My new tropical aquarium setup.

[ColeyS1]

Took on my nieces goldfish a month or so ago and really thought they were interesting. Decided to treat myself to a larger tropical tank at the weekend.
This is how it's looking now-

Not quite how I was expecting my evening to pan out !! Ha.

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[sunnybob]

I'm not quite sure if its an early april fools or not. :?:
i think we need more info on future upgrades, like an actual tank and stuff =D> =D>

If you are new to tropicals it was my hobby for many years and I owned a tropical fish shop for 5 years so can advice if needed.
If youre not new , then its still a genuine offer 8) :lol:

 

[ColeyS1]

Thanks Sunnybob, I'd really like to pick your brains after I sort out this catastrophe. I picked up a second hand tank on sunday with fish, heater and everything I'd need to get started. All was well and they survived the move. Looked at the tank last night and noticed the level had dropped around half inch, then noticed the damp patch on the floor.

This is what I found when I emptied the tank.

The cabinet that came with it already looked like it had swelled up at some point (the edging tape was narrower than the top thickness) I just put this down to water changes spillages.
I put the cabinet onto the laminate floor and noticed it was rocking (6 feet on the base) and thought I'd packed it level. Perhaps as the tank got full it may have further squished the laminate floor and created some tension ? I'm gutted it happened but am somewhat glad I did it to a second hand tank (70 quid) rather than a new one. I shut my dog in the bedroom and headed off in my car to 'pets at home' hoping to have a plan by the time i arrived. I left the fish in an unlidded container which I've now discovered was a really bad idea. On my return I found a fish had jumped out onto the floor and was pretty much lifeless.

Things can only get better now I hope !

This is how it looked shortly after the move (murky water)

This is the blue fish that decided to jump out, rather than put up with my nonsense.

I'm hoping the others will recover from the drama, but they've been through a lot since Sunday.

Trying to sleep last night after reading about exploding tanks and catastrophic heater failures.

Coley

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[Phil Pascoe]

You can repair the tank - just silicone a sheet of glass over the crack. Make sure it's aquarium silicone, not sanitary. Your bristlenose needs a piece of bogwood (or mopani root or another safe wood) in the tank, as they and plecs are algae grazers and need wood to sharpen their "teeth" on. Not too big a piece as it'll make your water the colour of cold tea. The blue fish is/was a gourami. You will need a test kit PH in the first few months as the PH will swing quickly. Every second time you go to feed them don't.
It's best aways to put a sheet of polystyrene under the tank to take up irregularities between it and the base.
I had at one time a five foot tank, four four foots and four smaller ones.

 

[ColeyS1]

Thanks Phil. That's what I'm looking into doing at the moment. I've already got the best part of a full tube of aquarium sealant and have ordered a couple more. Do you think I'd be better having a full bottom piece cut, or literally a 6 inch wide strip ? I've got some laminated glass I could cut, but it would only be the narrow strip repair I could do and am a little wary of what adhesive they may have used to bond the two.
I'll get a piece of bogwood for it thank you. It seemed to get a little tangled in the net but I'm hoping it will survive/be alright.

I'm getting mixed messages with the feeding which is one question I was going to ask. All the instructions say twice a day, other people have said once a day and a fish shop has said once every two days is fine.

Do you still keep any fish ?

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[ColeyS1]

Forgot to mention, I bought some ph testing strips and I think I have an ammonia test kit. I managed to move 40 litres of existing water (130 litre tank) so hopefully I've some good bacteria left in that. I added some bacteria balls, not entirely sure what they do but think they help with the tank ?

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[Phil Pascoe]

I have one small tank atm with two plecs and two goldfish - it's at the bottom end of tropical temperature. We had three house moves in two years which wasn't ideal. I didn't want the ****** goldfish but the boy won one at the fair then swmbo bought another in case it was lonely. You are far,far more likely to create problems by over feeding them than underfeeding established, planted tanks are probably easier to maintain (once up and running) as the water tends to stay a little more stable and there's more natural foodstuff for the vegetarians. I feed mine when I remember.
Any glass that will cover the crack will do - there's very, very little stress on it.
I assume you have some form of filtration?

