new tank

eg6 vtec

well it didnt take long to get hooked and i have just bought a new tank

i got a juwel vision 260 at a good price, it needs a new powerhead and thats it so im on the hunt for one then i will be adding an external filter as soon as i can but for now its going to be a slow start with no filter

i am going to stick with my African cichlids so im off to seahorse today to get some crushed coral sand and also some air line tube for now just to keep me busy over the weekend

heres a pic as it stands now :cool:

oldat31

Nice, post some pics when its running...

eg6 vtec

it will be a week or so before I put water in as im going to take my time setting up the rock work, below is a pic as it sits now with air lines run for 2 air stones one at each end and a 40cm air curin with blue LEDs in the center at the back and i put all the lines into a bit of qualpexal i had just to keep it all nice and tidy, so you can see the start of my rock work I'm off today to get a few more bits of rock and I have 15kg of coral sand as well need to get a bit more tho

eg6 vtec

Slowly getting there with my rock work, I robbed a few bits out of my other tank and have them where I want them for now, need to get a few more rocks then i can glue them together so they don't fall, then I'm done and the sand can go in

Can I ask other people's opinions on other things like fake plants, where is the best place to get some nice tall ones

Cheers danny

Sleepy

I've never kept cichlids so I don't know if there are plants suitable for them but I've always gone for real plants rather than fakes. Since they live on the nitrates produced by your cycle they're great for improving water quality, keeping algae at bay and they look fantastic.

oldat31

Fake NICE plants cost to much, some are 20 quid for 1..

Might be better going for a reall plant like the above post suggests.

eg6 vtec

Thanks for the input lads i have read that cichlids will nip and pull at most common live plants and they wont last to long and also the high pH levels needed for African's i am very limited to plants, its something that i am researching and can add at a later stage

oldat31

eg6 vtec wrote: »

Thanks for the input lads i have read that cichlids will nip and pull at most common live plants and they wont last to long and also the high pH levels needed for African's i am very limited to plants, its something that i am researching and can add at a later stage

What sort of cichlids are you planning on keeping, I just finished setting up a tanganyika tank and its all rocks and caves, no plants.. I would worry more about growning algae because most cichlids are rock grazers.

eg6 vtec

i am setting up my new tank for my Africans that are in my old tank (not set up real good for them at the moment) i have a few yellow labs, blue dolphins, fire fish and blue johanni

eg6 vtec

not much going on i was away for a few days and picked up some great ocean rock in Maidenhead aquatics at the arboretum garden center in carlow so i am still playing around with the lay out, hopefully i will get water in this weekend all going to plan

eg6 vtec

Well most of the water is in I'm letting it run over night to get her up to temp

I started my day off with a trip out to Ieva star (johney) who very kindly gave me a load of rock and a few other bits and bobs thank you very much
Then I headed down to mr Hammie to pick up a filter couldn't wait to get home to start the final setup but I had to feed the misses so we got delayed lol

I started off by washing my sand and what a job that was, 2 hours I was at it then got it in and tucked around the rocks to keep them in place




I then hooked up the hose and slowly put the water in and added my water treatment




and this is how it sits now, one question how long will it take for the cloudy water to clear up?

eg6 vtec

She is looking good this morning all cleared up and temp is at 27 °C, I added some filter media from my old tank to the filter and squeezed a bit into the thank its self, I will start adding all my old tank water around lunch time and then the fish I'm going to put my old filter in for a few weeks to speed up the process

oldat31

Looks great!

eg6 vtec

the rest of the update from yesterday here

Fish are in and loving their new home its crazy how fast they set up there own patch in the tank, any time I see a chance for a good pic they scarper off so here's one of my pleco sucking on his new rock ha and my rainbow shark is loving all the rock tunnels






Got a quick vid of them and my son Jake playing peek a boo with them lol

http://youtu.be/VE-tRoiSfkI

and this mornings update

well day 2 and the water is crystal clear now so happy days, i also did a water test this morning and all is good, pH is at 8.0, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0 and Nitrate 5.0 going to do a water change later on this evening

CruelCoin

Allo,

Tank looks great!

