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Just curious what everyone's dream catfish tanks would be?
This would have to take import/export laws, rare & endangered etc off the table.
You're allowed two tanks - money/size no object. Extinct fish are in as well.
1 non-catfish tank allowed.

For me:
Tank one: , big stream tank built into the kitchen wall. I would bake a lot more.
Tank two: some of those new spoon-nosed green twigs, Acestridium sp. or any of these in a biotope. Maybe , a whole bunch of them...built into the wall so I can view them from a hot tub
Non catfish tank: Jellies in my studio, one of those tall cylinders open to the sunlight.

What's yours?

Your tank sound cool!!

I am going to say a dedicated L239 tank. I know it wouldn't cost too much, but it is a tank I daydream on.

And for my second non catfish tank, a saltwater tank. A nice big one, now that's expensive, to me. The lighting, day, dusk, night, the live rock and coral. anemones and everything! And powerheads that grow all the purple algae, I hope that isn't the bad kind, , the sump and all that cool looking equipment that I know nothing about. And of course the fish, I like clowns of course and the gobys and the chromis and the Pseudochromis.

Hmm. Difficult.

1. A large tank (1500-2000 liter/400-500 us gal), with some nice large plecos to breed, I think. Not quite sure which variety.

2. Another large tank (perhaps half the size of the above), with large synodontis riverine species - S. decora or something, in a breeding project as well.

3. Marine or large planted tank with Discus - can't decide [Or, seeing Neil/Sojapat's post, rays!]

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Mats

Money no object, you say?

1) Rheophilic african (Atopochiluss, Chiloglanis...) or asian (sisorids, definitely some Pseudecheneis) catfish which I'd go there to capture myself, together with material and tankmates from their native river, and I'd hold them in a chilled 4 meter long aquarium with very heavy circulation.

2) Chilled large tank mimicking the deepest areas of lake Tota, to keep this bizarre creature:

A Malagasy tank set up for Anchariidae http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/fa ... mily_id=35

A tank that I have begun to plan out in my mind only so far is a subterranean tank, in reality I would probably use Astyanax fasciatus mexicanus (Blind cave fish) and albino ancistrus(I know it is not a subterranean fish) but there are a few subterranean catfish that I just happen to be reading about right now that would make for a very interesting display tank.http://www.nhbs.com/subterranean_fishes ... _tag=album

Probably more possible than the others is a tank set up with some of the newly described little synodontis such as , or the even more recent Synodontis punu.

The first and second are so far out of reach I had to add a third.

A non catfish tank...that is a novel idea, is that even possible??? When I have more space a big saltwater reef tank would be nice.

Birger

My dream catfish tank would actually be a rack of a several dozens of tanks set up to mass produce Hypancistrus zebra and perhaps Hypancistrus sp L236.

I have already bred wild Blue/brown Discus several times and wild Green Discus once but I have long come to believe it will take a tank of 1000's of gallons to finally breed Heckel Discus in any kind of numbers it would take to once and for all establish a tank raised population of purebred Heckel Discus in the hobby. While at this project I would further subdivide it to also attempt an unquestioned pedigree of tank raised Altum Angels to also get them established in the hobby.

I have kept reef tanks and bred Mandarin Dragonettes, Hawaiian Flame Angels and Yellow Tail Blue Damsels. I had live corals but none of the branching sps types, just LPS and soft corals. I would like to take up culturing SPS corals and breed Bangai Cardinals and carry them through their full life cycle to start.. It was impossible for me to have been able to raise any fish from the reef fish species I spawned in the late '80's and early '90's. It takes almost having access to a tropical sea to obtain the plankton they require or an incredibly complex infrastructure to culture suitable planktonic species to feed the larvae to have even a snowball's chance of raising most reef fish far inland from any tropical sea.

Few serious hobbyists can stand to be limited to only a couple types of dream projects since money is no object in the hypothetical limits set forth.

My dream tank would be something for a zoo: a wildwater river - with truly wild water flowing through is - thus relying on a few 1.000.000 liter an hour pumps - but then not populated with Loricarids, or other carfish, but with some rheophilic Central american cich lisd, such as Theraps irregulare, Chuco intermedium and Paraneetroplus bulleri

Dimensions? 3 meter * 0,5 meter cross section, and a length of 400 meters

But the money involved - over a few million euros, excluding energy, would be prohibitive. It would be easier and cheaper to go buying some property in Central America

Hi Bas,

So you would build the tropical fish equivalent of the LHC(Large Hadron Collider) for your project.
But I agree with you. If money is no object we might as well move to the fish and set up our dream projects instead of trying to deal with a large facility in the temperate zones.

My dream tank would be something for a zoo: a wildwater river - with truly wild water flowing through is - thus relying on a few 1.000.000 liter an hour pumps - but then not populated with Loricarids, or other carfish, but with some rheophilic Central american cich lisd, such as Theraps irregulare, Chuco intermedium and Paraneetroplus bulleri

It is not quite the same(slower water) but the zoo in Calgary has a indoor hippo pool with underwater viewing, in amongst the hippo's are hundreds of fishes, the last time I was there mostly Metriaclima cichlids.(sorry no picture)

Birger

Larry:

So you would build the tropical fish equivalent of the LHC(Large Hadron Collider) for your project.

Cool.
I already tried to find a ring or doughnut shaped acrylic aquarium so fish that needed long stretches of swimming space could be accommodated. No luck anywhere but a simple mold would do it and the fish could swim forever without having to turn around. Theoretically one could use steel rings and line it with acrylic to get the same effect. Still a do-able dream for me

Mini-synos? It just gets better, eh? Sweet!

