Big Tanks = Boring Tanks?

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Fat Homer said:
I sort of agree with the OP to a certain extent... Large tanks with large preds CAN be boring due to the fact most o the time its hard to scape a tank in hopes that it stays in place for an hour or more, making them in essence boring to look at...

These days i find myself staring into my smaller planted tanks more due to the more natural way my fish act with all the plants and added deco...

Although with this being MONSTER fish keepers, most will probably disagree...




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I agree (kinda) when you have a big tank with monster fish its really cool and all, but you cant really do much with the decor, Lets say you have a 220g with PBass, Oscars, and different Monster fish, those fish produce alot of waste so MOST people will keep a bare bottom tank to be more clean and healthier for the fish and the most you could do with decor would be a nice piece of driftwood and a couple live plants like Java fern or Anubis or fake plants, that would be it. Alot of the videos ive seen online with people who have massive tanks with only fish in a bare bottom tank whith a black background but the question was about the size of the tank not the size of the fish so if you have a 220 that's planted with alot of different plants and breeding pair of Dwarf cichlids or discus then its gets really interesting and you go to your tank to see all the new things that happened like if a plant colored up or grew a new leaf or if there is pearling or if there is a new batch of eggs etc.

So IMO Big tanks are good, just depends on what you do with them.

Big Tank + Big Fish + Bare bottom = Boring
Big Tank + Big Fish + Nicely Aquascaped = AWESOME :headbang2

Big Tank + Planted + Nice Variety of Fish = AWESOME :headbang2


To the OP seems like you need to change things up in you tank!
 
What's the most important part about a persons fish tank? Admiring all the fake ornaments,wood and plants just hoping to see your little fish somewhere in the mess of decor and not knowing if any died,bred or are injured because there is too many to keep track of or have a nice big tank with little decor so you can always see your fish swimming around,breeding and if things go South you know right away. I pick the latter as I did the before and never seen my fish amongst the decor and never new when there was disease,injuries or death amongst my fish before it was to late because they got lost in the decorated planted tank!! Those aquascaped tanks may look nice at the start but they never stay that way and eventually you get bored and change out the ornaments and years later you wonder why you have hundreds of ornaments and wonder why you can't compute the number of hours spent decorating them. I have done everything from planted tanks,decorated tanks,species only tanks,big tanks and the ones I preferred the most is my big tanks as they are easiest to maintain and you don't lose hundreds of hours decorating them all the time. Plus you can hold the coolest MONSTER PREDATOR FISH and you never get bored. Hence the reason I am a member of MONSTERFISHKEEPERS.

Don't forget to keep your stick on the ice!!
 
Blkpiranha said:
What's the most important part about a persons fish tank? Admiring all the fake ornaments,wood and plants just hoping to see your little fish somewhere in the mess of decor and not knowing if any died,bred or are injured because there is too many to keep track of or have a nice big tank with little decor so you can always see your fish swimming around,breeding and if things go South you know right away. I pick the latter as I did the before and never seen my fish amongst the decor and never new when there was disease,injuries or death amongst my fish before it was to late because they got lost in the decorated planted tank!! Those aquascaped tanks may look nice at the start but they never stay that way and eventually you get bored and change out the ornaments and years later you wonder why you have hundreds of ornaments and wonder why you can't compute the number of hours spent decorating them. I have done everything from planted tanks,decorated tanks,species only tanks,big tanks and the ones I preferred the most is my big tanks as they are easiest to maintain and you don't lose hundreds of hours decorating them all the time. Plus you can hold the coolest MONSTER PREDATOR FISH and you never get bored. Hence the reason I am a member of MONSTERFISHKEEPERS.

Don't forget to keep your stick on the ice!!
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uhhh......what?? You've totally lost me. Please use punctuation and continue said rant.............run on sentences suck to read. Just about got an aneurism reading this one....

Proceed if you must
 
Blkpiranha said:
I guess I didn't get my point across properly. If you are getting bored of the big fish and big tanks then trying buying something other then run of the mill fish. You stated on another site you wanted to buy.. " Redtail Catfish, Tigrinus, Shovelnose Cats, Bullheads, Achara Catfish.. Practically anything. Additionally, interested in Arowana, preferably Silver Aro's or Jardini since I'm not looking to pay an arm and a leg." Well all these fish are alright in there own way but most of them are PARKERS with the exception of the aros. If that's the kind of fish you are buying then that may be why you are getting bored! What I was trying to say is.... Try buying stingrays and other more exotic fish that are non stop swimmers,investigators and eaters. There is never a dull moment in a stingray tank. But if I had a tank full of the fish you want to buy...Well you might as well just put a picture of them in your tank as they do nothing. Even arowanas just swim in circles and that's about the just of it unless you get into Asian arowanas which are more personable and more of an investigator. I own asian aros and black arowanas and the Asian aros have a way better personality and you never get bored of them. My black arowanas just swim in circles all day and do nothing! But again you have to pay more for the asian arowanas then the blacks,silvers or jardini. The old saying "you get what you pay for" applies sometimes when it comes to fish.
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Definitely agree that tank inhabitants' personality plays a big part in how lively or boring a tank may be. In my case, an asian arowana (the bully boss), IT dat (the curious stalker), clown loaches (clowns), filament barbs (the restless), bgk (the shy type), delhezi birchir (the chill guy), and raphael cat (the nightwalker) and things get interesting every now and then with that crazy bunch :)

As for time spent with tanks, I've known some people with crazier schedules and other priorities who are still able to provide some time to their tanks (I'm one of those guys btw), and sometimes, it's just a matter of how much you enjoy the hobby and how you can balance life with it, just my two cents :)
 
Fat Homer said:
Dont worry at least theres 2 of us in that group ;)


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Make that 3 of us now. I previously ran a 55g, a 90g and 30g all at the same time. Now I only have 2 10g tanks and a 15g and I love it, such easy maintenance. A lot less water to change, more luck with growing plants, and good luck so far with breeding my dwarf cichlids. I may set up a 30g mutt tank with all the Apisto fry that I plan to cull and aren't up to par to sell, but that's the largest tank I plan on going with again.
 
I think both are good. With a small tank, imagine it's the worlds largest viewing tank and that the neon tetras are a school of massive arowana, and that the rainbow fish are all arapaima. But if you have the worlds largest viewing tank, you can aqua scape and have massive fish. Many arowanas in a planted tank. That would be cool.


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Thats the thing, i do love extremely large but extremely well aquasapes / planted tanks, but the amount of those around are very few an far between, since most with large tanks keep large fish that dont work so well with these scapes...

Otherwise, if it were as easy and accessible to create a large version of some of the planted tanks we see, we'd be seeing a lot more of the , in which case i would love big tanks as much as smaller ones...


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When someone complains about plants and decorations being too much work it makes me wonder. You throw them in and they sink to the bottom and they stay there for years. Not my idea of work. To each his own but I like to provide plenty of hiding places to make the fish feel secure and it helps promote natural behavior. Its this natural behavior in a (relatively) natural setting that is very worth achieving. I would rather watch a fish peeking out of his own chosen little safe spot than see the same fish sitting in a corner stressed out in a bare tank any day.

I also can't comprehend how a nicely planted tank gets boring but then resetting it up bare isn't? Okay....
 
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