Need help with large fish tank!! (ie spend someone elses $$)

[Misskiwi67]

Hey all,

I used to frequent this forum back in the day, but I've gotten out of fish since I started veterinary school. I still love fish though, so when the opportunity came to help refurbish the fishtank lobby fishtank, I jumped at the chance. Well qualified veterinary students have been trying for several years to make this tank look nice, and there have been rumors of tearing it down if its not fixed up... This is a beautiful setup, and I figure if people have been trying for years, then there must be something wrong that nobody has thought of. So this is where you guys come in. Here's a list of what I know, and I want you to tell me what else you need to know.

My idea for the tank is 1-2 pairs of angelfish and a large school of rasboas. I prefer to keep it as a planted tank, although I'm wondering if someone has given up on that idea due to the plastic plants that arrived this week. We can't get anything except java moss to grow well, even java ferns waste away and die.

Tank is quite large, in the 200 gallon range
Fluval Canister filter with a smaller filter backup
Very expensive lighting system (more details later)

Water is high pH (about 8.5)

Stocking:
6 platies
1 giant danio
1 misc. corydora
3 large tetras
1 redtail shark
1 big black large-finned surface fish
4 rasboas

I'll get more details on the parameters later when I have greater access to the tank. Mostly right now I'm just looking for ideas...

[MatsP]

It doesn't look like the tank has high pH due to any part of the setup that I can see (it's not got Crushed Coral substrate for example). So my guess is that the water is quite hard and alcalic (not necessarily both, but certainly alcalic).

That in turn means that Angel's are probably not the best option. Perhaps a better option would be either:
- Malawi/Tang c-ichlids - With addition of Synodontis sp. if you want to add some catfish.
or
- Rainbow-fish. Not sure if there are any suitable catfish from the Rainbow area that would go well in this setup.

Both of these suggestions are happier in hard water/high pH than fish from the Amazon basin, where the water generally is quite soft and ranges from mildly acidic to VERY acidic.

That's of course just my thoughts on the subject, and I'm sure others will come up with other ideas.

--
Mats

[medaka]

Have to agree with MatsP, you may be better off if your domestic water supply is Alkaline, keeping rift valley cichlids and a couple of the smaller Syno's,
But check your water supplies PH, if it shows a neutral or acidic PH, then there is something in your tank decor leeching Alkalines. which when identified and removed allows you better options on fish selection.

[Misskiwi67]

I've never dealt with water of a pH below 8, and found that angelfish and others would acclimate quite well when properly introduced, and/or acclimated by the local pet store. Before I came to school I bred and raised both bettas and angelfish rather easily in high pH alkaline water.

Also, as much as I would LOVE to do a malawi setup (my mom has one at home) we would have to rehome the dozen or so fish already in the tank, and I'm not sure if thats a possibility yet. I'll have to talk to my committee and see if they're prepared to give good homes to fish that need lots of space, like the giant danio, redtail shark, and that crazy flying fish looking thing... I think most people are like me and have been forced to leave everything in the garage except for a 10-20 gallon here and there

[MatsP]

It may well be that Angels work well in high pH, but it's certainly not their natural environment.

As to the fish currently in the tank, I should think that if you spend some money with a LFS, they would help you by taking back your current fish that are incompatible with the new ones. You may not get any money for the ones that are hard to sell (or any of them), but I'm sure that most LFS will take back fish that are healthy.

--
Mats

[bronzefry]

May I ask what model is the Fluval? If it's the Fluval 404, that's rated up to 100 gallons only. Do you know what kind of filter the back-up is? The dimensions of the tank would be helpful, too.

[ClayT101]

I really don't think that the high pH will be a problem if you are going planted. I believe that if you add CO2, it will lower the pH (not sure how much though). I have a planted tank and my pH is about 7.8.

The biggest question I have is about lighting. You don't say what kind of lamps are being used. For plants, its best to go with 6700k lights, and I think about 2.5 watts per gallon (I may be wrong on this).

For my 110 gallon planted, I have 6 45 watt compact flouresents, 6700k lamps. It comes out to about 2.7 watts per gallon. I have no trouble grwing crypts, java fern, and anubias. My main plant is sunset hygro, in fact, I now supply the LFS with my clippings once every month as they can not order it.

I still can not grow swords for some reason though, perhaps the water pH is an issue. In some places corkscrew val will grow, but in other spots it will not.

As for fish, I mainly keep discus and angels. The angels have no problems with the water pH. Nor do the discus. But discus are tricky when it comes to feeding.

I definately think that you should get a few more cories to go with the loner.

Clay

[Misskiwi67]

I was hoping to get all the information you guys wanted (especially the questions about lighting) last night via e-mail, but the person currently in charge of the tank wants to have a meeting next week to hand over the keys. So it looks like I won't have any more information for you until then... sorry guys.

I never thought about donating the fish back to the petstore... that my be a good option.

and yes, I feel bad for that poor little corey. We also have a lone rosy barb that needs friends too. The tank just has too many species of schooling fish, and nonexistant schools. Its one of many problems...

I'll get you the rest of the information when I get it. THANKS GUYS!!!

[racoll]

I would go with a Tanganikan tank without a doubt. Fill it to the brim with loads really dark coloured rock (all the same kind). That will look striking with cichlids and synos.

As a vet college you should set an example of beautiful biotope aquaria, not a motley crew of captive bred bread and butter community fish, pea gravel, solitary lump of bogwood and plastic plants.

turm to page 100 of "the complete aquarium" by peter w scott for the tank i'm thinking about.

[Misskiwi67]

WOOHOO!! I'm officially co-chair of the fishtank committee!!! Now I can finally get some work done!! We have a 150 dollar budget, but if we make proposal and present it to SCAVMA, chances are we can get more money. We also have plans to have a "keep or kill the alligator" fundraiser where people will donate 25 cents per vote to keep or remove a cheesy plastic alligator run by bubbles that is currently in the tank.

The dimensions of the tank are 6 ft long, 18 inches deep, and 24 inches high. I believe this makes the tank a 125 gallon.

There are two 48 inch saltwater aquarium bulbs, and they are 2 years old. There are also 3 normal bulbs from lowes. Other than that, we have no specs since the catalog they were ordered from was destroyed by spilled water. I believe its a mute point anyway since the lights are more than a year old, and will need replaced.

There is a fluval 304 canister filter and a magnum 250 filter. We have plans to purchase another fluval and dump the old, worn out magnum... any suggestions?

The pH starts out high, but drops to about 7.0-7.5 after 24 hours, according to my fellow fishkeepers on my committee. We are planning to start adding a teaspoon of baking soda per 10 gallons as per the instructions of one of the fish researchers on campus for buffering. We cleaned the tank today, and we'll be doing some follow-up maintenance on Friday including a full range of water tests...

I believe part of the problem with the plants may be due to the high levels of salt the former caretakers were adding. When we cleaned the tank under her supervision today we did a 30% water change, and she added 15 heaping Tablespoons of salt. I'm pretty sure thats a little too much...

We also want to put in a substrate more suitable for plants. We want to stick to something with JUST gravel, because we need to "keep it simple, stupid" for the people who'll be taking over the tanks care next year. I would love some suggestions on substrates. One of the people on the committee suggested fluorite. Are there any other suggestions???

Thats all for now... any help and suggestions are highly appreciated, and sorry its such a long post!

Smiles,
Alinda Buckingham
VM2, Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine

[MatsP]

WOOHOO!! I'm officially co-chair of the fishtank committee!!! Now I can finally get some work done!! We have a 150 dollar budget, but if we make proposal and present it to SCAVMA, chances are we can get more money. We also have plans to have a "keep or kill the alligator" fundraiser where people will donate 25 cents per vote to keep or remove a cheesy plastic alligator run by bubbles that is currently in the tank.

Kill votes at 25c, keep votes at $5? Or maybe six kill votes for the price of one...

The dimensions of the tank are 6 ft long, 18 inches deep, and 24 inches high. I believe this makes the tank a 125 gallon.

71.5 x 17.5 x 23.5 = 29404. 29404 / 232 = 126. The "missing" half inch is for rough estimate of glass thickness... So, yes I think 125 US gallon is the standard measure for this tank.

[snip about lights]
There is a fluval 304 canister filter and a magnum 250 filter. We have plans to purchase another fluval and dump the old, worn out magnum... any suggestions?

A decent size internal filter would probably set you back $100 or slightly less.

The pH starts out high, but drops to about 7.0-7.5 after 24 hours, according to my fellow fishkeepers on my committee. We are planning to start adding a teaspoon of baking soda per 10 gallons as per the instructions of one of the fish researchers on campus for buffering. We cleaned the tank today, and we'll be doing some follow-up maintenance on Friday including a full range of water tests...

If you have a pH around 7.0 then you can keep most anything from south america, but if you want to keep Tanganyika or Malawi cichlids, you probably need to add some hardness to the water, either baking soda or something else. Initial hardness may indicate that the water is treated with for instance Chloramine, which I suspect would raise the pH [but I'm not sure]. Either way, it's the sustained pH that is more critical to what you keep.

I believe part of the problem with the plants may be due to the high levels of salt the former caretakers were adding. When we cleaned the tank under her supervision today we did a 30% water change, and she added 15 heaping Tablespoons of salt. I'm pretty sure thats a little too much...

No salt seems like a good plan to me. Each to their own and all that, but unless you're keeping species that particularly needs some sort of brackish condition, salt has no business in a freshwater tank. It is generally detrimental to freshwater fish, although some species are more affected than others.

We also want to put in a substrate more suitable for plants. We want to stick to something with JUST gravel, because we need to "keep it simple, stupid" for the people who'll be taking over the tanks care next year. I would love some suggestions on substrates. One of the people on the committee suggested fluorite. Are there any other suggestions???

Plants and Tang/Malawi's aren't a particularly good idea [many of them tend to EAT the plants]. No plants is also easier to keep, as plants require an extra set of "things that need to be right" to keep them growing, so non-planted tanks would make life easier for anyone taking over after you.

Thats all for now... any help and suggestions are highly appreciated, and sorry its such a long post!

Smiles,
Alinda Buckingham
VM2, Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine

[racoll]

I think that most people on this website would agree that plants are generally harder to keep than fish!

if you only have $150, there's no way you can afford to use florite. it's quite pricy. your best bet is fine quartz gravel for plants.

to have a decent planted six foot tank, you will also need to spend almost all of the budget on plants themselves.

Rocks are free. spend the money on a big filter and cichlids and synos!

also, you should never put salt into a tank of freshwater fish!



why people insist on doing this i have no idea. salt is only needed as a treatment for specific diseases.

also baking powder is also quite unnecessary. find out what your tap water parameters (gH, kH, pH) are, and then work from there.



ditch the gator!

[pictus_man_77]

that is a good point, why do people add salt? are they going to eat the fish? hmmmm strange

[bronzefry]

No salt, no baking soda. Myths one and all. Ditch the gator. This place has nice driftwood. It's well within your budget and makes for lovely hiding spots.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/p ... 004+113714
Even when it isn't on sale. There are some posts here on how to soak driftwood prior to placing it in an aquarium. It makes for lovely, natural decor. You can also attach Java Ferns, Java Moss and/or Anubias to it with thread. They'll grow quite nicely. Frequent partial water changes, however, are not a myth. Good maintence equipment is a must. You may also want to pre-email this place and let them know you're doing this at a veterinary school. Since two veterinarians started this place, you never know what could happen.

Have you decided on any species?