MostlyRock

I live in Florida, so of course I'm mostly running tanks that require more acidic, softer water than my tap water can facilitate, because why should things be easy, right? Planted community tanks are really rewarding, and I like the challenges most of the time. I decided to set up a new tank specifically because my little brother is getting married. My little brother lives 11 min from Aquarium Co-Op, and if I'm going all the way to Washington, it would be silly to come back without something from@Dean’s Fishroom. I honestly don't know when it will be, I could have a few months or a year at this point, it's fluid. I'm starting with a 75g, and I'd like to take suggestions from you guys from there. I am honestly hoping to get some of Dean's Dark Knight Rams, if he/Aquarium Co-Op has some of his available when I get there. let's pretend that we know for sure that this will be a Dark Knight Rams build, because that's what I want, but I will be honestly happy with anything that comes from Dean's Fishroom. Because I'm in FL, I don't usually run a heater. My water tends to be around 78f in the daytime, and will sometimes get as low as 76f at night. For this build I will need a heater. I'll end up ordering one off of the Co-Op website. For substrate I'm going for gravel until it gets a decent amount of mulm on/in it, then I'll be adding something finer as a top, because rams like to sift the substrate. I'll be populating the plants and the tankmates in preparation for the Big Day. I remember the heat and the substrate from a tank I setup for my daughter 14 years ago with Blue Rams, but there are some things I don't remember so well. As for flow, would they do better with HOBs or Sponge filters? Would a couple large sponge filters stacked with a powerhead at each end of the tank make them happy, or would it be better to just use stacked sponge filters with airstones and use a powerhead just to keep the water moving? For tankmates, I'll definitely appreciate some suggestions. I would love to keep it egg/fry "friendly" just in case they pair off and breed, That would be really awesome, but my end goal isn't breeding as much as giving them a happy, healthy home. My searches have pulled up a couple plecos that can deal with the heat, but not much as far as the fry friendly thing goes. I like Kuhli Loaches and Hillsream loaches, love Otto's but again, not sure about the heat thing. What do you guys suggest? For plants, I have some favorites, I like cryps for the foreground, I like vallisneria and various larger swords in the background and some flavor of pogostemon, like Octopus or narrowleaf to hide sponge filters (and the heater for this build), and it also gives the littles a safe-space. I have a java fern that refuses to stop popping pups at the ends of its leaves, so the driftwood and rocks are getting some of that, but I may add anubias too. I have recently fallen in love with crinum calamistratum, so I plan on ordering a couple of those too. Today the tank is bare, I'll update as I go. Probably gonna start with the substrate on Friday, if not, I'll start working on it after Christmas. Thanks in advance for the suggestions!

My 3 do awesome in my 29, even when it just had a sponge filter in it. Right now I'm running 2 HOBs in there as well to get them ready to cycle new tanks, and I haven't seen any difference in their behavior with the added flow. They certainly haven't seemed to take any more interest in the higher flow areas than lower flow since I put the HOBs in. I agree with @OutBout, while I have seen them "eat algae," they eat pellets, wafers, Zuchini, etc. They seem to prefer scavenging prepared foods to just eating algae, so I wouldn't expect them to make a huge difference regarding algae production. I wouldn't get them to take care of algae, I would get them because they look awesome, and because they're silly and play a lot, especially with Kuhli Loaches.

@Odd Duck, I have so many ideas from your suggestions, thank you! I'll play with it a bit and let you know what I figure out.

Good info! Thank you! Yeah, we are in the discussion phase of this project, not settled on anything yet. I'm not going to pull the trigger on anything until I'm sure I will be able to provide a happy, healthy home for them, then I'll have to actually find the tanks and equipment. Hopefully it'll give us something to work on together for a long time.

@Odd Duck The overflows are one inch, but the corner overflow boxes don't just have teeth at the top, there are slots at the bottom too. I'd like to keep the baby shrimp and fry out of the overflow boxes. I was thinking of using some background material to cover the back and the overflow boxes, and they could even go over the coarse sponge, but if I zip-tie them in place it'll be a nightmare to clean. I need to figure out some sort of flexible clip that I can embed in the sponge and squeeze it to remove or install the sponges into the overflow box intake slots, then they'll snap back into place and pull the sponge toward the overflow box.

I'm setting up a 120 with corner overflows. Chances are I'm gonna have a ton of shrimp and fry sucked into the overflows. My idea is to get the Aquarium Co-Op coarse sponge and cut strips the height and width of the overflow teeth and zip-tie them in place. That'll kind of make it a beast to clean, any better ideas?

