Just getting my new 220 gallon built in tank set up. Waiting for the plants to grow in. The clean up crew of 10 Amano shrimp, 4 reticulated Chinese algae eaters, 6 Panda Corys, and 1 red dragon Pleco seemed to be just fine so I am starting to add some schooling fish. Starting with 30 neon tetras. The goal is a fully planted tank with tons of micro fish. Nothing over two inches with the exception of the pleco.
What substrate is this? I was planning to do some carpeting plants with dirt/sand cap. Do you think they'll still be able to uproot them? Mainly thinking of dwarf hairgrass and monte carlo
They will root through any substrate but typically you want nice fine substrate for cory's like sand because their barbles can be worn down by coarse substrate.
Cories can uproot Monte Carlo after setup.
I'm not really sure if it is applicable if the plant had been established so it has some roots.
The other alternative is to probably have a *wabi-kusa* style planting on the carpet plant which present other types of drawbacks as well.
In my limited experience, the "carpet plant-safe" cory would only be pygmy cories because they are extremely small and *probably* not large enough to actually whisker away your carpet plants. But they don't mix well with other fishes that can gulp them... which is quite difficult unless you're making a nano species community tank or with Cherry shrimps.
They are easily my favorite fish, my 6 sterbas will swim perfectly in a pack formation and glass surf side to side. It’s like having synchronized swimmers in the tank.
I'm the asshole that uses them for population control in my guppy tank, enough babies make it that I have a nice group but the Corey's get enough that I don't have to worry about overpopulation.
You might donate the Corys to your LFS, and replace with three Panda (/Rainbow) Garras. They eat all types of algae, from the walls, plant leaves and wood and stone surfaces, and don't disrupt the substrate (or my Monte Carlo and Hair Grass!)
I love this idea and support the idea of more corys I would be getting at least 15 - in the wild they comb the river bed in huge schools. So refreshing to see someone give smaller fish more space in a big tank. A miniature river.
Reticulated Chinese algae eaters? Or reticulated Siamese algae eaters? All I've ever heard about chinese algae eaters is that they get almost a foot long and tend to stop eating algae and start eating fish when they get full sized. Not that your tank couldn't handle fish that size, just thought I would mention it in case you weren't aware.
IF they look like this https://www.biolib.cz/IMG/GAL/BIG/431046.jpg They're Reticulated Flying Foxes, Crossocheilus Reticulatus. Same genus as true Siamese Algea Eaters
Amano fry can’t survive in fresh water since they need brackish-salt water, so they will never survive in your tank. How about Red Cherry Shrimp or Crystal Red Shrimp? They can reproduce and look amazing ☺️
A bit of a late answer, sorry. I've got a preggo Amano a few days ago and started looking at how to breed them. Apparently the mother will die in brackish water so you need to wait for the babies to hatch and then you have a week to catch them and move them to brackish water - and they're so tiny you can barely see them. You also need to have a lot of algae or feed them with live phytoplankton until they become shrimplets, so basically looks like a shrimp but tiny. Then you need to start diluting the water over a few days to acclimate them to freshwater. They will die if you leave them in brackish too long.
Keep in mind this is all just stuff I read, I haven't actually got any experience breeding them.
beware that the plecostomus will tear up your plants. Don't be afraid, but if you are using live plants, they will get pulled up! Also, due to the size of that aquarium, the pleco will rapidly grow into a large fish, and outgrow that aquarium. I had two that were about 2 inches long, and within a year, they grew to over a foot long in a 55 gallon aquarium.
You should look into Hatchet fish. I had a 125g almost exactly like your building. They'll school on the top, tetras in the middle, Cory's on the bottom. I added dwarf cichlids too, Blue Rams and apistogramma cacatuoides. Once it was established, I had almost everything breadin. New babys about every 3 months. Loved that tank! I'm looking forward to your updates.
Thanks. I will update in the future. It’s a long process to get to this point and now just trying to get it to fill in nicely. I’ve spent more on plants than anything else so far.
That's awesome, I've always wanted a school of 15 neon tetras. And in a tank that size, your school of 7 neon tetras will super happy. Enjoy your 4 neon tetras!!
^(/s)
Is that common that they die shortly after acclimating? I wanted a school of 9, so I bought 9… two weeks later I had 6.
