More tank pics, updated

[FINWIN]

*&%#$%!!!!!

Here we go again...the acara went belly up while I was at work today. Fresh , treated water and his own filter. Was perfectly fine this morning. I check all the fish daily. His color was good. I figured he was past the 'delicate' size but I guess not. This is a real bummer because he was such a friendly fish. Even let me pat his head!

I'll just have to keep trying and see what I can get as a replacement. Bobo the chocolate is doing very well. Eats everything and comes up to greet me. Very relaxed.

The new tank stand arrives tomorrow between 2-6pm. The Batfish Aquatics team will stop by around 7pm. So tank and stand will be up and running next week.

PVC hides are painted and ready to go. I'll soak them a bit first then position them in the tank. Will just need to wipe down the glass inside and clean the glass lids.

 

[Galactik]

So...yesterday I spent some time clearing Patch's tank...the amount of eggs she laid was astounding. There was a mound nearly the size of her body, not to mention eggs on the glass, eggs scattered in the sand. She must feel light as a feather after dropping all that! I have no idea where she packs them.

Tango update! He has a new, larger apartment. He was simply getting too big for the smaller holding tank. As always, pics included.

My first acrylic tank. Yay! It's a SeaClear Show tank. Have to admit, I'm loving this acrylic tank...and it doesn't seem as scratchable as a lot of hysterical information out there seems to say. The SeaClear tanks are reasonably priced compared to the competition...Clear for Life has outrageous prices, even worse for the Uniquariums. There's other brands also crazy priced. Only drawback is the "framed top" acrylic tanks require. Restricts some types of deco unless the tank is huge. Its also a pain when you have mulitple devices through the openings. One flaw: the center piece that covers the openings bows upwards almost immediately. Good luck trying to flatten it out. Fortunately for me its not a deal killer. I can slide pellets / foods in without removing it all the time.

Love the metal stand by Caitec TitanEzeDouble. It's so easy to assemble you don't need instructions (nor do they provide any). No tools are needed either. Double stand frame. I had it up in 5 minutes, easy peasy. They have these stands up to a 75 gallon double. Since the tank is acrylic a support board was added. The metal frame has a center bar. I painted the board edges black to give a clean look on the stand. Board is 3/4" pine. I also did a test of both light modes, white and RGB. There are 8 dimmer settings, and a timer. The COODIA strip is aluminum. The dimmest setting is truly dim, which is hard to find in a lot of these LED lights. I love the versatility. I removed the corner frame caps to eliminate any gap areas. The board is sized to cover the whole frame.

Filtration is 90 aqueon with ceramic bio media, filter floss and cut sponge prefilter. 2 airstones stacked in corner. I''m running the current sponge corner filter for a bit to help seed the bacteria, as well as mixed in some old sand. I also like that the white light is perfectly neutral, neither greenish nor blueish.

All done! Tango has done some decorating. He didn't like the bushy plants and shoved them everywhere, knocking them down. So I got his favorite plants and now he's happy. Tango is my only parrot that's camera shy so it's tough getting a clean shot. The minute the camera comes out he darts behind something. Pretty funny considering how big he's gotten! Then he''ll come out and dance.





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That tank looks great. I might check that brand. I've been wanting to try acrylic but the prices are really steep for me

 

[FINWIN]

That tank looks great. I might check that brand. I've been wanting to try acrylic but the prices are really steep for me

Its really nice, I got mine on Amazon on sale. Only thing is that its a nuisance with the top openings on anything less than 100 gallons. Restricts what decor you can put in. You also have to be creative with filtration hookups. But I love the fact that there's minimal evaporation and next to no splashing. Just wish the acrylics didn't need the top bracing (without making it crazy thick).

 

[FINWIN]

Here we go. PVC all painted up with the plasti dip and ready to go. I'll soak them for a few hours to remove any dust or debris but once cured the rubber coating is inert. Would recommend caution if you have plecos, they might rasp it off. I'd monitor it, some plecs aren't as 'raspy' as others. Wouldn't poison them but might clog up their gut. Because of consistency you have to paint the plasti dip solid, it doesn't airspray like regular canned paint.

Would also recommend staying with the basic plasti dip that comes in blue, green, black, red, clear and white. The other fancy ones have additives I'm not sure are ok (Flash neon, Metallic, etc).

 

[FINWIN]

The new stand is here! Batfish aquatics gang arrived yesterday evening for the install...took awhile to get the base pad to stay in place on the floor. Then it took forever to get the pad centered under the tank! Too much of an adventure, one of the guys almost caught his fingers under the tank while the other was lifting. But everything's square now.