Can i ask what sand you're using? I've got river sand in 2 of my 3 tanks, and its a rather browner shade with plenty of pebbles etc.

eg6 vtec

im using coral sand as its suited to my setup to keep the pH levels up in the high range for the African cichlids

CruelCoin

eg6 vtec wrote: »

im using coral sand as its suited to my setup to keep the pH levels up in the high range for the African cichlids

Aha,

Malawi/Tanjanikan?

eg6 vtec

Malawi great fish to look at and very fun to watch, my son loves them and will sit and look at them all the time

CruelCoin

eg6 vtec wrote: »

Malawi great fish to look at and very fun to watch, my son loves them and will sit and look at them all the time

I live in an area with rock hard water (425ppm!!!) so you'd imagine i'd go for some african lakes fish, but no! I went for soft water lovers. Grumble Grumble.

eg6 vtec

CruelCoin wrote: »

I live in an area with rock hard water (425ppm!!!) so you'd imagine i'd go for some african lakes fish, but no! I went for soft water lovers. Grumble Grumble.

you sound like a man that likes a good challenge :P

I finished up work early the other day so I said I would get my water change done and test the water again, while getting my gear out and set up my son noticed his Mickey Mouse diver in the press and set about trying to put him back in the tank, in madness that followed from the excitement he broke of the base and bubbler so we came up with this plan and I think he looks the part in there





Well after that I got stuck in and did the test and all is spot on so happy days so far

eg6 vtec

heres vid at feeding time

eg6 vtec

have not updated here in a bit so here goes

Well I was planing on waiting untill I got a few more bits but when I came home from work the other day my son was ready and waiting with the new poster we bought him for his room over the weekend and I could only take so many, Daddy fishy tank, Daddy fishy tank, Daddy fishy tank, Daddy fishy tank (you get the idea) so here goes as said some of you my not like it but I think its cool and with what I have planed it will be even better (I'm still a big kid)





stock list is now:
Red zebra cichlid x1
Blue zebra cichlid X2
Electric blue peacock X2
Butterfly peacock X2
Yellow lab X2
Fire fish X2
Rusty cichlid x2
Melanochromis Johanni X1
Rainbow shark X1
Bristlenose pleco X1

i got 3 new additions over the weekend and cant think of the names

done this vid clip last night quality is not the best as its off my phone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AOQRWNxH1E

Milly33

wow looks fab the kids must love it

eg6 vtec

have a new update for you all, with some bad news as well

10/09/2013

Well I got some time today to fit the new external filter and inline heater I got last week, the filter is a sun sun HW-304B 2000lph and to go with that a 300w inline heater to free up more space in the tank

When the heater and filter came I quickly noticed the pipe diamater on the filter was to big even tho I had emailed the seller of the heater for the right size I needed, long story short he wanted nothing to do with me when I contacted him about the problem, in stepped James feenan who made me up some adaptors and sent all I needed to get me up and running cant thank you enough mate below is some pics I took of the adaptors




The filter itself was very handy to set up the hardest part was running and cutting the pipe for the heater, I still have some trimming to do on them I will do that when I take out the juwel box and some of the filter media to the new one in a few weeks time, so far so good its running about 2 hours and no leaks and the water flow is great in the tank as well





17/09/2013

I was sitting next to the tank watching toy story with my son when I heard the juwel filter get louder then stop, weird I thought so carried on watching the film, then it happened again and got worse and it spit out a cloud stuff, I jumped up and plugged out the filter and started to strip it down and see what's going on

To my horror when i pulled out the powerhead there was poor rustys fin sticking out of it i have no idea how he got in there as the lid was on the top and the top in above the water line, at this point i just pulled the whole filter box out just in case it happens again and put all the media from it into my new external and hope for the best, while pulling the sponges out i found one of my fire fish in there? again no idea how he got there or how long he was there

Bit of a shock that was but I'm rid of the big box in the tank now and it makes a huge difference to the look of it

18/09/2013

Well I got bored tonight and was looking at the big empty space left when I removed the juwel internal box so as soon as the kids went to bed I re-scaped the tank, I was going to remove the fish but my net suffered a kid related mishap

Anyway this is how it looked before I started







I took most of the rock out and moved my air lines and filter pipes to where they needed to be I then spent 2 hours for putting in rock stepping back adding more stepping back removing rock blah blah blah also while doing this the little feckers in the tank where nipping at me constantly, finally I got to a stage where I was happy I have to say its like having a brand new tank all over again and I can't wait to get my black background on and a few more chunks of rock, here's a few pics of how it sits now, the water is a small bit cloudy

19/09/2013

Cleared up great this morning I also shortened the spray bar and moved it to the side to push the water one end to the other

eg6 vtec

Well boredom set in again and the postman fixed that for me as he brought me my new background, I had to do a water change so I took out 50% so I could move the tank out and make sure covered the back good and proper, below is a before and after pic

buzz

Looks well, I really like the rock set up.

