But I'm sticking with perugiae for now.

Fyi, impatiens seem to do extremely well growing out of fish tanks, imo, they put pothos to shame.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

I'm looking for input on how to improve the setup of my P. pictus tank.

Here's what they currently have... Normally the tank just receives ambient room light, but extra illumination was temporarily added for taking this video.
Along the front, the 1200gph pump helped sort the substrate by size from pebbles to sand. Which is the one bit I'm pretty happy with.

Otherwise, most of the hardscape is odds and ends I had just laying around. The clay tubes and coconut hut are obviously not to these cats' taste and will be removed eventually. But even the slate caves aren't being heavily utilized, and everyone fights over the one overhand on the far right side of the tank.

Should I get some more slate and try to make more overhangs?
Any other thoughts on what sort of structure might make them feel more comfortable?

[bekateen]

If they are avoiding the other slate hides, then there might be something better about that spot which is related to current, lighting, width of open space, or distance (as far as possible?) from people looking at them (but based on the angle of this photo, I think the latter is not a problem).

Now that the sand is sorted, maybe redirect the water pump to flow higher in the water column, not so close to sand. That will calm the current at sand level and may make the fish more comfortable. Also, maybe add a literal tangle of branches?

Cheers, Eric

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Thank you for the input. You've given me a bit to think about.

During that pondering I decided to setup a camera to figure out what are they doing when I'm not around.

In the dark of night, naturally, they're far more active. Even in the bright day light, they do seem to use more of the tank than I ever suspected... so long as no one is around. It seems like maybe a significant factor is that they are in fact hiding from me.

[characinkid]

I've always liked pictus, great fish when kept in a group, and yours look really healthy. If it were me, Id remove about 50% of the large caves to make much more room for them to swim and then add a couple of branches to the tank to make it a little more natural.
Great tank and project.

[naturalart]

Pictus are great 'day active' catfish. A fish I will own at some point. I like my tanks more 'natural' so I would ditch the square stuff and create some overhangs with some larger pieces of driftwood. And try to grow some anubis or Javamoss on the wood which could create some overhangs also. I would create more open ground for swimming. And from my eye the current definitely has something to do with it. It appears they like it. But I would reduce the flow just a tad, and observe for positive or negative reactions. My 2¢

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

Thank you for everyone's input, and sorry for the lack of replies. I contracted covid a few weeks back, and while it wasn't bad, basically just flu like symptoms for one day, what's hit me hard is how it substantially lowered my energy levels and stamina. I could start doing a task but only get a fraction of the way in before having to sit down and hydrate. So that has slowed me down in the fish room, and sapped what ever I had left for posting updates.

I removed the clay tubes and coconut hut, and moved the slate caves more to the center of the tank, making more swimming room around the edges where the pictus seem to like to swim. I've also played with moving the power head so that the flow is more diffused through out the tank as opposed to a stream down the front. All in all, the fish don't seem to have reacted either positively or negatively to the changes.

Though I am intrigued by how prevalent the suggestion to reduce the flow was, as I was under the impression these fish come from rivers with significant flow. What were people's thoughts on that? A neat side effect is this may provide me a way to mimic seasonal flows. Come January I might move the power head back toward the front and up the water change frequency.

[OregonOutdoorsChris]

For the pictus cats, their tank is coming along nicely. I managed to get a hold of some scrap 4" PVC drain pipe that I've been cutting lengths off of which has given the cats some much needed cover.

I still need to get some more wood, unfortunately the local parks department is too quick with the cleanup of fallen tree limbs. At a park near me there was a nice piece of madrone that got knocked down in a wind storm, but the parks department came through and cleaned up before I had a chance to get a portion.

In other news I'm getting started building up my school of Kryptopterus vitreolus. Here's one of the new comers with the 5+year old adults.

The biggest problem is having to buy them piece-meal, as none of the stores seem to have many in stock at once.

So here's a question for everyone... how hard should I try to keep Malaysian trumpet snails out of tanks I intend to breed fish in? I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle with them, recently having contaminated another tank with a piece of wood that had been out of water and dry for the better part of a year, yet apparently still had viable snails and/or eggs in it somewhere. If they're generally considered harmless to fish eggs, I'd rather just give in and let it happen.

[bekateen]

how hard should I try to keep Malaysian trumpet snails out of tanks I intend to breed fish in? I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle with them, recently having contaminated another tank with a piece of wood that had been out of water and dry for the better part of a year, yet apparently still had viable snails and/or eggs in it somewhere.

Are you kidding?!? A year out of water and still snails? Holy cow!