Almost ready! 210g

Well its pretty close to done, the 210g project...

Here is the first shot with the new Manzanita branches. There are actually two branches one is 42" the other 48" This is what I want them to look like when the tank is filled:
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Here is the tank with water, and bags of gravel trying to get the wood to sink!
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I am just going to tie some fishing line to some rocks to get wood in place and try and get all my fish moved over this week.
Here is my little monster that got me back into fish keeping, he looks beastly but is actually a bit of a runt. Over two years old and only 10". The new Argentea is in there too but hiding.
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Here is his current home (120g 60x18x26). I really hate the fake look of everything in this tank! Shameless plug: This is the one that will soon be up for sale.
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Well thats it for now. Just wanted to get a few pictures up of the new set up. Hope to have everyone in this weekend...

How exciting! Good luck with your fish move!

Nice tank. OK, I believe you now. But why get rid of the 120, your just going to wish you didnt once you fill up that 210. I have soooooooooo many fish that would look great in there with what you have.

madness wrote:Nice tank. OK, I believe you now. But why get rid of the 120, your just going to wish you didnt once you fill up that 210. I have soooooooooo many fish that would look great in there with what you have.

Thanks madness, but remember I have a wife... part of the deal for me getting the 210g was that I was going to sell the 120g to help pay for everything, like the dual FX5's running on the 210g. I am also trying to give the fish as much room as possible with out overstocking. I am getting one of the Pearsei from fish_n_vw. So my final stock should be:
Midas x1
Pearsei x1
Argentea x1
Silver dollars x5
Pleco x1
Of course this could all change if the occupants dont get along!

You should be fine, the only issue would be the Midas, but it sounds like he is pretty mellow. I understand the wife thing and getting back what you spent.

I recently bought a 125 complete set up for $350. (used) And sold my 55 complete set up for $260. So $90 for a larger tank.

Check your pm.

I am taking advantage of the Petco sale and getting a "spare" 29g to have an "emergency/hospital" tank. I have already accumulated a heater ,air pump, sponge filter, Emperor 400 for this already. I will slowly get this toghter and next thing you know I will have another tank going. Of course I will build a stand out of existing stuff in my garage and the stand will be able to hold two 29g tanks.

My pearsei is going to be very happy in there. I'm happy you are getting him. And since your active here I will get to see it grow. Very happy for you. And I'm with madness, keep the 120. Tell your wife you will put in. Some overtime to pay for the 210. Bu I can sypothise with the wife thing. Although my wifes rule is one tank per room. Maybee I should have mine call yours.

Btw, is that an led fixture? $$$$$$bags!

fish_n_vw wrote:Btw, is that an led fixture? $$$$$$bags!

Nope, could not afford that much. I got both light fixtures for around $90 with free shipping. They are freshwater T5 by Coralife. These are them: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I did not buy them from Amazon, I think I got them from Pet Solutions but I dont think they carry them anymore. I used an online coupon and took advantage of the free shipping deal. Not bad for around $100. I do not like the yellow cast of the light so I ordered some 10000K tube to replace the 67000K. I would love to try out some LED's but not on my budget.

fish_n_vw wrote:Bu I can sypothise with the wife thing. Although my wifes rule is one tank per room. Maybee I should have mine call yours.

No way, never get the wives talkin, next thing you know they will be telling us we have it too good and we wont have any tanks!

Oh good point. But my wife likes me keeping fish, I stay at home, the tanks look nice..... here try this "fish keeping is a good thing, I could be on crack or something" it worked for me..... lol

Thought I would follow up with the more nerdy, geeky details on the tank.

Its hard to tell from the pictures but that is one of the standard pine tank stands you find in the pet stores. They are crap! I did some 2x4 reinforcing inside, put a 3/4" ply on the top, bottom and back. I then trimmed it out and painted it with RustOleum satin black spray paint. All of this was glued and screwed together. I still want to build a canopy one of these days to complete the look.

