Andy's Fish Den

I've used Matten filters in a couple of tanks, and they are great filters, but I would only use them in a fish room, store or breeding type set up. I wouldn't use them in a display tank. The problem with using in a display is that when they become dirty and need cleaned, and you go to pull them out of the tank, it is difficult to keep substrate out of the filter area, and it will dirty up a tank quickly when removing. I've found that it's easiest to clean when you have pulled all or most of the fish out of the tank, take filter out and clean, let the gunk settle to the bottom and then siphon it all out, then put the filter back in and refill the tank.

It is up to you on how you feel, but I have had tanks with chips on the edges that never developed a leak or anything and were set up for years.

If I have set up a new tank, and there are no other fish in the tank, I just put whatever the new fish are in that tank, that is where they will quarantine and then continue living. Shrimp are the same way for me, but I only have one color/ strain to a tank, so I'm not adding new ones to a tank after the initial ones.

There have been many stands made with steel stands, and wood facade, most of them they glue or epoxy magnets to the wood so that the wood attaches to the stand with magnet rather than screws that have to be removed to take a wood panel off.

I would not worry about the tanks, I have myself a few tanks that are much more out of level than those and no issues after many years. I have also seen many in LFS that are not level that you can tell have been in place for a long time, like decades and not had any issues.

Something to think about if you are thinking about going down the rabbit hole of breeding angelfish, for every pair of angels, you will need a minimum of two or three tanks that are dedicated to that pair and their offspring. You will need a 20 high tank for the pair alone, then if the parents will look after the eggs and hatch the fry without you interfering, you'll need a 10-15 gallon tank to move them to once they are a week or two old, then depending on how many survive, another tank in the 40-55 gallon size to grow them out to sellable size.

I would pull a handful of the stones in the tank out, lay out on a towel and pat it dry. Take some white vinegar and put a few drops on the stones. If it starts bubbling, fizzing, it will affect the pH of the water. If it doesn't then it is inert and wont affect it. As for the snails, I would not worry about them. They will adjust themselves to the food levels for them in your tank. If you overfeed and have a lot of dead plant material in the tank, they will explode in population, if there isn't much of those then they will stay steady. Think about it, if you smash them against the glass, they are dying in the tank, and if you do a bunch, well that can add to ammonia problems as well. Yes, some fish may et the bits and pieces of them after being smashed, but not all fish will. All of my tanks have snails in them, bladder, Malaysia trumpet, pond snails, and you would be amazed how many are in some of the tanks that you see after the lights go off. I would buy some new test strips or kit just to double check that the one you've been using isn't giving you false readings. Also, check your source water, pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate. It does no good to do a water change if the source water has a bunch of ammonia or anything else. I always discourage new fishkeepers not to chase ph. Use what your local tap water is, fish are surprisingly adaptable, and if you get fish from a local or even somewhat local LFS, most likely their water parameters are very similar to yours and if the fish are doing good for them, they will do well for you. I have not come across a LFS that has the time, money and resources to have a bunch of RO water and remineralize for different parameters for the various regions of the world.

I would go ahead and add some fish. As long as you don't add like 30 fish to the tank right away you will be fine. If you just add a few smaller fish initially and let them get established then you can add more. If you don't have anything to test your water parameters yet, go ahead and buy some test strips or a kit while at the store so you can keep an eye on your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels.

Even if you did put all female guppies in the pond, there is a high likelihood that one or more was already pregnant, and they can store sperm for a while so even if they hadn't been with a male for a while its possible.

Looks good! Did you make that background or buy it?

Put water in tank that is roughly close to the temp I want to run it. Either take one of the extra sponge filters I usually have in a tank, or if I use a new one, I take one from an established tank and squeeze all the gunk out of it into the new tank. Let it run for a few hours to a day then add fish. As long as you don't ad too many fish at once it will be fine. I have set up many tanks this way, including quarantine tanks.

Being a beginner fishkeeper, I would not worry about messing with water parameters. I would put together, aquascape the tank how you like it, use your tap water, dechlorinate of course since you have city water. 99.9% of the city water in the US you will be able to keep fish alive in. Is there any LFS in your area? Even with an hour drive? because, there is a good chance that they have very similar water parameters to what you have. Go in and see what they have, ask them what fish do good in the local water and if there are some species that don't. I worked in an LFS a several years and I would see people come in all he time, new hobbyists. They would look up a fish that they wanted, books and the internet would say the fish needed pH 6.5-7. Our local water, whether city or well would run 7.4-7.8. They would think that they had to buy all kinds of chemicals to bring the pH down and they were constantly chasing the pH levels. In the meantime, the fish is struggling because they would bounce the pH from 6.5 to 7.2 within a day or two. I would tell them to stop dosing chemicals, the fish will be fine in the tap water, fish are pretty resilient, as long as the water parameters are stable. A lot of problems arise when you start messing with the parameters and there are swings in pH, KH, GH. I keep a wide variety of fish, from wild caught angels, corydoras and discus to Lake Tanganyikan cichlides, wild type live bearers, and others, all of my fish are kept in my tap water, which is a well source. My pH will range from 7.4-8.0 throughout the year, KH and GH will both be 7-10 and my TDS runs 250-300. the only time that I use RO water is when I bring in new wild caught fish, and then I acclimate them to my tap water over a few water changes.