 

[ColeyS1]

Thanks Phil,I'll feed them once every two days then. The temporary tank has now crudely got filtration system from the cracked one. It's got the noodles, carbon and pads

I think I just need to gradually replace the noodles, a few each month and the carbon 6-8 weeks ?
Your goldfish situation sounds similar to mine

How long after patching the tank should I leave the silicone to cure ? The tube doesn't mention anything about drying time.

Cheers
Coley

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[sunnybob]

Use a piece of glass that is almost the size of the bottom. If you use a small strip the downwards pressure will make the cracks spread and youre back where you started.

A litre of water weighs 1 kilo. Work out how many litres it holds and thats your KG weight. add the tank itself, the hood, rocks and bogwood, stand et al, and you are up to a very serious weight. Make sure the floor will hold that weight without bowing or bouncing as someone walks by.

Use a good bead of silicone, like you would spread wood glue from a bottle before you spread it.
Just rest the glass on the broken bit and use some soft weights (piles of books or similar) to lightly compress the silicone.

Leave it TWENTY FOUR HOURS, OR YOULL BE BACK WHERE YOU STARTED AGAIN.

If the glass bottom is resting on any solid material, thats what cracked it. You need some 1/4" polystyrene from the pet shop to lay underneath it, or one minute piece of grit will crack it again.

A tip on the poly, you will find its a sheet the same size or bigger than your tank. That tank looks pretty heavy, so I would use 6" wide strips of poly across the base, with a few inches gap between each sheet. If there is a seriously heavy weight on poly the ends sag but the middle cant, so it bows, and youre back where you started again.

Once sealed and filled, DO NOT pile up a rock wall unless you silicone them together.
Many fish burrow in the gravel and I have seen a 6 ft tank destroyed by rocks falling down onto the base (not to mention several hundred pounds worth of fish dead because it happened while the owner was at work).

The fish that died was an opaline gourami. its a top feeder, so the way to stop them jumping is to lay floating plants across the top of the water. Then they can see the surface and will feed off the plants.

Feeding. Oh boy, to a fish keeper, thats a sharpening thread and a half.

Heres the FACTS.

Fish will keep eating, even when they are full. They have a valve that closes the stomach when full and allows the food to just go straight through. This allows them to always be full if a drought suddenly arrives.
Have you ever seen long strings of "pooh" from a fishes bottom? Theres too much food available to the fish.
Have you ever seen the fish in a dealers tank go absolutely berserk when you get near the tank? Theres not enough food.
The unscrupulous dealer will keep the fish starved
A/ to save money on food
B/ to save having to clean the filters so often
C/ to make the customer go "ooh look, they like me!" and buy something.

So, to recap, you can feed the fish as often as you like, but the QUANTITY is everything. If its still floating after five minutes youve put too much in. if they act like a shoal of piranhas when you go near, put more in.

Its a great hobby. I was given a 6 ft x 18" square tank made of 1 1/2"" angle iron with 1/2" shop plate glass. That was my first tank!
I ended up with a shop with 150 tanks selling ONLY fish.

Rather than bogging down the site, I'm always happy to discuss any thing else through the pm system.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

A whole long post just bleddy disappeared ..... again. I think it happens when someone else posts at exactly the same time. Carbon is probably good on a new tank, but I don't use it. My noodles are eight years old. Let your filter get dirty, don't clean it until it starts to clog - it's the bacteria thay do the job as well as the physical filtration. Get some water conditioner for water changes, it gets rid of chlorine and chloramine.I've always repaired mine with strips and every tank I've acquired that's been repaired has been done likewise - the water pressure is exactly the same right acoss the base as long as you don't dump a boulder on the crack there's no reason to presume it will travel. Get some guppies or something to help the tank settle - if you buy expensive fish you'll likely lose them, some are notoriously mortal in new setups. Do some research - you cannot expect fish that need pH6 water and fish that need pH8 to live together.

 

[Brandlin]

Phil.p - re disappearing posts. You mentioned this before in a thread elsewhere and I replied.
IF some one posts on a thread while you are replying to it, then you get a warning that basically says "someone else has posted while you were typing - do you still want to post your reply?" you need to click the yes/post button again (I forget the exact wording).
It's an intentional feature of the forum software that gives you the opportunity to alter your post based on the new posts.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

No, that doesn't happen when I lose them - it does happen at other times.

