The fishy room.

I decided to make a post for my own fish room and to have all my post regarding all my fish under one general discussion.


I all started for me when I was 11 year old when I got my first aquarium for a b-day present. My first fish were so neon’s, a pleco (as always) some barbs, and them my uncle brought me many guppies big and small. The next day I only had big guppies left. That was my first lesson lol.

Since then the fish got a hold of. I remember when I was 17 how I imagined a small room will of tanks and how I would put them up and what fish I would want in them.

A few years past and I got my first 1.8-meter free with some TLC needed. I replaced the back plane of glass and bob is your uncle… At the time a met a guy that breed fish in my town that was starting to scale down, h learned me a lot about fish and fish care. I bought some tanks and fish from him and started with my fish room. At one point, I had about +-140 bettas (after he showed me how to breed and raise them), some rainbows, and some tetras and a bunch of other fish. When I moved, I only had room for my 1.8 m tanks. Therefore, I had to let many of the fish go. I kept all the tanks and stands.

Two years past and I moved again and started up with all my tanks again. I had a 1.6 m, 1.2m, 900cm, and 2x 30 cm tanks. I had some fish in them but not a lot. I had a tub in the room of 500l and therein were my sailfin mollies. The sailfin mollies and I come a long way I just love them and love to breed them and they are my number one fish, and in the house my 1.8m.

Two year later, I moved again and moved all my tanks with. The moving company thinking my tanks will fit in one load did not happen. So all my planning of moving the fish went through the window. We were rushed for time and I lost all my sailfin mollies (about +-200) and almost all my big fish except a few and my two 50cm plecos. I learned a lot from it regarding how different water from one area can affect your fish.

Then I just had enough. I took a major hit and almost quit the hobby.

My 1.8 were empty for 6 months, I only had one tank of 1.6m with all the remaining fish inside.

I looked at the empty tank for several months and one day started to fill her up. A few weeks later, she was living again with the plecos and some random fish. It was a slow start but the hook was starting to set firmly in my cheek.

I started to get my outbuilding clean and ready for the new fish room. I scouted all social media for any fish tanks and bought a few. I set up my 500 tub again and bought two male and five female sailfin mollies. I also bought some yellow cichlids, bettas.

Here I am now. 2019. I am standing on 3 x 1.2 meter tanks . One empty for water changes (still thinking of what I must put in there), one has two beautiful discus in them, and 1 with 70 sailfin mollies, a 1.6 meter with random huge fish like one 55cm plego, 3 huge silver dollars, and other fish. Then I have a 900cm with the yellow cichlids, one 60cm with small sailfin mollies about 3-1 month old (about 150),

In addition, two 30cm with two male bettas . Now I am looking to the future. I am making my own drift wood and stocking my tanks but I am testing them first to make sure they are save. I am also doing my own lights.

Where I am standing now I am just doing it as a hobby for fun and to learn more from anyone I can. I met some awesome people in a very short time and that is what is even more amazing.

The post will be about my progress made and about my tanks and new thing that I will try.


Please feel free to leave a comment any time and some advice or just anything.

 

Nice intro @Bart ...

I think your story sounds so familiar to many of us older hobbyists to whom life has had its many turns and twists
Fact is that no matter what happens over the years the passion never goes away and sooner or later.... you caht resist it..

Awesome setup you have there..
Look forward to your updates

 

Like I said this would be all my experiences and test work that I am doing. If anyone have done something that is almost the same, please feel free to share.

About 6 months back I rescaped my 1.8 meter in the living room. I took out my old lights, a florescent white and a blue one. Clearly, it was not enough for the tanks to grow decent plants. I replaced it with two 10 watt led floodlights. It worked better than the tubes but still did not get the plants to grow. Some grow and some died off. I bought an extra 20-watt floodlight and it just kept everything alive.

I did some research and found out I must have about 20 lumens of light per 1 liter of water they have good growth without CO2. This will be for easy growing to medium growing plants. I was standing at about 2300 lumens for my 1.8. Therefore, for my 1.8-meter tank I would need about 10000 lumens. Then I would be just over the 20 lumens per liter of water. I was in need of 7700 lumens. This was a shock as I thought I had enough.

Today I decided to go for broke and get those lumens. Floodlight are expensive especially when you need one that has a high lumen count, then I remembered When I was a kid my father used and normal light bulb in my tank and he amazon sword love the light. I decided to go to builders and buy enough electric cable and fitting to install 6 bulbs in my tank. I also remembered that a bulb could make a hell of a lot of heat. Luckily, my canopy is self-made and I prepared for heat to escape at the back of the canopy as warm air goes up and cold air down. I also installed them far from the water to make sure that the water will never get to the bulbs.

The nice thing about the bulbs is that you can play around with the colors and they are net as expansive as led’s. However, they also have the negative of heat etc.…

Now I am standing @ at +- 10500 lumens. The nice thing about the setup is I can change any time to the led bulbs also. For now, I will try the normal bulbs and give feedback. Will post foots tomorrow. Cheers

 

Nice @Bart I think you need another 20 tanks or so

 

@Christiaan Duvenage if everything goes well, one day , i am just looking for the next fish to go into the new 1.2m and also must sell my 3 silver dollars and huge plego before the winter.

 

Here are the pics regarding the lights in my main tank.

I have two lids and installed each one on its own so that i can also control the amount of light i use. like i said before i can change to and light as long as it can fit in the fitting. BTW i was busy with a water change at night so that is for the low tank level.
With the bulbs on. As you can see i am running blue and 2 different white light bulbs per lid, giving me a nice light.
with the bulbs and Led's on.

During the week i will replace some bulbs with led to see if i can get an better effect, but so far looking good. Tank temp running at @ 28. Believe it will run lower with led's.

