New £10 fish tank

Arnold

www.alanarnold.co.uk
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Our fish are having an upgrade from there current 130 litre tank to a brand new 240, but in preparation for it arriving, we had to store the fish temporarily, move the old cabinet and make space for the new one.

I left Ems with the job of gathering up our fish, two of which are 12" long catfish who didn't want to move home! So, the easiest solution was to buy a new 'temporary tank' and let them live in here for a few days, until our new one arrives. Here it is!!

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Most of the fish are at the bottom, but a few like to hang around the surface! It's got a heater, thermometer, external filter & air supply! they seem to love it lol
 
Basically everything that's in that bin. We've got around 40 tropical fish, from tetras through to large clown loaches, cories, a deformed zebra danio, a half beak, albino shark, two catfish, two mollies, two pigmy's and a few other's i've missed!

The new tank is a Roma 240. Italian styled apparently, looks very nice. The catfish were the same width as our old tank, and it was just too small for them!
 
Excellent, Our tank is only small. Iv had fish pretty much all my life but always been coldwater stuff.

Recently started keeping tropical fish. Got a few to start with, 5 neons, 2 silver sharks and 2 silver dollars. Now i have 1 neon, 2 dollars and 1 shark. Any pictures of your old tank up and running?

I wouldnt mind having loads of tropical fish in my tank but im worried they will eat each, As ive never kept tropicals before.
 
Tropical tanks aren't hard to look after once the filter is run in. The trouble is introducing too many fish to the tank, too quickly. They'l all end up dying from toxic water. If you can get hold of second hand filter media before you start, and check the water quality before adding any, you should be alright. Obviously the tank needs looking after too - if you don't clean the filters (horrible job), the water will become toxic and kill them all off.

Tetra's are usually a good introduction fish. If they don't survive then you know something isn't right.

Silver sharks will probably beat each other up, and like to be kept alone. We had an Albino & a Red fin shark together and they just kept on fighting! So we sold one. This might be why yours died!?

I do have pictures of our old tank but i'l have to upload them later on! We're looking to sell it too :)
 
I used to keep fish, then I left my brother in charge while I went on holiday and came back to floating lumps of half rotted fish :( All he had to do was feed them.

Anyhoo that is some nice problem solving there.
 
The tanks been up and running for 6 months now, Tbh i never noticed the sharks fighting, He got stuck in the boat in the tank and died trying to escape i think.

The filter is a good one, and if i calulate right, every 15mins the whole aquarium water should pass threw it lol. I check the PH etc,,, every week. Im going for more fish some time this week now i feel the tank has settled properly but god knows how many to get or what to get.
 
Don't forget to check Nitrite & Nitrate. They're very important. Nitrite should be 0, if it's anything higher, you need to look at your filter. What one do you have, and how big is the tank?

Maybe silver sharks are a bit more relaxed, i'm not that familiar with them.
 
Filter is a penn-plax cascada 600 internal filter.

The tank is 60cm long and 30cm wide. holds about 80litres or there abouts. The one i used to have in my bedroom at my mum and dads held almost 250 litres :D

Sorry to hijack your thread too. But you seem to have a better idea on keeping tropicals than myself.
 
It's fine. That filter does up to 200 litres, which is loads, but should be fine. Just do a Nitrite / nitrate test. You can buy test kits which allow you to do all the important ones.

Also, make sure your doing a water change of 10/15% every week, and add suppliments which aid the production of healthy bacteria into your tank. We use a product called Stress Zyme.

Also, make sure the water is treated before you stick it in your tank! We use Tetramin Aquasafe. (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TETRA-AQUASAF...ryZ20756QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
 
Will have to take a trip to the shop later. Thanks for your help, i will let you know how I get on. also post some pictures of your old tank, and new when its running :D
 
I have a tropical fish tank too :)

Not many fish in there at the moment, my pleco died last week, he was old :(

Was going to upgrade to a marine tank but I am moving house in the next year or so and makes it not worth setting up as they take 6 weeks to settle before you can add fish
 
Yeah we'd like to get a marine too, but not just yet. A house move would be quite tricky with them i imagine! and they're not the cheapest things to set up. Look gorgeous though when it's all done.
 
my mate has a tropical marine and its really beutifull, cost a boom to set up tho and takes so much maintinance, a slight imperfection in the water and stuff starts to die, not good when it costs about £20 per fish, and £40 for abit of coral! sod that i'll go down the beach chuck a few rocks in a tank and throw a few crabs in, bobs ya half uncle.
 
