Timg's Aquariums

The Chinese Tank 1
19 gallons, silk and plastic (Yuck) plants, natural rocks, air filter + undergravel filter, Chinese ornaments.
water temp 27C
Contents:
One Siamese Male (Mr. Chang)
One Siamese female
six glowlights
two Bolivian red-fin tetras
four neon tetras
two chinese algae eaters.

The Atlantic Tank (Tank 2)
19 Gallons, plastic, silk and real plants, natural rocks, air filter + undergravel
Water temp: 27C
Contents:
one Blue Siamese male (Mr. Ching)
one Blue Siamese female (Mrs Ching)
nine zebra Danios
six neon tetras
one male dwarf gourami (Jack)
one golden sucking loaches

Tank 3 The African Tank
Corner tank, 30 gallons, natural rocks, ornamental tree stump, real and silk plants, New UG filter + air filter box
Temp: 29C
Contents now:
Four Pearl Gouramis
12 neon tetras
9 white cloud mountain minoes
one golden sucking loach

Mini-cycle completed after fitting UGF Air filter will be removed when I next think about it.

Tank 4 The Greek Tank
25 gallons, plastic, silk and real plants, natural rocks, Greek ornaments, one air filter box, UG filter
Temp: 27C
Contents:
one female guppy (bluetail)
one female platty (Duchess)
one female molly (Molly)
one young male betta (Lucky)

Tank now mini-cycling due to new UG filter

Tank 5
19 gallons, natural rocks, plastic (Yuck), real and silk plants, two air filters
Temp: 27C
Contents:
two baby clown loaches
6 black neons
2 x Bronze Cory
2 x Peppered Cory
3 x Ambiacus Cory
2 x Albino Cory
one young male betta (Luke)

UGF now fitted and working well. water quality much improved. Still supported by box filter to minimise the debris that the cories throw up!

Tank 6
19 gallons, natural rocks, real, silk and plastic plants, small powerhead filter, air filter box
Temp 27C
Contents:
one male sailfin mollie, (Joe)
one female molly (Mo)
Three Guppies (Adam, Cain and Eve)
one male swordtail plattie (Duke)
11 baby mollies (8 female, 3 male)

Stop Press!!!!! Now got at least 4 little swordtails as well!

 

Talk about MTS (mutiple tank syndrom) LOL!! I love the setup-- Saw the pics in the other thread-- very nice!

 

Yeah, got fed up of being limited by just two tanks, fish hustling for territory, and not being able to treat any that went sick on me! This way I have a 24" hospital/breeding tank which will eventually get built into the other side of the room under one of the 48" tanks, and with the three 48" tanks that are planned, plenty of expansion room as well.

Besides which, I have several local retailers ready and waiting for the young ones. Might even make back some of the cost of enjoying my hobby! (This wasn't exactly cheap to build, so far the price has crept over the £500 mark and not yet fully stocked, but who cares, it's FUN!)

On second thoughts, is this a hobby or a passion? The latter, I think.

I have just posted an explanation of how the setup works, for those interested.

Started getting decor for the tanks today. The Greek tank is now finished, with Tweedle Dee, (the angel) sitting back to admire her new home and the Atlantic Tank is now taking shape, with Mr. Ching inspecting Neptune!

BTW, Jill, the female gourami in Tank 5 got stuck behind the filter during a water change and died before I found her. (I didn't see her till it was too late). I guess Jack will be lonesome again for a while as he kept attacking Rachael, the other female every time I put them together!

 

Timg, I really admire your tank setup! It looks well thought out, and like you have them coordinated with your living area. Mine look like an after thought. You recognised early on that you were just going to indulge your MTS, and looks like you have the right idea! Very nice.

Fish in the Frozen North 8)

 

Thank you for the compliment. The other side of the room looks completely out of place now, because, like you, when I started, I just added here and there. This will soon be rectified though, since having gone this far, I may as well finish the job properly!

Here's an of the other tanks as they are now and the layout plan for the wall when the construction is finished:

I also see that I've reached Junior member! hehe

You may also be interested in the history of how all this happened and you can find that at

 

Wow, you really have a lot on your hands, man. HAHA..

 

Been busy again, now got the chinese themed tank finished. This will eventually be home for all the siamese females and one of the males, the siamese algae eater and a couple of neons etc.

 

Been busy again, now got the chinese themed tank finished. This will eventually be home for all the siamese females and one of the males, the siamese algae eater and a couple of neons etc.

That's a great setup, I would love to have a room like that and I think going with fish that originate in the country/area of the tank theme would be cool. I have to ask if you're meaning multiple Bettas in your chinese-themed tank?

 

Been busy again, now got the chinese themed tank finished. This will eventually be home for all the siamese females and one of the males, the siamese algae eater and a couple of neons etc.

That's a great setup, I would love to have a room like that and I think going with fish that originate in the country/area of the tank theme would be cool.  I have to ask if you're meaning multiple Bettas in your chinese-themed tank?

Two females would be okay but add a male to that and you will have some dead fish!

 

Females, yeah, but only the one male here! (The other males have to come in from abroad to visit!)