Is that a acei in the youtube video?

Rustys are tiny and have small fins and if sick well..

But really good looking tank mate.

Buy your son a nano buzz lightyear tank now that you have changed your background

eg6 vtec

buzz wrote: »

Looks well, I really like the rock set up.

Is that a acei in the youtube video?

Rustys are tiny and have small fins and if sick well..

But really good looking tank mate.

Buy your son a nano buzz lightyear tank now that you have changed your background

It is there is 2 of them in there

Cheers took a while with the rock just need one or two more small bits then il be happy for a few weeks ha

Have a 100lt spare tank now I'm going to set up an angle fish tank for the misses so buzz will be getting relocated into there

buzz

Angel fish become v aggressive in a small tank buddy, they get quite big :P

Unless you plan to house a pair, look for something else

Yeah rock work is nice and neat. good job man.

I thought I saw acei alright but didn't see them on your list.

I have a few demonsai going if you are interested for the African tank.

eg6 vtec

buzz wrote: »

Angel fish become v aggressive in a small tank buddy, they get quite big :P

Unless you plan to house a pair, look for something else

Yeah rock work is nice and neat. good job man.

I thought I saw acei alright but didn't see them on your list.

I have a few demonsai going if you are interested for the African tank.

Have a lot more added just never updated the list must do that

That's me for the moment new baby landed 2 weeks ago so my tank funding has taken a hit lol

buzz

eg6 vtec wrote: »

Have a lot more added just never updated the list must do that

That's me for the moment new baby landed 2 weeks ago so my tank funding has taken a hit lol

Congrats Danny!!

PS I don't want any money for them... You can have them!!
Im trying to clear out some of the tanks.

Missus has had enough!!!

I have to downsize to 2 tanks, In my own house:rolleyes:

Sleepy

Much as I like Toy Story, the new background makes the fish stand out much better.

Congrats on the new arrival!

eg6 vtec

buzz wrote: »

Congrats Danny!!

PS I don't want any money for them... You can have them!!
Im trying to clear out some of the tanks.

Missus has had enough!!!

I have to downsize to 2 tanks, In my own house:rolleyes:

Cheers sure pm me when you want rid of them and we can sort something out

I'm lucky so far that she is on board but little does she know I'm eyeing up an upgrade when we move house

Gordy6040

I've been following this thread with interest because I'm also interested in setting up a tank, started with 2 cold water fish for the kids and ..... well, ye know the story.

Anyway, can i ask where you got your tank? it looks great. A second hand one would do, once i could get the appropriate stand as well.

Hate to be an armchair critic but i think the blue background looks better then the buzz one.

Congrats on your baby by the way, I also have 2 kids and a similar age gap judgeing from the size of your little lad. In a year or so they will be best friends... when they're not fighting and you'll have a bit more time for stuff like this again

eg6 vtec

Buzz is slowly coming out of the tank for good, I will be setting up a smaller tank for my other half soon and he might just accidently end up in there

As for my tank I bought it 2nd hand off good aul done deal its a 260 liter came with the stand,filter, heater and a good lot of other stuff and I paid €350 for it, keep an eye out on there and adverts as you will come across a good one

The kids love it, we where just away for a few days and my oldest missed them like crazy so much so I had to show him old pics and pass them off as new ones just to let him know all was ok

Do a good bit of research on setting up a warm water aquarium before you start off and just take your time with it

ZiabR

Sleepy wrote: »

Much as I like Toy Story, the new background makes the fish stand out much better.

Congrats on the new arrival!

Would agree with this, I couldn't really see the fish in the old pictures.

Looking great!

eg6 vtec

i finally got around to fixing my light unit, as many of you know the juwel units seem to give up after a while, see pic below of the damage



i was a bit shocked to see that and luck was on my side as we had some contractors in work installing some new lighting and i got talking to one of them who kindly gave me a new ballast with a much higher temp rating as he said the one that burnt out was just cheap sh1t, he also made me up a wiring diagram as the old one had 8 wire out puts and the new one had only 6

with some cutting, shouting, soldering, more shouting, sealing and coffee the unit was up and running again



i cant get over how much the proper lighting brings out the colour in my cichlids i spent a good few hours over the weekend looking at them its like have a brand new tank all over again, even the misses and kids where having a ball discovering the fish all over again

ZiabR

Looking great, fair play for sorting the lighting system too.

eg6 vtec

thanks well worth doing it yourself if a unit blows on you