Who are the fish keepers on here ?

[Sweety]

From another thread it looks as if we have a few fish keepers on here I'll get the ball rolling with what i've got/keep.
I sadly had to shut down my Koi pond a couple of years ago due to health & at the same time sold my 5ft tank as the large water changes were to much to ask my wife to deal with & do miss my very large angel fish (3 breeding pairs) I down sized to a 3ft tank & an 18" tank. Well the down sizing hasn't really worked out as planed as the tanks have been breeding At the min i've set up a 2.5ft partly planted tank for my wife for her community fish, a 3ft tank set up for some Saulosi from Lake Malawi & under that on the home made stand I built is a 18" semi planted tank for red cherry shrimp & in our bedroom we've got a 16" tank for 2 dwarf corydoras cat fish & a male dumbo betta (siamese fighting fish)
I'll get some pic's up tomorrow

[briggie]

had a rather nice piece of smoked haddock for tea if that helps

[jims-terrano]

I used to from my teenage years right through to 30 something but alas I didn't have the time or interest to carry on.
I used to have different sized tanks with different types of fish mainly communal. Did have a small tank of Cichlids and even had a tank with some Piranhas which were interesting fish.
A friend gave us a small hexagon type tank with heater and stuff but never had anything to stand it on so it has never been setup. I've toyed with the idea of another tank but I'm not sure I'd have the time to look after it.

Do they still use "Grolux" and "Triton" tubes?

[macabethiel]

High there fellow Aquarist's I have just parted with a batch of 80 young Albino Ancistrus after my first bash at breeding them last year.

Out of interest I have substantially reduced the need for water changes in my 7 ft tank by using Nitra-Guard in my sump filter using an air stone to oxygenate the media.

My Nitrates are below 10 ppm from a previous high of well over 100 ppm. I am still on my first 250 ml bottle of product that I introduced last November.

My 7 ft Community Tank contains a variety of Plecs (Orange Spot, Powder Blue, Royal Panaque to name but a few) , 10 Silver Dollars, 22 Clown Loach, 6 Skunk Loach, 2 Pakistani Loach and 8 Silver Sharks plus a couple of Black Ghost Knifefish.
Present population have been resident for 3 years or so.
They eat a bag of 3 Courgettes a week that I buy from Aldi with mix of frozen food and dried food as supplement.

[macabethiel]

Originally Posted by briggie

had a rather nice piece of smoked haddock for tea if that helps

Briggie ..........

That makes you a fish Eater rather than Keeper except when its in the Freezer !!

[rustic]

Originally Posted by briggie

had a rather nice piece of smoked haddock for tea if that helps

I don't think you kept it that long to qualify as a fish keeper

We have two linked ponds in the garden, must be over 100 fish in there, some small Koi, few gold fish, few tench, a lot of gudgeon... don't ask.


When I was much younger I had about 12 tropical fish aquariums, I bred quite a few, people dropped by saw the tanks and wanted to buy fish. Nice bit of pocket money, when I was a school kid.

[Sweety]

Originally Posted by briggie

had a rather nice piece of smoked haddock for tea if that helps

That's fish eating not keeping

Lights have changed a great deal over the last 7 years Jim but some of the old names are still going. The standard T8 lights (1" dia tubes) have mainly been replaced with T5's which have a much smaller diameter & are more powerful but LED lighting is getting much better all of the time with the bonus of much lover running costs.

macabethiel you've got some nice fish & will have a look into the Nitra-Guard as my mate might be able to get it so i'll only pay trade price I got 6 Saulosi & was told 1 male 4 females oh how wrong the guy was it turned out to be 4 males & poss 2 females & world war 3 broke out last night & don't know how I didn't have any dead fish in the tank this morning. Just taken 3 males back tonight & got my money back for them so only have 3 in the 3ft tank but it's calm. In a few weeks I should be doing a 140 mile round trip to pick up around 10 more Saulosi but they'll only be about 3/4" but hopefully i'll get a high % of females Hard fish to find around here

[exosteve]

I used to keep cichlids in a 150 gallon tank.
but ultimately fish tanks just become over time, an ornament, which is a lot of work.

I now just keep pond fish in a 24'x10'x4' pond

[spinna]

Well as you may have seen in another thread I only have a 18x10x10 inch tank at moment partially planted with 6ember tetras and a bristle nose catfish. It's only been running since beginning of December and I did the fish less cycle ( what a pain in the butt )
I have had 3 tanks in the past all tropical and the best one was a custom built 32inch square fronted one to fit in an alcove which was also partially planted and I kept angels and cardinal tetras amongst others in there. i had co2 injection on this tank aswell


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[spinna]

Another tank I hadnot a great pic I know


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[AlexD333]

Something looks a little fishy to me

[macabethiel]

[QUOTE=exosteve;240193]I used to keep cichlids in a 150 gallon tank.
but ultimately fish tanks just become over time, an ornament, which is a lot of work.

I now just keep pond fish in a 24'x10'x4' pond[/QUOTE
Not so much a pond as a swimming pool very nice. Mine is about 7 ft x 5 ft a rhombus shape but is 5 ft 8 in deep in tiered centre.A covered moat connects it to a pre formed kidney shaped grp pond. All concrete sections I lined with glass fibre. Its about 20 years old now and still water tight. Filtration is by 2 sage home made units one under a manhole cover and stage two hidden behind my garage. Just Koi now as could not cope with the goldfish breeding.

[rustic]

Under some decking next to the pond, I have an auto top up system. You can't see any pipes as everything is under an access panel on the decking.

There is a small domestic central heating header tank with a low pressure ball cock, the feed is from a set of above ground, inter linked water butts, 1000 litres, which harvest rain water.

The output goes across to the pond liner, under ground and under water, that got my heart beating a lot, cutting a hole 6 " below the normal level through the liner, I reinforced the liner at this point and clamped it all up, with " domestic over flow " tank fittings, water is maintaned always at the right level. No leaks so far.

There is also an overflow pipe slightly higher up on the header tank to take excess water away to a soak away.

There is also an upper pond, 2" higher water level, with a weir water fall, so both are maintained at the correct level.

We also have 2 IBCs 2x1000 litres, underground that I can transfer water from, but we use those for an Auto irrigation system, hanging baskets at the front, hedge and baskets and tubs in the back.

Works well.

Rustic


EDIT:- Yes you guessed it... We are on a water meter......



.

[macabethiel]

I like the autotop up. I do a similar thing to abolish any water changes. I drip feed fresh tap water into the stage 2 filter. A standpipe lets the overflow into the garden. As I am on a water meter now I am a bit more conservative with the drip rate.

[macabethiel]

Having a bit of trouble uploading pics so have done an e mail reduced picture from my phone

The picture is of my 4 ft Jewel Gold Anodized Alloy frame tank purchased in 1979 and still the frame is in good shape. I had Wharf Aquatics drill the base and put in a weir and they built me a filter to suit about 8 years ago.

The stand is still under construction pending front doors etc. The filter is maturing using some home bred Albino Ancistrus before I put in some fish from my big tank.