[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

Wow that would have been a good fish to behold in your tank. My Banjar Red Arowana used to bully my (Smaller) Florida Gar during feeding time. Gorgeous fish.

My fishes? Well my son after he started to walk, push chairs, climb up chairs, push down tank lid, put stuff in...well you get the idea. the wife and i decided to retire our hobby for some time. Sold them all to a good friend here.

We did get a small tank for a betta and we started finding our phones and what not inside it!

He is almost 4 now,and we have moved to an independent house with space for him to run and burn pent up kiddie energy so yeah, maybe next year i should be starting again.

Have a 4x2x2 tank in the car shed just tempting me every single day.

And we do have two above ground tanks here...one is 8x4x3 i think and the other is 6x2x2. Just guppies, goldies, swords etc. Might make the big tank as a monster tank with gar, aros, bichirs/catfishes...time will tell. Sorry for the long reply to your one line question

Well all the best. Look forward to photos of the giant tank. Hell I am jealous. What do you feed your wife that she is happy with an 8 feet x 4 feet x 3 feet tank

Enjoy your moments with your little one. Delightful age. When our youngest was 6 we noticed little things disappearing each day - my ties, one piece of a pair of shoes, things from my wife's dressing table, combs etc. Some wise guy neighbour hinted we needed some vaastu magic done to our home (it was an independent house). Then one day the 6- year old set up a shop under the staircase and invited us to buy the things. Guess what.....

[deathwalkr]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Well all the best. Look forward to photos of the giant tank. Hell I am jealous. What do you feed your wife that she is happy with an 8 feet x 4 feet x 3 feet tank

Enjoy your moments with your little one. Delightful age. When our youngest was 6 we noticed little things disappearing each day - my ties, one piece of a pair of shoes, things from my wife's dressing table, combs etc. Some wise guy neighbour hinted we needed some vaastu magic done to our home (it was an independent house). Then one day the 6- year old set up a shop under the staircase and invited us to buy the things. Guess what.....

Hope you didn't bargain!

My wife also loves fishes ever since she got into the hobby with me after marriage. So yay lucky me!

After we got married, i sort of went a bit overboard and my aqua setup was nuts. You can refer the setup in the attached excel. This was along with the two tanks outside. Sorry, for the life of me, i don't know where i have the snaps of them.

Sunday's were just devoted to water changes!!!

[shivshanker]

To all fishy folks, a few questions;

My Setup : 50 inches x 18 Inches x 18 Inches,
Age of Tank 15 years
Glass is 8mm thick

Tank not in Use ~ 5 Years
Water Dried Up ~ 3 Years

Like all Mumbai Apartments, my House also has a Washbasin and it own area, which was spoiling the look and feel of the apartment. So got rid of the Washbasin and promised the wife to have that area well decorated.

In order to avoid a gap and a Blank hole, started looking at ideas to fill that space, that is when I saw an Aquarium Shop, immediately liked the concept and the owner too (male), struck an unique relationship with this guy, as he was not trying to sell me anything.

This person had returned back from the "golf" after 30 years, used to breed Labradors, near Karjat, kids settled. He was pursuing his passion and he just wanted to talk and pass the time in his shop. While I was learning new things slowly realized that the budget was also within my range, so in 2005, ordered the Aquarium Tank, the pebbles, the pump etc. the fishes from this uncle.

Long story short, all was well, the aquarium shop keeper, a.k.a Uncle used to come home every month for the draining and cleaning the Tank, while I used to siphon off the top 20-30% weekly and refill it.

This went on till 2010 and after I moved back to the "Gelf" for another short stint, the Tank was being well attended by this Uncle.

Not sure what happened by sometime in 2015, all fishes were belly up in the water one morning and my wife had to do their last rites. Uncle later told me that the Tube-light wire had disconnected and that the ELCB to that power point had also tripped. I guess that explains something.

My two boys 15 and 11 who had helped clean up the mess were also not keen for to have the tank repaired, so I left it as it was.

Finally in 2018 I got a chance to come back to Bharat, but posting was Bangalore, so again another 24 months of neglect. Now that I am at home in Mumbai due to Covid and that all my extra curricular activities have been curbed, thinking of reviving my Tank.

In light of the revival, a few questions to the Guru's here;

1. What is the life of an Average Tank, do these last for ever?
2. any precautions to be taken before I start filling it with water again.?
3. My biggest challenge was the Submersible cleaning header, this time I want a nice durable External filter, with which I can avoid the need for an oxygen pump too.

Given my long story, I hope everybody gets a chance to read my short questions and contribute.

Thanking you all

[deathwalkr]

Please post a few pics of the tank.