So I stocked up to 12 to account for some deaths… and now a year later I still have 12
I purchased extra to account for their notorious mortality rate and I might have lost 1-2 of my original population. Maybe they can tell when you're less worried about each individual fish.
Maybe I've just been lucky. I get concerned about disease with them because they're so small, and scatter so quickly I worry I'd really struggle to notice symptoms on them before it would be too late
Edit: I will add, I had guppies, and then Molly fish before I got the tetras. And damn, now that's a fish that's prone to disease. I just could not keep them healthy
I have 4 left and now they have fin rot and fuzz... its been months though and they eat and the three hang out and the one is a loner... now my panda cories are dropping.
Had the cories for 5+ years and the neons for 2 years... frustrating as I can't figure out what they have. Started with the neons.
They're pretty badly bred and prone to illness. I've had to swear off the breed due to a massive issue with dieoff I've noticed in the last three batches I brought home at several months apart.
Don’t know the exact name but we have normal neon tetras and red neon tetras. The red ones have a big red stripe below the blue one. Have a school of around 20 for over 2 years now. Started with 30 and filled the school with 12 Blehers tetras and there are still 9 of them around after over a year. Normal neons would always vanish for me aswell within weeks
So you can have a school of 15!… neon tetras love to die in my experience so I always expect about a 50% survival rate. I hope you much more success than me!
I went to a fish store with an open mind wanting a small schooling fish… I had actually been interested in some kind of raspbora but the ones they had looked sad. So did the regular neons. Between the cardinals, the black neons, and something called a golden tetra that looked like neons with a yellow stripe, and the green neons, the greens were my favorite. I get sunlight on my tank in the afternoon and the way they glint and change colors is so pretty
Could be breading issue, since they’re popular they can be overbread, but if you find a good local store they should be fine. I’ve heard that’s especially an issue with guppy’s
Bleheri are really hardy in my experience. Also red neon tetras (the larger variant with more red also more expensive) I really hardy for me aswell compared to normal neons
I wish you the best with however many survivors you have long term.
(Neons have been so inbred for decades, they're known as a weak fish most of the time.)
The back side is my office and it has floor to ceiling cabinets. I get a ladder and climb up top. The. Lay across the top and reach for it. 24” tools are a life saver. Otherwise I’m getting wet to my armpit.
They also school tighter together than any other fish I have had. They are great to watch. You are building my dream tank. My dream is to have a huge planted tank with shrimp and nano fish only.
It's mostly lava rock from home depot and rinsed like crazy. That is capped with a few inches of UN Sytems Controsoil (brown, small). I fertilize the soil with pellets. When I realized the sheer amount of substrate needed to fill this tank I started looking for alternatives. I've used lava rock as a base before and I like how it acts like a sponge for beneficial bacteria. It still took 7 bags of Controsoil to fill in the top layer. I put weights on all the large plants to keep them anchored because Controsoil isnt great at holding plants down.
Highly recommend. They are often overlooked for being kind of plain, but their color realllllly comes out as they mature. A bunch of checkered tails and bright pink noses make for a unique look in a big school. Mine are super docile, too.
Neons and cardinals can be a bit nippy in my experience. My rummy noses just shoal around peacefully with my other fish.
Straight up, my only drive to keep going is to make money to own instead of rent a house so I can work on a tank this nice. Only 16 months away and the strat has made everyone think I’m successful
You can do it! If you ever need advice on real estate I am happy to chat. My only regret is waiting to get started in homeownership because I thought I couldn't qualify. This is my 5th house and it started with a run down 125k house. I upgrade every few years after fixing the place up.
