The Story of My Aquarium

The Story of My Aquarium

Written by Gert Botha Friday, 27 November 2009 00:00

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Article Index
The Story of My Aquarium
Page 2: Current Aquaria
Page 3: Future Plans
All Pages
Page 1 of 3
 
 
 

I entered the aquarium hobby when I was about 10 years old. It was a small glass container which homed two oversized goldfish.  Since then there was always an aquarium next to my bed side. Over the years I managed to finish school, miraculously. After graduating, I got a German artisan diploma in woodwork. In the meantime, the aquarim hobby remained  close to my heart. As is the case with a number of aquarists, I started with a fishbowl only to move on to bigger tanks.  This presentation of my tanks is dedicated to the incredible people and sites I have come across during my years in the hobby: people who encouraged me, especially about my aquarium designs and setups.

Previous aquarium - Malawi Tank

This was my first aquarium in my new home. 420 lt with a small sump filter the capacity of which I can not remember.

 
   
 

This aquarium hosted some Malawi and Tanganyika cichlids together with some other “nice” looking fish…

         
 

…it is at this point that my interest for the cichlids of Lake Tanganyika also started…

   
 

Current aquaria - Tropical Tank

 
      
 

This aquarium was built to house and breed discus (Symphysodon discus). It is a 500 lit aquarium excluding the sump filter (which is another 200 lit). The two sides of the aquarium are at a 45° angle. Trying to set up a good looking and functional aquarium without using expensive equipment, I ended up using the following:

  • Lighting: 4 x 1200mm plain daylight fluorescent tubes and 2 x blue fluorescent tubes just for the nice visual effect.
  • Filter:  200 lit glass tank with dividers which were filled with different filter media for bacterial colonies to build on them. Our water is very hard and without adding any chemicals it took around a year for it to get to the right pH. But now it is really difficult for the system to crash.
  • Accessories: One “cheap” pump to get the water back into the aquarium and a heater to keep the water temperature stable at 27° 
  • Stock: Currently two royal plecos and six discus which breed every other  week. Unfortunately the fry never come to the stage of feeding on the parents. There is a huge amount of trumpet snails which come out at night and clean up food left overs other waste.


This is how the aquarium looks like now:

 
 
 

However, these fishes are going to be transferred to a 1500L tank, which is located in my office. We will talk about this tank later.

 


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