Scotchbonneteater's 260litre (70 gallon)

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-02-2012, 07:45 PM

Hi all,

Should of posted this before but I'll start where I started.

My wife and son wanted to get some fish and our son Jamie is going to look after them (that'll be down to me then). She went to the Aquatics shop and was told she had to let a tank sit for 3 weeks before adding fish!!!
My wife then spent a couple of days looking at tanks and goldfish on the internet, next thing I know she won a Juwel 260l off E-bay for £60 with built in filter, lights heater and an air pump. Wow she thought it was 26 inches long (the tank :-) but when I went to get it I nearly fell over.
Cabinet built and tank in place it's time to fill it up with water. we decided on sand for the bottom as we already had some and some small pieces of bogwood from the LFS costing £23 so were set for our 3 week wait!!!!!!!!

Oh am I glad I found the AC forum, cycling whats that? De-chlorinator? better have a re-think!!!!

So water drained and sand removed and re-washed in DC water and new water added, visit to LFS to purchase extra external filter, (after reading on her it's a good idea) ammonia, test kit, some plants and a bubble stone.

Then the good bit

A friend of mine phones to ask if we want his 2 goldies in a 90l (20 gal) tank as they have grown to big and his kids dont want them anymore

I took the tank and filter (fluval2) but didn't want the fish so they went into his pond where they should of been long ago as they were Comets of 8-9 inches.

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-02-2012, 07:56 PM

So the filter media was removed and added to my canister after 2 weeks of cycling with ammonia and that pretty much sorted my cycle within 5 days. Time to add fish

12 glowlight Danio's and 12 White cloud mountain minnows and 1 week later 5 hillstream loaches. My son (me) loves it, the minnows swim around spreading their fins at each other, the Glowlights shoal around the tank chasing each other and the loaches sit in the jetstream of 2 pumps sucking on stones.

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-02-2012, 08:08 PM

I have a large piece of bogwood to go in when the Java ferns and moss get here

here's a pic.

**Cliff** · 05-02-2012, 08:13 PM

That pc of bog wood looks really nice. Great find there

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-02-2012, 08:16 PM

Thanks Cliff

got it from local free ads for £25 real bargain.

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-03-2012, 08:06 PM

Cleaned out the internal filter today....wow yuck loads of nasty stuff in it. Plants for the bogwood should be here tomorrow :-)

**ldoerr** · 05-03-2012, 09:29 PM

I love that piece of wood. So how many gallons is this tank?

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-03-2012, 10:38 PM

Its 70 US gallons, the bogwood will fit I think!!!!

**Sandz** · 05-04-2012, 04:38 PM

Remember to be careful cleaning any filter. Specially new established tanks. Its supposed to be nasty in there.

**scotchbonneteater** · 05-11-2012, 10:12 PM

Added the 2 bulldog pleco's today

then noticed a dead minnow stuck to the filter inflow and 1 of the danio's has a really skinny body

Java ferns and moss turned up last week so the huge piece of bogwood has gone in, I think it looks awesome but boy did the water go brown! changed 25% of water every day and now I can actually see in again. I also managed to find a 200 litre black plastic tank which I intend to run a circulation loop through the external filter to give our mates better water quality (has anyone else tried this?) and this will up my actual water content to 460 litres.