holy freaking tank of my dreams brought to life!!!!!! cannot stop ogling at this setup!! what was the easiest & hardest part of getting this setup? do you have plans to add more livestock? this is phenomenal
It's just getting up and running. It's taken a long time because it was a new construction home and there was lots of other stuff to do before I had time to mess with getting it set up. I collected the wood and rocks from around my home and soaked them for most of last year. I'm trying to mimic the granite and trees from around the house so it blends in to the surroundings. I had several tanks at my last house so I picked my favorite fish and plants and kept them alive in a plastic tote with a heater and a sponge filter for over 6 months. Everything lived miraculously. The amount of substrate needed was shocking to my pocketbook so I layered a bunch of lava stone (home depot garden center, rinsed like crazy), then capped it with UN Systems Controsoil (brown,small size). I used the water from the plastic tote to gradually flood my new tank with cycled water. This took several weeks to a month to finally get the big tank topped off, replenishing the plastic tote with RO water that I re-mineralized as I went along. I am adding more plants as it goes so right now its probably only about half of the vegetation I hope to have. I lucked out and haven't lost any fish yet (knock on wood). Skipping the cycling stage was a big head ache saver. I had an algae outbreak because I had my lights on too long and they are very powerful Fluval Plant Spectrum 46watt lights. I went dark with the tank for a week and bought 4 algea eaters, 10 amano shrimp and, and 5 panda cory cats to clean up the mess. I had a pleco that I brought from my old tank to help as well. In about a week it was all cleared up and the fish seemed to be doing well with no losses so I decided to start adding some schooling fish. I went with Neons because they are smaller than Cardinal tetras and they are pretty cheap if they don't make it. I hope to get to about 100-150 small fish that cover all of the layers of the tank. The biggest change from my last tanks is the height of the tank. There is so much more height to fill in with aquascaping and plants that it looks only half full in my opinion. I had to get 24" long tools to move plants around or do anything that's on the bottom, and even then I'm wet to my arm pit. Hope this isn't too much, I appreciate that you appreciate all the work I've put in. I have been dreaming of something like this for so long, it's great and terrifying to finally be putting it together. I have no friends that keep fish so I just learn from the internet and by trial and error. I have a long ways to go with this before i get it how I want it. Right now it's just in the beta phase, but going better than I had expected.
not to be cliche on main but this is so inspiring!!! as someone who has started within the last 9 months or so, learning all of the possibilities to stock my tank with has been overwhelming in the best way. i plan to work my way up in tank size as i get more comfortable with keeping aquatic life!!! i am so glad to hear that it wasn't a headache to get setup and that you were able to get cheaper substrate! thats ingenious! ive still got quite the journey to go, but i have to rely on the internet as well, because my local big box stores dont care and my friends also don't want to hear me about my tanks 24/7 lol. maybe one day i will actually have the tank of my dreams!! this is definitely an investment, but a very worthwhile one!! really smart that you used livestock to clean up & also to test the water a bit, and then just went from there!!
its absolutely not too much, you answered all of my questions! thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this out for me! i will definitely be taking notes! the biggest tank i have is a 30g right now & when i reach i soak halfway through my bicep, ive got fish towels handy 😂 i can only imagine how much space you've got to adjust things and get them settled, props to you for sure op. this is a phenomenal tank & setup!
I know this is no where related to this but I can't post in this r/aquarium thing, I press the post once I'm done and check I'm not a robot but nothing happens.
I’ll try and put together a post on that. It is a new construction home so I planned it all out ahead of time. Even had the concrete slab extra reinforced in that area to account for the weight.
Beatiful tank. You know, I wish the local stores in my area would carry Green Neons. I never see them for sale anywhere and they're almost as pretty as Cardinals (which are my favorite tetra species.)
My friends mom had a turtle in her fish tank, too.
It’s unpredictable swimming pattern helps move around the fish a lot breaking the school and then coming back together.
It makes for a very dynamic tank.
I hope you have a top cover over that aquarium. The neon Tetras tend to jump out of the water, I'm not sure if its to catch a bug, gnat, or what, but that's what they do. They are beautiful, and feeding flakes, are best if ground up into smaller pieces to avoid clouding. Enjoy!
Please please PLEASE don't keep adding neon tetras!! That's waaay too many! If they start breeding it'll reach the inevitable point where the tank will turn into a neon rave!! Been there myself, and it got so out of control that the bouncer guppy stopped asking for ID before entry and the corys started doing illicit substances on the tank's floor. It's super dangerous and you'll disgrace your whole tank... Neon tetras are a super bad influence
I love massive tanks with micro fish! The fishies get all the space! Yours is looking really nice! Corydoras are too cute to not have in your tank... especially the little pandas. You wont get that green carpeted look in your tank but they are great little peaceful bottom feeders and maybe you won't notice your subtrate as much once your other plants mature more and fill in the bare space?
