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If I had a 220 Gallon Aquarium, I would stock....

On my way to getting my dream aquarium...

122K views 1K replies 53 participants last post by  djembekah 
#1 ·
We have a 20, 35, and 2 x 55 gallon tanks. Today we took the plunge and put a 6 foot, 125 gallon tank with stand on layaway. It will be our last tank.



It'll take a couple of months for me to pay off the tank, stand, heaters, filter, etc which gives me plenty of time to figure out what kind of substrate I want, whether or not I am finally going to try live plants, and what kind of fish to keep. Actually, i'm not even sure what kind of filter to get yet.

Our current tanks are very colorful and artificial looking (think Vegas, tacky but entertaining) as you can see in these pictures:





I'm thinking I would like the new tank to look more natural. We're going to use it as a room divider in our basement so it will be visible from both sides of the tank, we won't be using a background. So far I'm leaning toward some Balas, Barbs, and Loaches, if the tank is big enough.

Can't wait to get the sucker home and set up! Going to be a long couple of months. My 3 year wedding anniversary is July 18 and I'm hoping to have it then, as this is my anniversary gift.
 
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#763 ·
If I had a 220 Gallon tank, and this is in response to your pole, I would do a 220 Gallon replication of the Amazon. That's my dream tank. I just had a warm up on it. Hard.

I would stock it with the main fish being Discus. Cory Catfish and maybe 2-3 other kinds of catfish including some kind of pleco. Bolivian Ram. and a nice school of something tetra or other fish.

:D

I love Amazon style tanks.
 
#786 ·
And this is one of the reasons I'm not fond of catfish... They love this disappearing act. But I hope that camera does catch him!


Haha! That's what I would do with a 220 gal! Discus and tetra and cories! Instead of a pleco I'd probably go with a farlowella instead.
 
#765 ·
unbelievable how fish, even large ones, can go completely missing. they are GONE!!! Sometimes, the mystery is explained later... find the fish on the floor, under an ornament you never thought they would fit...
Unnerving and exasperating.
 
#769 ·
Maybe ninja catfish is in the filter I lost a loach just disappeared one day about 3 months ago gone never to be found
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I checked in the filter, in the ornaments, I poked around the substrate and I checked the floor behind/around the stand.

This was a big catfish too, the same size as the striped raphael in my video and my avatar.
 
#774 ·
I was just reading up on this catfish seems They like to hide and like to come out at night maybe he's Fooling you I watch one of my loaches bury himself into the substrate one day, Could he be buried in the substrate? Is there a tight lid on the tank?
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The lid is super tight. When I bought it used, all the tabs were out of the back of the hood. I cut plastic to cover all the holes, and taped it down. So the hood is actually taped to the aquarium. I still searched around just in case.

I rooted around a little in the substrate, but not everywhere. My substrate is not super deep, so I would think I would see a bump or something.

I'm wondering how I could catch him at night, assuming he is still in the tank and is still alive.
 
#772 ·
My Raphael lived in the base of my Pirate ship and only came out at night to inhale all the algae disks I dropped in and return to the hiding spot. I set up my camera on night vision on a tripod, dropped in the disks and turned out the lights on tank and room. Took him about 20 minutes to come out.
Other than that... I never saw him, no one would know he was in the tank.
 
#776 ·
The two striped catfish I can find are in an ornament.

There is another ornament, a waterfall, in the tank. It has a hole in the bottom, but the hole is sitting on the substrate, I can't see how he could get in there. But I still took it out of the tank and looked inside, couldn't see him in there. I also listened for the croaking sound, I heard nothing.

I had a baby video monitor and camera with night vision in Charlie's room when he was young, because he was a climber and his bed is a volkswagon bug, so we were worried about him falling of the roof, or opening the window and falling out. It has night vision (my regular camera and video camera do not).

Jodie is looking for the charger for the handheld monitor right now. (we haven't used it in ages). She found it, it is working. NICE. It doesn't record, but I'll just watch it live.

Tonight when I turn all the lights off I'll drop in a couple of algae wafers. The camera can rotate, move up and down and zoom in from the monitor. If he's in there, and alive, and comes out to eat, I should see him tonight.
 
#773 ·
For myself, I have cats. If any fish manages to make it out of the tank it would ultimately end up in the litter box. Anyone who has seen my feed (www.twocents.name) will notice the boxy like contraption on top of the tank. This is for everyones protection, the fish as well as the cats.
The only exception is the 5.5 gallon which I try and keep as a decoy for the cats. Small enough openings at the end to let the power & air lines in and big enough for cat tongues. (They absolutely love to drink the water... yrrrch). I suspect the female betta I had must have taken exception to this. She disappeared, but i'm not totally convinced it was the cats. I have a male in there now, something of a rescue.. he cannot swim well and he is as laid back as regular fish. He does not seem interested in defending his waters against the cats.
 
#779 ·
Haha. It was a totally separate thread I made titled: "Lost a Catfish" or something like that. Looking to catch the eye of those that do not frequent this thread.

Two or three days ago I was away for a day and when I came back there were a few pages to sift through in this thread.
 
