# My new 225 Gallon pre stocked tank



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Forgot to add, there are 15 petrocola's in there, they love them some rock work...


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I like the anubias. Be careful of that mix though.

Tangs are usually weekly water changes at minimum. I've heard daily or almost daily for discus.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

What happened to my post?


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)




----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Yeah, thats why I'm shying away from Discus. I know the guy from Wet Pets in Pa. has an overstocked discus display tank in his store that he claims he only cleans a few times per year but I have an idea that if true, his in the exception to the rule. Discus are too expensive to chance with. Eventually they may toughen up to where the average aquarium owner can keep them but after reading the article on the front page about antibiotic resistant bacteria I don't want to mess with anything that is so demanding. I've had tretocephalus before, had three, male and two females, in a mixed tank, all fell victim to lace rock. They even spawned but I could never get the fry to hatch. Once the Male chose his female the other was outcast, even after the chased female committed suicide he wouldn't accept the other female as a mate. I had them housed with two gold heads, a breeding colony of leluipi, a breeding colony of regani kipili and about thirty demasoni/yellow labs. The aggression from the trets was more territorial around their breeding site than anything and wasn't overly abusive. Typ just flaring gills and doing a warning shimmy. That was in a 125 gallon that still houses my demasoni colony.I figure a 225 with lots of cover will be ok and once I get the breeding pairs set up I can either move the guys that weren't invited to the dance to my 125 or sell them.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

The Rock Pile- Collected the rocks from a creek on my farm in Gilmer Co. WV, its all sandstone with the exception of one or two small pieces of lace rock I took out of my 125 gallon Demasoni tank that had Anubius growing on it. Love the looks of lace, but with tangs I had bad experiences with the fish getting stuck in crevasses and dieing. The Anubius and Java Fern were all grown from a handful of small plants I bought years ago. You can't go wrong with these plants. If you like the green in your tanks I highly recommend both over plastic/silk. They will attach themselves to rocks, driftwood or whatever you tie them to so the fish can't dig them up. Also, they eat up waste and they give great cover.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

A few of the petro's came out to play. hard to get them to hold still for my crappy phone camera. lol


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

A few pics of my planted 125 Demasoni tank. The pics don't even come close to showing the numbers. Pretty amazing considering they all came from a single male and female that survived an outbreak of bloat. Initially I bought 8 and they weren't in the greatest shape when I got them. Six died within the first couple of weeks and left me with two relatively small fish. One was about 2.5" and one about 1.75". The larger fish began showing typical breeding behavior of a male, chasing, doing the shimmy, etc. I assumed the larger fish to be male and hoped that the smaller fish was a female. Turned out that the larger fish was actually the female. First and last time I have ever seen that behavior from any of my mbuna. They spawned, the male died shortly thereafter and I moved the female and her mouth full of eggs into a 20 gallon by themselves and crossed my fingers. She ended up holding about seven fry and as soon as she released them she went back into the 75 gallon tank and the fry were raised alone until they were big enough to go in with momma. Only thing I could come up with was that maybe the female sensed the male was sick and initiated the spawn. I don't know but it's the only time I've ever seen a female behave like that, as the aggressor initiating the spawn. That was about six years ago. Now, many many spawns later I would say there are at least 70-80 different sized Demasoni in this colony. One of these days maybe I'll take out the rock/plants and do a head count but that would be quite an undertaking.


----------



## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

aw, i love stories like that. There was one about frontosa's not too long ago. I love that 125, makes me really excited for my 125. What kind of anubias is that in the back? Is that nana, or barteri or something? Looks really dense. That first tank, that's a 225? What are the dimensions?


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

The Anubius was sold to me as nana but I think it is some other kind because of its size, think nana is supposed to have small leaves. This stuff has leaves about 4" long x 3" wide. The big tank is 72" long, 30" tall and 24" deep. The 125 actually looks longer in the pics, guess it is because it isn't as deep. Here is another crappy cell phone pic of the 225 gallon. Guess I should try using the real camera. I added a big piece of driftwood and my stock list is currently 6 tretocephalus, 2 leluipi, five geophagus juropari, 4 gold head compressiceps (one died), 4 zaire black calvus, 17 petricolas, 4 angelfish, 2 nerite snails and 5 bristlnose plcostomus. Was planning on getting rid of the angels but they aren't bothering anything and they are too big for the others to mess with. Figure if the others grow up with them in the tank they won't mess with them. If they do, I'll deal with it then. 
I ordered the biggest part of my fish from Bluegrass Aquatics. I was supposed to get five Juli Marlieri but they didn't ship them because they said they were too small. They refunded the money for the Julies and sent the trets, gold heads, calvus and jurapari. All the fish they sent were small except for the jurapari. Out of all the comps and calvus that I ordered there was only one that was over an inch long and none of the trets were. They were supposed to be bigger but they said that the fish were running on the small size. I was concerned that they were too small, especially after I released them into the tank but I only had one gold head die and Eddie refunded the cost of it along with the fish that didn't ship. Two of the jurapari were injured, one had two pretty large gashes in its side and ones dorsal fin was pretty torn up but they seem to be healing up ok. I added salt and bumped the temperature up to 80 then added some melefix and I think that helped jump start the healing process. The one with the jacked up dorsal fin is flaring his dorsal and seems to be healing faster than the one with the side lacerations.
Overall I'm happy with the fish from Bluegrass Aquatics and Eddies a good guy. Wish they would have let me know the marlieri were too small to ship before they shipped the fish so I could have picked out something else but thats ok, they refunded the money and I still got the free shipping.


