Newbie Fish Wishes

[Smokin_Cache]

Hello,

I am glad I found what appears to be an active forum!! At this time I do not have any tanks. I am looking to set up a 125 to 210 gallon planted freshwater reef ready tank for Dwarf Gouramis and others that like the same water quality, until I move in a year or so then it will be converted to a reef tank. I hope to learn alot before I convert!

[guppymax]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Hello, and welcome to The Houston Fish Box.

max

[HFBfounder]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Welcome! You came to the right place. Let us know what we can do to help. ken

[wvgdiscus]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Welcome aboard.
We have a few breeders here on this site.
I am sure someone can help you out when you decide to buy some fish for you tank.

Walter

[szidlon]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Welcome, it's a great place to visit!  I'm just getting back into the hobby myself and was thrilled to find a local forum.  I visit several times daily even when I'm out of town.

[charliefoxtrot]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

There is only one flaw with your plan....

You're going to set up this planted tank with gouramis (which sounds like it's going to be very cool, btw) and once you've had it up and running for a while, plants growing, light and CO2 running, gouramis schooling...you are going to get attached to it and end up getting another tank to set up for salt water.  Best laid plans of mice and men and all that...

Welcome to the dark side.

[guppymax]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

That's a good plan you have there charliefoxtrot. You get my vote.

max

[Smokin_Cache]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

There is only one flaw with your plan....

You're going to set up this planted tank with gouramis (which sounds like it's going to be very cool, btw) and once you've had it up and running for a while, plants growing, light and CO2 running, gouramis schooling...you are going to get attached to it and end up getting another tank to set up for salt water.  Best laid plans of mice and men and all that...

Welcome to the dark side.

more than likely you are right!! I had a ten gallon planted for about two years with two male dwarfs, one female, one cory, and some glass shrimp (they got eaten after about three months).
I will work on getting some pics uploaded somewhere on the net.

Thanks

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

I've been in and out of the Hobby 4 times.
One more tank, one more tank and one more tank untill it becomes overwelming and everything dies off or gets sold off until next time.

This time my Design specifications started on the other end
how many hours a week was I willing to commit?
how many tanks can I maintain without excedeing those hours?
How many will be bare spawn tanks / breeding pairs ?
How many will be Display / Comunity tanks ?
What will I do with all the fish that don't fit ?

So now I have the stands & tanks & blower and Water and spawning pairs.....  I just have to keep new stands and tanks form moving in.  

[guppymax]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Yeah yeah yeah, and who is looking for some really nice yellow snake skin guppies lol?

max

[PhishPhreek]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Max - what do you consider the minimum requirements (equipment & manhours) to develop & maintain one line of guppies ?

[guppymax]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

lol I never considered having one line of guppies. I think you have to answer one question before I can answer and when you get through answering the question you won't need to ask.

Why do you keep fish?

Wow that sounds simple but it is not. If you can't answer this question well then your ability to have fun is in jeopardy even if you are not interested in guppies. If you want a pretty tank for eye candy you might consider one of those screen saver computer programs. You can turn it on when you like. You don't need any tanks. You don't even have to clean tanks or feed fish. An alternative would be to take movies of someone else's tanks and watch those when you like.

OK so you want eye candy but you want the real deal. A planted tank with guppies would be nice. An undergravel filter might even be the best choice here depending on how serious you are about the plants. These filters look clean long after they are filthy. You might even want a big tank. If its in your living room you want it spotless, clean.

OK so you don't care about that you want to buy someones good stock and mass produce them to get rich selling them to the fish stores. Its not going to happen. They will bid down the value of your effort until you give up. Good luck.

Allright you want to raise quality guppies and you could care less what anyone else thinks or what the tank looks like all you care about is the fish. You would rather destroy the fish than have them bid down your effort. Now you need ten gallon tanks that are divided the long way so you can stack as many as possible in the space you have. Both sides should be bare bottom with box or sponge filters. You can change one filter at a time to keep the biological filtration going well. You can have five adults in one side. I keep two males and a three females or less for breeding depending on the quality of the fish in a drop. These can also be used for drops of fry. Well this is going to get to be a book so I am going to stop here and wait for someone to commit before I write a book.

max

[guppymax]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Maybe six tanks and an hour a day.

max

[guppymax]

Re: Newbie Fish Wishes

Who said anything about guppies anyway back to the planted tank with gouramis. Does any one belong to the planted tank club: NASH (Nature Aquarium Society of Houston)?

max