Any Tropical fish keepers?

[michael]

Hi all, besides my four beloved cats I also keep and breed tropical fish. I have many tanks but my main display tank is a 300 gallon 8'L x 30"W x 24"H. I originally set it up as a South American high tech planted tank, I recently changed it over to an African Cichlid tank from Lake Tanganyika. Here are a couple pics, hope you enjoy.

These pics are as a South American set-up






And some pics now, as an African tank




Anyone else with pics of their tanks?

Thanks for looking, Michael

 

[keith p]

That looks perfect!

I used to mix various types of guppies once, and then swordtails another time. They breed so good and cross breed naturally that the resulting offspring were full of color it was exciting to see! I once bred orange tailed guppies and got one with a blue-green tail, even a novice can breed them safely. With a tank like that you could breed Guppies and try to come up with new varieties since you have the space for many,many generations!

 

[goldenkitty45]

Wow - that's impressive. Do you keep it clean or hire a service that does that work. You have some lucky fish.

My dad and I raised some impressive guppies. I like crossing the different colors. Maybe one day I'll get back into it. Looked at the ones they had in Petco yesterday - would have liked to have gotten a few and crossed them to see what we would get

 

[jack31]

I keep some tropicals with my aquatic turtles. Amazingly I have a tetra that is going 3 years strong the with turtles. S/he has also moved twice--as a kid we had tropicals and they never lived as long as this tetra.

My love is goldfish. People would be shocked to know how long of a lifespan they really do have (darn carnivals)

Leslie

 

[chetwynsmom]

I wish i had room for a tank that size!I think it would fall right in to my basement.We have a 35gallon with all the basic tetras(well not all)A pair of blue Goramies,and my all time fave 3 corydoras(albino,bronze,peppered)Wish I knew how to post pics ,just not that good yet.love talking fish having a hard not going over my load

 

[babywukong]

Wow your tanks are amazing!

 

[buzbyjlc10]

I'm impressed by your tanks too!

I love keeping fish, but I have yet to have the opportunity to build a nice big set up with live plants and the like, but my dream one day is to have a 110 built in (and of course when I have the money and house for that, I'll have the money to pay for weekly maintenance - I don't mind doing it myself, but it's a lot of work for a tank that big lol) I keep waivering whether I'd want fresh or salt water though lol

Right now, I just have a 10 with 2 fancy fantails (they were a gift several years ago from a now ex - it was a sweet intention, he knew I liked fish) - they're going really strong and I do like them... I've had tetras and guppies and a leopard puffer and bettas and cory cats before

The one nice thing about the goldies, although they're dirty, they're quite easy to care for and are really hearty - one semester during college I got REALLY sick and had to withdrawl and be taken home to be treated by doctors who were actually competent and it was a very quick thing so I could quick grab the cat, frog and hermit crabs but breaking down the fish tank to take home was too much so I left them in my apartment.... my parents and I were able to make it back there about a month later to get my car and some other things since it was obvious I wouldn't be back there for several months and the goldies were champs! They were low on tank water and kinda dirty, but the filter was still running and the automatic feeder still had food and they're still with me today!

I also have a 10 gal with an African clawed frog (she's all aquatic - must stay in the water all the time) she's really cool and also generally easy to care for - if I had a bigger tank, I'd have the frog and the goldies together

 

[endorphins]

I swear, I've seen your setup on an aqua site somewhere... Were/are you on any of the aquascaping forums? Love your setup - I'm a big fan of the "groundcover" planting. Love lots of green.

Not really tropical, but...

I'll have to look for some pics of my setup. My dad took it over when I was moving (it's a bit tough to transfer a 75 gal bowfront with several huge goldfish and an underwater garden LOL). I do miss it, though. I fell in love with fancy goldfish and as the first one grew (along with my addiction), I added another and low and behold, they had babies. Discovering baby fish swimming around in the canister filter was fun. LOL Our largest now measures over 10 inches, nose to tip of tail. They were pretty tough on the plants, so it was a daily task to keep everything looking clean and healthy.

This is a picture of Lola before I really got into aquariums and scaping (notice the fake plants and gargoyle?).

My first planted tank was a tiny little 15 gal with apple snails. I adored these guys. This is a pic right after I set it up, waiting for plants to fill in. I so wish I had pictures of it after it had filled in. It was gorgeous, but made me wish I'd done it on a larger scale.

Just got a couple of kittens and now I'm wanting fish again. As much as I love goldies, I've always wanted to get into cichlids. I've had angels before and loved them, but would love to branch out into some of the more colorful ones. Someday, I'll set up a reef tank...

Mmmm...want more fish...want more plants...

 

[709juggalette]

Right now I have 3 betta tanks and a 29 gallon with gouramis,a corydoras,3 khuli loaches (1 black and 2 striped) and there is a barb and platy in there somewhere.It is planted,but they are all silk plants for now,because the live plants I had died.I always had a "brown thumb"...I cannot keep ANY plants alive it seems,even the hardiest!

I will see if I can find pics of my tank.
I think it looks really nice.

