5.5 Gallon Tank Setup Help

[tyspot1000]

Congrats on the new tank! Cant wait for the pics!

Tyler

 

[Chrisinator]

Congrats!!

 

[mandy2936]

Thanks guys!
Well, a lot of back and forth trips to the pet store in the past few days.
At first I planned to use white sand as a substrate (the same that's in my 20g) and make a cool 'river' of natural colored gravel through the middle.
It looked really nice, but I realized it just wasn't practical. It wouldn't stay put and ended up a mess. SO, I took out the gravel and returned it to the pet store. Then I noticed the sand that was left in the tank was clogging the filter. I've never had this problem with the 20g, but figured I should take the sand out. (I didn't have the filter on while I was adding sand, I waited until it settled, too.)
SO, I added the sand to my 20g (could always use a little extra) and headed out to the pet store again. I bought some white gravel, similar look as the sand, but no clogging.

I really like how it came out
I think I've tired my parents out this week, going to one pet store Monday, two pet stores Tuesday, and 2 pet stores Thursday! I don't want to ask anyone to drive me to get some pure Ammonia, so I'll be starting my cycle with a frozen shrimp.
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/question-about-cycling-a-tank-with-frozen-shrimp-138879.html <---And a question or two about that.)

Unfortunately I've got school tomorrow, so I'll be sure to get a picture up after.
Thanks everyone!

 

[mandy2936]

I apologize for another picture delay... and for making this build boring lol.
But, as you may have heard from another thread, I... dropped the camera in the fish tank. Yes, I really truly let the camera slip through my fingers while taking an above shot and it plunged into the tank... and is now at a store being fixed. Oh boy.

 

[mudraker]

Oh man, I'll bet that made your parents really happy...

 

[Jason7894561230]

Amanda i cant believe you dropped your Camera in a tank. I can't believe i haven because im extremely cloumsy and stuff. I also cannot wait for pictures. Is a Betta going in this tank?

 

[jessibell]

I guess you will have to do some extra buttering up with the folks now, LOL

My parents had a simple set of rules about pets for me:

1. Everything stayed in my study room (I had a BED room upstairs which was literally just that, a bed and clothes in a room)

2. No animals must come out of that room.

3. The smell must be contained in that room.

4. I can get anything I want as long as I pay for all the expenses and look after it myself.

If the smell started to leach out into the hall, I got an earful At one time I had 6 different brooders going with 3 different species of Quail in them. I also had fish tanks, canaries, parakeets, etc etc. Another time I hatched 40 japanese quail for biology class in the middle of winter and had to keep them in the house till they were 6 weeks old... that was the ultimate stink ever.

 

[mandy2936]

Oh man, I'll bet that made your parents really happy...

Oh yes! You should have seen how happy they were... Good news, the camera was able to be fixed and I offered to pay for the damages myself. My mom has given in to the whole tank idea and is now okay with it because she says it "Looks pretty". Haha. Pictures soon!

 

[mandy2936]

I guess you will have to do some extra buttering up with the folks now, LOL

My parents had a simple set of rules about pets for me:

1. Everything stayed in my study room (I had a BED room upstairs which was literally just that, a bed and clothes in a room)

2. No animals must come out of that room.

3. The smell must be contained in that room.

4. I can get anything I want as long as I pay for all the expenses and look after it myself.

If the smell started to leach out into the hall, I got an earful At one time I had 6 different brooders going with 3 different species of Quail in them. I also had fish tanks, canaries, parakeets, etc etc. Another time I hatched 40 japanese quail for biology class in the middle of winter and had to keep them in the house till they were 6 weeks old... that was the ultimate stink ever.

The same thing was required with my two parakeets. The deal was that if I were aloud to get them they were to stay in my room where my mom would never have to smell them or even know they were there. Haha wow, sounds like you've got a lot of pets too!

 

[mandy2936]

Pictures finally! :d

Hey guys! After what seems like forever, here are the pictures!!! My camera came back yesterday so I will finally show you how the tank came out. I took some pictures before I got the fish, while it was cycling. Then my camera.. broke. Now it's back, and I have the fish, Enrique!

Here is a pic of the tank while it was cycling. The black stuff on the gravel and some of the plants is from the filter media that was squeezed in from another tank to aid the cycle.


About halfway through I bough this little rock from an LFS because I thought it was nice

 

[mudraker]

That's really nice looking Mandy! Well done.

 

[mandy2936]

More Pictures

Thanks Mudraker! I'm not done just yet! Here are some more:

The tank as of today:

As you can see there is both the rock and the small purple plant. I'll take suggestions on whether or not you like the rock there. You can't tell in the pic, but the rock is very cool. It sparkles

The following pictures are of Enrique. I'm sorry for the awful quality, Enrique gets scared away from the focus light, causing all of them to turn out blurry. Also, they are dark because I didn't want to blind him with the flash






He is a purple/blue in person, so these pics don't do him justice! Also, he's a standard veil tail, but when he's swimming, his fins are very flowy

 

[Jason7894561230]

Beautful!

 

[tyspot1000]

Nice tank and Beautiful betta!

 

[mandy2936]

Thank you guys so much!! I forgot to mention, after the tank was cycled I added a background (you can see above). I had a choice between either black or blue and I went with black to help Enrique stand out more.