I made custom spray bars for the dual FX5's. I wanted black PVC pipe and fittings and you cant find the stuff local so I went through these guys: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
I custom plumbed two Hydor 300 watt ETH heaters in line and filled the FX5's with Seachem Pond Matrix.
I also plumbed in a Coralife 18w Turbotwist UV sterilizer.

The light fixtures look like expensive LED's but they are two 36" Coralife freshwater aqualight t5 double linear strips. Ran under $100 for the pair on-line. I dont like the 6700k yellow glow so I have some 10000K on order to repalce those.

The gravel I am using is a mix of Estes deep river and Petsmart river rock. The large plant is a Tony giant fern by Aquarium Systems. The hairgrass is also by Aquarium systems. The Manzanita wood was purchased form [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Well there are all the gory details...

Took a picture of the set up before the fish go in. I like the look of how the wood came out but the rocks that help hold it all up look a little too lined up, so I am going to work on that. But this should be the final look. sorry its blurry, shot without flask so that I wouldnt get glass glare.
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Here are a few pics of the W/C Argentea
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He was eating like a pig when I first put him in the tank, but after his Salvini tankmate died (I think killed by the Argentea) he went on a hunger strike. Had not seen him eat for about a week now. Tried frozen bloodworms last night and he started eating those, what a relief, did not want to lose a $60 fish!

So I hope to get everyone in the tank today! Just need to contact fish_n_vw to see about the Pearsei. I am going to add all the fish at the same time so that no one fish will be established yet. The big question is whether or not my Midas will accept a tankmate his size.... I will post with the results, hopefully happy ones!

Hey it was great meeting you. Thanks for the wood. Everyone should be fine once you put them in. As for finicky Argentea, let food soak in garlic this works sometimes. It should start eating.

madness wrote:Hey it was great meeting you. Thanks for the wood. Everyone should be fine once you put them in. As for finicky Argentea, let food soak in garlic this works sometimes. It should start eating.

It was nice to meet you also and good work with your fish, they are awesome looking. (Would be seriously interested in one of the medium zonatus or bifa in your vieja tank I know you want to sell one...)

As for the Argentea, so far the blood worms are at least getting him going, so that is a step in the right direction. I tried trowing in cloves of garlic into the tank but he would not eat them... Just a joke. I will try some garlic on his food soon and see if I can get him back on pellets.

Slight delay, the Pearsei was sick so I decide to wait on it. So my dilemma, should I move all the fish to the 210g and hope any newcomer can just fit in or should I wait? I will check out a few places on Monday and see what I come up with. Might just try something else... maybe another salvini. After seeing some beautiful blackbelts both in madness and fish_n_vw tanks, I really am tempted to find one. Problem is most are too small to go in with the midas.

Sweet tank. That's the same setup I want.

Jantilla wrote:Sweet tank. That's the same setup I want.

Thanks!

Its funny how large I thought it was until I set it up and got the large pieces of wood in it. Not that it feels small just comfortable. Now I want a bigger tank so I can even put larger pieces of wood in it.

Felt the same way about my 180, I said oh man that's gonna be a monster. Set it up got used yo it and started to look at 8 footers.

fish_n_vw wrote:Felt the same way about my 180, I said oh man that's gonna be a monster. Set it up got used yo it and started to look at 8 footers.

Where would you put an 8'? without the wife noticing...

I could fit an 8' in my area but it just wouldnt look right. My tank fits the space I have just right. I would consider one of those MarineLand tanks, the 265g (84x24x30). This would work out pretty well but I dont have $5000 to get that set up.

I think my next big tank will also cost a lot because I am either going sapphire glass or acrylic. We can dream cant we?

You have a pic of your spray bar you made? Been wanting to do one with one of my fx5's to get rid of all the dead spots.

