The Ideal Aquarium, Your Choice.

[mickey]

I have room for a 5 foot long aquarium in the new house that i have just moved into.
I am tied to the length but width and depth are flexible,
what type of tank do you guys think i should go for,factory or custom made?
Whats the best make of filter, heater ect.
Should i go with live or artifical plants?
What kind of substrate
and finally what kind of fish do i add
Thanks in advannce for any help or suggestions that you might submit.
Cheers

[ChilDawg]

You may have one heck of a hard time finding a "standard issue" tank that is 5' in length...I don't know of any companies that make those regularly. I say the more breadth, the better (and not just because I'm lisping...), so get one as wide as possible and you can have more fish b/c of more surface area for gas exchange!

Live plants would be helpful, but may not be compatible with larger cichlids (which would be the inhabitants of a similar tank if I had one).

[dethjam316]

i'd go with a standard 75g for that space...a lot cheaper than a custom 5-footer. only 4 ft but the extra width makes it a much better tank than a 55g in my opinion, especially for large fish.

as far as other stuff goes, i stand by emperor filters, a 400 would probably work for a 75g. heaters? a lot of people go with the ebo jagers, but i've had one bad experience with them, so most of my tanks now have visi-therms. a 200w or 2 100-150w would work, depending on the avg temp in the room.

i'd stick with artificial plants for a cichlid tank, especially if you want to save money on lighting. they'll just uproot them constantly.

substrates.....again, the cost effectivene method: i'd mix a buffering cichlid substrate to keep the ph up (most come labeled) from a pet store with gravel or medium-large sand from loew's or home depot. cichlids probably prefer gravel...but i'm not an expert on keeping them, so i'll leave that to someone else to answer, as well as fish choices, though i will add that my roommate has kept malawi cichlids for awhile with a lot of luck. he has kenyis, auratuses (aurati?), and bumblebees, along with a large pleco and a pimelodus pictus catfish that is probably more aggressive than the cichlids. it's a nice looking tank.

good luck finding a small enough gravel at one of those stores, most of them usually carry larger gravels, i've found. nonetheless, buying 75 lbs of gravel at a pet store always looks like a ripoff to me...

[mickey]

juwel make a tank 5 feet long , the rio 400.
Cheers childawg.

[ChilDawg]

Thanks for telling me that one...I'd never heard of the tank, nor the brand, but I will keep an eye out for them in America now!

[SnakeIce]

one idea is to make the front glass conform to the golden rectangle. that is a ratio of highth to width that was used extensively in classical greek architecture, the front of the parthenon for example. you already have the width just figure the highth to that sopposedly most pleasing rectangle....

On a more practicle note, use a sheet of cardboard or whatever you have available to get a feel for how far in to the tank you have to upend yourself to work in any given size, what I am getting at is expiriment, try different sizes for feel.

in my opinion tanks that are closer to as wide as they are deep are more versital. for example when I am able to get a tank in the 120-130 gal range if I go with a standard i want the 4 ftx2 ft footprint tank that is 2ft deep rather than the slightly larger 6ft narrow footprint. So if your tank is to be 2 ft deep make it at least 18 to 20 inches wide or even as wide as it is deep.

Keep in mind that you can diy a stand that is a few inches shorter than might be normal if you just have to have a cirtain deapth and your arm wont reach the bottom if you don't

I am sure you know the saying let your water deturmine what you keep ie if you have pipe clogging hard water don't go for discus

but that aside my dream is to have a not strictly amazon themed planted tank with pair each of angels, and some other small sa/ca cichlid or a couple of pairs of different small/dwarf cichlids

I had the tank all planed out a couple of years ago but now I am a little rusty on all the substrate and hardware plans i had.
look around at the exrtremes you could go to as far as the co2, lighting, on the planted side and look into the tank busters no or hardy plants, rift vally lakes, or find a tiny fish and create an environment for a whole school
and out of all you look at there might be something you just keep coming back to

[karfixer]

My "big" tank is a SeaClear 5'L x 2'T x 1-1/2' W. They list it as a "125T" but internal measurement is 105G. I'd prefer a wider, shallower tank, but I'll make do ;) .

[NickH]

Perfecto makes a 5ft long 120 gallon tank.

[Hetfield]

I have just got a jewel 260 bow fronted tank , it is really cool
the heater is in with the filter and it cost £530 . I had the same thing 5 ft space but went with the 4 ft tank. the jewel 5 ft holds 400lts of water which would have been massive especially on the water meter . I am really pleased with the tank makes no noise at all .

[thom336]

Originally posted by ChilDawg
Thanks for telling me that one...I'd never heard of the tank, nor the brand, but I will keep an eye out for them in America now!

You'd never heard of juwel aquariums? God, you havent properly seen an aquarium in all its beauty until you have seen a juwel aquarium...they are, quite simply, the best.

Heres a site (dont think its offical...dont look too great, but it provides enough info):
http://www.juwel-aquariums.co.uk/

[ChilDawg]

There's a site at www.juwel-aquarium.com but they don't have a listing for the U.S. I don't think that we can get them here w/o special ordering!

[thom336]

Your missing out on this one then...walk into almost any fish shop here in the UK and juwel aquariums just stare you in the face...but I never tire of seeing them. I unfortunately dont have one at the moment, I would have got one but I couldnt get hold of the one I wanted without having to order it, so I went for another set up instead. But if you ever do get the chance of getting hold of a jewel, then get it. You will certainly not regret it.

[mickey]

Thanks for all the advice guys ,much appreciated.
Cheers.

[mickey]

Originally posted by Hetfield
I have just got a jewel 260 bow fronted tank , it is really cool
the heater is in with the filter and it cost £530 . I had the same thing 5 ft space but went with the 4 ft tank. the jewel 5 ft holds 400lts of water which would have been massive especially on the water meter . I am really pleased with the tank makes no noise at all .

Did you buy your tank from the LFS or order it online £530 seems a little expensive for the 260.

[Hetfield]

Hi I got it from Lfs not much difference between any of the locally
But its worth every penny , got good discounts on tank decor .
How much is one where you are? (Vision 260 4ft with bow front)

[mickey]

My man at the lfs says he will sell me a 260 for £420 but that dosn't include fish, decor ect.
I have gave him a lot of business down the years.
Cheers.

[somefinnfishy]

call around sombody has a perfecto 120 we just sold one for 499 on stand with everything.easy to talk someone down on them as they dont sell well.

[superjohnny]

You should get a 5 gallon tank with fake plants, a mix of pink and blue epoxy gravel and one goldfish. Or maybe you could get a 400 gallon Tenecor reef-ready tank with metal halaide lights, live sand, live rock from Fiji, corals, inverts and keep lionfish.
:p

Go rummage round some of the "Members Aquarium specs" forum and see what you like and don't like. You can model your aquarium around the tanks that look good to you. Don't miss 80gJoe's tanks.

Good luck