Newbie or sort of lol

Hi All,

My name is George and about 18 years go a friend and I were into aquariums when we were in school.

Since then I have gotten married and my wife and I have decided to start our own aquarium and boys things have changed I honestly feel like a newbie back then I wasnt aware of ammonia or fish type compatibility we just used to add fish and tap water and the fishies used to carry on and now there are so many things to look out for its awesome.

Anyways here is my tank its a 3ft 115l unfortunately had some bad luck with the water supply recently where I lost 3 fish. The dechlorinator I used it was the one that came with the starter pack I have since switched to SeaChem and letting my water sit for 2 days before it going into the tank. I am 4 weeks in and hopefully the nitrogen cycle completes so my fish arent stressed out anymore.



I currently have:
*2 Dwarf Gouramis
*5 Silver Dollars (1 Died)
*2 Mollies
*2 Sword Tails (1 Died) - there are some babies too
*4 Corydorus
*1 Pleko (Died) and was replaced by a Pleco with lots of whiskers

***Its been upsetting loosing fish but some of the fish stores didnt really advise me correctly here but after doing some research online seems like I am coming right

Keen to hear from you guys

 

Hello and welcome George. I think your Silver Dollars will outgrow that tank so its a good reason to get another, bigger tank in the near future.

 

Hi @FMN716

Welcome to the forum

Tank looks very nice and glad you have come right with the cycling
Seachem products are excellent
Unfortunately now days the waters are so heavily dosed with chlorine and chloramine that it's a big problem if not using s product that does both
Nice fish however the silver dollars grow way too big and fairly fast for that tank
Might be a good idea to swop them for something else

 

Hello!
Your tank looks so nice!
It's awesome that you've decided to get back into fish keeping!
Losing fish is very sad, but at least you're getting the hang of it now!

 

Thanks peeps for the warm welcome, to be honest I am kinda disappointed with the fish stores not being honest with me on the silver dollars, especially since I tried to give them as much information as possible. I wanna kick myself for not doing a planted setup, but that is the plan for the future I suppose.

Its really annoying going to a store and they sell you fish just to get a sale

 

Sadly they don't always know what they're talking about. I've found it's best to just Google it myself while I'm looking around in the shop

 

Welcome to the forum.
I made the same mistake with the plants. I slowly transitioned to a planted tank and the results were absolutely amazing. Not only was it more aesthetically pleasing but the fish actually changed in behaviour and demeanor virtually immediately.
We live and we learn. Just enjoy it and keep learning. That's the fun bit of this hobby.

 

I have the normal white gravel stone, I have seen ppl transferring soil using a pvc tube, so I might try that at a later stage, for now I just want to get my tank stable

maybe I will start with more natural decor, the pleco has stripped the paint of the feature, all the columns are missing paint.


Just to add I am gonna do a bit of a ghetto mod to my filter as it seems its a bit strong for my fish

This is my filter



I am planning on making a pvc spray bar, what do you think, is it a good idea or should I just go with a sponge filter setup

 

Um, tinkering is half the fun, that's what I say. Go with the DIY job if you're confident.
Post results too for any other daring enthusiasts

 

Haha ok will do. If you connect the oxygen pipe to that pump the amount of air it pulls in is insane

I currently have a project car that I am busy with so I love anything DIY

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Welcome! PVC spray bars are super easy; just drill a bunch of holes and fill the end with hot glue.

 

@FMN716 Welcome to the forum. Tank looks great, however be ready to get a bigger tank as those silver dollars grow fast and are going to out grow the tank very quickly. They are very peaceful fish but need space.

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Thank you I am definitely gonna look into that

I would eventually like to upgrade to a 4ft tank eventually but for now I think I just want to get the tank stable and enjoy the fish for a bit but seems like I am going to have to try swap out my silver dollars at a later stage

 

Thank you all for the warm welcome

So I decided to play a bit yesterday with some parts from my spare pump but it seems a spray bar won’t work

I have taken some pics of the water flow and also you will see what my Pleco has done lol

So this is the item from my spare pump


I connected the air line to my pump are the water went crazy like it usually does too strong for my fishies


I did a test fit and the air line be came a water line so this setup unfortunately won’t work


This is what happens if the air stone and the air pipe is connected total chaos and stressed fishes

Here is the image address not sure why its not working
//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191016/450d0ed41c20acacfc5828757fd75203.jpg

This is how I mounted my tubing so you can’t see it. Nice and stealth


Here is the image address
//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191016/435971e2682493fe74b939fcbc431c57.jpg
//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191016/d66a4305f91ddc45b641961d27abf870.jpg

I have reverted my setup for now but I think I am gonna swap to a sponge filter and air pump setup.

I currently have a sobo 4l air pump that pumps air to the long air stone behind the building piece in the aquarium so I will probably just connect that to my sponge filter. The main reason I wanna go sponge is that the internal power filter seems too strong for my fish. And I was hoping my diy with the spray bar would fix this. The other reason is I bought a battery backup air pump so when there is no power my fish will still have a filter with oxygen so it’s a definite win. But the sponge filter will be modified I found a cool vid tell me what you think

Here is my 4l pump


Here is my battery backup pump both will be connected to the filter


Here is the vid I was talking about



Let me know what you think

Thanks


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deleted due to duplicate

 

Load shedding is here and I am kind of prepared


//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191016/3f8ab7d0efdf3a536cf6dd81ebe87aa7.jpg

Battery air pump is running great it will auto shut down when power comes back

My ball airstone is pumping acceptable air into the tank

//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191016/8313ae300441b4aa925859eadb10df91.jpg



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