#784 ·
lol those are great pics of you and jodie. i would be wondering where the heck your catfish is too. lol. i remember the video that you took trying to find it. lol. crafty little buggers. one of mine likes to chill in the lava rock. he is a sly little devil :p
 
#785 ·
It's funny, the two I can find are the striped, but I can't find the spotted. The last time I saw him was when he was released from the bag.

I just hope the night vision comes in clear enough to see him. He is mostly black, except for his spots.

He isn't in the video we originally made of the catfish, because he was already hiding.

Jakie, what kind of food did you use to lure them out at night? I was going to use a couple of algae wafers.
 
#787 ·
I just used ordinary Algae disks. Try to drop them right out in the front if you are going to video tape and it might take a while... you have several large cats in there. He should smell them tho and come out if he's hungry even if it is just to swim by... you may have to waste a few disks or over feed the others tonight just to see if you can get him to come out. Sit quiet in front of the tank... I checked my video... took him 5 and a half minutes to come out.... and 20 seconds later he was gone. Took an algae disc right off of a large Pleco. I tried to upload the video but I think it's too long. Wish I knew how to cut it down.
 
#790 ·
LOL. Thanks!! Satisfaction!! The Pleco and the Raphael got to a size that the Raphael would get really aggressive and I sold him first. By that time it was just an aggravation to the tank. The Pleco was more peaceful but it also went a few months later. I learned from my Big Al's that those big Plecos that people sell back to the store get "rented" to people with ponds in the summer and then they take them back in for the winter. They have a ton of huge ones in a tank together in the winter. Funny eh?
 
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#793 ·
Congrads on finding your invisible catfish! I still say he is a new breed that escaped a science facility and can turn invisible at will! His weakness? SPAM! ;-)
 
#794 ·
I haven't found mine, lol. Jakie found hers. Hilarious video Jakie.

I didn't search last night because I forgot to get the camera out of the boy's room before he went to bed. It is still on his wall.

I got my new light strip for the 220 today, because the switch was already shot on the other one.

Also brought home the terrarium. Still don't know where it is going to go. We don't have many outlets left.
The cops are going to think I have a grow op.

Byron, I got my GH tested. It was "5" which he said equates to 90 ppm.
 
#795 ·
Oops! :oops: Well, glad she found hers! :lol:

I bet little man looked adorible all snuggled up for the night. They are so cute when they sleep. When their awake? Now THAT'S a different story! :lol:

Your switch gave out already!?! Man that's anoying! :evil: Glad you got then new one though. Ahhhh, new stuff :cool:

Sorry in advance for all the useless advice, but my dad worked with electricity my entire life, so it's kinda been drilled in my head! Feel free to skip my rambling :oops:
It's not so much the number of outlets, but the max load per outlet and for your house. Low energy items can be pluged into a power strip, but high watt items need direct outlet connections. Also, check the max load each breaker can take before it flips to save yourself the trouble of a burned out breaker. Figure out what items in your home go to what breaker (plug lights into each outlet, turn on lights and flip each breaker to see what goes where) to spread the load out between them. You might be surprised to see what breaker goes to which outlet. My dad has been in some CRAZY wired houses where one breaker only went to a single outlet! If you need to use an extension cord, make sure to use one with a good load capacity (the size of the cord doesn't matter! Plenty of "thick" cords can only cary a low load!).
Also, electronics suck electricity when they are plugged in regardless of rather their being used or not! A phone charger, a gaming system, that lamp you never use... all add to the load on that breaker. Also, overloaded breakers don't always flip off which can also cause problems.
Your house also has a maximum amount of watts per minute that your electric line can carry (like a river can only sucessfully hold so much water) and can also become overloaded. The effect (usually caused by not enough electricity getting to the house because of a down trasnformer or an electric line with a tree on it) is called a brown out. The electronics are still getting electricity, but not enough to power them fully. Every had a light that kinda gets a little dim, but the bulb is still good? That's the brown out effect. It causes the device to work harder than normal and can cause it to burn up! Can't tell you how many people lost their refrigerators over just that.
Anyway, once you find out what your breakers go to, the load each breaker can take, and the load your house can tank, you can figure out where to plug in each tank and all your high watage items and avoid flipping breakers and brown outs all together! :welldone:

Hey, does anyone on here sell plants? I'm needing a few more , but not really wanting to spend the gas to drive to PetSmart. The online places charge CRAZY shipping! Like $30-40! I want a floating plant that wouldn't be messy (edible plants prefered) and Anubias, Water Sprite, or something that would enjoy my soft water. Any ideas? :-?

You can see the empty spaces. I'm currently doing a bit of rearanging, so please excuse the crappy pic. Trying to figure out how much room I have for more plants :oops:
http://www.bettafish.com/picture.php?albumid=4906&pictureid=31109
 
#796 ·
Great advice to everyone!! Thank you Bluewind!! Don't crap out and buy stuff like extension cords from the dollar store, get one at a proper store with the proper seals of approval. And don't forget your drip loops. Water if it leaks should run to the floor, not down into your power bars!!
Ok I'll stop!! Can't help you with plants, I'm in Canada. But once I get my plants to the point that I have too many, I can send some to CF & JWK.
 
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