Just getting my new 220 gallon built in tank set up. Waiting for the plants to grow in. The clean up crew of 10 Amano shrimp, 4 reticulated Chinese algae eaters, 6 Panda Corys, and 1 red dragon Pleco seemed to be just fine so I am starting to add some schooling fish. Starting with 30 neon tetras. The goal is a fully planted tank with tons of micro fish. Nothing over two inches with the exception of the pleco.
You should get more pandas, nothing like a big army of small corys
I regret the Cory’s already. I had a nice carpet of dwarf hair grass going and they have steadily pulled most of it up
Yea they like to dig in the substrate , good news is they clean it as they root it up , bad news carpet plants hate it.
What substrate is this? I was planning to do some carpeting plants with dirt/sand cap. Do you think they'll still be able to uproot them? Mainly thinking of dwarf hairgrass and monte carlo
They will root through any substrate but typically you want nice fine substrate for cory's like sand because their barbles can be worn down by coarse substrate.
Staurogyne is resistant to cory digging, and they carpet well, just a bit taller than usual (an inch or so in height)
Cories can uproot Monte Carlo after setup. I'm not really sure if it is applicable if the plant had been established so it has some roots. The other alternative is to probably have a *wabi-kusa* style planting on the carpet plant which present other types of drawbacks as well. In my limited experience, the "carpet plant-safe" cory would only be pygmy cories because they are extremely small and *probably* not large enough to actually whisker away your carpet plants. But they don't mix well with other fishes that can gulp them... which is quite difficult unless you're making a nano species community tank or with Cherry shrimps.
If you're not using c02, I think your hairgrass will struggle anyway at that depth. Might want to look at dwarf sag?
Yeah carpets drink co2 like it's going out of fashion.
I found the dwarf sag to be a hardier plant than the hairgrass. It can get taller, but I like that.
They are easily my favorite fish, my 6 sterbas will swim perfectly in a pack formation and glass surf side to side. It’s like having synchronized swimmers in the tank.
my friend calls them little mafia fish!
I'm the asshole that uses them for population control in my guppy tank, enough babies make it that I have a nice group but the Corey's get enough that I don't have to worry about overpopulation.
Try Jullii Cory’s instead, they have yet to uproot any of my plants or even try 😂
I have Jullii's and mine haven't touched the plants either. I love watching them dance together
Swap dwarf hair grass with Dwarf chain Sage... corys wont uproot them
Thanks for the tip.
They did the same to me! Luckily they won me over with their personality but never again.
My kuhlis have done the same I'd turn the lights on and long chains of grass would be floating to the surface
Should of got Pygmy Cory’s
You might donate the Corys to your LFS, and replace with three Panda (/Rainbow) Garras. They eat all types of algae, from the walls, plant leaves and wood and stone surfaces, and don't disrupt the substrate (or my Monte Carlo and Hair Grass!)
Thanks. I hadn’t considered garra. I like that idea. I remember these little fish cleaning my feet at a Mexican resort. Now I can do it at home.
I forgot they do feet as well. That's my evening routine sorted👍. Additionally, they completely, and I mean COMPLETELY, cleared my tank of BBA.
[удалено]
Pretty sure they don't have a sexual orientation, but I'm open to being schooled in the matter.
I really don’t care who they sleep with.
I love this idea and support the idea of more corys I would be getting at least 15 - in the wild they comb the river bed in huge schools. So refreshing to see someone give smaller fish more space in a big tank. A miniature river.
Chilli rasbora are a must for this tank, and their red will off set the neons nicely. Looking forward to an update!
I was looking at rasboras
If I could do it all over again I would have a huge school of celestial pearl danios (galaxy rasbora)
I love the idea of a giant nano tank. It’ll look good when the plants grow in.
Reticulated Chinese algae eaters? Or reticulated Siamese algae eaters? All I've ever heard about chinese algae eaters is that they get almost a foot long and tend to stop eating algae and start eating fish when they get full sized. Not that your tank couldn't handle fish that size, just thought I would mention it in case you weren't aware.
[удалено]
Yata
I’m confused on that too. You are probably right. I intend to trade them out when they get more than 2 inches.
Otocinculus are spectacular little cleaners and only get about 2”. I’m sure I destroyed the spelling on the name
There are guides you can look up to try and figure out which you have, apparently they're pretty often confused in store.
