Cichlid-gals 50G Unheated Native tank

Birthday wishes do come true...LOL. I've been waiting for my tank stand for a 50G tank I picked up here on WAFISHBOX and designated for a native fish tank. Hubby finally drug out the tools and let me use the saw and drill. He did all the "screw" work (not joking here...the wood was from last year so it had hardened up and I could not get the screws to go in...so he did that part) but I did the rest. Pretty proud of my self and here's the result. Put a background on the tank and set it up on the porch for "testing". We'll pull it into the garage this week and reset it up. Still deciding on the stocking of this tank but excited to finally see it coming about.

Looks good.

I should have never sold that tank, lol. Very nice, looking forward to see this come together!!

zach_discus wrote:I should have never sold that tank, lol. Very nice, looking forward to see this come together!!

Thank you very much Zach...yes...I think it turned out pretty nice. The size required a home built stand but I think the one I put together will work quite well

Wow, that's awesome...

Thanks DMD and Chad...I'll post more once I get stock in it and get it moved to the garage.

Well, belated Happy Birthday, Donna!

Thanks Betty

That tank looks great! You should go the extra mile and paint the stand black and make it a garage showpiece!!

We talked about that Anthony...giving that a black coat of paint but last week I was exhausted...today...meh...reconsidering that option as we are breaking it down and doing the move today.  Would only take another day to paint it...might just do it.

OH...and I've been working on the stock selection. Gosh, its harder than I thought. I like so many of these american native fish really.

Wow. Nice. Donna. Cant wait to see what you put in it.

Finally got the tank moved to the garage and setup.  We painted the stand, added some live plants (one big fake one as I need something tall for that section of the tank where the two backgrounds meet).  And my guy, Sunny (a GSAS share...thank you so much for this beautiful boy), is the 1st stock.  His new friends will arrive on Friday.



and a little closer shot of Sunny (Longearred sunfish)

Sunny has a lot of iridescent color. Definitely like. Won't these sunfish will do well in out door ponds too?

I think he would but he would probably eat everything in the pond...especially if I put some golden white clouds in there

Amazing sunfish! Love it! And are you now backing into the garage and re-tanking it?

Awesome set up, love the sunfish in there.

Thanks Wes and Tom and DMD.  Tom, I only have two tanks in the garage ... this new one which is meant to be unheated or at least very low heated and the "pond" holding tank.  I had the "pond" holding tank in there all winter and it did quite well.  I ran a heater pretty low in it and didn't notice any big problems with utilities or anything.  But when I had almost 10 tanks out there (and many with huge filters on them and big heaters) there was a definite big rise in utilities.  I'm not doing that again but figure I can eek out the two midsized cooler tanks without much problem.  

At some point I know I'll have to have a bigger tank for the cold water fish as the sunfish get pretty big but for now this size tank will work so I'll see how things pan out over time.

That's a great looking sunny.   

Absolutely stunning! Your tanks look so beautiful, Donna! I love seeing your aquascapes, and choice of fish! Very great work!

Dwarfpike thank you. Angelo...you make me blush. Thank you so much for your kind words.

And now I am sad seeing pictures of him. =( I'm glad he's doing well with you Donna, it was heartbreaking to have to give him up, but it's better for him overall.

Sunny is death in a tank. Throw anything smaller than him in it and he eats it. He ate some of my new native fry as they were small  but I have shiners that survived with him. I'll have to get some pics. We love him and he seems pretty happy. Thanks so much for letting us bring him home

mvrck wrote:And now I am sad seeing pictures of him.  =(  I'm glad he's doing well with you Donna, it was heartbreaking to have to give him up, but it's better for him overall.

It's nice to see a fish you care about go to a good home.   Looks great, Donna.