20L w/ "fake" 3D background.

[fish_n_vw]

I think this is where I am supposed to post this. I just wanted to share a tank I set up with everyone. There's gonna be a lot of photos and the tank is already complete. So this will be a start to finish in one post. I wanted to set up a nice and attractive tank for my multifacsiatus. They have been bounced around a bit from a 10 gallon to 45L to a 29. I started with 11 fish and let them form there own little colonys. Anyone who has kept multis before can attest to the way the set up territorys and all the digging and what not. So I just waited until I have a few in a territory that looked promising. I chose a smaller group of the 11, this group had one male, and two females. So onto the setting up of the aquarium.

I started with and empty, and mostly cleaned up 20L.

This is a good sized tank for these guys and I have seen them succesfully kept in a 5 gallon.
And I grabbed up all the lace rock I had accumulated over the years and cleaned it up.

This was large pieces and I made sure they would accomplish what I was going for. I placed them in the tank to see if there would be room for the filter and the heater behind them.

Looked pretty promising to me.

So I set the tank in its spot and put the heater and filter in.

Its a small filter but these guys don't produce much waist at all and it fit well in the small space I had behind the rock.

Then I placed in the rock to see how it looked.

Again I was happy with it, everything fit nicely.

I added sand.

Next I noticed one of the rocks was a bit higher then the top frame on the tank, so I set the old crappy top I have for it in place to see how it would fit.

So I cut a notch in the top to make it fit.

I added some of the shells. But not all because I still had the fish in there holding tank with a lot of the shells.

Seeded the filter added water and waited a few days.

Then when it was all cleared up, I added the fish and ther rest of the shells.

Here's som close ups on the shells and what pics I could get of the fish.

And a shot from the top, so you can see how much room they have.

They spawned in there holding tank and now in here, I think there is about a dozen or so fry. Here's a video from last night. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h708hOtEz6w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Hope you enjoyed. I love it, I'm really happy with it and it dident take much time. I would like to say, that if you buy a prefabed background it would be cheaper then this. Because at the $2 a pound, these rocks can get a little spendy and a lot of the backgrounds available, especially for this sized tank are very enexpensive. Thanks for looking.



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[pacu mom]

Very nice job!

 

[randy-s]

That was a creative way to make the back ground great job

 

[F1 VET]

I agree very modern looking! Id like to see this on a 10x scale!!!




#1 S. Vettel

 

[MonsterMinis]

nice setup!

 

[JK47]

Nice job Anthony! I love this tank bro, very creative. Are you going to move around those shells and spread them out a little?

 

[fish_n_vw]

Hey, thanks a lot everyone. I plan on doing a bigger tank with a 3D background from designs by nature in a few months. But this one curbed my hunger for the time being. Jk47, I am going to keep the shells like this because it provides better cover for the fry. And gives the multis an obvious territory. I want to put something else in there adventually, but I will wait until the colony is better established. So there needs to be room for the other fish. If I was to do it a multi only tank I would add about 100 more shells. I always try to mimic nature and while at an Ad Konings presentation on lake tanganyika, he stated that in the wild multifasciatus are found in shellbeds miles long and several meters deep. So, I wanted to make sure there are shells on top of shells. I would actually like to get more shells but only build the shell bed taller and not wider.

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[JK47]

Hey, thanks a lot everyone. I plan on doing a bigger tank with a 3D background from designs by nature in a few months. But this one curbed my hunger for the time being. Jk47, I am going to keep the shells like this because it provides better cover for the fry. And gives the multis an obvious territory. I want to put something else in there adventually, but I will wait until the colony is better established. So there needs to be room for the other fish. If I was to do it a multi only tank I would add about 100 more shells. I always try to mimic nature and while at an Ad Konings presentation on lake tanganyika, he stated that in the wild multifasciatus are found in shellbeds miles long and several meters deep. So, I wanted to make sure there are shells on top of shells. I would actually like to get more shells but only build the shell bed taller and not wider.

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That makes perfect sense, thanks for the explanation. I respect people who provide needs for a species over looks of the tank. I just know NOTHING about shellies TBH.

 

[fish_n_vw]

No prob.. I'm a central american cichlid guy through and through... but for some reason these little guys facinate me. All the additude of the big fish, some "odd" behaviour and you can keep them in tiny tanks. Since I can't have anymore big tanks, thought I would try it. Pretty cool so far.

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[fish_n_vw]

I think to give these guys everything they would want would be a 90 gallon filled about 50% of the way with shells, not sand or gravel at all and that's it.. but that wouldent be a very "pretty" tank, so you know do what ya can was the approach. Sorry I can't edit from my phone.

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