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GRK-351 Fish Room


GRK-351

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Hey guys,

I finally finished my fish room over the weekend, so thought it was about time to post up some photos to see what you guys thinks and if there are any suggestions on things I could improve.

I think I have pushed my luck to its limits being newly married (just on 1 year) and slowly overtaking our 2bed unit with a total of 14 tank!! My wife freaks out every few days but she is understanding of my sickness!!

I currently have a dual display tank in the lounge room, standard 6ft up top filtered by 2 Aqua One CF1200, with a standard 4ft below filtered by an Aqua One CF1200 and CF1000. They currently are home to my red zebra, maingano and red empress colonies in the 6ft, and a juvenile (but breeding) colony of mpangas and 6 juvenile hongi in the 4ft. I am growing out the hongi to add another blood line to my larger colony.

I will soon be moving the mpanga and hongi to another tank and putting some sand in the 4ft and throwing in either a colony of multis or similis, with some leptos.

The breeding room is actually the spare bedroom/study so everyday I count my lucky stars that I have such an understanding wife that has let me take over half the room for tanks!!

I have 2 5x16x16 with electric yellows/crimson tide and electric blues, with 3 growout/fry tanks above them. The next rack is 3 4x18x20 with cobalt blues/hongi, F1 and F2 duboisi maswa, and demasoni/afra cobue. The third rack holds 2 26x16x16 growout/hospital tanks, 2 18x9x10 fry tanks and my air pump and food etc.

The whole room is run off air from a Hi Blow 40l/m pump which is super overpowered for the tanks I am running. I have yet to finish the filtration in the tanks. The breeding tanks will be running 4 large sponge filters each, stacked 2 high to minimise the footprint, with a mattenfilter at each end. They also have about 2-3L of marine pure balls in there. Might look to add some more behind the mattenfilters, or throw some matrix in, undecided as yet.

I have plumbed a closed loop system out of 19mm polypipe. I was going to go with pvc, but the polypipe was much cheaper and it was so easy to work with. I havent figured out where all my airlines will be yet so the ease of punching a hole anywhere I want was a big factor. I hae looped the pipe at the back of each tank so the length of 4mm air tubing is minimal. It also hides most of the polypipe and gives a cleaner look.

The hospital tanks will have 2 large sponges and 1 mattenfilter, the growout/fry tanks only running 1-2 medium sponge filters.

All tanks use in-tank heaters at the moment. I keep the door closed and the room stays fairly warm. I might look into heating the room next winter. This winters power bill was $377 but that was only with about 8 tanks running.

Since the weekend when I separated all the fish into less populated tanks I have got about 8-10 mouthfulls in 2-3 days, so something is going well!! Just hope it continues.

Enough with the chit chat, I'll post a few pics of the setup. I'll put up some close up photos of the fish over the next couple of days when I get a chance to resize them all.

If anyone has any questions/suggestions feel free to let me know.

Cheers,

Mat

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And the other money pit hobby, and the reason for my username:

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Nice Mat,

I need to find an excuse to buy fish off you now if only to see that specular GT. They are one of my all time fav car, next to the 1969 fastback 'stang of course (my first car was a 1978 XC fairmont 351, god I loved that car ) . Well done :thumb

cheers

rosco

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Looking real nice Mat, it's come along way. Love the car too, I have been meaning to ask you for ages if you owned one but every time I see you it's slips my mind.

I was into cars too , that all stopped when I met my mrs. One day I'll have a nice ride again. (I hope)

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for all the comments guys. Just when I though I was all done, I am planning some new fish and moving a few colonies around to re-organise space.

I will be going for a Tanganyika breeding/display setup and a Malawi breeding room.

I am going to move the Dubs into the 6 footer, possibly with another colony of 15-20 trophs, and a harem of black calvus, and maybe a pair of leleupi or julidochromis.

Then in the 4 footer underneath I will be going with a colony of either multifasciatus or similis and a colony of 8-12 cyps.

Enough chit chat, here are some more pics of my breeders.

th_01Venustus.jpg

th_02RedEmpress.jpgth_02aRedEmpress.jpg

th_03RedZebra.jpg

th_04CobaltBlue.jpg

th_05Hongi.jpgth_05aHongi.jpg

th_06ElectricYellow.jpgth_06aElectricYellow.jpgth_06bElectricYellow.jpg

th_07ElectricBlue.jpg

th_08Demasoni.jpg

th_09AfraCobue.jpg

th_10Mpanga.jpgth_10aMpanga.jpg

th_11Maingano.jpgth_11aMaingano.jpg

th_12CrimsonTide.jpgth_12aCrimsonTide.jpg.

th_13F1Duboisi.jpg

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Yea mate, all sponge filters. I bought a heap of square sponge to setup 2 mattenfilters in each tank but I haven't bothered since the sponges are going great so far. I also have abit of marine pure just sitting in bags on the substrate.

The only downside is trying to catch fish with the sponges in there, and the looks aren't the best, but its a fish room so I don't really mind. Super power efficient, 1 40W air pump does my whole room with about 40 sponges. Just gotta sort out the heating bill!!!

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Yea mate, all sponge filters. I bought a heap of square sponge to setup 2 mattenfilters in each tank but I haven't bothered since the sponges are going great so far. I also have abit of marine pure just sitting in bags on the substrate.

The only downside is trying to catch fish with the sponges in there, and the looks aren't the best, but its a fish room so I don't really mind. Super power efficient, 1 40W air pump does my whole room with about 40 sponges. Just gotta sort out the heating bill!!!

Thanks for the reply. I am thinking of doing something like this. I'm not fussed about the look as they will be in the garage,

Can you tell me what pump you are using please?

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Great breeding set up, good to hear the sponge filters work for the young fry and holding tanks.... I am using extrnal side filters atm and am thinking of changing but even my extrnal filters have trouble keeping up... any ideas or suggestions?

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