 

[ColeyS1]

Use a piece of glass that is almost the size of the bottom. If you use a small strip the downwards pressure will make the cracks spread and youre back where you started.

A litre of water weighs 1 kilo. Work out how many litres it holds and thats your KG weight. add the tank itself, the hood, rocks and bogwood, stand et al, and you are up to a very serious weight. Make sure the floor will hold that weight without bowing or bouncing as someone walks by.

Use a good bead of silicone, like you would spread wood glue from a bottle before you spread it.
Just rest the glass on the broken bit and use some soft weights (piles of books or similar) to lightly compress the silicone.

Leave it TWENTY FOUR HOURS, OR YOULL BE BACK WHERE YOU STARTED AGAIN.

If the glass bottom is resting on any solid material, thats what cracked it. You need some 1/4" polystyrene from the pet shop to lay underneath it, or one minute piece of grit will crack it again.

A tip on the poly, you will find its a sheet the same size or bigger than your tank. That tank looks pretty heavy, so I would use 6" wide strips of poly across the base, with a few inches gap between each sheet. If there is a seriously heavy weight on poly the ends sag but the middle cant, so it bows, and youre back where you started again.

Once sealed and filled, DO NOT pile up a rock wall unless you silicone them together.
Many fish burrow in the gravel and I have seen a 6 ft tank destroyed by rocks falling down onto the base (not to mention several hundred pounds worth of fish dead because it happened while the owner was at work).

The fish that died was an opaline gourami. its a top feeder, so the way to stop them jumping is to lay floating plants across the top of the water. Then they can see the surface and will feed off the plants.

Feeding. Oh boy, to a fish keeper, thats a sharpening thread and a half.

Heres the FACTS.

Fish will keep eating, even when they are full. They have a valve that closes the stomach when full and allows the food to just go straight through. This allows them to always be full if a drought suddenly arrives.
Have you ever seen long strings of "pooh" from a fishes bottom? Theres too much food available to the fish.
Have you ever seen the fish in a dealers tank go absolutely berserk when you get near the tank? Theres not enough food.
The unscrupulous dealer will keep the fish starved
A/ to save money on food
B/ to save having to clean the filters so often
C/ to make the customer go "ooh look, they like me!" and buy something.

So, to recap, you can feed the fish as often as you like, but the QUANTITY is everything. If its still floating after five minutes youve put too much in. if they act like a shoal of piranhas when you go near, put more in.

Its a great hobby. I was given a 6 ft x 18" square tank made of 1 1/2"" angle iron with 1/2" shop plate glass. That was my first tank!
I ended up with a shop with 150 tanks selling ONLY fish.

Rather than bogging down the site, I'm always happy to discuss any thing else through the pm system.

Absolutely fantastic Sunnybob. Lots of info there I need to digest. One thing that quite important is to get this repair underway. Would I be better asking for 6mm or perhaps if they can't do that asking for two pieces of 4mm and sandwich them together ?
The tank has a glass bottom, then a thin layer of white foamy stuff (around 1-2mm thick) then a plastic base

Would this still benefit from having a piece of thicker foam to take up any unevenness ? I'd sooner spend now and potentially save a mess. I've also seen plastic mesh type material that goes inside the tank. I think it's to help spread any pin point shocks but can only be a good thing ?
Thanks for your explanation, I can see it being an interesting hobby if I can get past this initial slip up.

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[ColeyS1]

A whole long post just bleddy disappeared ..... again. I think it happens when someone else posts at exactly the same time. Carbon is probably good on a new tank, but I don't use it. My noodles are eight years old. Let your filter get dirty, don't clean it until it starts to clog - it's the bacteria thay do the job as well as the physical filtration. Get some water conditioner for water changes, it gets rid of chlorine and chloramine.I've always repaired mine with strips and every tank I've acquired that's been repaired has been done likewise - the water pressure is exactly the same right acoss the base as long as you don't dump a boulder on the crack there's no reason to presume it will travel. Get some guppies or something to help the tank settle - if you buy expensive fish you'll likely lose them, some are notoriously mortal in new setups. Do some research - you cannot expect fish that need pH6 water and fish that need pH8 to live together.

Whaaaaaat so noodles really don't need changing much at all ?
When you say change the filters, do you mean just the white and black spongy ones ? I was under the impression it was the charcoal that cleaned all the nasty ammonia and nitrates from the tank ? I've got alot to learn !!! Lol

Thanks for helping make things clear.
Need to try and get a piece of glass at dinner time.

Out of curiosity do you know of anyone who's had catastrophic tank failure - So not dripping, I mean full on explosion ? It was seriously playing on my mind last night. I was thinking I'd need to keep it on a safety reservoir or some kind of waterproof tray that would drain the water outside. Both ideas completely useless if it were to just explode !! Ha
I'm glad this has happened now so I'm a little more prepared for a clean up. I have lots of containers and I need to get the wet vac down from the attic just incase I need to clean up.
Thanks Phil
Coley



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[ColeyS1]

I'd love to see some pictures of what tanks and setups you guys had [WINKING FACE]

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[LancsRick]

A long time ago I used to keep planted tropical tanks for years, and I'd recommend them to anyone interested in keeping fish for two reasons;

1) They look gorgeous
2) Once you've set them up, they dramatically reduce the level of maintenance you need in a tank because there's much more of an ecological balance.

I'll try and find some of my old pictures at some point, but check out ukaps.org.uk to see what I mean. I'm not logging on the site again, I'll just end up wanting to get another tank(s)......

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The plastic mesh is often buried just below the surface to prevent the fish digging. I've used the rolls of polystyrene insulation two or three layers deep, and I've cut up neoprene camping mats. Even 25mm stuff from Wickes or somewhere - https://www.wickes.co.uk/Kay-Metzeler-G ... m/p/210801

All the noodles do is provide a far greater surface area for the water to flow over, allowing the bacteria and minute life forms longer access. I've got plastic balls as well as the ceramics in mine, which are like little 25mm diameter mesh globes - these do the same thing. For the most part you just rinse whatever the filter medium is through with tank water and put it back, you wouldn't normally replace anything on most filters unless you had a problem, and problems usually come with new setups - which is why for a while it'll pay to change the carbon. My cannister filter hasn't had anything in it changed for about eight years and when I clean it you couldn't see through a small glass of the water. I use it for my houseplants.
When my alterations are done ...

 

[Brandlin]

... check out ukaps.org.uk to see what I mean. I'm not logging on the site again, I'll just end up wanting to get another tank(s)......

Site not found... ? Do you have any other address? This thread is rekindling my interest in a tropical tank - I've ad a koi pond for a number of yars (well a garden pond really but it does have a couple of koi in it)

 

[Homers double]

You ask about catastrophic tank failure .....
For over 15 years I had tropical and a marine aquariums untill I had a catastrophic tank failure.
I was woken up one night to a buzzing sound, being half asleep it took a while for me to realise it was the sound of a pump running dry, so down stairs I go, hit the carpet and walk towards the light switch and squish squish under foot, my largest tank had cracked diagonally and dumped the water on to the floor.
The tank was a bespoke made one by my local aquarium supplier it was 1.8m x 600mm x 450mm. It had been in place for over 7 years with no issues.
I emptied one of the kids plastic toy boxes and did very similar to your emergency set up, I lost a few fish but my golden nugget plek survived which was my favourite and he was about 5 years old.
The real issue was the clean up, I hired a carpet cleaner the next day and thoroughly cleaned the carpets, which seemed ok, but within a couple of days the smell was unbelievable, I had to get rid of carpet and underlay very sharpish, my Mrs was doing her nut, I even had to sanitize the floor screed as that stunk as well, the whole house then stunk of jeyes fluid, funny how you can rarely please the wife, I know which smell I preferred and it wasn’t the fishy water one.
I then got a lot smaller tropical tank, but in the back of my mind I had the fear of another disaster, a couple of years later I sold off every thing. That was 7 years ago
I am regularly tempted to get another marine tank, one of my good friends has one and every time we’re there I spend most of it just looking at the fish.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I had one of these -https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5ft-5-foot-juwel-rio-400-fish-tank-aquarium-/271719333169
I bought it with a leak for £12. The "leak" was because they had put another powerful filter in it running from front to back rather than end to end and the pumped water was sloshing down the back. I sold it for £50 following swmbos hissy fit about an electric bill. :roll: