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chefkeith...!

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 4:40 am
by Graeme Robson
Show us your Loach Room! :mrgreen:




Graeme.

OK

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:41 pm
by chefkeith
Pic's are from Right to Left of my fishroom.

To the right of this photo, is my 10 gallon grow-out Red Ramshorn Snailtank. On the left is the planted 190g tank.

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Full view of 190g high light tank. I started a photo album of this tank here.

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On the right is the 190g tank. In the Center is a 6g Eclipse tank, which houses brown ramshorn snails. To the left is a 85g tank.

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Here is a full view of the 85g tank. This tank has medium lighting. I have mostly swords and anubias in this tank. Those are the water-bridges on both sides of it. Above the tank, you can see a few shelves of fish/plant supplies.

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Here you can see the 95g low light tank in the center and the 90g river tank on the left. The 95g tank has lots of floating plants. Several Tiger Lotus' and a Large Crinium Onion Plant. The floating plants do amazingly well with just a 55w cp light fixture above the tank. Thats only about .6 watts per gallon. More than half of my clown loaches use this tank as there sleeping quarters. There are alot of slate rocks set-up around the gravel to house the loaches.

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Another view of the the tanks on the left.

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Here's an old pic of my river tank. The clown loaches like to sit infront of a powerhead and lounge in this tank. Many of them sleep here also. Lots of driftwood and slate in this tank.

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Lastly, is my 15g breeder red ramshorn snail tank, which is under the 90g river tank. I also now have some cherry shrimp in this tank.
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Here's a pic of one the water-bridges without the hoods covering it up-
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This is a larger water-bridge, just after I cemented it together.
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How do I fill the water-bridge?- Here's a video clip of how I do it-
http://media.putfile.com/waterbridge
It may take awhile for the video to load.
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I use 9 canister filters for this 4 tank system. 2 canisters have the inlets and outlets placed in different tanks so that water flows through the water-bridges. Total volume is 470g of tank, actual volume is 385g of water. The total footprint is 38 sq feet.
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I have found that Fish behavior is much different in a set-up like this.
Hierarchy bouts are very rare. Fish that don't get along, usually just move to a different tank. In other words, I have no boss clown(s). My schooling fish though, the tetras, never leave the 190g tank. They stay with their school. All my other fish use the bridges in some capacitiy, the clown loaches especially. I could write all day about them, but I'll leave it at this, but I'd be happy to answer any questions.
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Spec's-

Tanks- (These 4 tanks are linked together, via water-tunnel bridges, which are custom built with 3/8” cell-cast acrylic).

90 gallon (72x24x12) River Tank
95 gallon (48x24x19) Low Light / Floating Plants
85 gallon (48x18x22) Medium Light / Fully Planted
190 gallon (72x24x26) High Light / Fully Planted

Also-
33 gallon quarantine tank (36x18x12)
6 gallon Eclipse Snail Tank
10 gallon Snail Tank
15 gallon Snail Tank


Fish-
27- Clown Loaches (4.5"-6")
25- Clown Loaches (1.5")
7- Tiger Barbs (1"-2")
6- Kuhli Loaches (2"-3")
5- Black Kuhli Loaches (2"-3")
12- Boesmani Rainbowfish (2”)
14- Neon Tetra
16- Serpae Tetra
8- Cardinal Tetra
3- Bristlenose Pleco’s (3")


Heaters-
3- 300w Via Aqua Titanium Heater


Filters-
2- Rena Filstar XP3 (350gph)
4- Rena Filstar XP2 (300gph)
1- Rena Filstar XP1 (250gph) (Also 1- used for parts)
2- Eheim Professional II 2026
1- Coralife Turbo-Twist 12x 36 Watt UV Sterilizer
(connected to an Eheim 2026)
1- Vortex XL Diatom Filter (400 gph) (Rarely used)
1- Rio 2100 Pump/Powerhead (692 gph) (not in use)
2- Aquaclear quick-filter 802 Powerhead (400 gph) (not in use)


Automatic CO2 Injection-
20# Aluminum CO2 Tank
JBJ Regulator, Solenoid, and Needle Valve
Pinpoint PH Controller
Aqua Medic Co2 Reactor 1000

2- Rena Air Pump 400

Lighting- (from http://ahsupply.com/)
85g tank - 3-55w compact florescent, (5000k bulbs)

90g tank - 18 ft rope light (white), 54 watts

95g tank- 55 w compact florescent, (5000k bulbs)
1- 13w compact florescent (with blue moonlight bulb)

190g tank-
2-96w compact florescent, (6700k bulbs)
6-55w compact florescent,
(2- 5000k, 2- 5500k, 2- 6700k bulbs)
2- 13w compact florescent (with red dusk/dawn bulbs)
1- 13w compact florescent (with blue moonlight bulb)

Live Plants- (from http://aquariumplant.com/)

100's of plants.

Driftwood-
(from http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/fus ... 0/cid/2928)
25+ Pieces of Malaysian Driftwood


Loach Housing-
50+ pieces of slate/rocks.