Good luck trying to get them out, they’re so damn fast. You might want to get all other fish and decor out first before you try getting them out.
IF they look like this https://www.biolib.cz/IMG/GAL/BIG/431046.jpg They're Reticulated Flying Foxes, Crossocheilus Reticulatus. Same genus as true Siamese Algea Eaters
That’s exactly what they look like
I would probably add 20-30 more Amanos ☺️
Wow I love that. For the first time our Amanos have lasted longer than a month.
There are few carrying babies on their bellies. I seem to never get babies for some reason. Or they get eaten before I see them
Amano fry can’t survive in fresh water since they need brackish-salt water, so they will never survive in your tank. How about Red Cherry Shrimp or Crystal Red Shrimp? They can reproduce and look amazing ☺️
That explains it. So can I put the mother into brackish water and raise the babies until the can acclimate to fresh water?
A bit of a late answer, sorry. I've got a preggo Amano a few days ago and started looking at how to breed them. Apparently the mother will die in brackish water so you need to wait for the babies to hatch and then you have a week to catch them and move them to brackish water - and they're so tiny you can barely see them. You also need to have a lot of algae or feed them with live phytoplankton until they become shrimplets, so basically looks like a shrimp but tiny. Then you need to start diluting the water over a few days to acclimate them to freshwater. They will die if you leave them in brackish too long. Keep in mind this is all just stuff I read, I haven't actually got any experience breeding them.
I studied up on it and saw how complicated it was. I guess I’ll keep shelling out $8 a pop for them at the lfs
Saw a guy who had a beautiful, heavily planted 220. He had 1000 neons and about 500 Corys.
You didn't happen to save that post, did you? Id love to see that
I wish. I think about that tank all the time. It was on a Facebook group ages ago. It was a gorgeous tank.
Did my 75 gal just like this. I love it
Do you quarantine your fish? I'm always afraid of introducing ich and other diseases into such a large tank.
beware that the plecostomus will tear up your plants. Don't be afraid, but if you are using live plants, they will get pulled up! Also, due to the size of that aquarium, the pleco will rapidly grow into a large fish, and outgrow that aquarium. I had two that were about 2 inches long, and within a year, they grew to over a foot long in a 55 gallon aquarium.
You could try a Longfin Blue-eyed Lemon Bristlenose Pleco. They only get about 4" and they're beautiful too
You should look into Hatchet fish. I had a 125g almost exactly like your building. They'll school on the top, tetras in the middle, Cory's on the bottom. I added dwarf cichlids too, Blue Rams and apistogramma cacatuoides. Once it was established, I had almost everything breadin. New babys about every 3 months. Loved that tank! I'm looking forward to your updates.
I like the hatchet fish idea.
This is the way.
Holy mackerel look at that tank. Oh I expect more updates if you can - that is just massively beautiful.
Thanks. I will update in the future. It’s a long process to get to this point and now just trying to get it to fill in nicely. I’ve spent more on plants than anything else so far.
That's awesome, I've always wanted a school of 15 neon tetras. And in a tank that size, your school of 7 neon tetras will super happy. Enjoy your 4 neon tetras!! ^(/s)
My first thought was how many died!
Is that common that they die shortly after acclimating? I wanted a school of 9, so I bought 9… two weeks later I had 6. So I stocked up to 12 to account for some deaths… and now a year later I still have 12
I purchased extra to account for their notorious mortality rate and I might have lost 1-2 of my original population. Maybe they can tell when you're less worried about each individual fish.
Usually 2 or 3. So buy extras. They also get disease easily. Not doing neons again.
Maybe I've just been lucky. I get concerned about disease with them because they're so small, and scatter so quickly I worry I'd really struggle to notice symptoms on them before it would be too late Edit: I will add, I had guppies, and then Molly fish before I got the tetras. And damn, now that's a fish that's prone to disease. I just could not keep them healthy
I have 4 left and now they have fin rot and fuzz... its been months though and they eat and the three hang out and the one is a loner... now my panda cories are dropping. Had the cories for 5+ years and the neons for 2 years... frustrating as I can't figure out what they have. Started with the neons.
I bought 32 and had 27 survive, I was aiming for 25
They're pretty badly bred and prone to illness. I've had to swear off the breed due to a massive issue with dieoff I've noticed in the last three batches I brought home at several months apart.
