Hello and welcome to my attempt to chronical my freshwater tank journey from 10 gallons to 75 gallons. I have some technical issues to resolve (starting with making all my pictures less than 2MB) but my intention is to tell my story just for the fun of it. I've admired other tank threads on this site which have served as my inspiration.
So here is the story:
Three years ago we bought the boys a 10 gallon starter aquarium for Christmas. I had kept tropical fish (without much success) 15 years ago, and had not learned much about aquariums in the intervening years! With a lot of excitement and some bad advice, we stocked that first tank with two black widow tetras, a serpae tetra, three danios, and a corydoras catfish. The boys were 1 and 3 at the time (1st & 2nd picture).
Fast forward three years, and my excitement and knowledge had grown to the extent that I wanted a larger aquarium. I had been daydreaming about this for months, but always ran up against my husband's plea for "no more pets!" So I resigned myself to improving my little 10 gallon underwater world, and sought to tweak the tank to make the remaining occupants (the original two black widows) happier. No matter what I did, they would hang out in the lower corner behind a plant until the lights went out, when I would see them swimming around the rest of the tank.
Here is the 10 gallon, toward the end of its incarnation as our primary tank (3rd picture). It has some live plants and mystery snails.
Suddenly, my husband suggested we might get a larger aquarium. Before he could reconsider, I rushed the family to several aquarium stores until we had found and purchased this larger aquarium. Luckily for me a complete aquarium setup (stand and hood) looks much smaller in a show room than set up in your living room, because we ended up with 75 gallons! (4th picture). Hence if you view my aquarium profile you'll see I named it "Gee, Honey, it's BIG," my husband's reaction when he stepped back and viewed it in our library.
This was to be a completely natural, planted aquarium. We started with Caribsea's EcoComplete substrate mixed with some small, naturally colored gravel. I wanted a dark substrate because although I love the look of the natural gravel in the smaller tank, I was forever "losing" the inhabitants that blended into it. I wanted to see the colors of the fish and snails quite well. We have an Eheim 2217 canister filter and a shiny black backdrop.
The large river rock has an interesting story behind it: my father collected it in the early 70s when he was at Fort Dix for National Guard camp. He and my mother had a rock garden at the time. The rock split in half, and his sergeant major has the other half! It has been in my dad's garden all this time, much weathered.
Basil tests the strength of the glass covers (5th picture).
The first thing we did was to move our two tetra friends into their new home. We figured we owed it to them to live out their natural lives in a nicer environment. To our pleasant surprise, they immediately changed their behavior and began to swim everywhere...even with the lights on! I suddenly realized, after three years, that these were really beautiful fish. When they bank around a curve and the light catches their scales, they gleam like polished silver.
So although it upset the original stocking plan (which was considering gouramis), I added 6 more black widow tetras. After all, this tank was not designed to be challenging with regard to the inhabitants...and I already knew these fish were hardy. If they'd survived my learning curve in a 10 gallon, they would surely flourish during my learning curve in a planted 75. And did I mention they were pretty? (6th picture)
I wish I could upload the video I took of them when we first put them in their new home...is it possible for fish to be excited?!?
(More to follow...time for the weekly water change!)
So here is the story:
Three years ago we bought the boys a 10 gallon starter aquarium for Christmas. I had kept tropical fish (without much success) 15 years ago, and had not learned much about aquariums in the intervening years! With a lot of excitement and some bad advice, we stocked that first tank with two black widow tetras, a serpae tetra, three danios, and a corydoras catfish. The boys were 1 and 3 at the time (1st & 2nd picture).
Fast forward three years, and my excitement and knowledge had grown to the extent that I wanted a larger aquarium. I had been daydreaming about this for months, but always ran up against my husband's plea for "no more pets!" So I resigned myself to improving my little 10 gallon underwater world, and sought to tweak the tank to make the remaining occupants (the original two black widows) happier. No matter what I did, they would hang out in the lower corner behind a plant until the lights went out, when I would see them swimming around the rest of the tank.
Here is the 10 gallon, toward the end of its incarnation as our primary tank (3rd picture). It has some live plants and mystery snails.
Suddenly, my husband suggested we might get a larger aquarium. Before he could reconsider, I rushed the family to several aquarium stores until we had found and purchased this larger aquarium. Luckily for me a complete aquarium setup (stand and hood) looks much smaller in a show room than set up in your living room, because we ended up with 75 gallons! (4th picture). Hence if you view my aquarium profile you'll see I named it "Gee, Honey, it's BIG," my husband's reaction when he stepped back and viewed it in our library.
This was to be a completely natural, planted aquarium. We started with Caribsea's EcoComplete substrate mixed with some small, naturally colored gravel. I wanted a dark substrate because although I love the look of the natural gravel in the smaller tank, I was forever "losing" the inhabitants that blended into it. I wanted to see the colors of the fish and snails quite well. We have an Eheim 2217 canister filter and a shiny black backdrop.
The large river rock has an interesting story behind it: my father collected it in the early 70s when he was at Fort Dix for National Guard camp. He and my mother had a rock garden at the time. The rock split in half, and his sergeant major has the other half! It has been in my dad's garden all this time, much weathered.
Basil tests the strength of the glass covers (5th picture).
The first thing we did was to move our two tetra friends into their new home. We figured we owed it to them to live out their natural lives in a nicer environment. To our pleasant surprise, they immediately changed their behavior and began to swim everywhere...even with the lights on! I suddenly realized, after three years, that these were really beautiful fish. When they bank around a curve and the light catches their scales, they gleam like polished silver.
So although it upset the original stocking plan (which was considering gouramis), I added 6 more black widow tetras. After all, this tank was not designed to be challenging with regard to the inhabitants...and I already knew these fish were hardy. If they'd survived my learning curve in a 10 gallon, they would surely flourish during my learning curve in a planted 75. And did I mention they were pretty? (6th picture)
I wish I could upload the video I took of them when we first put them in their new home...is it possible for fish to be excited?!?
(More to follow...time for the weekly water change!)