Check if there are bubbles and cracks in the silicon. Was the tank indoors or out in the sun? If you are really paranoid, you could scrape the silicon out and redo it (hell of a job) or try filling up water and checking it outside for leaks.

8mm seems a bit too thin for a tank that size

What's a submersible cleaning header? For durable externals you need to get fluval, eheim or even hydor or jbl. they can get pretty expensive but will last a long time. You could also look at hang on back filters from aqua clear.

[TheCatalyst]

Great thread. I have been in this hobby for close to 25 years now (since secondary school) and have seen most of starter aquarium setups to planted ones, within all kinds of budgets.
Till before the lockdown, I had about 4 tanks, not too big, about 30 inchers each running in my two houses. I lost one tank due to the sudden lockdown as i couldn't travel in time to my other house in the city. To say that the lockdown caused a havoc in my aquarium setups, would actually be an understatement. But a story for another day.

Have mostly kept Discuses, Corys and Tetras in last few years and have tried breeding them as well, with limited success. All tanks running external eheims cannisters, RO mixed water and with decent level of automation using raspberry pi system.

I also have a king kong blood parrot cichlid who has crossed 10 years of age (got him in 2010) about 11 inches long and still very active. Attaching few pics.

Been toying with the idea of saltwater setups and sump tanks and automated water change setups

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by TheCatalyst

All tanks running external eheims cannisters, RO mixed water and with decent level of automation using raspberry pi system.

Do post more info about this.

[TheCatalyst]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

Do post more info about this.

I am assuming you are asking about the raspberry pi automation for the aquariums. I have hooked a 1st gen model B to multiple relays to control various functions in the aquarium. Its been running since last 6 years.

1. A relay to control lighting to simulate the day time. A cronjob script running automatically adjusts the timings in winter and summer for plants. Its more to do with heat dissipation actually in summer to be honest.
2. A DS18B20 sensor hooked to a GPIO pin gets the water temperature and accordingly switches on the heater or the 12v 80mm fans to cool. The eheim water heater do have their settings as a failsafe, but I have had instances where a heater has malfunctioned and heated the water to dangerous levels in the past. The cooling fans also take care of the condensation problems in the hood.
3. Another relay controls the skimmer on the surface, to remove the surface protien layer and keep the surface pristine for optimum gas exchange.
4. A feeding routine, where the cannister filter and skimmer gets auto stopped for 15 minutes when feeding.
5. A eheim automatic feeder ( I got fed up with the chinese brands) does the job for one small feed in morning. Th evening one I prefer to do manually.

All these functions can be controlled from my mobile phone using a client app which runs the appropriate command on the pi.

There is an automatic water change design I was working on with control valves and water level sensors, but stuck due to plumbing issues in the house.

Regading the RO mixed water, I prefer to keep the TDS at 150-200 ppm. I live in a place where I get about 700 ppm well water. So I use a mix of 80:20 RO:well water ratio for the aquariums. I have a spare RO system (manually assembled) with a 150L tank auto filled. We need to mix the well water, as RO water is too pure with minimal GH (general hardness) which removes the buffer capacity to control PH. Too soft water will have lower PH values and can easily get into dangerous ranges (<6.0) with fish waste. I prefer to keep the PH between 7-8. There is a lot material online on this topic, unfortunately I found it out the hard way.

By the way, I have tried many brands (sunsun, boyu, hagen, ista etc) over the years, but none came close to eheim for me. The build quality, simplicity and reliability have been exemplary. They are expensive, but it pays back in the long term. Fluval might be another one, though I havent tried.

[deathwalkr]

wow, that's next level aquarium stuff right there

[shivshanker]

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

Please post a few pics of the tank.

Check if there are bubbles and cracks in the silicon. Was the tank indoors or out in the sun? If you are really paranoid, you could scrape the silicon out and redo it (hell of a job) or try filling up water and checking it outside for leaks.

8mm seems a bit too thin for a tank that size

What's a submersible cleaning header? For durable externals you need to get fluval, eheim or even hydor or jbl. they can get pretty expensive but will last a long time. You could also look at hang on back filters from aqua clear.

Thank you for the inputs, what is the recommended Thickness of Glass for a tank of that Size?

The Tank has been in the same location and not been moved, in fact there is no direct sunlight on the Tank ever.

The Submersible Cleaning Header are from Boyu, which has a two sponge filters through which it sucks water and through it out from a spout. The Entire unit needs to be dunked under water for it to function effectively.

Please find attached the picture of my current Setup.

