# What to do with this awesome tank?



## Hayden (Mar 12, 2012)

Hey everyone!
I got this beast of a tank for my 16th birthday. It's approximately 90 gallons, custom built, acrylic, holds water, and the tubes are functional. I used it for predatory fish, but my fish are mostly gone due to ich. I want to drain it and do something different with, but I can't decide what to do. I was thinking maybe some sort of gecko so that they could utilize the full tank, but I'm open to suggestions. Let your imaginations run wild!


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## SamuraiSid (Mar 12, 2012)

Im assuming you dont want to go through the hastle of seperating the tanks, and you want to ttake advantage of the tubes?

I can picture a communal dart frog set-up.. assuming they live communally. hmm, good luck.


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## Philth (Mar 13, 2012)

I can't think of anything cooler to put in that tank then some fish. sorry
Later, Tom


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## Ludedor24 (Mar 13, 2012)

Yeah sorry I agree fish would be the best :\


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## Kris M (Mar 13, 2012)

I wouldn't put any geckos in 90gallon, just seems too big.

I'd put fish in it as well sorry.


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## evilebe (Mar 13, 2012)

sweet tank. looks expensive. *GERBILS*. that's my final answer.


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## sweetypie (Mar 13, 2012)

A regalis colony?? or
...maybe the just fish!


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## voldemort (Mar 13, 2012)

african rift lake cichlids with 3d backgrounds


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## Walk Alone (Mar 14, 2012)

That IS an awesome tank.  I'd stick with fish, too.


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## Anthony Jensen (Mar 14, 2012)

How about newts or aquatic frogs?


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## zonbonzovi (Mar 14, 2012)

^Not a bad idea.  You'd have to make it escape proof.  With a means to seal off the tubes you'd already have a secondary tank to raise offspring.


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## catfishrod69 (Mar 14, 2012)

SeaMonkeys? Or maybe just fish.


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## Embers To Ashes (Mar 17, 2012)

it would be prety easy to seal the tubes and have two fuctioning tanks, or you could do a comunal tree frog, anole, or saltwater tank. Turttles could work too


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## cfhmatthew (Mar 19, 2012)

very cool tank idea! what did that run you??


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## garryb (Mar 21, 2012)

octopus...they love those small tubes. kinda hard to keep alive but it would be pretty bad arse.


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## Hendersoniana (Mar 21, 2012)

Octopus is a good idea! They're fun to watch and u can teach them simple tricks like opening a bottle or something. But i'd rather put crabs in there, half land half water and the tube connects the 2 parts, will be quite interesting to watch .


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## Tarac (Mar 21, 2012)

garryb said:


> octopus...they love those small tubes. kinda hard to keep alive but it would be pretty bad arse.


Octopi are easy, they just don't live long (unless you are talking about the giant Pacific variety in which case they still don't live that long and would never fit in a tank that size anyway).  The average octopi matures and dies within a year or so.  Pretty amazing.

A side note, fish don't "die" from ich per se.  They have ich all the time, it's a little organism that expresses itself in those small white colonies when the fish are stressed for one reason or another.  That's why a fish that is low on the totem pole will often "die of ich"- really it is being bullied until it is so stressed that it's immune system can no longer suppress the ich and eventually it dies.  I suspect the water wasn't balanced yet.  It takes 60 days+ for the nitrogen cycle to be completed when starting fresh, until then you don't really want to add more than a few very small fish to the tank.  Then you start introducing slowly.  If the OP had problems with fish (predatory makes me especially believe it was water quality- much more fun to over feed then to clean the talk a rigorously as required for fish producing that amount of high nitrogen waste, plus the prey items waste) though an aquatic invert is going to be harder as the water quality generally has to be quite good without even nitrate build up.  Most freshwater fish can handle some excess nitrates.  Inverts can't in general nor can many marine fish.

I like the frog terrarium idea personally although the "neatness" of the conjoined tanks is sort of waste on anything but fish.  The purpose of a tank like that is to keep two larger predatory, solitary fish so they can enjoy the benefits of more stable water quality by virtue of the larger volume (drop of vinegar in a small system ruins the pH, same drop does less in a bigger volume kind of idea) and be more efficient in terms of having only a single filtration system, etc.  but still be isolated since the exchange tubes would be smaller than the fish.  You could try again by just choosing two fish and by cycling the tank properly and keeping feeding to a minimum.  Overfeeding is one of the primary reasons people have trouble with fish, second only to not obeying the nitrogen cycle schedule.  It really does take almost two months to establish a healthy bacterial culture that can cope with waste and excess nutrients.  Even then, if you suddenly go from 5" worth of fish to 20" you could over load the system.

What kind of filtration was on it?

Reactions: Like 1


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## hedwigdan (Mar 22, 2012)

How about a colony of centruoides?


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## grayzone (Mar 22, 2012)

albino axolottls?


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## kelvintheiah (Mar 24, 2012)

ant colony


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## SgtSparkles (Mar 24, 2012)

really cool tank but just so better suited for fish it's hard to suggest anything else


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## Hayden (Mar 24, 2012)

Thanks for all the ideas! Newts would be cool, but tree frogs could use the entire space. And cfhmatthew, it was a gift, so I didn't pay anything for it, but I believe new it was about a grand.