Hi @Guppysnail, thank you! Yeah, my recovery from MTS has gone swirly, the only place for me now is among my brethren... the Fish Nerds. Speaking of "have one more," @Chick-In-Of-TheSea, I'm gonna pick up a few 10s soon. One of them will be a shrimp tank. The other two? The kiddo is now a... teenager... and the angst is strong with this one. As a toddler, fish were magical and exciting. Now? Booooring.... until they saw an Axolotl. I knew nothing of Axolotls, so I did some research and they prefer sand because they like digging, but they can have serious issues from sand until they are about 3 inches or bigger. They also hate each other until they are past the juvenile stage. So, together we are going to get a couple of Axolotls, raise them in their own individual 10 gallons, and move them to something at least 4' wide with a mature plantscape when they get big enough. I'm far more excited about a project with the kiddo than the Axolotls, but I gotta admit, they are pretty kool. It also gives me a reason to get another big tank, so there is that. The hardest part is going to be the temp. I live in FL, so there is pretty much never going to be a need for a heater, Axolotls prefer colder water than I can easily facilitate. It's gonna take some MacGyvering. The 120, is waiting on someone to help me move the tank off the stand, so I can rebuild the stand along with resealing it. The stand is actually in really good shape, but the doors are TINY. I MIGHT be able to get a 10 gallon in and out, definitely not a 40 breeder. I'm going to get cabinet doors the size of the face and remove most of the front of the cabinet, so I have to reinforce the stand so it'll cope with the lack of support. It's gonna take a while.

Hola Class! I got my first fish tank when I was 8, it was a little hex tank, maybe 3 gallons? It came with a pair of Black Moors. Between 8 and 9 I spent as much time at the library as I could, back then the Internet was called the BBS and my TRS-80 needed to wait until my parents were asleep to dial into the various BBS nodes to search for info, the library was easier. By the time I was 9 I had finally convinced my Mom that I need a bigger tank for the Moors, but I didn't tell her that that would be a perpetual condition. By the time I moved out, there wasn't a wall in my room without several tanks. By the time I was in my 20's I was into several different freshwater species and had setup my first Reef tank. I was a commercial service plumber, and I built custom setups for people on the side for many years. My apartments were always covered in tanks. About 12 years ago I hurt my back pretty badly, my boss laid me off AND my ex left me with a toddler. I sold off all of my fish, tanks, most of my equipment, pretty close to the whole gambit, and enrolled in college full time. I kept up with the bills by doing plumbing work, mostly for people I had done work for professionally, but a lot of it was for fish stores and people wanting custom setups. My kid came with me on a lot of those jobs, and legitimately helped me with pipework when there were tight spots I had a hard time getting into. Toddlers are far more capable than some people can comprehend. Once I became gainfully employed in IT, I focused on building an environment my kid would do well in, which BTW, is NOT as easy as building an environment for fish to thrive in, I'm just sayin. No tanks. I was clean, I tell you, CLEAN! No MTS, No pathological need to build the perfect environment for [insert fish here], nothing. Yes, I admit that something was always missing, there was a hole that I couldn't really ever fill, but I was completely out of the hobby. A few months ago, here I am settled in my new house in Sanford, FL, not a tank in sight, and my kid's friend brings over a 10 gallon tank with 2 comets, both bigger than the tank if you include the fins in the total length, 2 guppies, and ABSOLUTELY ZERO FILTRATION. She would top it off when her Mom complained about the water level being too low, but that was it. and they were all STILL ALIVE! She asked me if I would take the tank, and I immediately went to the closest LFS to my new place, found an employee with a goldfish pond and got the Comets into a reasonable environment... then I found a 29... and setup a planted tank. I cycled the 29 with feeder fish, which was an epically bad idea, because they started breeding fast and now I have a kazillion Platy and Endler fry in there. Netting out the Platys and Endlers is not fun once there is a considerable amount of plant growth, I tell you what, WoW! That tank sits next to my desk, so I decided to make it a tank for mostly shrimp and Chili Rasboras... Hillstream loaches, Kuhli Loaches, Otto Cats, RL Plecos... yeah, I need a bigger tank. The main reason for the Chili Rasboras is they are gorgeous, especially in schools, but it MAY be because my PH is around 9 out of the tap, and GH and KH both read 300 according to the Tetra test strips and API liquid test kit, so it would make no sense for me to just go with dechlorinator and keep African Cichlids, at all... Nope. I've got to break out the RODI filter and make this complicated. On top of that, I just picked up a 120 (48 x 24 x 24) that needs to be re-sealed, and a 40 breeder to use as the sump. What am I going to do with that one? Totally going planted community... still refuse to go the easy route. So, as of now, I'm collecting what I need to build the new setup, cycling extra filter media with the 29, and TBH, keeping an eye out for more tanks. I'm completely off the wagon. I ran across Aquarium Co-Op while searching for something aquarium related, and now after my first order, I have a too big shopping list again, and I'm LOVING all of the videos. Corey is a solid dude, I really enjoy his "rants." Even the stuff I already know is interesting, but learning about how much the industry has evolved over the last 12 years is mind blowing. I'll start a build thread on the 120 when I get around to re-sealing it, I look forward to interacting with you all.