 

Females, yeah, but only the one male here! (The other males have to come in from abroad to visit!)

I hope it will work out for you, but mostly even with females, more than 1 Betta in an undivided tank leads to trouble. We tried it ourselves with just females and it looked ok at first, but we ended up returning 3 to the store and nursing the most injured back to health.

 

We have had thee females and a male in there for a couple of weeks now without any problems, so I'm sure we will be ok. The females actually seem to stick together most of the time, almost schooling!

Today I travelled to Cheshire and Manchester collecting some new fish from fellow aquarists. I came back with 50 new fish! Here are some of the snaps I have taken tonight:

(Sorry about the poor quality, they were taken with my phone.)

 

you didn't happen to catch a football match while out? Got some beauties there on your outing.

 

Thank you for the compliment. Not interested in football, just fish! My thanks go to the two people who allowed me to empty their aquariums, Rick and Damien. I feel very sorry for Rick, who's having to sell his setup, but damien will soon have a new cichlids tank to be proud of!

Now completed tanks 7, 8, and 9 with tanks 10 and 11 in progress.

Tank 7:
2' 15 gallon tank
QT

Tank 8:
48x18x12
Tank 9:
24x24x11 Water Column
Contents:
5 Goldfish
1 Coy Carp
2 small silver sharks
2 small Rainbow sharks
4 Glowlight Danios
4 zebra danios
6 small marble angels

 

Is that QT set into a wall? that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And what kind of stands are you using to get the look of one continuous tank like that? I'm so jealous of your set up!

 

The whole thing has been built with the purpose in mind. What you are seeing is the end result of many weeks and months of planning and work. If you want to see how some of it has been done, check , and .

 

The whole thing has been built with the purpose in mind. What you are seeing is the end result of many weeks and months of planning and work. If you want to see how some of it has been done, check , and .

Wow. So are you a professional Carpenter? I would love to do something like that someday.

 

Nope, standard DIY enthusiast! (With a passion for fish)

 

WOWZAH !!!
Timg.... you are doing such a fantastic job with your set ups! I just luv luv luv.. your surround tanks...what a great job! ;D Now I have to show my husband the way you built them around the walls... he is a carpenter! Just maybe... hmmmm.... wouldnt that be nice! ;D <sigh.. more wishful thinking..>
Good luck with your venture! ;D

 

tanks 10,11,12 and 13 are now completed and will be used for breeding and raising fry.

Couldn't resist the oportunity to take these pics of the new fish! Mollies at 3 weeks old, and black neon, don't know how old this one is:

I am now working on an Aquaponics garden for nitrate filtering. More to come....

 

next I think TI'm is going to create a scale model of the Amazon river.. cute baby fish and we'll be looking forward to seeing the aquaponics garden.

 

Rock on dude!!

You are an inspiration to me and other DIY's. I love your work!

 

isnt that literally a full time job taking care of like 15 tanks and god knows how many fish?
well I definetly applaud you on your outcome!

 

No, it's not full-time, but yes, it does take a lot of time. The beauty of my situation is that I can take the time when I need to, I'm not tied to a 9 to 5 job. I live in the Guest House that I manage, I organise my staff to allow me time when I want it, so it's an ideal situation.

At the moment the numbers are around 140ish, with new mollies, platties, guppies, pearls, danios and perhaps neons due soon. I am busy building another breeding tank unit to cope with the expectant mums and will hopefully be offering the new arrivals for sale in the next few months.

All the designing of new filters etc is to make the system more self-sufficient and if the aquaponics garden does work, then I can extend it to the other tanks and almost eliminate the need for water changing. The other thing I am in the process of doing, is adding under-gravel filtration to all tanks, as over the past few months I have had a lot more issues with cloudy water and mini-cycles in the tanks that don't have UG than the ones that do. Although many might disagree with me on this, I have always found that in the long term, UG is effective and simple. I can live with having to dig out the wet/dry vacuum once a year to clean the UG out, but I am having problems with continually changing and cleaning filters.

Everything has a place in this hobby, and powerhead filters are very good, but they are expensive when you have to buy more than one, and with the setup that I have here, they are just not viable. I really should have planned a sump into this lot and had all the water filtered in one large sump system. It would have saved me a lot of problems. However, I haven't got the room for one and having to build it outside would cause even more problems and involve taking all the tanks down at the same time, drilling glass and putting lots of plumbing in, so it's not gonna happen yet!

But I have still got things that I can do, and I am intending to do as much as I can to make this room the best I can.

Now put the room and the tanks on video and posted them on YouTube. Follow the links

and

 

I don't understand how your angels are going from one tank to another it looks like they're floating between the two. it doesn't even look like theyre in water  when theyre between the two because you can see where the bottom tank begins beneath the top one
also from how your saying how much is in the chinese 19 gallon tank it looks to be overstocked. 1 inch per gallon

 

The chinese tank is slightly overstocked on that scale, but the water perameters are fine and the fish are quite happy. I believe that if something works, then there's no nedd to change it, and this tank has been happy for months now. I do a regular weekly 20% water change and everyones quite comfortable.

