I've been lurking around here for a while reading up on other peoples' successes and mishaps. I currently have a 10gal lightly planted with just guppies. and its been a whole lot of fun. as a kid we had a 57gal but my dad mostly took care of it, i just liked throwing feeder fish into the tank to feed the oscars.... the 10 gal i got cause i needed something else in my empty apartment and i liked fish.
For some background...
Ive been looking for a new tank for a while since I realized I want to have more guppies of more colors (I like how when different colored ones breed, the offspring look so cool) but sadly 10 gals isnt big enough for the number of guppies that I want. I had been hunting for something like a 55 long, but a co-worker noticed and said he had a 75 that he had in his garage that he was willing to give away for almost little to nothing. he even threw in a 29gal oceanic with stand and a 20 gal too.
So, the tank is an Oceanic 75 - he used to use saltwater, the tank is about 15 years old. No scratches and it holds water! YAY!
It came with a reasonable sized wet/dry maybe 17-20 gals and 2 brand new pumps that he bought for a future setup but never used. i don't remember the model, ill look it up tomorrow. i know that they pump 860gph up 6feet with 1/2" hose.
The lights he had were really old and damaged from being in the garage and so I'll have to buy new lighting.
The stand also needs some work since it looks like its slanted and needs to be trued up before I want to put real weight on it.
So, for the time being, while working on the cabinetry, I also need to clean out the tank, we rinsed it out today of all the bugs and whatnot, but theres alot of salt and lime/calcium buildup that needs to be removed - any ideas how to do that safely?
also, he had corals, but he had to silicone them to the bottom of the tank to keep his shark from knocking them over all the time, its still there so ill need to find a way to remove all of it, theres only 2 dabs of it (think footprint of a laptop mouse)
Being such an old tank, any other concerns that i should have? Silicone joints of the tank? it all looks to be in good condition, and like i said earlier it didn't leak when we filled it.
As for what i want to put into it, like i said earlier, i want to do primarily guppies and perhaps tetras and the like of schooling fish. i want to have a lightly planted tank with sand substrate (thinking pool filter sand) and having a short type of grass filling up the bottom for guppy fry to hide in. and have drift wood in there as well. as for planting, i want something relatively easy to care for since funds are limited, i don't want to go into the CO2 and ferts, but if its one or the other, i can prally do ferts but prefer not to (not sure why).
some other things i think about going into this, is ill need a new overflow if i plan to use the wet/dry since the tank isn't drilled.
no pics tonight, i got back to my place at like 9.30pm and got everything situated for the time being its almost 2am now.... ill get the pics of the tank and specs on the pumps tomorrow.
if any of you have ideas/suggestions/concerns. feel free to ask, i haven't taken on a tank of this size before. i hope its as easy as my 10. just scaled up.
For some background...
Ive been looking for a new tank for a while since I realized I want to have more guppies of more colors (I like how when different colored ones breed, the offspring look so cool) but sadly 10 gals isnt big enough for the number of guppies that I want. I had been hunting for something like a 55 long, but a co-worker noticed and said he had a 75 that he had in his garage that he was willing to give away for almost little to nothing. he even threw in a 29gal oceanic with stand and a 20 gal too.
So, the tank is an Oceanic 75 - he used to use saltwater, the tank is about 15 years old. No scratches and it holds water! YAY!
It came with a reasonable sized wet/dry maybe 17-20 gals and 2 brand new pumps that he bought for a future setup but never used. i don't remember the model, ill look it up tomorrow. i know that they pump 860gph up 6feet with 1/2" hose.
The lights he had were really old and damaged from being in the garage and so I'll have to buy new lighting.
The stand also needs some work since it looks like its slanted and needs to be trued up before I want to put real weight on it.
So, for the time being, while working on the cabinetry, I also need to clean out the tank, we rinsed it out today of all the bugs and whatnot, but theres alot of salt and lime/calcium buildup that needs to be removed - any ideas how to do that safely?
also, he had corals, but he had to silicone them to the bottom of the tank to keep his shark from knocking them over all the time, its still there so ill need to find a way to remove all of it, theres only 2 dabs of it (think footprint of a laptop mouse)
Being such an old tank, any other concerns that i should have? Silicone joints of the tank? it all looks to be in good condition, and like i said earlier it didn't leak when we filled it.
As for what i want to put into it, like i said earlier, i want to do primarily guppies and perhaps tetras and the like of schooling fish. i want to have a lightly planted tank with sand substrate (thinking pool filter sand) and having a short type of grass filling up the bottom for guppy fry to hide in. and have drift wood in there as well. as for planting, i want something relatively easy to care for since funds are limited, i don't want to go into the CO2 and ferts, but if its one or the other, i can prally do ferts but prefer not to (not sure why).
some other things i think about going into this, is ill need a new overflow if i plan to use the wet/dry since the tank isn't drilled.
no pics tonight, i got back to my place at like 9.30pm and got everything situated for the time being its almost 2am now.... ill get the pics of the tank and specs on the pumps tomorrow.
if any of you have ideas/suggestions/concerns. feel free to ask, i haven't taken on a tank of this size before. i hope its as easy as my 10. just scaled up.