Oops, my Pot Bellied, pic only in shorts can be seen in the reflection, how do I delete this picture

[TheCatalyst]

Originally Posted by shivshanker

To all fishy folks, a few questions;

My Setup : 50 inches x 18 Inches x 18 Inches,
Age of Tank 15 years
Glass is 8mm thick

Tank not in Use ~ 5 Years
Water Dried Up ~ 3 Years

...

1. What is the life of an Average Tank, do these last for ever?
2. any precautions to be taken before I start filling it with water again.?
3. My biggest challenge was the Submersible cleaning header, this time I want a nice durable External filter, with which I can avoid the need for an oxygen pump too.

Tank drying up is fine if the silicone is not peeling or chipped anywhere. These do not have any shelf life as far as I know, as one of my tanks is running fine even after close to 25 years. It had a 3-4 year dry out period in between in a closed cabinet.

As for your glass thickness, I do find 8mm just adequate for this size. It shouldn't break or crack, but will have lesser resilience in case of any hits or uneven pressures. Contrary to popular belief, glass thickness is mostly dictated by the height of the tank, rather than length or width. For longer tanks (like in your case), you should have some bracing at the top at the ends/middle for a 50 incher.

Precautions for first time filling would include washing it, obviously, with plain water (use only salt if you have to) and slowly fill it looking for any visible leaks. Make sure the base can take the weight as wooden stands start sagging after a few years.

I would recommend an Eheim Classic 600 for this tank, or Eheim Classic 350 if lightly stocked.

Make sure the tank is nitrogen cycled before introducing any delicate species of fish.

[Mortis]

@Shivshankar : You could say that the safe average for a tank is 15 years. This is for an average tank under normal conditions.
Your tank at 8mm is borderline too thin. 12mm glass with a couple of supports in the upper and lower middle sections would be ideal.
Also, the 15 years safe limit is for a RUNNING tank that's always had water. Silicone can shrink and dry and get debonded when left to dry.
My suggestion is not to take a risk by using the tank as is. Failure would be a disaster. Believe me it was such a pain just cleaning up the mess from a 1ft cube that cracked due to unlevelled base.

Your options are :

1) Full new tank with 12mm glass and centre supports. You could make the front pane out of extra clear glass.

2) Get the current tank dismantlled and glasses cut to make 3ft tank. This I feel is the max size with 8mm glass. Again with a single center support. In the leftover space in your alcove you could make a cabinet to hold and conceal the external filter below and route pipes, use for storage, CO2 cylinder if you go for planted, etc.

3) Dismantle and reseal the existing tank. Add adequate supports if not present.

[wildsdi5530]

Can anyone help me identify this fish? I bought it when it was 1" in size, and was told that it was a flowerhorn. But no horn has developed in the last 3 years.

[V.Narayan]

Originally Posted by wildsdi5530

Can anyone help me identify this fish? I bought it when it was 1" in size, and was told that it was a flowerhorn. But no horn has developed in the last 3 years.

Attachment 2080123

Attachment 2080124

It is a cichlid species fish. It may be a flowerhorn. The 'horn' is actually a lump that grows on the forehead. Usually it has streaks of purple/maroon colour. @deathwalker is our Guru on these matters. He will know best.

Cichlids are community fishes. They enjoy company of their own kind. This chap looks very lonely. Flowerhorns are also very aggressive fish.

[deathwalkr]

@V Narayan sir, thanks for the flattering words but i am no guru

Anyway, @wildsdi5530 from the looks of it, it is definitely some sort of a cichlid. how much did you pay for it?

If a few hundred bucks or lesser, then it would be just some random cross bred mix of cichlid species. Could be a low grade female FH, first pic has signs of a Texas.

(Not all flowerhorns get the nuchal hump. you need a good specimen and they can be expensive)

Whatever it is, it does not look too good. What size is the tank? The caudal fins are rotting away which is a sign of some disease mainly due to poor water conditions. And the dark black bars in the second pic could very well be stress bars.

Hope that helps.

[wildsdi5530]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

It is a cichlid species fish. It may be a flowerhorn. Flowerhorns are also very aggressive fish.

Thanks. Keeping it alone as I'm scared it will attack anything else I put in. I put some guppies as feeder fish and they are gone in 60 secs.

Originally Posted by deathwalkr

how much did you pay for it?
Whatever it is, it does not look too good. What size is the tank? The caudal fins are rotting away which is a sign of some disease mainly due to poor water conditions. And the dark black bars in the second pic could very well be stress bars.

Hope that helps.

I don't really remember. IT's been 3 years. But not much for sure.
The fish was in my pond along with a red eared slider. Now shifted to a tank 4x1 1/2x2 feet.