I HATE this tank.

[jwcarlson]

I HATE this tank... for now at least.

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[brewmaster15]

Just need to find a fish that is so cool it doesnt matter what the tank is...

Ever try Laetacara dorsigera
Redbreast Acara?


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Beautiful cichlids.
Tangledupincichlids.com has tank raised ones.

Great fish if you are looking for options

[jwcarlson]

That's a really neat fish, Al, I've heard of acaras obviously, but never kept any of them. And never heard of that particular one either. Pretty!

Bit of an update on this hated aquarium. I banished it to the basement.

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[Willie]

Looks like it'd make a good breeding tank for larger discus.

[Discus Fever]

I think that would make a great nano tank

[jwcarlson]

Leak test:

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Filled her up, and my reflection looks like it's snorkeling. I didn't start a contest thread for the 125, but if it's captured in the reflection of a contest tank does that qualify it? Will have to ask Al. :D :D I hope to move my discus into the 125 at some point.

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Willie, it probably would make a good breeding tank. I'm focusing on trying to keep other much less sensitive fry alive (which is part of the goal of this setup).

This is the previous iteration of this tank before I tore it down in favor of a 40 breeder. Actually, this was probably the "peak". I struggled with plants in this one, probably in part due to the depth.

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[jwcarlson]

Coming along. Waiting on some parts, but otherwise progressing.

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[Adamski77]

Every time I open this thread I'm asking myself "but why do you hate it so much?" ... it's actually very good looking tank ;)

[jwcarlson]

It's purely footprint related. I suppose if fills a niche (like a breeding pair of discus... I have never done that, but I suspect it would be good).
I'm repurposing it for something I actually want to have. Which is a dedicated fry rearing space instead of using hang on breeder boxes and what not. I guess I never mentioned what I am doing here haha.

[Discus Fever]

That would be a very good tank for raising fry, keep us posted on this.

[jwcarlson]

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First two batches of sterbai fry went into the fry system today. Spawned my celestial pearl danios this AM as well and have about 40-60 eggs from a trio. I've failed miserably with the CPDs after my first spawn, which I made it a couple of weeks into free swimming and over fed fry powder and ended up killing a large number of them. Have spawned them a few times after that with absolutely no luck, but believe that to be possibly related to cleanliness of the breeding/hatching containers. So bleach cleaned all of that and we'll see how it goes. Eggs are in methlyene blue on an internal hang-on breeder box.

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[jwcarlson]

The CPD fry have hatched out.

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[AquaticNerd]

Holy smokes those are some TINY fry! Congratz on the hatch! :)

[jwcarlson]

Holy smokes those are some TINY fry! Congratz on the hatch! :)

Yeah, it's absolutely amazing to me that they can survive. What's even more wild is they basically lay on the bottom for like 3-5 more days and then eventually they'll move over and sit up on the sides. It takes a week or more to go free swimming. And boy are they a treat to feed. haha

[Discus Fever]

Nice job keep up the great work.

[brewmaster15]

Very cool Jacob!

Al

[jwcarlson]

Thanks!

CPD fry getting huge. :grin:

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[ravvlet]

Ahh! Glad to see they’re doing well! Also, hilarious title!

[Iminit]

Looking good! How are the Cory’s doing?

[jwcarlson]

Here's the oldest batch of sterbai. I think I've learned a lot and was overfeeding early on and lost quite a few of these. They're VERY orange. I also have a second batch from a smaller spawn with about 10 or so in them.

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The CPDs have mostly progressed to the "wall clinging stage". This will be a real test because I am LOUSY at feeding these fry without OVERfeeding them in the past. Hopefully I can keep it on the rails. There's about 30 of them. I messed with settings a lot so you can almost make them out.

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[jwcarlson]

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[jwcarlson]

These are the CPD fry, they're growing, but day-to-day it's tough to tell. They just look like eye balls floating around for so long.

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[jwcarlson]

Left to right: about 35 freshly hatched CPDs, about 35 CPDs about 12 days post hatch, and about 35 sterbai from two separate spawns but close enough the smaller ones can't be eaten

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[brewmaster15]

Thats really cool Jacob. You have a nice little setup there.

Al

[jwcarlson]

The first batch of fry have moved out of the system and into a grow out tank.

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The most convenient place to drop my adult corys was into the bottom of this tank temporarily and today they laid 25 eggs for me. :)

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Would be cool if they do that a few days in a row.

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi Jacob, I just walked thru this whole thread and super nice fry rearing station you have here. Do the fry trays sit on the surface of the water in the tank? How do you change the water in the trays? Guessing very carefully. :D
Pat

[AquaticNerd]

I'm gonna take a shot at this one (wrong Jacob - I know). If I recall correctly, I saw something similar set up in Dean's fishroom (Aquarium Co-op video). The trays are resting on the rim of the aquarium via pegs or screws that are covered with a plastic plug on the ends, but the tray itself is submerged in the water. In this post (https://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?140362-I-HATE-this-tank&p=1381417&viewfull=1#post1381417) you can make out the screw heads. In that same post, you can see that there is a cutout on the end where a sponge is shoved in along with some tubing above each tray. Fresh water is continually going into the tray via those tubes and out the side of the tray with the sponge. You can make out the water flowing through the tubes in the linked post. I tried finding the aquarium co-op video but can't seem to find it on YouTube. Either my brain isn't functional because of a lack of coffee or it could have been de-listed and placed in their "members only" area.