 

A 50 mm laptop fan get rid of the heat and moisture build-up in your lid. They run off 5 v, so you'll need one of those changeable transformers for it.

 

I feel like having a fish room now as well looks good.

 

@Reedfish. I just love Discus. Got them from an awesome person that even loves them more. The Turquoise discus in the main tanks think he is a convict by now. I had him in with the blue Diamonds but he did not like them that much so he went back to the main tank. but love the blue diamonds, will get 4 more in march.

@Slade . Hahahaha if you can why not? . Only thing is i must build my racks to make them look pretty. Now it is just a hole lot of big tanks tanking up space... So if i have space i can have more tanks. The only thing that sucks is a can only get one tank in the house regarding the governments procedure... ... So i made an plan to use the outer-building for my fishy room.

@andries, The back of the tanks lid is open and i have a small fan that fits in but the temp is fine but would like it lower. So tomorrow it will be me at builders looking for LED's bulbs, just to replace two or so and see how it works. But I like the fan idea will keep it in mind thanks.

 

Sailfin mollies.

In the fishy room, there happens wonderful things and fishy things.

Every now and then, the two combines and something wonderfully fishy happens.

Sailfin mollies is one of my best fish. I just love them like a lot… The colors the behavior and the personalities of the males and females alike. When I started the fishy room, the first was a tub just outside the door with some Sailfin mollies. Two males and seven females. I bought them small, as I want the correct colors. The tub were running for a month without any fish, just one filter from one of my tanks. The idea was to breed them and have a nice species only tank in the fish room and to maybe sell a few. In about October the fish were introduced. A month past and still no fry. I was wondering what were wrong because I was expecting fry by that time. Two weeks later, I spotted some fry.

The nice thing about tubs is nature will take its course and the mollies loves this. The down side of this is the bio-load. Beginning Jan I had to clean the tub and remove all the poo-poo and some (10) dragon fly larvae. I found a few dead fish at the bottom without and heads so the larvae had a feast.

Even with this, I removed as much of the fry and juvenile mollies. I removed 70 + juveniles and about 150 fry. I put them in different tanks to grow out in a controlled environment. Therefore, I remove the bio-load form the tub again with the larvae. A few fry stayed in the tub. This evening I took a torch just to see how they were doing and to my surprise, I saw a large amount of fry different sizes. Form a week old to 3 weeks old. This was way more than expected. I believe I am standing on 350+- sailfin mollies at this stage and March is still a few months away. I will leave them there until March and house them in my 1.8-meter tank that I have spear for them for the winter.

I have learned that wonderfully fishy thing. The thing of nature. If you can simulate it with fish and just control, the bio-load the population will explode.

Will keep you posted on the next cleaning.

 

That is absolutely wonderful @Bart

Nature is amazing

What colours are your Sailfin Mollies?
My Dad used to have orange ones and green ones but I have never seen those colours here

 

@MariaS . I have black and orange males, white , orange and brown females. The green ones are very rare as far as i know as i have never seen one before.Green is the natural color. i am busy to see if i get get the color to go green .

 

Some pics of the light project with new plants and some new fishy for the fishy room.

 

Yes... my Dad had all those colors
We were in Mozambique at the time but here i have never seen orange shades or green or combination of colors
A tank full of them makes an awesome display as well

Same as the sword tails, he also had a variety of colors and mixed colors that i dont see here
I also find his were much bigger than the adults we usually see

The tank is looking stunning.. really came out nice

 

I have some exiting news.

About two weeks back a started to see spawning behavior in my Leleupi tank. After I made several changes and reduces water changes to once a month with an eye on the water conditions.

I also moved the pots upside down with the small hole to the top. I notice both inside the pot and left them for a week. After the week … there they were about 40 eggs. Interesting is you think they have mold but it is just the color of the eggs. I am glad to say I have about 40 fry. Still difficult to count btw. The issue is feeding them. The mother takes everything out of the pot and spits it out. I have managed to get food to them and will monitor them and see if I must intervene or not. Just glad to see them spawning again after a long struggle. Will add pics once I can capture the photo.


In addition, my light project is a massive success. The plants are exploding and growing very fast at this moment. Will just have to add root tabs soon.

 

Absolutely awesome, congratulations

Good luck raising the fry

 

Hi @Bart.
You have quite a nice selection of fish.
You have quite a lot of molly fry in that tank.
I once had about 600 molly fry in a tank from about 18 females, but they were jumbos and beared a lot of fry.
You have very beautiful discus fish. They are stunning.
I also really do love your planted tank, quite amazing scaped.
I really looking forward to updates on your fish.
Kind regards,
Michael

 

The leleupi fry are still doing well even though they have not leave the gave (upside down pot) yet. They are about 1 and half weeks old. The mother is doing an awesome job at protecting them but at least I can see that they are also eating fry food. Just hope that they will be fine with the male once they come out of the gave as the first spawn it did not go well. Will keep an eye on them. I will also add some photos of the progress of the planted tank. I see my corries are getting frisky. Unfortunately, I will not see any eggs due to the nature of the other fish I have in there. Will look into setting up their own tank in the future.

 

@Mister MP Yes, the mollies just exploded. Like crazy .

I have so many do not know what I must do with them. I have a 1.8-meter ready for them for the winter. I only have one male in the tub now. Trying to get his blood going there. I also have 70 now that has matured and that have started breeding but they are in my raising tank so no fry will survive which is good because I have a mountain full of them. Will start to see if I can sell them of or to trade them. The males are starting to get a nice color. The first batch I only have white, orange, a few marble, and some nice color crosses. The baby’s I have now are all mixed so I am looking forward to see them once they are fully-grown.

I want to get more tubs is spring and do some bars there and some neon’s. The mollies for now I will just keep as is and not let them get out of hand