Help me choose something for my aquarium

Hmm instant cycling sounds good...I like instant...lmao! It's no fun 'til you can put the fish in!

I've owned hermit crabs and in all honesty, I prefer the Fiddlers. Hermit crabs are nocturnal where as Fiddlers are always active. I've had the Fiddler terrarium for a while and it doesn't stink. I have 2 filters in there and I haven't had to drain it or anything. If you want to see pics of it, I can post them. []

then we did it wrong. i read in a few places where you were supposed to add a few hardy fish and it even gave types to get to cycle the tank. oh well .. what is done is done.[&:]

LMAO I am a total fish geek.  I have 3 tanks - 1 tropical, 2 marine.  The tropical is a pretty classic planted tank with a few of my faves in it (3 loaches, a plec, tetras and guppies).  The BIG marine tank is a classic marine, with protein skimmer, filters, and has a pair of maroon Clownfish, a Kole tang and a few blue green Chromis. There's room for several more fish in there but we don't know what we want and we have to be careful about what we choose - the female clown is a right territorial b*tch.  lus loads of shrimp, snails, and a sea urchin.  The small (nano) marine tank has a pair of black and white Percula Clownfish and again, the obligatory shrimp and crabs.  (My SO loves the sea-critters even more than the fish.)
 
Gina, sorry to hijack your thread!
 
Kate
 
 

Gina,
 Check out our fish forum [linkhttp://forum.fish.com]http://forum.fish.com[/link]
They might be able to give you some ideas there..YOda is very helpfull

Cyclefiend - you didn't do it "wrong".  That was the preferred method of cycling a tank for a VERY long time.  I still know people who advocate/choose to do it that way.  I was simply saying it's not the only way to do it, and in my experience opinions of what is a "hardy" fish varies wildly, so making that choice is not always easy.
 
Sorry if my post sounded like a criticsm - it absolutely wasn't meant that way.
 
Kate

Looking around looks like this "Bio Spira" product will cycle a tank in a day or so...THAT is starting to sound good!

Gina, if you know someone with a tank already cycled and set up, you can use some of their filter media. On some of my tanks, I have the cheapo whisper filters. So when I add a new tank to my collection, I just cut half of that filter, and add it to my new tank's filter. Give it about one day to filter most of the water, and your tank will be ready for fish.
 
Make sure to buy a freshwater test kit, that way you can keep an eye on your water's changes. Once the tank is setup, you wont need to check the water but only once a month, or if a fish appears ill.
 
And Kate, I will definitely need to join the fish geek club. I "had" 4 tropical tanks, then I got suckered into another! Now there are 5 tanks. A 55 gallon, 45 show, 30 show, 30, and a breeding 20 gallon tank. If you get into it, you start collecting. Be careful Gina.

I would *love* to have an aquarium in the wall! That is really cool. I think a marine tank would be gorgeous, but that's a heck of a lot of money. 

Crabs would be neat. I've been thinking about getting some of the cute, little "halloween" crabs that they have at the reptile store.

The tank is actually in the wall that is the backwall of our garage....so a passthru would passthru to the garage lol! The little room there is neat, it's got the water heater in it and that's where we put our litterbox heh.

uh-oh lol don't eat there.

ok...this might sound a little strange but.....


A few years ago we tried the fish thing against my better judgement...I wanted nothing to do with cleaning the tank or caring for the fish..

everything went well for the first few months...then the water started getting greener and greener,untill you could barely see through it..i had enough and said it had to go..

Now cut to a hobby of mine...building small scale autos and trucks...this is something i did with a 10 gallon tank..





this is a desert dio of the baja 1000 race...

Anyway,maybe you could get creative and make a cool dio to put in there.

I was thinking of something along the lines of MhadDog's suggestion and was thinking that you could fill it with some nice potted plants.  That way the only maintenance involved is some watering.  Depending on the light situation it might work as a small greenhouse.
Or you could fill it with birch or willow branches and put some twinkle lights in for colour.  That kind of a display could be changed up for the seasons, holidays, etc and would involve almost no maintenance.

ORIGINAL: Benedict

Cyclefiend - you didn't do it "wrong".  That was the preferred method of cycling a tank for a VERY long time.  I still know people who advocate/choose to do it that way.  I was simply saying it's not the only way to do it, and in my experience opinions of what is a "hardy" fish varies wildly, so making that choice is not always easy.

Sorry if my post sounded like a criticsm - it absolutely wasn't meant that way.

Kate

i didnt think you were criticizing me. i know very little about aquariums, and i am always looking for advice and suggestions on a better way to do things. []

You are so lucky, my husband wanted a fish tank in the wall for years.
We had a large 140 gallon fish tank that we used as a room divider for
years. Just last year we put it into the living room wall.
 
For a starter, the salt water set up might seem overwelming - but once
you get used to it, it is not really that hard at all.
 
Some things to think about is how much room for filtration do you have ?
Is there any room underneath the backside or do you have to hang
any filtration of the back of the tank ?
Is the back side of the tank painted or blacked out ? You might find that
if the tank is clear on both sides that it is a distration to the animal inside
and that it looks less pleasing to see the other room from the opposite
side.
 
Also, you have the ability to frame the tank if you choose. I had a tropical
theme happening in my mind when I knew it was being put into the wall.
I found a bamboo shade at Home Depot & knew that was what I wanted
to frame out the tank. My husband looked at me like I was cross eyed !
I waited until he wasn't home & put it up. He loved it.