Jacob - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of your setup. I love seeing this in action, because this system is likely the one I would go with if I were going to raise different types of fry.

[brady]

Left to right: about 35 freshly hatched CPDs, about 35 CPDs about 12 days post hatch, and about 35 sterbai from two separate spawns but close enough the smaller ones can't be eaten

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What are cpd's?
Jay

[jwcarlson]

Hi Jacob, I just walked thru this whole thread and super nice fry rearing station you have here. Do the fry trays sit on the surface of the water in the tank? How do you change the water in the trays? Guessing very carefully. :D
Pat

They sit on top, there's bolts out the back of the trays that hold it level, the trays are in 1.5" of water or so to keep temperature consistent. Overflow slot cut in the back with a sponge in it to keep fry from going out. One of the PVC manifolds is air and one is water. Air is there to break up the film on top of the water. Water provided from down below from a powerhead into the manifold with a valve for each tray to control the flow. So the trays are constantly being flushed.

Overall water changes are just done from down below. I do 75% water change every 2-3 days on the main tank. Vacuum the trays out with a little air tube siphon nightly when feeding fry powder. Once they're on BBS it stays fairly clean because of the water flushing through. Especially with corys. The CPDs are a little bit dirtier because they don't do anything on the bottom to stir it up.


I'm gonna take a shot at this one (wrong Jacob - I know). If I recall correctly, I saw something similar set up in Dean's fishroom (Aquarium Co-op video). The trays are resting on the rim of the aquarium via pegs or screws that are covered with a plastic plug on the ends, but the tray itself is submerged in the water. In this post (https://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?140362-I-HATE-this-tank&p=1381417&viewfull=1#post1381417) you can make out the screw heads. In that same post, you can see that there is a cutout on the end where a sponge is shoved in along with some tubing above each tray. Fresh water is continually going into the tray via those tubes and out the side of the tray with the sponge. You can make out the water flowing through the tubes in the linked post. I tried finding the aquarium co-op video but can't seem to find it on YouTube. Either my brain isn't functional because of a lack of coffee or it could have been de-listed and placed in their "members only" area.

Jacob - feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of your setup. I love seeing this in action, because this system is likely the one I would go with if I were going to raise different types of fry.

You've got it, I thought I mentioned it was a Dean Tweeddale rip of in the original post, but I guess not! The video is "members only". It's shown in a lot of his videos, though. Here's a video with some views of it in his fishroom: https://youtu.be/h_gkvjN0rhw?t=283 - about 4:40 seconds into it. The build is pretty simple. Beats the heck out of hang on boxes.


What are cpd's?
Jay

Celestial Pearl Danios, I think they used to be called Galaxy Rasboras.
They're about an inch long as adults, fairly skittish, and really hard to take pictures of.

One of my females:
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Some of my males:
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[Koenigsberg14|Khotan48]

What made you dislike the tank initially, and how do you plan to utilize it now, especially with the successful fry hatching?

[jwcarlson]

What made you dislike the tank initially, and how do you plan to utilize it now, especially with the successful fry hatching?

I was using it as a planted community tank, I disliked the depth a lot, or more accurately, the foot print. It feels like there's no space and it's nearly the same volume as a 40 breeder which seems huge by comparison. It's also a non-standard width just a tiny bit so that no standard glass top actually fits it, only the dumb plastic hood it came with.
This will be a dedicated fry tank, at least for the foreseeable future. Until I start running out of places to put fry. I'm not going too crazy on fry rearing as I don't have tons of space for growing out. I've got a couple of tanks that I might end up rehoming the residents and bringing into grow outs, though.

[jwcarlson]

This tank is still rolling. The CPDs and sterbai have all graduated to other tanks. Now it has two batches of bristlenose (how do they eat this many green beans...?!?) and three little furcata rainbow fry that I rescued from the parent tank.
Is this the normal color for bristlenose? They look so yellow/green-ish. Dad is super red mom is normal. They looked this color before I fed green beans and I haven't fed them baby brine shrimp anytime recently.

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[Charlyc11]

I was using it as a planted community tank, I disliked the depth a lot, or more accurately, the foot print. It feels like there's no space and it's nearly the same volume as a 40 breeder which seems huge by comparison. It's also a non-standard width just a tiny bit so that no standard glass top actually fits it, only the dumb plastic hood it came with.
This will be a dedicated fry tank, at least for the foreseeable future. Until I start running out of places to put fry. I'm not going too crazy on fry rearing as I don't have tons of space for growing out. I've got a couple of tanks that I might end up rehoming the residents and bringing into grow outs, though.

I had the same issue with my 29 gallon non standard, the glass was a hair to big so I crazy glued some plastic rails on each side centering the glass. That did the job so I can use the standard aqueon glass top.