new 140g

the poll should have said sw for my scats arrrrrrrrgh

well today my glass guy finally delivered my custom 140 its a pick up i got from a kid who put it on a stand that was an inch to narrow an it blew the back out



he did a killer job on remaking it for me here is a shot of the bottom



now you know when you get a tank you need something to put in it



so far in my restaurant i have 55g 9 blue johani , 75g fullgrown male green terror , 40g corner grow tank 1 cuvier bichir , 1 geo, 1 sev and about 10 baby nics , 100g african community , 180g 2 pacu, 3 iri shark, 3 oscar juvi , 4 juvi green terror , 2 bad boy zebra who got put in to swim with the big boys, 75g 3 catfish, 2 christyi and 1 other christyi type , 65g 10 inch zebra tilapia female

i will be putting this 140 beside the 100g and am kinda thinking of putting it as a catfish tank with my bichir the one thing i do know is that ill be doing this as a rehome of my existing fish im also leaning to making it my new home for the zebra tilapia or bonita as i have so named her i have been watchin her since i got her months ago and im sure she is wanting a male to be in with her

i just thought id add a thought the pic of the tilapia is from a few months ago when i rehomed her since then she has substrate

well i have a decision of 2 ways to go i have talked with many people on this and i am really leaning hard to making the 140 a rehome of my iri sharks and some of my cats and this is the reason why the pacus are bloody vacum cleaners when i drop in their food they literally inhale it and blast to the other side where i have put the iri food in no matter which i do first the pacu are just cookie monsters when it comes to their food

and yeh i know they are gonna need bigger space but thats why im doing a monster tank in days to come but at least if i move them to the 140 and add in smaller variety of cats i have they will have the same height and width and lose only 1.75 feet of length and they wont have to contend with rhonda and rhoda swipping their dinner

or

i have my 60g sw at home which has 4 scats, 3 damsels, 2 cardinals, a lawnmower blenny, 3 hermit, a conch snail? (i think thats what they called it), a purple an orange lobster, 2 starfish and i could move my scats here and the 140g would be their forever home which will suit them for as long as they live and further it will enable me to add a very nice splash of color to the room

other big tanks i have lined up are a starfire 120g that i bought tonight i pick it up 3 week in feb, a possible 320g, a 300g that i will most probably pick up 1st weekend in march, and by summers end i should have my 5-7500g indoor pond biotope done so i can see what your saying about leaving them in the 180g and they do really catch peoples eye from the door i love fish catching people hahahahha and since my 300g tanks are less than a month to month half away it makes more sense to do it as a sw scat tank

thanks all for you thoughts

i was gonna build a stand but i found this solid oak desk for 40 bucks score whooooot

ok so it is decided iri shark an catfish tank i will move the 3 iri from the 180 and then take all my various cats from my different tanks an rehome them here any suggestions of perhaps a couple of non cat tank mates

i decided i would document how i fast track tanks without killing my fish


what i have here is a bucket full of water that has come from squeezing out all the sponges from my other tanks and putting in the used up carbon pouches the 405 is brand new and the aqua 70 is moved from a 75g here


now with the new media what i have done here is to rinse it well to clear dust and the carbon is soaking in water from the bucket with 5 ml of prime , the white is in fresh water an 2 ml of prime


this is a straight move from a established tank i like to over filter so the 405 and this aqua 70 should do the trick


this was not rinsed at all just simply allowed to sit on top of the carbon an soak in the used water prime mix


the 405 with 2 carbon tray on bottom and other 2 whites on top then filled with water from bucket but making sure not to stir up the water and put in sediment for the most part the sediment is on bottom of bucket


now for this i have to say MGAMER ROCKS FOR HELPIN WITH A SMOKING DEAL ON THE DRIFT WOOD and the cards are a bonus


now i dump the buckets entire contents into the bottom of the tank and start to fill it with cold water as i want the water to heat up slowly cause i dont wanna shock the stuff in the bucket with temp diff


the driftwood is mixed in with the sludge and the water is filled on the other side so as to make it so that the debris that moves about the tank flows around the wood


for this 140g i used 100ml of aqua plus and 75ml of prime


when i have the tank about 80% full i power on the canister with the flow pointed on a diagonal angle so as to get maximum disturbance of the water

now i leave the filters run till they clear the water which should be about 4 hours or so then i do a wc of 50%, take out the debris and the old filter media, i dont add any prime or anything at this point cause i have over smacked the tank first an i want to wash out the water a bit with the first few wc but this method has not failed me in fast tracking tanks the real important part though is that many wc are a key ingredient to make it work but the end result is a killer tank

ok so came in at 5 am and tank looks like this



now the water test should come out at light purple as desired


nitrite

nitrate

next thing to do is to remove all of the old filter media bags and move the driftwood so that the sludge that has collected there can be moved about so the filters can do their thing end up with a tank that looks like this



using visitherm stealth heaters on this tank they went in last night and the water temp was about 76 degrees since i put in cold water to do this

if i needed to put fish in today i would have done a wc an sucked the gunk out rather than mix it about but i want the filters to get good an seeded i should have my fish in by sunday night

as i was sitting here tryin to think of a way to explain how i came up with this it dawned on me tell them about the sourdough starter

this works the very same as a good sourdough starter the bacteria colony that is used to sour the dough once you have it established it will live on for ages i have heard of a starter that is over 20 years old and with a sourdough starter you can use part of a good starter colony to jumpstart an fast track your own in a amazingly short time compared to what it takes to get a good one started from scratch so to it is the same if you have established tanks up and running

ok so here is stage 3 to the chefjamesscott fast track a tank method

the water temp is 76 degree and what is key here is that the water goin in tonight must be the same temp otherwise it will mess up the chemistry

first thing to do is to remove the old carbon sacks and drift wood but dont move the wood to fast otherwise the sludge that has settled on it will was off



now power down the canister an hob filter and take out the media




there should be spots of sediment on the bottome syphon that out with python as you pull out 40-45% of the water as you syphon out the water you need to fill a container with some of the water from the tank so the sponges from the filters can be pressed so as to force the sludge out but dont squeeze them just press them as if you were kneading dough , take the carbon bags and media trays and give them a rinse in the tank now put the filters back together and fill them with water that is going out via the python reassemble them but dont power them on yet

when you have pulled the needed water out for this first wc you should have a light residue of sediment that remains in the tank like this



dont worry about that cause when you put the substrate in it will help to season that

for the water refill i use the water treatment of 45ml of the aqua and 75 ml of prime and i put that in when i first start to refill keep checkin the refill water temp to make sure its not to hot nor to cold compared to the water in the tank

when the tank is full enough to power on the filters kick them into gear



here is where i add one other treatment to the tank




at this time i put the wood back in the tank letting it float down to whereever it lands and i wait for the tank to finish filling up and then its time to come back tomorrow an do the water test which ill post tomorrow if i had not been doing wc and stuff for the past 7 hours i would take a test right now to show the effect of this method i use

end shot for tonight is this



I TOLD THEM I WAS DOING WC AT THE RESTAURANT and they were so pumped till hour five set in an then they realize that this is a long process :lol: to the which i take some time to explain to them why things have to be done this way

well tomorrow should be very well go time and my test pilot will be a feeder goldfish and a few other fry that i have a multitude of if all works well as it should since this is my procedure for setting up tanks this becomes the new home for the iri sharks