The two tanks are now basically one, and the flute that goes into the lower tank connects the water and allows the fish free passage between the two. Looks like magic, but it's really quite simple!

 

it does look like magic!

also you can keep goldfish koi and angels together. they don't fight. they do look beautiful together though..they mesh well

 

No-one has ever said that they can't get on, just not been tried I guess. If you watch the videos you'll actually see that the angels rule, despite the size of the goldfish!

There are also 4 small sharks and two ancistrus in there, and it's fun watching when one of the angels takes it into his head to play with ugly, the female ancistrus. He will hover around her and peck at her fins, which she will ignore for so long, then when she's had enough, she'll charge at him and he runs! it's really quite fun to watch them all intermixing and socialising together.

the ancistrus also go up to the top tank and have a good old munch every so often. Even big ugly, who is around 4 years old now will go up and have his fill from all the glass and ornaments up there!

One of the rainbow sharks is boss of the sharks too. He'll take great pride in chasing the others round the tank, and they dive straight up the flute out of his way! (For some reason, he's never been up there)

Out of all my tanks, this one is my favorite. It gives us so much fun to watch them all, but this tank faces the sofa, so is the natural target for viewing.

The top tank, or water column as I call it has increased the capacity from 40 gallons to 62 gallons and the aquaponics garden is making great improvements to the water quality. I have never seen the water so clear and clean! I will recommend the garden to anyone who has a mind to make one, the method is very simple and the effects already are very noticable. I have never had strong filtration in this tank and now I don't need it either.

The Fluval will be coming out as soon as I am ready to put it into another tank, as it's now dormant and unused. The air filters are starting to stay much cleaner and I really think that they may also be able to come out later, when the garden becomes fully grown.

If you haven't been watching the threads, check out the progress on the aquaponics garden, it really is amazing, although I say it myself! You can find the thread .

BTW, I did until yesterday have danios in with this lot, but I was getting concerned that the goldfish are growing so quickly that the danios would soon become food, so I removed them last night and put them in the QT for now, until the Greek tank has settled with it's new filter. they will then go in there along with a few other fish, just not sure which yet!

Well, we are on the way towards 200 now! The angels laid eggs yesterday and they have been moved into one of the breeder tanks to hatch, the platty gave birth to at least 7 babies, (first time), the molly is just about to give birth again, one of the guppies is ready to birth for the first time, another of the angel pairs is preparing it's slate...... Things are working brilliantly! Must build some more breeding tanks quick!

 

Wow, great job =)) Keep up the good and beautiful work.

 

Well, we are on the way towards 200 now! The angels laid eggs yesterday and they have been moved into one of the breeder tanks to hatch, the platty gave birth to at least 7 babies, (first time), the molly is just about to give birth again, one of the guppies is ready to birth for the first time, another of the angel pairs is preparing it's slate...... Things are working brilliantly! Must build some more breeding tanks quick!

are you sure you're not running a fish shop?

 

naa.... can't be bothered with that, and haven't got time either, with all the DIY projects on the go!

BTW, the Aquaponics garden is now maturing very well and has successfully lowered the nitrates to almost 0. I have added more plants and brought the other side of the garden into play. The water in my 4' is now being used to top up and change the other tanks, their water is being re-cycled through the 4' to be cleaned and the circle is now complete. (Complicated, but it works!)

Finally the little mollies have grown large enough to get some reasonable pictures!

 

cute little mollies.

 

And, it doesn't stop there...... The second pair of angels laid today, and the molly finally decided that it was time to give birth to her next brood. (So far I have managed to count 28!). The guppy is still sitting on hers, but that has to be iminent now.....


NEW COUNT!!!!!!
Just transferred the Molly fry to the breeder tank and managed to catch 68 out of a total of 76. (Needed to move them before I put the male back into the livebearers tank) Not a bad brood for second batch.

 

: Awesome aquariums! They all look great!

 

IT'S ARRIVED!!!!!!!!

At last, after 9 weeks, the 8' tank has finally arrived. It turned up yesterday and we put it outside on the yard so that we could get the back painted before bringing it into the house. I did the painting last night, after the sun went down and this morning, moved it onto the shelf.

Now we have to finish the lighting canopy, put the filtration, substrate and plants in and add the 100 or so gallons of water!

Here's the first pics of it in place:

 

Wow...pretty big tank. Wish I had room for one.

 

I am SO jealous. that would be way fun to decorate. ;D

 

here's the plan for decorating it:

• Filtration: Triple Undergravel filter + aquaponicsl
  Substrate: aquarium gravel
  Plants: Silk artificial trees, shrubs and grasses
  caves built into a hill at one end
  Sunken village, complete with houses, water mill, (Air operated), roads, street lights and a church through the middle
  Water column above the center
  a large castle type structure at the other end
  

Anyone who has an old scaletrix set going spare, let me know! (I need one of these to make the road)

 

what is a water column? Is that just a faster moving current in the tank?

 

this is a water column: (before the lighting canopy was built around it properly)