Been to the shop, got a tester kit for Nitrite, nitrate, GH, Kh and Ph. all seem spot on so i went back and got a few fishes. will see how there are in the morning.
 
very nice ... i could not do that with mine i have 4 tanks each has a piranha in it if i put them all together they would eat each other!!! guess i would need 4 dustbins lol:laugh:
 
Lol, Alan the Nitrate isn't too important. It's the Nitrite thats the Dangerous one. As for silver sharks, they are best kept in small groups and are relitively quiet fish, nothing like the albino or black sharks. (alan, the ones you wanted to buy before i chose bino! :p)

Pete, in my understanding, Marine tanks take at least 3 months to set up before you can add fish! So you may have to wait a little longer!

Oh and the best fish to add first are Zebra Danios. They are very hardy fish. Adding generally more than 5 fish at a time will cause a nitrite spike, this is when the bacteria is overwhelmed (sp!) by the sudden rise in waste chemicals, causing it to go awol.

I'll see if i can remember what fish we have!;

2 Snowking Plec's
2 puffer fish
1 very deformed zebra danio!
2 mollys
8 Clown fish
4 rummy nose tetras
2 penguin tetras (evil fish!!)
10 cordinal tetras
1 male halfbeak (unfortunately his second wife decided to commit suicide a couple of weeks ago!)
2 Cory's
1 albino shark

I dunno what we'd do without them, they're very addictive!!
 
Here's our old tank. The luminaire has two different colour bulbs producing:

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15-tank(dark).jpg
 
Look brilliant. I will be re doing my tank soon with new lights, gravel etc. Oh and more fish...thats always good to have in a fish tank lol.

I currently only have 1 silver shark, 1 angel fish, 1 mollie and 3 algae loaches.

I gave my other shark and about 15 tetras to my inlaws when I decided to look into marine, but now its just going to be an overhaul :)

What lid is that you have on there? Does it have a cover over the water to stop condensation and a cat from getting into it?
 
The tank has a glass sliding lid, with the Arcadia luminaire on top. The tank costs £55, the lid is £20 and the luminaire is £115! the whole lot is now for sale :) -

our new one is this

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still 4 feet long, but wider and taller. Looks alot better in the flesh, and we'll make the inside alot nicer than that one too.
 
Lol, this came out of my pocket!! So i'm hoping the old tank will pay back some of it!!

The fish seem quite happy in the bucket though, although the puffers are getting a bit nippy now!!
 
How much are you looking for? The whole setup including tank? Or would you sell just the lid and luminair seperate?
 
We'd sell the tank, glass lid, lighting, including gravel, spare purple lamp, and a few plants for about £130. Very cheap compared to what things cost seperatly! Everything is around a year old or less.
 
Doh...if only I had £130...never mind I will have to wait for a while after xmas before I can spen anything near that amount. So I would sell to someone else.

A very good bargain though considering whats included.
 
Well if your interested, id be quite happy to take a deposit and you can take it with you whenever, and pay us the rest in January. We need the space really, hence the price.
 
TBH you will be better off selling it to someone else, I have a 4" tank at the moment with external filter, all I need out of that is the top and lights.

I am sure someone on here would love to have it all. Also with the car needing tax end of this month, MOT in January funds will be very very limited for a good 3 months after xmas :(
 
Yeah it was rather nice, just a bit too small (width) for our catfish.

The new tank is up and running, after about 6 hours work (most of it done by Ems so thanks to her). We've decided to put sand in there instead of gravel, and they seem to be having alot of fun in it. Just need to keep an eye on it and add more water / treatments until it's all finsihed.

Pictures to come later on
 
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