I have raised and kept all kinds of fish for over 12 yrs now...cichlids (they are some of my favorite fish!) including an oscar,fancy goldfish,tetras,guppies,platties...etc! I had many different species.However when I moved over the yrs,I got rid of some of the tanks,cause they were too much.Now I wanna have more tanks again!

 

[artgecko]

I love both versions of your setup!

At this point, I can only dream of a 300gl, as I'm limited to my puny 46gl, 10gl, and 20gl... The big tank will have to wait until I move into a house.

That said, it looks like we have similar taste in fish, as your community setup has two of my all time favorites- pearl gourami and neon blue dwarf rainbows.

I have mostly planted community setups, and because I'm too lame to go the injected CO2 route, I'm limited to lower light in most of my tanks. I've never had much luck with ground cover due to that.

Your cichlid setup looks good... What kind of lighting do you have on it? I would think that you'd have to go down to lower lighting to keep it semi algae-free.

I have a 20gl long Tanganyaka dwarf shellie tank, with multies in it. I love the shell-dwellers and I'm thinking of setting up a 30gl with some melagris and julies of some kind...I think it would be neat to mix the rock and shell dwellers in the same tank.

Great photos and setups!
Artgecko

 

[EnzoLeya]

Oh wow! Your tank is grogeous! I've got a few South American Cichilds myself. Two fire bellied and 2 zebra striped ones (I always forget what they are really called). Then of course there's my Oscar.

 

[tara g]

Impressive!

DH and I have two 55 gallon tanks. One has a pink kissing gourami, 4 black skirted tetras, and an Australian rainbow fish. We had more, but something happened with our tank that killed off quite a few and we haven't "replenished" it since, fearing we'd lose more.

Our other 55 gal tank has a Jack Dempsey Cichlid, Firemouth Cichlid, Convict Cichlid, Pictus catfish, and pleco. Mr. Dempsey grew 3x the size of the other cichlids, and he was the smallest and last one we bought!

We also have a 10 gallon tank for a betta, but currently no betta is in it. Fishy 3 left us a few months ago, we tried to treat him for illness, but he died a few weeks later.

I'd post pictures but I dont have any here in NC at my parents' house, and none of them ever seem to come out well with our digi cam!

My parents have a koi pond with ~30 koi in it, but I guess that wouldnt count as a tropical fish tank!

 

[siggav]

First of all your tank is gorgeous! (both versions) WOW. I'm really impressed.

I've got one tank, it's a 30g low tech planted tank with 5 sterbai cories and 6 cherry barbs.

Here's a pic of it from a few months ago. I lost control of the plants though and most of the hygro died down although it's doing better now again and the anacharis started growing like a weed. I don't really know why it changed.

Anyway voila:

 

[sakura]

everyone has such beautiful tanks! I don't like everything involved in caring for fish. I like fish, but I always get so sick of all the upkeep and I just don't know enough about it.

I do have a betta, does that count as a tropical fish? His name is Bubbles and he is very fiesty. He survived our 2-day road-trip move, which is impressive. We've had him since February or March. We took out one of those 'plants', tank isn't as crowded now. I think it's 1.5 gallon?

 

[jellybeankitty]

300G? Hmm...I'd have different plans for it. *cough*Pacu or 2-3 Oscars*cough*

Beautiful set up's! Where'd you buy your plants?

I used to have around 400 gallons of aquariums not long ago. I've had Guppies, Platys, Pluppies (Guppy/Platy Hybrids. Born in my tanks, I didn't buy them.) 2 little random fish which I can't remember what I discovered them to be but they were "rescues" from Petsmart. They were Knifefish food that got lucky and were sitting in an empty tank and I asked if I could buy them for the feeder price and they said I could have them free.

Goldfish, Plecos, Cherry Barbs, Neon Tetras, Black Shirt Tetras, Glass Fish, an Oscar, Cory Cat, Bettas, Zebra Danios, Chinese Algae Eaters (Who vanished o_o), Dojo Loaches, Kenyi Cichlids, Green Spotted Puffers, Maroon Clownfish and Damsels. I also had 2 African Dwarf Frogs, Cherry/Ghost Shrimp and a little Cleaner Shrimp (Saltwater) who lasted about 2 seconds before he died.

Oh and lots and lots of snails!

My brother killed off all but my Goldfish, 2 Platys and one of my Plecos when he left the garage door cracked one night during the winter. It got so cold that not even a heater could have saved them.

I had 2 Bettas, 2 Black Skirts, 2 Glass Fish and a Guppy inside the house at the time and they made it of course as well. They all died eventually though. I still have one of my Bettas. The other died 4 days ago and I got 2 new ones, both who've I previousally owned, then my ex owned them and then he moved back to CA and I had to take them back. So those 3 are my last fishes.

I'm hoping to set up a little 10 gallon with a few Guppies and maybe some Cherry Barbs but otherwise I've already started selling off my old tanks and still am working on getting the rest sold.

The Goldfish and my last Pleco I rehomed to a man with a 1000G pond and 150G tank a few weeks back. I just didn't have the time for a 90G tank and I had 7 always pooping Goldfish in it which made it even more to care for.

In a few years I'd like to build a custom made 300 or 500 gallon for either a Pacu or some new Oscars.