My 700 litre

[lunch]

Now that my tank is a year old, I've decided to give it a thread, will basically be progress pics ( not that it really changes much ) and new additions, nothing too technical cos I don't pretend to know more than I do, I have a very basic understanding of how to keep fish and that's how I like it, my tanks will never win awards and probably look average compared most but I'm cool with that, I prefer the fish to the plants anyway.. To begin with I used to watch and stress over every single change in the tank, be it fish movement or visual changes to temp variation and water parameters, I spent hours and hours googling answers, I reckon my wife began to doubt my sanity for a while, it's strange how the more you look the more you think you find.
I've been keeping fish for a little over 2 years now ( I don't include the time I unknowingly tortured goldfish in bench top bowls as fish keeping!! ) I've had a total of 3 tanks ( not including QT ) my 1st was 250ltrs, 2nd tank is 90ltrs and this is the 3rd ( it replaced the 1st )
I still enjoy my tank maintenance, it's strictly routine and thorough and as such my weekly water tests always returned the same results so now I rarely do them, unless something looks wrong with fish behaviour. Although the excitement from being new to fish keeping has long past, I do still get excited when I bring home a new fish and the ease of an established tank makes the hobby so much better.. I am still a fish tragic, I know every aquarium within a 20km radius of home and a few a bit further and I frequent the better 1st regularly just to see if they have anything good.
I can't grow substrate feeding plants to save my life but plants that feed from the water column seem to do really well, anubias and Java ferns etc ( I know they're super easy to grow ) I don't add and co2 or equivalent or ferts, just the basic chems to make the water habitable

 

[lunch]

June 2015. 250ltr

My 1st tank at the stage I think it looked it's best, still rock'n goldfish due to the level my confidence was at regarding fish keeping

Sept 2015

Same tank, 2 weeks before the upgrade, due to the tank size tripling, I needed a new filter and lots more media so I got an early start on growing the new bb, the filter for the big tank was set up on this ( see the disturbance on the surface, the filter is rated at 2700 ltrs per hr so it was quite lively in there for a bit

Dec 2015

Unfortunately I lost all the pics I took of the delivery, installation and set up but as a guide for how much bigger this tank is than the previous, it has the same plants and dw, I obviously had to add more gravel ( 60kg ) and a few extra rocks.. Not knowing how I wanted to set it up is why it stayed so basic since September.. I only had the 1 x 4ft light to begin with, the 2nd wouldn't come until I sold the original tank and used that $ to pay for it..

Ps. Not sure what happening with the extra post of the first pic?..

 

[lunch]

Jan 2016

Decided on some used, but 2yrs dry dw so I didn't have to worry about tannins cos at 5ft long, I was gunna have a hard time finding a pot big enough to boil it in The guy I bought it off ( same place I got the tank ) told me it should sink within 2 weeks, I'm still having to weigh I'd down to this day but for the first 6 or so months, I had it submerged but still at the top of the tank

 

[lunch]

Feb 2016

After a few months of felling bad for wanting to change from goldfish, I decided to make the move, feeling pretty confident, I traded all 4 for 2 discus, may as well just in the deep end, added some boesemani to my existing turquoise and salmon red rainbow population.. Upgraded the heater to something a little more reliable and accurate, with a digital reading on an external temp gauge, and a separate digital temp gauge

 

[lunch]

March 2016

Added a few swords, a couple more discus and some torpedo barbs and got my new light

 

[lunch]

April 2016

If you look closely, in the back left hand corner, you can faintly make out 2 discus, they were tending to their eggs..
Added some pacific blue eyes and Celebes rainbows

 

[Tbox]

Nice journey, Lunch. The Discus were a really nice upgrade.

 

[Caliban07]

The floating wood is awesome. Nice tank.

 

[lunch]

Thx guys

 

[lunch]

June 2016

So over the next few months I lost all but 1 discus, I did everything I could to keep them happy, 3x weekly water changes with gravel vac etc but as I found out recently, discus from the guy I got them off rarely last more than 6 weeks but whatever.. I decided that the sole remaining discus would have to stay solo ( which doesn't seem to effect him ) I also noticed that the dw was heavy enough that 1 of the bigger rocks could confidently keep it on the bottom without the dw trying to roll ( which happened the first day it was in there, putting a chip in the rear glass ) I also added some internal sponge filters cos the wife wanted bubbles so I figured, may as well put them to good use

 

[lunch]

July 2016

Added some Odessa barbs

 

[lunch]

Sept 2016

The swords I'd added a few months earlier, to my surprise, were still kicking although their big leaves had to be removed, the main stems with the sproutlets ( whatever you call them ) were getting a little out of control

Also added a little Sprite for some surface coverage and some Java fern to fill in some open areas

 

[lunch]

Oct 2016

Starting to fill in
Added a 3rd anubias to a small bit of dw I had laying around and got rid of the sponge filters cos they're a pain to clean and replaced them with air stones

 

[lunch]

Nov 2016

(Had to downsize the pic for some reason)
Added some moss onto the large dw as suggested by someone on this forum and removed the air stones

 

[TMaier]

Looks great!

 

[lunch]

I've just sat down and did a head count, 1st in quite a while..


Albino Cory x 5
Boesemani Rainbow x 7
Celebes Rainbow x 5
Discus x 1
Flying Fox x 2
Harlequin & Purple Rasbora x 5
Kuhli Loach x 5 ( I bought 5 though I'm not sure how many are in there cos I rarely see them )
Lacustris Rainbow x 5
McCulloch Rainbow x 4
Murray River Rainbow x 4
Odessa Barb x 5
Pacific Blue Eye x 4
Pakistani Loach x 2
Pearl Danio x 2
Peppermint Pleco x 1 ( haven't seen him for a while but I'm sure he is still hiding in there somewhere )
Praecox Rainbow x 3
Red Irian Rainbow x 3
SAE x 1
Torpedo Barb x 4
Upside Down Catfish x 2
White Cloud Mountain Minnow x 12 ( were the 1st fish I bought for my 1st tank )
Zebra Danio x 3 ( were the 2nd fish I bought for my 1st tank )

 

[lunch]

On a side note, if you pay close attention to the bottom right hand corner, in most of the pics you can see 1 of the few things that has been the same since the first tank, 2 years unchanged

 

[woodlitnight]

You forgot to include one Time Lord in your head count.