----------



## alexg1492 (Jan 22, 2013)

Beautiful stocked tank. I hope all turns out well and can't wait to see what kind of foreground you decide on with your WPH


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Lol, what is WPH? I was thinking of maybe adding another large rock in front of the driftwood. If I ever have to tear this thing down I don't know what I'm going to do. I have to stand on a chair just to reach down into the tank. I bought a set of 18" long tweezers off ebay so I could plant the rooted plants into the sand and used a small plastic rake I got from Lowes to spread the sand out. Just a heads up for anyone looking for aquascaping tools, the giant tweezers I bought off ebay cost like $10 with free shipping and came from a guy in texas that sells them. They were not listed with the aquarium items. They are used to feed snakes. Wish I would have opted for the 24" set, they were only a few dollars more.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Went ahead and added the rock in front of the driftwood, think I need another bag of sand, maybe a bag of black to mix in with the pool filter sand and darken it up a little. Only bad thing would be if I didn't like it I'd be stuck. lol Hard to believe from this picture that the rock I added is about two feet long and ten inches wide.


----------



## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

kind of like this? 









I think the height made the tank seem shorter in length, but it looks really beautiful! I think the sand level looks good, but if you want to add some depth you can create a type of gradient with it by sloping it to the back and left/right side of the tank. As for mixing in black sand, I think it would throw off the aesthetic quality it has right now: the white and green contrast so well, adding black into the mix could ruin it. And it's not like you could, at that point, move the black to it's own pile because that would take forever! But if you like the way it might look, that's what matters most and I would say go for it!

Oh, and I think WPH is referring to height? Even though I think the poster means wpg, are those t5 units? Where did you get them from, i've been considering getting one for my 125 as well, even though I doubt i'd need it with the plants I have.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

The lighting on this tank is standard fluorescent lighting with one 72" fixture that holds two 36" bulbs and one 48" dual bulb fixture.


----------



## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

by chance would you happen to know what kind of pool filter sand you're using, or where you got it? Sorry if I missed something in your posts


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Sorry, can't remember the exact brand the sand was sold under but I bought it at a swimming pool supply store In Lexington Ky. Think it was Aurora Pools and Spas. It came in a clear plastic bag with blue writing, 50 lb bags. I had two bags in my 40 that I tore down to make room for the 225, put that sand in my 225 and added three more so there are 5 bags of sand in this beast. So 250 lbs of sand and approximately 150-200 lbs of rock.


----------



## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

thanks. Do you use any fertilizers on this tank? Root tabs, Liquids etc.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

So far I have not added any kind of fertilizers, just changing the water typically gives enough nutrients for the java and anubius to flourish. I have several crypts and some amazon swords on order and will probably get some root tabs for them though. New lights should be here tomorrow, two 36" t5 quads with moonlight leds. Have also added a 13watt UV submersible unit since my last post. Just a precaution against an algae bloom once my new lights are installed, plus can't hurt to fry any nasties that may be floating around in the water. lol 
I'll post an updated photo once I get it set with the new lights, it will probably be so bright the pictures will glow.


----------



## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

exciting! those plants are going to be growing out of the tank


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Probably end up putting new bulbs in the quads but will see how the factory supped ones do first. Believe each fixture comes with two 10k's and two actinics.


----------



## WVUfish (Jan 2, 2013)

Here are a few pictures with the new Odysea T5 HO Quad lights installed. There are two 36" units, both lights came with two 10k and two actinic bulbs as well as the led night lights. They are the basic light without the timer. Each light has two separate ballasts, one for the actinics and one for the 10k and each ballast has a switch to turn it off and on. The LED's also have their own plug but no on off switch, so you either have to unplug it at the light or the outlet. They are pretty bright, I really like the fact that you can operate the different bulbs independently and the led night lights are pretty sweet. The pictures are with all the lights on at the same time. I will probably go ahead and remove the actinics and replace them with something more plant oriented, a 65k and one of the pink bulbs.The ballasts don't get the slightest bit warm, they stay cool to the touch unlike so many people have described. Are they the best light available? No but when considering the fact that I bought two new 36" Quads for $130 with free shipping I think I'll get over the fact that they don't have an Aquatic Life or Sunpower tag on the hood along with the $500-$1000 price that would have accompanied them.


----------



## 4RSo (Aug 13, 2011)

that is awesome, you're not lying about how bright it is! I am so excited to see how this tank progresses in terms of growth with this new fixture, would you mind messaging me where you got your lights from? I have been strongly considering getting the exact same lighting you have for months now.


----------

