Hello friends, My name is Daniel

[Daniel]

I keep Apistogramma, Discus, Corydoras, Pygmy Sunfish and Angelfish.

My favorite tank is a 500 gallon community tank that has several pairs of Angelfish that breed often. The tank is large enough that the fry are able to grow to adults in the tank. The majority of fish in the tank were born in this aquarium and have never been out of the tank or even netted.

My goal is to have a very stable tank that doesn't need me to do any maintenance.

Daniel

 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Daniel

[Augustjd27]

That's awesome Daniel. I'm assuming the tank is custom? What strains of Angelfish do you have in it currently. That setup sounds awesome!  Thank you for sharing. 

[Daniel]

Yes, the tank is custom. It is 8 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. This best part about it is that doesn't have a filter. Water comes in from below and exits through a standpipe overflow then out to a little outdoor pond in the backyard. The whole tank changes over 1 or 2 times a week. When needed, typically about once a month I use a Mag-Float to clean the glass. That is all the maintenance required.

My Angelfish are Pterophyllum leopoldi. They have been good fish, not picky about food and fabulous parents. The picture above was taken a couple of years ago. The fry in the above picture are the adults in the video. The white hose in the upper left is me siphoning water out of the big tank into another tank with baby discus. Turns out the 500 gallon tank is a excellent source of good quality aged water for my other tanks!

[Mr. Ed's Aquatics]

Wow .... just wow.

[Michael St.John]

So jealous. My house cant take more than a 125g without major modification. Love your angelfish, do you find having one type better? I have two and definitely have two sides in my tank.

[Daniel]

I just watched the Aquarium Co-op "Getting Started with Aquascaping [Live Stream]". It inspired me to see if I could create a planted tank with plants that grow in the soggy spot off of my driveway.

I got a shovel and lifted out 2 pieces of boggy soil with plants. You can see the 2 bare spots inside the red circle where I dug.

 The sand is from my creek so the investment so far is just the fish tank, lights, and sponge filter. I've ID'd the plants and they all ought to grow fine underwater.

The plants are 

•  Hydrocotyle sp.
•  Eleocharis sp.
•  Alternanthera polygonoides

From start to adding water was about 15 minutes, so if this turns out not to work, I am not out much time or money. Can't wait to see what happens with this.

Daniel

 

[Daniel]

Michael St.John.

My wife wanted to build this house. The only thing I asked for was 'a really big fish tank'. In a way the house was built around the aquarium. Before the walls were filled in a forklift brought the tank inside because once the walls of the house were completed there wouldn't be an easy way to get a large tank into the house. All the plumbing for the big tank is embedded in the concrete slab the rest of the house sits on. Underneath the tank inside the aquarium stand is a heater and a pump. When I don't have discus in the tank I don't run the heater. So the only 2 moving parts on the big tank are lights and an inline heater.

 

[Darryl]

Wow! I love the simplicity of the scape and the stocking, it feels so natural.

 

[FinalFins]

On 7/14/2020 at 3:29 PM, Daniel said:

Yes, the tank is custom. It is 8 feet by 3 feet by 3 feet. This best part about it is that doesn't have a filter. Water comes in from below and exits through a standpipe overflow then out to a little outdoor pond in the backyard. The whole tank changes over 1 or 2 times a week. When needed, typically about once a month I use a Mag-Float to clean the glass. That is all the maintenance required.

My Angelfish are Pterophyllum leopoldi. They have been good fish, not picky about food and fabulous parents. The picture above was taken a couple of years ago. The fry in the above picture are the adults in the video. The white hose in the upper left is me siphoning water out of the big tank into another tank with baby discus. Turns out the 500 gallon tank is a excellent source of good quality aged water for my other tanks!

I've wanted to keep Leopoldi angelfish for a while now, those look amazing! How tall are they?

[Daniel]

They range from 4 - 6 inches. At one point there were 3 pairs all breeding simultaneously, all successfully raising fry (talk about thunder dome). Each pair had about a 2 1/2 foot cube bounded by plants that they patrolled. They would raid the other pairs territories when they got a chance. There might have been 1000 - 2000 babies spread between the 3 pairs early on, but 98% gotten eaten at some point . Those six original fish are the biggest ones now. I don't think any of the babies that eventually grew up have ever gotten as large as the founders.

The babies would pick off the parent's side similarly to what baby discus do.

I fed the founders like crazy with blackworms, mosquito larva and scuds, but after I ended up with 50 angelfish in the tank, it was only TetraMin from then on. Also 6 angels in 500 gallons is nearly 100 gallons a fish. 50 angels in 500 gallons is 10 gallons a fish. So diet and room stunted the babies just a little bit.

 

[StephenP2003]

I love everything about this. My wife loves angelfish too. I can see this in our dream house many years from now. Though I don't know if I can feasibly do auto water change around here. We have chloramine. 

[FinalFins]

You could invest in an auto doser for dechloraminer.