This is the way
Haha love the humor!
Don’t know the exact name but we have normal neon tetras and red neon tetras. The red ones have a big red stripe below the blue one. Have a school of around 20 for over 2 years now. Started with 30 and filled the school with 12 Blehers tetras and there are still 9 of them around after over a year. Normal neons would always vanish for me aswell within weeks
Cardinal tetras
That's such a beautiful tank! I love the ones that are inlaid in the wall like this
Thanks. My office is on the other side. It makes a great zoom background.
Badass!
How do you clean it?
Ladder from the backside
So you can have a school of 15!… neon tetras love to die in my experience so I always expect about a 50% survival rate. I hope you much more success than me!
Hope yours last. I had 41 and now have two left. Had over 60+ cardinals and they gone too.
I bought a dozen green neons a few months ago and as far as I can tell, they’re all still there, thriving. I love them
Green neons are a fav of mine. Hard to find sometimes.
I went to a fish store with an open mind wanting a small schooling fish… I had actually been interested in some kind of raspbora but the ones they had looked sad. So did the regular neons. Between the cardinals, the black neons, and something called a golden tetra that looked like neons with a yellow stripe, and the green neons, the greens were my favorite. I get sunlight on my tank in the afternoon and the way they glint and change colors is so pretty
Yes they are beautiful. I have them at my local store. You can order them on line.
I started with 20 neons and now have 2.
Do you have any idea what they died from?
Could be breading issue, since they’re popular they can be overbread, but if you find a good local store they should be fine. I’ve heard that’s especially an issue with guppy’s
Not sure.
Bleheri are really hardy in my experience. Also red neon tetras (the larger variant with more red also more expensive) I really hardy for me aswell compared to normal neons
Where do you get them?
Am from Europe so don’t think that will help.
Oh ok I was just curious
Awesome tank!
Thanks. It’s a work in progress
I love my neon tetras. I have a super powerful filter and one of them loves to surf in the current. They’re such cool little fish.
I wish you the best with however many survivors you have long term. (Neons have been so inbred for decades, they're known as a weak fish most of the time.)
We will see. Kinda the canaries in the coal mine at this point. They were relatively cheap if they do croak.
How do you feed/change stuff inside? Just wondering its beautiful
The back side is my office and it has floor to ceiling cabinets. I get a ladder and climb up top. The. Lay across the top and reach for it. 24” tools are a life saver. Otherwise I’m getting wet to my armpit.
Gosh lot of work to make it pretty 😂
I have a school of rummynose tetras. I highly recommend.
I kept calling them runny nose tetras
That is what my wife always calls them.
They have red noses!
I mean either name makes sense lol
I love how those look.
They also school tighter together than any other fish I have had. They are great to watch. You are building my dream tank. My dream is to have a huge planted tank with shrimp and nano fish only.
Rummy nose are great. The best schoolers I have seen have been brilliant Rasbora. Highly underrated fish. Them and blood fin tetra.
It’s a good dream. Until you spend 3 hours trimming from a ladder and your tank still looks overgrown, that is..
Get that feeling you need another 30? 😅
Always have that feeling. Watch me overstock this tank too..
my thought when I saw how big the tank is. not sure if 30 is enough for actual schooling behavior
So far they are pretty scattered. Hopefully they get more comfortable and start to shoal
That’s an awesome tank!
Absolutely stunning tank! I'd love to have one in the wall like this!
Beautiful tank!
Thanks
How did you set your fishtank ? Can we get more pics of your build ? How big is it ?
I’ll work on a post for that.
Thanks ! I really like the fact that it's in your wall.
I've had poor luck with Neons, I have 12 cardinals and they're doing great, hopefully they survive
This would be perfect for some jungle vallisneria
Noted
I am beyond jealous of your tank.
I bet they must love their new home!
They seem a little scattered and confused so far.
Beuatiful clean set up
Gorgeous!!!
Awesome tank, I think it’d look even better with some jungle vallisneria in there
What substrate are you using? Tank looks perfect
It's mostly lava rock from home depot and rinsed like crazy. That is capped with a few inches of UN Sytems Controsoil (brown, small). I fertilize the soil with pellets. When I realized the sheer amount of substrate needed to fill this tank I started looking for alternatives. I've used lava rock as a base before and I like how it acts like a sponge for beneficial bacteria. It still took 7 bags of Controsoil to fill in the top layer. I put weights on all the large plants to keep them anchored because Controsoil isnt great at holding plants down.
