My biggest tank!

[Pink Punisher]

Hey everyone

I got my biggest tank that I've ever owned today! I picked it up from Jim at Forty Fathoms, great guy to deal with! 

The tank is 8'x18"x15" (LxWxH) and it has a 6' sump for filtration. I'll be doing a complete rehaul on the sump and probably make it a wet/dry, maybe I'll use a section to grow some small plants or something to help suck up nitrates. I haven't exactly made up my mind yet.

But enough talk here are the pictures! 




over flows

Sump


I'll be covering all three of these holes in the sump so I do my modifications

My helper haha

giant 8' light fixture, holds four 4' T5 bulbs



some driftwood I picked up from work that is gonna get cleaned and put in the tank

I haven't quite decided on my stocking yet, I was thinking SA cichlids though.

Cheers,

Spencer!

[apuppet]

GOoooooo! DISCUS! oh my god!!!

[sas]

Awesome, can't wait to see what you do with this.

Pay your helper well, hard to get good help these days, especially those
that can keep a secret.

[estuary]

congrats

[Pink Punisher]

Pay your helper well, hard to get good help these days, especially those
that can keep a secret.

Oh trust me he does haha He's got chewies hidden throughout my room and in my bed 

Discus is an option but I've always debated because of how they need a lower pH and while my water isn't super hard (7.5) I'm not sure how to keep it at a constant level of 6 or so. Is it possible to just add peat moss to the sump and then add water through the sump? Would that help keep the pH low? or could I make some blackwater tub? Also is it possible to filter all that through carbon to such the tannins but leave the lower pH?

I was thinking of either some earth eaters and tetras, like maybe 6 or 7 Red Heads, 45+ Tetras, and 8 or 9 cories. Or maybe a couple big bruisers like a Jag, Grammode, Red Tiger Mota... those kind of guys. I do really like the sound of a fairly peaceful tank though, one that I can incorperate tetras or barbs with. I would just like to have some constent movement in the tank you know?

Cheers,
Spencer

[Jay]

Seriously...go Discus.  Don't worry about the water, 7.5 is fine, they adjust well.  You could get a very nice school of them, then throw in a whole pile of cardinal tetras...WOW.

[TLe041]

I love small fishes in a large tank. A massive school of about a hundred cardinal tetras (or something similar) would look awesome in that.

[Pink Punisher]

How many Discus could comfortably live in there as adults? If I was to do this tetras would be a must, is it alright to have more then one kind? For example Cardinals and Lemons or something? or do you think that would be to many colours and would take away from the discus? I would also like to add snails to the tank, like maybe 5 Bumblebee horned nerite snails, how are they with plants? What about cories, are they okay with discus?

You guys are giving me ideas now!! 

Cheers!

[Jay]

You should have 10g per discus at the very least. 
You could definately have more than one kink of tetra, I have cardinals and raspboras in my tank.  I'd also recommend a black ghost knife fish.
As for cory's, there are only a few that can take the heat.

[asmackay]

If you want stable lower PH, you could setup pressurizzed CO2 injection which can lower your ph into the 6.x range and keep it there. The also let's you grow any plants you want easily with the extra CO2.  My planted 75G stays at 6.1 with injected CO2.

[Pink Punisher]

You should have 10g per discus at the very least. 
You could definately have more than one kink of tetra, I have cardinals and raspboras in my tank.  I'd also recommend a black ghost knife fish.
As for cory's, there are only a few that can take the heat.

Okay, so if I were to do 9 discus how many tetras could I have? any idea? Why add the BGK? what will it do for the tank? I seem to recall one of those being Panda cories, am I correct?

How much gravel should I have in this tank if I were to do it planted? I see this getting really expensive for a student with no job  haha

[fischkopp]

Congrats to you new tank. Very interesting dimensions. South American sounds great!

Since the tank is rather long and shallow I would stay away from taller fish, including discus and for example angels. Is that a drilled tank? It might make a nice fast stream biotope, something plecos would like, and tetras of course. In a slow water setup I would keep dwarf cichlids like apistogramma. Yes, they are relatively small, but you can a group of maybe 20 or more in there and watch them separating the tank into individual territories. Lot's of ideas, keep us posted on your progress.

[Pink Punisher]

Congrats to you new tank. Very interesting dimensions. South American sounds great!

Since the tank is rather long and shallow I would stay away from taller fish, including discus and for example angels. Is that a drilled tank? It might make a nice fast stream biotope, something plecos would like, and tetras of course. In a slow water setup I would keep dwarf cichlids like apistogramma. Yes, they are relatively small, but you can a group of maybe 20 or more in there and watch them separating the tank into individual territories. Lot's of ideas, keep us posted on your progress.

Alright good to know, do they need a lot of height or would 8' sort of compensate for the lack of height? (for discus) The tank is drilled in a coast to coast fashion so I can't really do that unless I wanna remove the overflows and cover the drilled holes, which I don't really wanna do

I don't know about apistos to be honest, I think in a big tank like this I want something with a bit of bulk you know?

[pushbuttonstart]

Awesome tank. Nice dims for a planted. You'll lots of light reaching the plants. Don't know about discus though. Mine were growing out in a tank w/ 18" of height and they seemed to be getting too tall for that.

[Pink Punisher]

Alright well I'll cross discus off my list. To be honest the cost of making the tank planted  was scare-ing me! Just the substrate alone was a lot

I keep going back and looking at those earth eaters and I gotta tell yeah, there are some really beautiful ones like G. sp 'Redhead Tapajos', G. megasema, and G. abalios. I'm thinking a shoal of about 6 or 7 of those and then maybe 30+ Cardinals, 20+ Black Neons and possibly a catfish or two, like maybe Bumblebee catfish.

What is everyone take on that?

Spencer

[pushbuttonstart]

Should work for medium sized geos. The red heads and orange heads are awesome looking fish. Are they available in your area?

[White Lightning]

I would definitely get the biigest ornate polypterus you could find. Then I would add a bunch of silver dollars.

[estuary]

if it were my tank
1x Brachyplatystoma juruense
3x Polypterus delhezi
1x Polypterus endlicheri endlicheri
1x Polypterus Lap

[Pink Punisher]

No there isn't a whole lot of geos in my area so I was looking into ordering from Spencer Jack or to try and arrange a group order from Jeff Rapps. Problem with Jeff is there a min of $250 but also a $150 fee to get it across the border...

It was to my understanding endlicheri and laps got around 2' so they're to big for my tank.

Does anyone see any problems with my current stock list?

Spencer 

[bitterman]

You could do a nice Tanganyika Tank, 3d background like seen here http://www.aquaterra-intl.com/products.html

Frontosa or Gibberosa (Start with fry)
Benthochromis tricoti (Start with juveniles/sub adults)
Calvus or Comps or your choice
Synodontis multipunctatus

If you started with frontosa fry sometimes the Jumbo cyps work in a tank like this also. Neolamprologus leleupi might also work especially if you get larger specimens that get to around the 4.5" mark by the time the frontosa mature.

Bruce