That could be an option, alternatively I would think of two ponds, one a few meters above the other, and end up with something you can find in a facility like disneyworld.

I hope this link works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pira%C3%B1a_(Efteling) for an example in the Netherlands

If you just want a treadmill for the fish, just use a circular tank: http://www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/Static/h ... rcular.jpg
They're used for fish like e.g. trout which want to swim all the time, and as the current is highest at the edge and zero in the center the fish can select how much current they want. The downside with transparent cylindrical tanks is that you get a lot of distortion, and the curved acrylic is hard to clean.

Money no object? I'd buy the Xingu (or perhaps the Rio Iriri), turn it into national park.

Perhaps we need a budget of half a million say?

Jools

Jools wrote:Money no object? I'd buy the Xingu (or perhaps the Rio Iriri), turn it into national park.

Now there's an idea.

Perhaps we need a budget of half a million say?

Would that not prevent (some) fantastic ideas.

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Mats

MatsP wrote:Would that not prevent (some) fantastic ideas.

Yes, some. How about £5m?

However, I'd love to have two seriously big tanks - like 10m long or thereabouts and have one with fishes I've collected from one biotope (so, the budget for the tank includes weeks in the wilds) and the other I'd like to have huge shoals of common species generated from captive pairs. So, concepts like an " wall" or perhaps 150+ strong shoal of amongst litterally thousands of tetras. I guess to make that point that bag tanks don't have to equal big fish.

For some reason I've always wanted to keep a big shoal of Prochilodus and Myleus or similar.

With a £5m budget? An artifical exterior river with populations of all know would be nice.


Jools

Jools:

Money no object? I'd buy the Xingu (or perhaps the Rio Iriri), turn it into national park.

Perhaps we need a budget of half a million say?

That's it?? I would have imagined a much higher price? Where's the NGO's in this picture? Half a million is peanuts. I'm going to buy lottery tickets and If I ever win, Jools, PC Park would be a reality. Wonder if the donation button could handle all those zeros

Hi,

I only like to have a decent group (like 20 to 30) of some Neblinichthys species to breed.
For the second tank: well, I guess some kind of swimming pool for my Pseudacanthicus sp. (3).

Cheers, Sandor

a loricariinae tank (lamontichthys, hartia, planiloricaria, pseudohemiodon, pterosturisoma, etc, etc), for sure, with a few choice ancistrinids.

a riveriine tank-balitorids, lithoxus and kin, ancistrus, neblinichthys, chiloglanis, kryptopterus, goodeids, chaetosoma, poecilids.

Kinda similar to what Mike Noren has in mind I guess.

i) A 10 foot Hillstrream Wall tank numbing cold filled with Sisorids and Erethistids. Some of the more obscure ones especially Pseudecheneis,Oreoglanis,Pesudexostoma and the fantastic looking Glyptothorax panda .


ii) An indoor Hillstream habitat with just one adult Bagarius yarrelli.

A huge square/cube tank like 200x200x100cm on a plinth at eye level for L27 (Xingu and Goldlines) that had a natural spring/stream as a constant water source.

I'd like three SERIOUSLY big tanks (say 14'X6'X3' deep) for an African tank (Distichodus, congo tetras, riverine synos and cichlids) and a South American tank (large geos, plecs, silver dollars), plus another for a large Pimelodid and Oxydoras. Another big tank (15'X6'x3' deep as a minumum) for British species- chub, barbel, bream, gudgeon, rudd, carp. Oh, and a similar-sized tank for lemon-finned barbs, tinfoil barbs, silver sharks, largish gouramis. And a big tank for loaches....

... I'd built a huge paludarium in my fishroom. It would be in concrete, 500x200x100, filtered by a heavy sand filter, with huge streaming for the tank part. On the top there would be a "planted part" with Spatiphyllum sp, Orchids, Monstera gigantea and maybe a piece or two gum trees (Hevea). In this jungle there would have many frogs and a few reptiles...

Considering the fish population, it would contain huge cichlids like Cichla, a few Osteoglossum, and of course, Loricaridae : Acanthicus hystrix, Panaque sp Xingu, Pseudacanthicus sp Scarlet, Glypoperichthys sp xingu... finally, a group of "Red Tail Catfish" (Phractocephallus ?)

And going on with the dream, I'd build another tank in concrete, with a frontal glass like in public aquariums, around 20m3, but outside, to home a european population with Carps, Pikes, Perchs, and so on...

If money was no object, of course...

I think I would want a huge tank which is very long and wide but not too deep in order to create plenty of floor space. It would need to be 10,000l+ and full of either L24, L25, L600s or maybe L27s and try to breed them. Then mix them in with loads of rainbow fish, tetra, danios or something else that swims at the upper levels to add some more colour.

I saw a really cool marine octopus in a LFS and I think a tank with those or maybe sea horses would be cool.

I also saw something on TV about a lake in Asia which had been been set up with loads of Redtail catfish. The idea was that you paid to catch them and then had to return them to the lake. Image duplicating this, just chilling out in your back garden catching RTC on your own private lake.

I would move to the Amazon and live in a hut by a stream.............

Matt

ElTofi :

On the top there would be a "planted part" with Spatiphyllum sp, Orchids, Monstera gigantea and maybe a piece or two gum trees (Hevea). In this jungle there would have many frogs and a few reptiles...

Ooo, heavenly. Vanilla vine too

Grokefish:

I would move to the Amazon and live in a hut by a stream.............

Matt

Depending on where you go, you may not need any money to do that. But we'd miss you, the internet connection may be iffy in the jungle