my 75 gallon journey

[bigbad-ratman]

so yes, some of you know that i just purchased my 75 gallon aquarium. and since i can i am going to post on here and bring you all along for the ride.
my plan right meow, is to buy the supplies for the tank over the next couple of months. hopefully putting the fishes in sometime around new years., (if i can afford to do it all faster, even better)! i think we (spoken me) got lucky in that my wife suggested using two end tables we were actually thinking of getting rid of as the stand. it is almost perfect and i will just need to cut some plywood (already have that in garage) for the base so that tank is supported all around. so if the wife really is ok with that i just saved $200plus american dollars!!!
i will be doing a fishless cycle as that worked better for me when i did. i plan on moving one of my penguin bio filters from my gold fish tank to the new tropical tank. dont worry i will be getting a new filter for the goldfish tank, and getting another filter for this one. in the end i will have close to the recomended "double filtration" for both of my big tanks.
i do plan on doing a few live plants in this tank, so it looks like i will have to do some ligthing upgrades along the way. although i did have a few recomendations for a few low-light plants that i will investigate further.
my plan for stocking so far is as follows:
1 male/2 female pearl gouramis as my center piece fish. i really like gouramis, and this site helped me make up my mind on these guys.
8-9 guppies cause my wife likes them, and i dont think they are too bad. will be getting a mix of males and females. if some fry survive, well i just might have to get another tank!!! i know several forum members didnt recomend getting these guys, but in the end i am the one who has to look at them right?!:hmm3grin2orange:
my other middle fish is undecided right meow. but the more i see black skirt tetras at the store, the more i like them. the kids also like the glo-light tetras, so we have room for variety. will be gettin 8 or so of one species of these little guys as well.
for my bottom fish, i have fallen i love with cory's. last week i went into the lfs, and there was a school of six of these little guys, and i swear that all of them were staring at me. i am not a fish whishperer, but i think i heard them calling out to me!!!
my boys want me to get a dragon goby, but i really dont want to get anything with name: dragon, eel, snake, terror or killer in the name. i am trying to convince them the dragon goby would get too big and eat all of my fish...but i dont know they truthfully wont!!! i have thought about maybe putting some shrimp in down the line as something different, but who knows? i think what i have planned wil be fine. if it isnt, i might have a little room to change it.
and last, i am not gonna post pics...yet!:ssmile: who hasnt seen an empty tank. when i get something worth sharing i will post a pic or two. but until then, i have to wait just like you!

[bigbad-ratman]

ok, so it doesnt really have anything to do with this tank directly, but it will help me with "lessons learned." ALL 3 OF MY TANKS, (that have fish in them) ARE CYCLED!!! that includes the 2.5 gallon betta bowl, which is the newest with fish.

after a little trial and error, being a little older and wiser (yada-yada) i have now done a with fish and a fishless cycle. and i do like the fishless cycle ALOT better, (i am sure the fishies do to).

of course now with this tank, i will be starting over soon, though not too soon. and i will be cycling without fish.

so now my lessons learned are as follows:

1. when leveling a tank, dont shim with anything that compresses. after setting up and filling my 45, the little pieces of cardboard compressed and tankisnt level anymore. sucks

2. when cycling, go fishless. it was sooooo much easier not having to do all the water changes. i am sure my fish liked it better as well.

3. it doesnt matter how many times you tell kids what not to do with the aquarium, you have to yell at them at least once, maybe twice for them to get the picture. ok so maybe this is more of an observation than an actualy lessons learned, but it still something i keep in my pocket.

and that is it for now. as far as the tank itself i plan on getting my substrate coming payday. still havent completely made up my mind on what i am getting, but will prolly end up with a combo tms and gravel for the some plants.

until then...

[bigbad-ratman]

ok, cant sleep and havent posted in a while. but i have managed to get my tank almost completely setup. only thing havent gotten is a back ground.
meanwhile wife is outa town due to a funeral, so i am wondering if i could stock it as a suprise for her.
we decided to build up our fancy goldfish family and use this tank for that. grabbed a few things from the lfs and liked the fancies they had. will prolly be picking up a black moor, a ranchu, and a pearl scale to go with the three orandas we already have and will be tranfering them once the new ones are done being quarantined. we both really like the fancies and this gives a good mix of em, as well most of the colors available.
the next project after this is to restock the 45 gal that our current fancies are in. but that is a couple of weeks off. right meow i am thinking about GBRs as my center piece fish and then a few colorful tetras to fill it out some.
oh for you pic-chasers out there: i dont have a camera anymore so dont ask. will have a new one in couple of weeks though. and maybe at that point all fish will be in there new homes and i can post pics of all them at the same time!!! but until then, thank you for pretending you are interested!!!:hmm3grin2orange:

[bigbad-ratman]

i said i would get em and here is a few. they are taken with my wifes new camera so they are not great, but you should get an idea.
the first shows my tank, (still dont have a back ground yet), and the second show my wifes fat oranda "Marley." the third is kinda blury but does show 5 of the 6 fancies we have in there. will hopefully get afew more posted on here in the near future.

[rich311k]

Tank looks good. I like your chubby golds.

[VIP]

the white silver one in the right corner form the last picture should looks so great !
hope all is good with your wife and that you ve been able to put a smile on her face when she came back ...what a good idea that you had !

nice tank!

[Northernguy]

That sure is a nice tank!
I like the way its set up!thumbs2:

[bigbad-ratman]

the white silver one in the right corner form the last picture should looks so great !
hope all is good with your wife and that you ve been able to put a smile on her face when she came back ...what a good idea that you had !

nice tank!

the silver one is my redcap oranda. and yes the wife said she loved the tank setup when she came home. now if i could just get her to pic out her background already.

[bigbad-ratman]

Was looking at the these guys the other day, and the wife brought up a good point. She had always heard that goldies were difficult to keep, weren't really for beginers, we wouldnt enjoy them, and the guys in this tank has proved all of the naysayers wrong!!! Other than a bout of ich, (which was entirely my fault and we cleared up rather quickly) have not had any problems with tank parameter, no tank deaths and these have been the easiest to keep. Since there are fewer fish in the bigger tank i can actually sit back and see what each fancy likes and where he likes to hang out. I dont feel goofy saying it here, but I think I actually have a feel for their little goldfish personalities. I mean "Mocha" doesnt really like to swim around unitl he thinks he is gonna be fed, but he thinks I am gonna feed him every time I walk by! Carrot Top is the most active/curious one and is always checking something is his tank out. The rest have their little quirks and I have become rather attached to these "fat lil fish." Even more so than I anticipated. These guys proved to me that goldies are like anything else you may become involved, you have to know what you are getting yourselg into, but in the end i think the rewrds are worth it!!!

[Garrett]

Well, I think the problem most beginners have with goldfish is that they stock them in waaaaaaaaaaaaay too small a tank and, bam, they have issues. That's not the case in your situation.