4 Hour Make-over

[Lady Hobbs]

Decided today there would be no more blue gravel l@@king at me from my 55 gallon and most of those plastic plants had to go. Tooooo phooney!

so......here we go

Got 100 pounds of playsand from Home Depot yesterday. Took everything out of my 55 gallon, washed each bucket of playsand two times and dumped it in the tank. Filled it with water. Turned pumps on 2 hours ago and it's half cleared already. Never did cloud too bad and there's no debris floating around in the water, either. I think I will like sand. It sinks right to the bottom when you mess with it.

The wood is glued to a piece of slate but the slate isn't big enough so this may not work. Needs to be bigger or glued to a rock or larger chunk of slate. I do have sinking driftwood so don't know why I'm even bothering with this!

Only problem I can see in sand so far is it won't hold things down like gravel would (such as the slate.) I could see it would also be not good to try to plant anything in it without adding clay or another substrate under it or planting in pots or plugs.

I also got rid of the blue foil background. I didn't dislike it but got flash-back when I tried to take pictures. So new substract, new water, new wood and new background. Some old plastic plants but much less and same old noisy pump!

This tank is for my Silver Dollar and loaches so I will try a few onion plants in pots but doubtful will last long.

My only problem with this today was me dumping a bunch of water right on my power plug!!!!!! I hit the off switch right away but because it was still plugged in, was hissing and SMOKING. Never did trip the breaker but I did!

I had another power cord and decided to dry the wet one out with a hair dryer. That was a novel idea until I left it too long and melted the bloody thing. Must have been a pretty cheap one for a hair dryer to melt it!

I dumped in 4 T. of pure ammonia and started my cycle so will keep track of that and see how fast it goes. It won't be soon enough for my fish, I'm sure, as they are rather crowded right now in other tanks.

OH! I found a great way of catching fish. I removed as much water as I could with them in the tank. I stacked up the gravel high enough to prevent them from escaping to the opposite end of the tank. As more and more fish were removed, I just built this mote even closer to them until all they had was one corner to hide it. Dip and go!

[Lady Hobbs]

And the one step I haven't done yet!

Clean-up!

[*Sarah*]

That's quite the undertaking! Very nice result though, I like the sand.

[Lady Hobbs]

How about the cleanup? LOL Tank isn't much but suitable for the fish that's going in there. I hope for a much nicer one for my angels.......planted! You do see that big empty space just sitting next to the 55 gallon? I just moved all my other tanks out of there to make more room.

More, more, more. LOL

[Chrona]

Yay, no more "clown puke"! :thumb:

[Lauren B.]

I love the one plant in your last pic. It's on the right-hand side and looks like it up and swoops to the left. I love the spikey leaves.

I was looking for something similar in my tank but I had no luck (at least not with fake plants). Petsmart has this certain plant in their tanks (it's attached to a large black/white marbled rock, somewhat similar to the BioOrb decorations) and it's got the same spikey leaves that I love. EVERY Petsmart has this ornament in their tanks and NOT ONE Petsmart sells it!

I just gave up trying to find something I really wanted and just settled for a plastic plant (which leaves I dont' like) simply because its color matches with the fake little leaves that came pre-planted within my largest ornament.

[Lauren B.]

And Hobbs, just so you know how much I love your spikey leaves....I'll have you know that while I was looking at your pics and writing that last post the pizza I had in the oven totally burned! I knew it was bad when the kitchen was foggy as I entered!

Damn you and your pretty spikey leaves, Hobbs! :hmm3grin2orange:

[Rue]

Very nice! The mess isn't as bad as it could have been...you musta been keeping tabs on it!

So now that the blue stuff is gone...I can ask...

"Whatever possessed you to buy coloured gravel?"

...heh...

[cocoa_pleco]

nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AquaQueen]

Wow very nice Hobbs..looking good. I loved the blue gravel I think I want some black and blue mixed for my guppy tank.

Hope you didn't mess up your pan Lauren...lol Next time set the timer if you have one or if ya have a microwave some of them have a timer you can use...I hate the smell of burnt food...yuck

[Lauren B.]

Hope you didn't mess up your pan Lauren...lol Next time set the timer if you have one or if ya have a microwave some of them have a timer you can use...I hate the smell of burnt food...yuck

I'm usually pretty good about not leaving food/the stove unattended. However, when I get on the computer and start typing, time flies by and what I think is only 5 mins ends up really being 25. The kitchen and the living room smelled bad, and then I froze the house out by opening all the windows. :(

The animals made out better than I did though....they got the parts of the pizza that I didn't want. Happy day for them at least!

[AquaQueen]

LMAO...Lucky animals...Hey I was not trying to say you were a bad cook or anything...I know exactly what you are talking about I have done it with more then just the stove...Running water for example...lol

Hey Hobbs sorry if we hijacked your thread...I will stop...lol

[kimmers318]

I think you will be very pleased with your sand makeover Hobbs, although I haven't yet tried the playsand because of it's density. I realize it is supposed to be safe, but it seems much denser than the aquarium sand (although LOADS cheaper) and I worried alot about the pockets of gas that can build up if not stirred enough.
Keep working with your sand, I personally have MUCH better luck keeping my decor in place than when I had gravel, everytime I disturbed the gravel my crap would get moved. That is also why I am slowly ditching plastic plants for silk, the weighted bottom helps to keep things down where it belongs. Whenever I got the extra cash I pick up a couple that are on sale and ditch a couple of plastic.