I also saw a large black belt at sierra pets in renton. I'm guessing it was like 7'' or so. It was in their huge tank in the back. Dont remember what they wanted for him.

Not anymore. They weren't sure of what it was, thought it was a Black Belt cross. I offered them $20 for it. And now its in my 300. And its a female, but still not sure if full blown Black Belt. But she has great color, and a perfect personality and temperament for my show tank.

HALP wrote:You have a pic of your spray bar you made? Been wanting to do one with one of my fx5's to get rid of all the dead spots.

I did not even think to take any pictures. It was nothing special just 90's glued together to go over the rim of the tank, the parts inside the tank I did not glue so I could adjust the output and take apart for cleaning. You can google a bunch of different ways people did theirs. With the spray bar conversion I did a barb fitting for vinyl hose hook up instead of the stuff that comes with it.

A trick I did when doing the spray bar drilling was to use a strip of peg board as a template.

madness wrote:Not anymore. They weren't sure of what it was, thought it was a Black Belt cross. I offered them $20 for it. And now its in my 300. And its a female, but still not sure if full blown Black Belt. But she has great color, and a perfect personality and temperament for my show tank.

Pictures?

OK, OK, here she is.

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And one of my new Vieja Heterospila

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Cool, any ideas/guess as to her mix?

I dont know. At times it looks like a full blown Blk Belt.

Just a little update.

Last night I was doing a water change in my 120g and started to feel sorry for my pleco. You could tell he has been having issues with my Midas, and had some torn up fins. Looking over at the 210g I thought he could use a little vacation. So I moved him over into a private suite all to himself. As I had him out I decided to measure him and... what I thought to be a 7" fish was actually 9"

Since my Midas is considerably bigger, I'm thinking he might just be 11"+ and maybe not the runt I thought he was. Why is it when you hold the tape measure against the glass the fish seem smaller? Isnt water supposed to magnify and make the fish seem bigger? When I get the other fish moved over I am going to measure the midas and see what his true size is. Hes probably just the right size and Ive been calling him a runt.

On another note. Came home to my Argentea with a tear in his top fin. I have never seen my Midas react to him so I'm not sure what happened. I have seen my silver dollars go crazy during feeding and accidentally bit my Midas tail (was pretty funny!) but I doubt they were involved since the Argentea chases them so bad. That little Argentea is everywhere, hyperactive and very personable, Midas probably got tired of his antics and had to tell him to knock it off.

Probably. Damn little runt.

So apparently I would be the guy you would want a fish from. I would say come and get this 5" fish and it would be like 9".

Water does cause shrinkage

lol

Just for fun here is "Speck" my Pleco:

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He has been enjoying deluxe accommodations in the 210g all by himself. The wood in the tank was starting to get this slime stuff on it that looked like snail eggs. I guess this is a common thing that comes out of Manzanita wood as it first starts getting water logged and pleco love it. Sure enough first night in the tank and all the slime is cleaned off the wood.

"Speck" is a L001 Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus, a smaller type sailfin.

Here is another shot that shows the size difference between my Midas and my new Argentea, which I now believe is a girl.
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Apparently she was coming on to him and he wasn't in the mood!

Dude, that Midas is 14". Im going to measure it when I get there.

Measure, measure, measure!!!!!! Lol sorry something to chant about. It is a beast though. Very good looking.

Here we go:

Mr Midas getting moved into the 210
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The tape measure dont lie - He is still a runt! He is over two years old and only 11". I bet he has a growth spurt in the new tank
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How about the Argentea? The girl has put on size since I got her!
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And here is the moment we have all waited for...
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Its true they are all in their new home and you can kind of see the new pearsei in the lower right corner.

So thats it this ones done!

Looks great dude, good job and great fish selection.

Looks very nice. Congrats on completing your new tank now, it's time to sit back & watch the fish

VsKitchen wrote:Looks very nice. Congrats on completing your new tank now, it's time to sit back & watch the fish

Now its time to plan my next...