Substrate-
90g tank- 100# Razorback Red Pea Gravel
95g tank- 100# Razorback Red Pea Gravel
85g tank- 60# Seachem Flourite (3 bags)
100#- Blue Black Pea Gravel
190g tank- 360# (18 bags) Eco Complete

Stock Shelf-
Water Conditioner- Prime
Fertilzers- (http://www.everybodysgardencenter.com/)
Potassium Nitrate, Potassium Sulfate , and Magnesium Sulfate ( Epsom Salt)
Trace ferts- Tropica Mastergrow
Disease Control- Canning & Pickling Salt, Jungle Labs Parasite Clear, Coppersafe.
Antibiotics- Triple Sulfa (not to be used with Coppersafe), Maracyn.

Fish Food- Tetramin Pro Crisps, New Life Spectrum Thera+A for small fish, New Life Spectrum H2O Stable Wafers, Omega One Veggie Rounds, Hikari Tropical Sinking Wafers.
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Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:58 pm
by mwood322
:shock: drool


--Mia

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 4:49 pm
by mamaschild
I'm with you, Mia :shock:

I'm

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 9:41 pm
by shari
SOOO jealous!!!!!

sigh---some day...

That is so messed up!

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:03 pm
by Mark in Vancouver
That is completely nuts! Insane!

I love it.

Are the snails being grown as food? I presume so, but....

Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 11:58 pm
by tonywu
WOW * :shock:

just wondering...how often do fish crosses the bridge to the other tank? :?

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 1:18 am
by Graeme Robson
Lovely!! :D

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 4:15 am
by chefkeith
Thanks all.


The clowns used the bridges alot before I went planted. They'd use them all day, everyday. Now they just seem to use the bridges during feeding times and during the night/early morning hours. Especially when they hint that some ramshorn snails may be in their grounds. Mostly, the clowns avoid the high lighting cycles in my fully planted tanks. They prefer very low lighting or no lighting at all. Thats the only drawback of having the planted tanks. The plants are great though because they reduce the high nitrate levels that the clowns can produce. (I actually have to add nitrates to my tanks now).


The snails are food for the clowns. Right now, I only feed my clowns about 10-20 snails per week. I hope to get my snail colony large enough so that I can feed the clowns about 20 snails per day.

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 4:29 am
by Emma Turner
Wow, that is an amazing set-up! :D I reckon I'd spend all my time in there watching them!
It'd be interesting to know if the Clowns move around so much as they get bigger. Do you think the bridges would be large enough (on the 90 degree bend) to take a fully grown Clown?
Emma

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 9:58 am
by chefkeith
The bridges at the current size won't be big enough for large clowns. I think these bridges will be good until the clowns are about 8" long. I could build larger bridges, but I don't plan on keeping huge clowns in these tanks. I want to move them to a big tank with maybe a water-bridge going to an indoor pond in a greenhouse.

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 11:18 am
by Emma Turner
Sounds great! Steve & I one day hope to build an indoor tropical pond for our Clowns. We have around 45 ranging from 3" up to 11.5" and they are in a 1000 litre tank at present. There is plenty of room at the moment, but we can see them needing more space in the future, as the smaller ones start to get catch up with their bigger friends.

Emma

Crazy!!!

Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2006 11:33 am
by JonGuerriero
That's crazy....

My g/f was looking over my shoulder while I was looking at this and gave me "the look". You know, the "don't even think about it" look!

I love it!

How much time would you say you spend on maintenance in a given week?

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:36 am
by chefkeith
Time? Lucky me, I don't have time for a girlfriend anymore.

Some weeks I might slack off and only spend a few hours. Other weeks I can spend 6 hours easily in one day.

I have prefilters on the inlets of the canisters. I squeeze them out a few times each week. Takes about 5-10 minutes to do all of them.

A 100g water change usually takes about an hour per week.

I clean 4 or 5 canisters each month. That probably takes an hour or 2.

Cleaning canister hoses could be the biggest chore, but I've found a scrub free way to make it easier. I have back-up hoses for each canisters now, so when it's time to clean hoses I just swap them all. Then I take my dirty hoses, attach them all together with some hose couplers. Then connect one end of the hoses to a powerhead. Coil the hoses and put them in a rubbermaid tub. Add hot water and a few cups of Oxy Clean, then plug in the powerhead. Let it sit for 48 hours. Remove dirty water. Connect powerhead to other side of hose. Add hot water and more Oxyclean. Wait 48 hours. Then Rinse.
I clean hoses about 2-3 times per year. Sometimes I'll clean the inlets and outlets too.


Pruning plants takes about 20 minutes every other week.

Adding Ferts is something that I'm not good at, but I should do it 3x per week.

Organizing old fish stuff and shopping for new fish stuff takes its time too.

Research and fish forum time doesn't count I hope.

water bridge

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2006 12:38 am
by jerry_tyler
that is really nice. they never get sick of the same old aquarium. they just go to the next one. change neighbors too. :lol: