My tanks on a student budget

So I have a few tanks, slowly put together with odds and ends. Some new items that I've bought but most of it is from keeping fish over the years. I also have a few questions about my main community tank.

But anyway here is my little list.

A 32l of moss and wood



3ft that is slowly transforming into my first ever planted tank



4ft with 2 very skinny baby oscars that I recently got and 4 baby kurpers



5ft rag tag community setup



6ft with 4 oscars



I am also working on a 3m setup but it's going to be pretty expensive, the oscars will be moving into that asap. And revamping 3 1ft for my male bettas.

Any comments and suggestions will be appreciated.

 

Almost forgot my question!

In the community setup I have

7 Guppies
1 Banjo Catfish
4 Black Phantom Tetras
7 Rosy Tetras
1 Albino Ancistrus Female
1 Ram cichlid, think it's a male
4 Betta Females
2 Leopard Gourami

And the bunch of apple snails. So my questions, I would love a center piece fish, the gourami are sweet and interesting but very shy, same goes for the ram. I am willing to move the fish around especially the guppies if needed I do have an empty 3ft.

 

Great tanks man going to be good to get the flowerhorns in the 3m. Will get some pics of my own up tomorrow. May I ask where is your jardini ?

 

Will pm you, very touchy subject

 

Very nice.

 

nice one
like the oscars scape looks good

 

@top dog thanks just need to find some more of that biggish black gravel.
Hehehe just realized the 3ft is not my first ever planted the moss is, :vollkommenauf: . But the 3ft is the first with co2 and lights etc.
Does anybody have a suggestion for the community tank?

 

Hi @SterlingAce, For community setup maybe add a black background to help the plants and fish pop. Ps in the first pic the rock looks like some monster skeleton eel coming at you. lol

 

@sub-lime hahaha never noticed that before! Thing with the community setup is it's visible from both sides so a background is not possible. Was thinking a butterfly fish or perhaps even a discus or 2?

 

Butterfly fish a like float bobbins, they do nothing from my own exp.
Discus are awesome fish but read up on them as they are a little harder to keep than the rest of the community fish.

Personally i would raise the center of the tank (15/20cm) like a hill and use flourite dark around the lower edge and have some grasses there.
Then it almost hides each side of the tank but both sides will be visible.

 

I don't really want to add real plants in there. Just have that poor anubia that is somehow surviving.

Not sure I understand exactly what you mean with hides each side of the tank.

Ok so discus are a bit faffy, butterfly fish are poopy. What other bright colour biggish fish are there? Still doing loads of research. Lol I love research :love:

 

@SterlingAce - Nice collection of tanks. Your 3ft planted has an actinic bulb above it in the pic. Remove it as it will give you algae or use it for short periods as "moonlight". Rather get 6500k-10000k T5's.

To check your Ram look at the black dot behind the eye. If there are blue dots on the black it's a female. You can also see if the underbelly is pink it's a female.

You could look at Angels as your "display" fish. Lovely character and always checking you out.

In your community tank, try and level the gravel against the glass so you don't have all the lumps and bumps. It's visually distracting.

HTH

 

@Hawk Thanks very much for the input! In one of my other threads I talk about the algae, I actually want to encourage it to grow because I love it.
Will def remove some of the gravel and level it a bit. Here is a photo of the ram perhaps you can help?

 

Also can anybody identify this snail for me please? Don't want to start a whole new thread for it.

 

ramshorn snail see Wikimedia Error

Later Ferdie

 

Is that a Gold Ram? I'll hazard a guess and say male.

 

I bought it as a blue ram,but also thinking golden and suspect male.

 

Does it ever get solid black lines? Show it itself in a mirror and see if it flares.

 

I've never seen black lines on it. Will try the mirror

 

Sounds like a Gold Ram. Not sure how you sex them other than the underbelly.