Fresh Water Fish Tank

[Poseidon]

I'm setting up a fresh water tank, and I'm wondering what I need to do to cycle it lol,
Should I use r/0 water? Or what should I do?
No idea haha been way to long lol

 

[jeffopentax]

I don't (and never have) use r/o water in any of my cichlid tanks. Just tap water. By way of cycling, I use maximum dose of Prime (5x regular dose), then let it run for a week, though I doubt that's even necessary. Out of curiosity, what are you planning to keep?

 

[Poseidon]

It's a really unique aquarium, 5 ft tall, 8" diameter. I want little fish, Bottom dwellers, middle dwellers, and top dwellers but all small fish.

I don't have it setup yet unfortusntly , and I'm headed back from the cottage now and am going to stop at Nafb

 

[jeffopentax]

Did you buy it from casey?

 

[Poseidon]

Nope. Some guy in st Thomas. Worked at an acrylic company.

 

[AdInfinitum]

Sounds like an awesome skimmer! LOL

 

[jeffopentax]

Pterophyllum leopoldis would do well in that tank. Angels that only grow to 2".

 

[heath]

Brandon, when I had my fresh water tanks, I just used "start right" the fish that I had were mollies, black, Dalmatians and silver...the accent colour was blue and black.. looked very nice.. they breed like rabbits and the store here in town bought all of my babies when they reached 1" long... that's how I got the money to convert over to salt water.. just food for thought

 

[Poseidon]

well, sh*t,
stupid thing leaks (just got around to testing it today)
it only has a bottom seam, i cant imagine its going to be that complicated or difficult to fix, can someone help me out?
coral frags are definitely a option in form of payment

 

[EricTMah]

Are you removing the whole bottom, or are you just going to reseal it?

 

[Poseidon]

Well it's the only seam on the tank, so I would think, cut the bottom off and sand it, then smooth it out and weld it back on

 

[TORX]

Well it's the only seam on the tank, so I would think, cut the bottom off and sand it, then smooth it out and weld it back on

J_T would be a good guy to ask...obviously.

Couldn't you just hit the spot inside and out with acrylic solvent? That would melt and fuse that spot together.


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[Poseidon]

5 ft tall tank, never be able to reach the bottom lol.

 

[KBennett]

Use julians thing...

 

[AdInfinitum]

You just need the outside , capillary action will draw the solvent through the seam. Worth a try if the rest of the seam looks to be finished properly.

 

[Aquariums by Design]

5ft tall and 8" in diameter, is this just a cylinder?
cutting a piece of acrylic the inside diameter and attaching it to the bottom from the inside using acrylic solvent and sealing the outer edge with solvent would do the trick. If this is not possible then simply resealing the bottom edge is worth a try, depending on the severity of the leak this just might be enough and is the easiest fix by far.
As for cycling, you can't go wrong with Dr. Tims or just seed it with a dirty insert from another (healthy) aquarium.
I'm curious though, how do you plan on filtering such an aquarium? typically tall, very narrow tanks do not make for good aquariums for a number of reasons. If you can get this up and running and sustaining life I'd love to see pics as it would look very cool!

 

[Poseidon]

Thanks Stace, I'm kind of stuck on how to filter it too.
One idea I had was to run a canister filter with a small draw line running all the way down close to the bottom. And the return at the top.
I'm also considering running a small power head at the bottom, as well as a large amount of bubbles

I figure I would zip tie these three lines together, and use fake plants to camouflage the whole line.

But I have to fix it first. I think I will try to weld it from the outside like several of you have suggested.
With it being 5 ft tall it's very difficult to get the bottom and weld a new plate in on top, as good as an idea as that is it won't work for me.

 

[EricTMah]

You could always drill the bottom and put a strainer basket to feed the canister. 8' is a lot of head pressure to ask a canister to push.

 

[Poseidon]

You could always drill the bottom and put a strainer basket to feed the canister. 8' is a lot of head pressure to ask a canister to push.

yea thats the next problem :/
and the unsightly hoses...

what about running a small hob with carbon and sponge with a small powerhead at the bottom to keep it from getting stagnent, and then just do 5 gallon water changes (whole tank is 15g) every other week?

 

[EricTMah]

You're going to have a lot of sediment with that tall of a tank.

Personally what I'd do is drill the bottom of the tank with two holes. One with a strainer on it for the inlet on the canister then the second I'd extend it to about 5'-6' for the output on the canister. That should give you plenty of down draft with flow and should keep things stirred up nicely. You're going to have to run something like 400gph I'm thinking to compensate for the height.