In a round about way, I guess it has made it to my plate. I feed my duckweed and other plant trimmings, etc to my chickens, then I eat their eggs and meat.

If it is a custom made tank, I would consider having the tank drilled and put in bulkheads, and use them to connect any piping for a canister filter to. Doing that would allow you to put a weir in the tank for surface skimming abilities and could easily hide the pipes and possibly heater, unless you were to use one of the Oase bio-therm units with the heater built in.

oops! It had been a while since I watched it.

This is what I did as well for mine. I had to replace a couple pieces of tape over the years, but nothing to hard, old tape peeled right off and put new on.

I just came across this thread, and it made me think bout this tank that I have seen in a couple videos. It is in a store over in Australia. its been a week or two since I watched these, but IIRC in the second video, they add several gold nuggets to the river tank. They showed and talked about how much they cost there is Australia, and it is crazy!

I have been using RO and RO/DI units for the last ten years or so being that I have kept reef and other saltwater tanks. Most, if not all units if they are only RO units will not give you pure water with a zero TDS. I have a top of the line Bulk Reef Supply RO/DI unit, and when the water comes out of the reverse osmosis membrane still has a TDS of anywhere from 1-15 depending upon what the TDS of the water entering the unit is, and how old all the sediment and carbon blocks are, then once it goes through the deionization part, it will be zero TDS. So, what I getting to is, if the water is not at a true TDS of 0, then whatever molecules are still in the water can be affecting the water and pH. As @tolstoy21stated above, that RO water will be neutral, and if it sits in an open container, the pH will drop. Personally, I would quit chasing pH, just do water changes with your tap water, let the tank balance out, and there will be a lot less headaches for you.

If it gets cold enough to freeze, you are going to need a large heater and some insulation and a cover to keep it warm enough to have happy fish. Look up some older LRB videos on YouTube from when he lived near Indianapolis. He had outdoor tub ponds that he kept year round, they were made in a way that they were insulated and then had covers on them, and had heaters in them, if I am remembering right he had in the neighborhood of 2000-2500 wats of heaters running to keep them warm. Now, he probably had 200-250 gallons of water circulating between his few tubs but even with one tub if you're using say a 300 watt heater, if it is on constantly trying to keep the water above 50* and its below freezing out, it will add to your power bill quite significantly.

Depends where you live. I know around me, you can't get more than $10-15 for a used 20 gal tank. if you add in filters, lights etc you can get a little more, but if I was selling them, I would have a hard time getting more than $100 for everything.

My biggest thing would be to throw away the stand that comes with it and either make your own out of PVC, which there are a couple of videos on YouTube of doing, or make a bracket to hang it on the wall out of wood or a piece of 1" PVC to slide the handle in. The stand that comes with the hatcher is too low to be able to get a sieve under to strain and then reach your hand under to turn the know.

Whenever I have an empty tank, I "ghost feed" it. What I mean is that I throw a little bit of food in the tank as if I am feeding fish in the tank. The food will sink to the bottom, decompose and go through the nitrogen cycle. It doesn't take much food, I'll just throw a flake or a pellet or two in the tank. It's a trick I learned years ago when I worked at an LFS, the guy who owned it would throw food in tanks that were empty, because it would keep the beneficial bacteria going until he got his next order of fish in and would be feeding them.

Biofilm, perfectly normal to occur after being added to a tank. Any critters in the tank, fish, snails, shrimp will enjoy cleaning it off of the wood for you.

There are a lot of African cichlids that are mouth brooders. Generally, when someone that is not too involved in the hobby says they have African cichlids, it is most likely fish from Lake Malawi, and most likely peacocks, haps and mbuna, all of which are mouth brooders.

When I set up a new tank and want to get the filter cycling, I squeeze some goodness out of a sponge filter or two in the tank, as well as ghost feed the tank until I add fish. I've never used any kind of starter bacteria or ammonia to cycle, and not had any problems with a tank cycling. A lot of times, the tank has only gotten set up a day or maybe two before I add the fish, and no issues.