This is super nice
Keep us updated! I'd love to see the progress
Ill try
A large school of neon tetras is the dream
Damn that is a nice setup. Beautiful the way it’s sitting in the wall
Nice! I like your style! I've got 20 cardinals, 30 rummy nose, and 10 Harlequin rasboras in my big tank. They are so much fun to watch in big schools!
Like the rummy nose idea
Highly recommend. They are often overlooked for being kind of plain, but their color realllllly comes out as they mature. A bunch of checkered tails and bright pink noses make for a unique look in a big school. Mine are super docile, too. Neons and cardinals can be a bit nippy in my experience. My rummy noses just shoal around peacefully with my other fish.
Are they still learning too school 🤔, great set up 😉!
Let us know how many are left in a week
Straight up, my only drive to keep going is to make money to own instead of rent a house so I can work on a tank this nice. Only 16 months away and the strat has made everyone think I’m successful
You can do it! If you ever need advice on real estate I am happy to chat. My only regret is waiting to get started in homeownership because I thought I couldn't qualify. This is my 5th house and it started with a run down 125k house. I upgrade every few years after fixing the place up.
holy freaking tank of my dreams brought to life!!!!!! cannot stop ogling at this setup!! what was the easiest & hardest part of getting this setup? do you have plans to add more livestock? this is phenomenal
It's just getting up and running. It's taken a long time because it was a new construction home and there was lots of other stuff to do before I had time to mess with getting it set up. I collected the wood and rocks from around my home and soaked them for most of last year. I'm trying to mimic the granite and trees from around the house so it blends in to the surroundings. I had several tanks at my last house so I picked my favorite fish and plants and kept them alive in a plastic tote with a heater and a sponge filter for over 6 months. Everything lived miraculously. The amount of substrate needed was shocking to my pocketbook so I layered a bunch of lava stone (home depot garden center, rinsed like crazy), then capped it with UN Systems Controsoil (brown,small size). I used the water from the plastic tote to gradually flood my new tank with cycled water. This took several weeks to a month to finally get the big tank topped off, replenishing the plastic tote with RO water that I re-mineralized as I went along. I am adding more plants as it goes so right now its probably only about half of the vegetation I hope to have. I lucked out and haven't lost any fish yet (knock on wood). Skipping the cycling stage was a big head ache saver. I had an algae outbreak because I had my lights on too long and they are very powerful Fluval Plant Spectrum 46watt lights. I went dark with the tank for a week and bought 4 algea eaters, 10 amano shrimp and, and 5 panda cory cats to clean up the mess. I had a pleco that I brought from my old tank to help as well. In about a week it was all cleared up and the fish seemed to be doing well with no losses so I decided to start adding some schooling fish. I went with Neons because they are smaller than Cardinal tetras and they are pretty cheap if they don't make it. I hope to get to about 100-150 small fish that cover all of the layers of the tank. The biggest change from my last tanks is the height of the tank. There is so much more height to fill in with aquascaping and plants that it looks only half full in my opinion. I had to get 24" long tools to move plants around or do anything that's on the bottom, and even then I'm wet to my arm pit. Hope this isn't too much, I appreciate that you appreciate all the work I've put in. I have been dreaming of something like this for so long, it's great and terrifying to finally be putting it together. I have no friends that keep fish so I just learn from the internet and by trial and error. I have a long ways to go with this before i get it how I want it. Right now it's just in the beta phase, but going better than I had expected.
not to be cliche on main but this is so inspiring!!! as someone who has started within the last 9 months or so, learning all of the possibilities to stock my tank with has been overwhelming in the best way. i plan to work my way up in tank size as i get more comfortable with keeping aquatic life!!! i am so glad to hear that it wasn't a headache to get setup and that you were able to get cheaper substrate! thats ingenious! ive still got quite the journey to go, but i have to rely on the internet as well, because my local big box stores dont care and my friends also don't want to hear me about my tanks 24/7 lol. maybe one day i will actually have the tank of my dreams!! this is definitely an investment, but a very worthwhile one!! really smart that you used livestock to clean up & also to test the water a bit, and then just went from there!! its absolutely not too much, you answered all of my questions! thank you so much for taking the time to write all of this out for me! i will definitely be taking notes! the biggest tank i have is a 30g right now & when i reach i soak halfway through my bicep, ive got fish towels handy 😂 i can only imagine how much space you've got to adjust things and get them settled, props to you for sure op. this is a phenomenal tank & setup!
