I had been planning on upgrading the fish from my 80 gallon into a 180 gallon for a while. However, I saw a killer deal for a 118 gallon on craigslist that was the same dimensions as the 180, but shorter so I couldn't pass it up. I decided to keep my 80 gallon instead of selling it, so I decided to split my fish between my 80g and my 118g.
My 118g currently houses my Oscar (Gulliver), my Severum (Zeplin), my V. Synspillum, and my Chocolate Cichlid. I am also growing out a Gold Nugget Pleco in another tank who will eventually be transferred to the 118 as well.
My 80 gallon is currently housing my Uaru, Heckelli, Jurupari, and Blue Acara along with a school of red rainbows. I am planning on adding a school of corries to the tank to occupy the bottom level.
Anyways, the setting up of the 118 was exhausting. We had to rent a Uhaul to transport it. It took us 8 hours between driving 45 minutes away, picking up the Uhaul, picking up and loading the tank, picking up some manzanita wood off of craigslist on the way home (okay, so it probably wasn't the best timing, but I couldn't resist), getting our neighbor to help us move it inside, adding the substrate and decor, and filling the tank. I was exhausted.
Next I had to set up my FX5 filter that I purchased a couple months ago in anticipation for this tank. I read the manual carefully and watched the instructional dvd. Now, I am not that handy of a person at all, so naturally I messed up. When I turned the filter on (it has a self priming feature), it started sucking water from the tank (a good sign), and instead of returning the water to the tank, it dumped it all over our living room floor (a very bad sign, lol). We had about 6-10 gallons of water on the floor before we could get it to stop. I was so tired and frustrated I just started crying hysterically. My poor husband didn't know what to do with me, lol. Anyways, I told him forget it, I'm going to just use the regular AquaClears on this tank. The canisters are too high tech for me. I went and got a couple AquaClears at Petsmart and installed them on the tank. I was planning on selling my FX5 on craigslist, and calling it a day.
Here's the funny part. A guy from my
LFS offered to come over and install my
canister filter for me later in the week. He came over and had me explain exactly what happened when I installed the filter.... Well this is my completely blond moment.... my big mistake that flooded my living room was that I didn't screw the top on all the way
I could not believe it.
Anyways, both tanks are up and running great. The fish have transformed both in appearance and personality now that they have more room, so all of the hard work definitely paid off.
I'll post some pics soon. My water in the 118 is still a bit cloudy and I am still playing around with the scaping to get it the way I want it. I'll post pics when I am happy with the way everything is looking. Anyways, sorry for the really long post, but thanks for reading
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I guess it takes fish people to appreciate things like this.