You can see the lip of the floor pad in this shot. The weight of the stand and tank has flattened it flush. Amazingly the pad under the tank hasn't compressed against the frame. Once the water is in it will also smash flush (frame is slightly oversized which saved me two weeks fabrication time). This bad boy is SOLID. Looks strong, feels strong and completely rigid. Frankly I'm glad they assembled it before shipping, there's no way I'd feel comfortable with someone putting it together. Under the tank is a full support metal top. The frame is welded/fused to it. The doors are painted aluminum with a slight texture. The back is enclosed as well, with wide circle cutouts for hookups. Doors slide on a magnetic track. Cool design. Only drawback is the somewhat tacky looking labels that identify the direction of the doors facing out. Design is clean and mean. Weight of the stand alone approx. 120lbs. In the crate 500lbs. So yeah, the wood weighed more than the stand! Custom Cages said they'd pack the stand to prevent any damage. They weren't lying. It took the men twenty minutes to get the crate open, even with the crowbars I provided. Color of the panels is called "Natural Granite."

 

[FINWIN]

The funniest thing was the reaction of the parrots Kong and Patch with the main tank back in place. Kong's tank is directly across from the largest one, Patch has hers at an angle.

So the minute the men leave and I start assembing the tank, I hear all this thumping behind me. My uber macho alpha male parrot Kong decided to spazz out. He bounced off the glass a few times then sped in a corner and crammed himself under a plant. I couldn't stop laughing, it was ridiculous. Kong rarely shows fear of anything but he will freak out at the most random stuff at times.

So here's tough guy peeping from fright...

In the second pic Kong eventually decides there's no monster and creeps up front. He's now watching the main tank closely.

 

[FINWIN]

Patch was completely opposite. She watched me in fascination the entire time, tilting her head to see. These pics are all of her watching as I worked. Since the return of the main tank her reaction has been more of excitement. She either peeps from under her 'hammock' or drifts at an angle, eyes up and on me. She even went up top in the corner to stare, pointing her head in my direction. In the last pic you can see her face pressed against the corner where the silicone is. She's staring at me working. She has a habit of looking 'up' when things fascinate her or arouse her curiosity.

Have a new Syno named Spot. He's smaller than Cash and is in QT with Bobo the Chocolate.

Will have the tank up and running some time this week.

 

[FINWIN]

There is no funk like Oscar funk. I've got the main tank up and running since yesterday and the new stand looks great. Ran the powerheads first to circulate the Safe. So today I grabbed some of the ceramic media bags to put in the filters (the sponge prefilters were put on last night). I've tweaked a lot of what I did the last time. Although the AC 110s have huge capacity for bio bags, they get 'heavy' depending on the media used. You have to secure them with levellers which keeps them from tilting backwards. If the lip of your tank frame is uneven this can happen. So instead I've sandwiched bio bale with less ceramic media, a much more weight friendly solution. Anyway I grabbed some bags from the tubs holding Boss, Chip and Cash. I decided to top it off with bags from the tub where Brick is. I had just changed his tub water yesterday morning. So I lift three bags up and...instant black water!! (Brick is off to the left, if you can find him.)

So I shake the bags a bit and take 'em out. There's so much funk the ceramic rings have turned green on the underside. Perfect. So I plop these into the filters as well. Right now the water's a bit hazy but is clearing slowly. Poor Brick...I gave him more clean water just now, didn't want him in that soup. So remember kiddies, if you wanna seed tank filters find someone with Oscars! Talk about kick start...more like booty kill.

Ran a quick test: GH 180, KH 120, PH 7.5 , Nitrite .5, Nitrate ~10. In the hour since I've added the Oscar bacteria the tank is clearing rapidly, lol. I have pothos that will be going in soon. I should mention I didn't clean any decor or sand prior to the new setup, so I expect readings to fluctuate a bit. I actually added a bit more sand, maybe a couple of pounds.

 

[FINWIN]

Update. Got some tetra safe start to push the parameters to final stage. Got large pothos with monstrous root systems and they've made a nice canopy that won't move much. Final addition will be the air disks, everything else is done. Water is now clear as ice in less than 12 hrs. Temp at 83, want to get it down to 80-81 by the time the fish go in. May have to adjust one of the Jaeger heaters. I suspect the stronger power heads are heating the water as well. Seems like I have a slow heat creep, temp was 81.2 last night, 12 hours ago. For some reason I find the jaegers do this at times, they keep 'cooking' despite the pre set temp.

83 would be a doable temp for the fish I have but I learned from the last round everyone gets too testy and aggressive. Nonstop squabbles. Oscar vs everybody, Parrot vs Severum and Catfish (sometimes the Oscar too), Catfish vs Severum, Severum vs everybody (Severum had all losses). Everyone just looking for fights all day. I find that at 80-81 the stupid is toned waaay down. (And potential bacteria issues reduced). My chocolate Bobo is very calm but cheeky...last thing I need is more crazy when he joins the crew. Hopefully Spot will get along with the other catfish, Cash. Cash and Rex initially squabbled but got along famously later. The roots on the pothos are already growing and long as snakes. Mature root systems just take off in oxygenated water and help mature pothos adapt super quick when submerged..

Pic will be posted of the tank soon.

 

[FINWIN]

The new scape...welcome to the Jungle. Thanks to my Oscar its already slightly rescaped. I will be adding just enough extra pothos to make a complete canopy.