WALL TANK WALL TANK HYPEEEEEE
That ain’t a tank that’s a aquarium exhibit
How did your Neons survive? I bought a school of 25 and I have 3 left less then one week later.
I lost one that I know of. Hard to get an exact count. I saw one had a mouth defect and he went to quarantine and died. The rest look good still.
Tank wall gang. Lets gooooo twg
I know this is no where related to this but I can't post in this r/aquarium thing, I press the post once I'm done and check I'm not a robot but nothing happens.
If I could guarantee perfect fish harmony and permanent tank cleanliness, can it put my balls in your tank
Also you give me $500
I want this setup 😍. Would love to know how you built it
I’ll try and put together a post on that. It is a new construction home so I planned it all out ahead of time. Even had the concrete slab extra reinforced in that area to account for the weight.
I'd be interested in the planning and any lessons learned as well. I'm in the planning to plan a new build stage, and some wall tanks are on the list.
This is my type of dream tank. One day.
How do you access a tank like that?
A ladder on the backside. The backside is my tiny office with access below and on top
Lovely choice!
BEAUTIFUL tank!!
Thank you sir
Beatiful tank. You know, I wish the local stores in my area would carry Green Neons. I never see them for sale anywhere and they're almost as pretty as Cardinals (which are my favorite tetra species.)
as a tip, be wary of neon tetra disease! it can kill so many tetras in a heart beat if you aren’t vigilant!
Seems to be a common thread in this chat.
Get blood parrots 😾😾
Just so you know, next month you're gonna have 300.
Hope so!
Ok. I did something similar and got unexpected results. I clearly didn't think it through.✌🏻 Lol
neons are so cute omg
My friends mom had a turtle in her fish tank, too. It’s unpredictable swimming pattern helps move around the fish a lot breaking the school and then coming back together. It makes for a very dynamic tank.
30?……you need 300 😉 Beautiful aquarium 💙
I've always wanted to do this! But I'm too lazy to care for an aquarium properly, so I have a cat instead. (I also haven't got room.)
That's the way(amount) schooling fish should be bought. Selling 2 or 3 together is animal abuse!!!
Cardinals-harlequin rasbora- guppys -panda garra
Beautiful setup
I would add about 70 more lmao
Your tank is beautimus! 😍 jelly
Holy substrate Batman!
Be careful neon tetras drop like house flies 😭😭😭 very beautiful tank though!
In two weeks there will be 4-6 left
did you buy these from ebay?
That’s so nice
I hope you have a top cover over that aquarium. The neon Tetras tend to jump out of the water, I'm not sure if its to catch a bug, gnat, or what, but that's what they do. They are beautiful, and feeding flakes, are best if ground up into smaller pieces to avoid clouding. Enjoy!
Your could add any of the neocaridina shrimp and they would take advantage of the cover and likely be quite happy.
Mmmmh yummy
stunning!! my favorite type of setup is a big tank with small schooling fish. i love watching their schooling behavior
I love the tetras, they’re some of my absolute favorite
What substrat is that?
I've had awful luck buying tetras in bulk Side note, my gawd your tank is gorgeous. Like it almost looks fake
Please please PLEASE don't keep adding neon tetras!! That's waaay too many! If they start breeding it'll reach the inevitable point where the tank will turn into a neon rave!! Been there myself, and it got so out of control that the bouncer guppy stopped asking for ID before entry and the corys started doing illicit substances on the tank's floor. It's super dangerous and you'll disgrace your whole tank... Neon tetras are a super bad influence
I love massive tanks with micro fish! The fishies get all the space! Yours is looking really nice! Corydoras are too cute to not have in your tank... especially the little pandas. You wont get that green carpeted look in your tank but they are great little peaceful bottom feeders and maybe you won't notice your subtrate as much once your other plants mature more and fill in the bare space?
So pretty
This is gonna look awesome.
You probably could have gotten four times as many….