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## Hayden (Mar 26, 2012)

Tarac said:


> Octopi are easy, they just don't live long (unless you are talking about the giant Pacific variety in which case they still don't live that long and would never fit in a tank that size anyway).  The average octopi matures and dies within a year or so.  Pretty amazing.
> 
> A side note, fish don't "die" from ich per se.  They have ich all the time, it's a little organism that expresses itself in those small white colonies when the fish are stressed for one reason or another.  That's why a fish that is low on the totem pole will often "die of ich"- really it is being bullied until it is so stressed that it's immune system can no longer suppress the ich and eventually it dies.  I suspect the water wasn't balanced yet.  It takes 60 days+ for the nitrogen cycle to be completed when starting fresh, until then you don't really want to add more than a few very small fish to the tank.  Then you start introducing slowly.  If the OP had problems with fish (predatory makes me especially believe it was water quality- much more fun to over feed then to clean the talk a rigorously as required for fish producing that amount of high nitrogen waste, plus the prey items waste) though an aquatic invert is going to be harder as the water quality generally has to be quite good without even nitrate build up.  Most freshwater fish can handle some excess nitrates.  Inverts can't in general nor can many marine fish.
> 
> ...


I have two Aqueon 55/75 filters on it as well as an undergravel filter and I test nitrates, nitrites, pH and ammonia every 4 days with a 30% water change every 8 days. Everything was testing at zero ppm and the pH was ~6.7 if I am recalling correctly. Additionally, I have to believe that the tank was fully cycled because it had been established for three years in my care. The only fish moving in and out of the tank regularly were the feeders.


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## tpduckwa (Mar 26, 2012)

30% water change every 8 days would be way too much/too often IMO.  if you were taking that much out from the beginning the tank may have never cycled properly.


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## Thistles (Mar 27, 2012)

tpduckwa said:


> 30% water change every 8 days would be way too much/too often IMO.  if you were taking that much out from the beginning the tank may have never cycled properly.


He says he was testing his ammonia and nitrite and they read 0 ppm. Furthermore, he says he had it for 3 years. There is no such thing as changing water "too often," really. Too _much_ is definitely possible, especially if the changes are inconsistent, but does not seem to be the case here. 30% is a very reasonable amount, and if he had "predatory" fish he was probably spot on with his changes. 

I have found ich most often breaks out when there is a heater malfunction, an aggressive fish is introduced, or there is a drastic change in water chemistry. Pathogens are always present in the water but if the fish are otherwise in good shape with strong immune systems they are able to fight off disease. When something tilts the balance to favor the bad little beasties and stress the fish you end up with an outbreak.


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## Tarac (Mar 27, 2012)

Thistles said:


> He says he was testing his ammonia and nitrite and they read 0 ppm. Furthermore, he says he had it for 3 years. There is no such thing as changing water "too often," really. Too _much_ is definitely possible, especially if the changes are inconsistent, but does not seem to be the case here. 30% is a very reasonable amount, and if he had "predatory" fish he was probably spot on with his changes.
> 
> I have found ich most often breaks out when there is a heater malfunction, an aggressive fish is introduced, or there is a drastic change in water chemistry. Pathogens are always present in the water but if the fish are otherwise in good shape with strong immune systems they are able to fight off disease. When something tilts the balance to favor the bad little beasties and stress the fish you end up with an outbreak.


I agree except that predatory fish often have these issues due to the feeders going in and out of the tank.  It's not a very big tank for a predatory fish of any kind despite seeming large.  So there is an addition, then a crash, an addition, then a crash.  What was the feeding schedule, what were you feeding and in what volume?  Did you notice any mechanical malfunction with the tank?  What type of predatory fish did you keep?  How big were they?  Could also be hardness/softness, etc. etc.  Depends on the specimens, some are more tolerant and others not.  Doesn't sound like very much filtration at all for any predatory fish so water parameters are still questionable.  At that scale with a protein-rich system you almost have to have some type of wet-dry or canister system that allows for more surface area for bacteria unless you had extremely well planted tanks (they weren't marine, were they?  if yes, definitely 100% not enough filtration no matter what was in it, but I assume they were not because a pH of 6.7 is the obvious killer at that point lol).  Were these oscars by chance?

Pathogens are in the water often, Ich is in the fish though.  They all have it.  It takes, just like you indicate, something that stressed them for the colonies to express.  That doesn't mean that the Ich outbreak wasn't also something else first, i.e. the heater goes nuts and overheats, depletes dissolved oxygen, encourages pathogen growth, all of these things already killing the fish result in Ich too.  Hard to say.  You can have daily pH swings depending on the time of day, temperature from light being off/on, etc.  If they get wide enough, even though you are checking, you might only see the morning or evening pH but the drastic change that you might be missing (which can be only 0.5-1 units) can still be deadly.  It's common problem with Koi since the outdoor temps do naturally fluctuate a lot more.  A pH change for a fish that has no way of buffering it's physiology is very dangerous.  A pH change in your body of 0.5 would kill you too, but we have buffers in our bodies to prevent that from happening.  

Sudden changes in the amount of dissolved oxygen can kill, even if it is suddenly more than before- maybe you added a new bubbler recently or something else?  Anything changed recently?  Lots of things can be a problem but I bet if you think about everything that was going on you might be able to pin point something that was changed or different than normal before all this happened.  Did you notice any temperature swings with the lights?  There should be a little, that's fine.  But if it is dramatic... Or if one of the filters was trapping some air and making find bubbles one day and then the next day you fixed it that can also do it because it will lead to a pH swing and also damage swim bladders and other organs used for orientation in the water.  Fish can be tricky- at least we know more about them than tarantulas though!

I'd say if you had the tank for 3 years without trouble check the mechanical stuff, possibly re-evaluate feeding schedule and stock choice, and try to get that thing back up and running!  A Moray or two would be awesome in that kind of tank assuming fluctuating water conditions don't turn out to be the problem.  Maybe Enchelycore sp. or something.


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## axle37 (Mar 30, 2012)

dart froga all the way man. if you are fed up with fish, they are exotic, beautiful, and if you set it up properly, you can have a really cool little peice of your own rainforest in your room


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