[Lady Hobbs]

Here is my tank 4 hours after the last shot. Totally cleared up.

You gals sound like me with the burning food while sitting at the AC site! I burned srambled eggs sitting here the other night. Now don't ya know you just gotta put eggs on the stove and turn the computer on. LOL


I will probably turn this tank into something for small cichlids down the line. I think the background is very "busy" and don't know as I like it at all. yawn! Always something I don't like about this darned tank. I just need more to occupy me!!! I still have blue gravel in my other 3 tanks and will leave it. I like it in those tanks. Just didn't care for it much in this one.

My one poor large angel is by himself in a 10 gallon for now and hating it. He won't even eat! He so needs to come out of there so I am hoping for a fast cycle. I will put some of the blue gravel in nylons and put in the sand tank to speed things up some.

[Lady Hobbs]

I love the one plant in your last pic. It's on the right-hand side and looks like it up and swoops to the left. I love the spikey leaves.

I was looking for something similar in my tank but I had no luck (at least not with fake plants). Petsmart has this certain plant in their tanks (it's attached to a large black/white marbled rock, somewhat similar to the BioOrb decorations) and it's got the same spikey leaves that I love. EVERY Petsmart has this ornament in their tanks and NOT ONE Petsmart sells it!

I just gave up trying to find something I really wanted and just settled for a plastic plant (which leaves I dont' like) simply because its color matches with the fake little leaves that came pre-planted within my largest ornament.

http://www.petsmart.com/global/product_detail.jsp?PRODUCT%3C%3Eprd_id=84552444177 6960&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=2534374302032116&ASSORTMENT%3C%3East_id=2534374302023693&bmUID=1173103850176&itemNo=10&In=Fish&N=2032116&Ne=2

Here's the bamboo at PetSmart. 31" long and $9.00. I bought 3 of them. And it's also my favorite plastic plants! These go clear to the top of the tank and the trailing ends can be stuck with suction cups where you want them. I had them covering up my filters uptake tubes and air line. You will like them. Very natural, swispy looking and easy for fish to hide in.

[jeffs99dime]

very nice hobbs. looks a lot better too!

[Sasquatch]

Very nice looking tanks. Love the plants and that long piece of driftwood in the bottom.

The background doesn't look too busy and the plants break it up, I like it. Hope it cycles fast so you can transfer your fish in there

[AquaQueen]

Looking good hobbs..glad to see things are working out for you...BTW Thanks for the idea I have been trying everything I can to help speed up the cycling process so I can move the Oscars before they kill my Dempsies...my poor lil jackie is getting messed up bad..his lil fins are all niped and have lil chuncks missing. I am going to have hubby take the rocks and stick them into nylons and stick them into the 60gal. right now.

[Lady Hobbs]

Oh yes! Cycled gravel will speed things up much faster and "seed" the bottom just as used dirty filters will do. I have to run to the store to get me a bunch of nylon knee socks (in the old ladies section). I fill those up, tie off the tops, and drop them in.

Thanks Jeff and Charles. I am still a bit undecided about this tank. It will work for what will go in there but where will I put the 20 plants coming this week??????? LOL Loaches, catfish and coreys all prefer sand on their tummies so that lead me to make this move. And.....I could not plant a tank that my Silver Dollars would be going into!

Fish are worse than having kids!

[AquaQueen]

The tank the Oscars are in now has alot of gravel so we took some out of it and used that. I will test the water again later on tonight after I go to do my afternoon run(work). Thanks again hobbs.

[Lady Hobbs]

Something else I have done in the past for a quicker cycle is use some of the ickies from another tank. I vacuumed up the gravel in an existing tank, let it sit until the crap sunk to the bottom and poured the waste into the new set-up.

[AquaQueen]

Something else I have done in the past for a quicker cycle is use some of the ickies from another tank. I vacuumed up the gravel in an existing tank, let it sit until the crap sunk to the bottom and poured the waste into the new set-up.

See I said that to hubby...We were doing the weekly water change on the Oscar tank and I thought we should use the old water at first he said no but then we decided it was already cycled water and would help but I know that my Catfish tank is in need of a vacuum so I will have to dump the crap in there too. Probably not until tomorrow tho...Hubby is exhausted from rearanging my Palor and cleaning the new tank and Putting the new parts to the filter in, it had a crack in the intake tube. So we had to buy a replacment part today, and special order the cover for my filter that is not done yet have to call the LPS and tell them what size filter it is. Crazy Fish Hobby!!!

[Incredulous_Ed]

That's pretty cool hobbs!

[Severus]

Your tank looks great hobbs! i want to convert mine to sand as well. How much did that play sand run you?