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Adam's (Tony's old) 5ft Monster tank

Wallace

Member
Joined
7 Mar 2012
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308
Location
Bramley, Surrey
So this is Tony Swinney's old 'Triassic Hollow' tank. He was giving it away and I just couldn't say no.

The plan is to use this as a room divider between what is our lounge and the kids playroom. The tank is 152.5cm x 60cm x 60cm (60'x24'x24') somewhere in the region of 549l.

The tank is sitting in my lounge at the moment..............

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and here is the gap it will be going in..........

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It'll sit half way into each room.

The current plan is to have it as a planted fancy goldfish tank which is something I've always wanted to do, low light and low maintenance.

I've got to set about opening up the doorway as that is only 150cm wide, and construct a stand strong enough to take the weight of it.

After a very brief chat with Tony this morning I think the best way to go with the stand is going to be some sort of breeze block construction and MDF faced.

I'll also be building a lighting rig for it, which at the moment I'm thinking about using down lighters like Alastair did for his 'chocolate puddle' tank.

I think that's about it for now, I'll might make a start on the door lining this afternoon and I'll hopefully be getting blocks later in the week so I can make a start on the stand getting the tank in place.

Cheers

Adam


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Thanks Tim, it's certainly my most ambitious project to date but something I've been wanting to do for years but never had the tank to do it properly, until now.

It's gonna be a little while until this is up and running, but I'll try and remember to take pics of everything along the way.

I've opened up part of the lining this afternoon, just got to tidy it up tomorrow.

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As you can see I've only taken out the section where the actual tank will sit.


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Just a personal opinion:
planted fancy goldfish tank
Please don't say you will get those malformed ones, these have nothing to do with a normal functioning fish. I know keeping fish in a tank has nothing to do with "nature" but what people do to these goldfish is beyond everything. (and not educational for the children in my eyes). If you want low light and low maintanance consider Big Tom's and Alistair's tanks.
Natural environment, few fish, maybe even some live critters, that can be very nice.
 
Why did I not think about bricking in my child?


Thankfully for the kids there is another door into their playroom, although it would be quite nice to brick them in some days.


Just a personal opinion:

Please don't say you will get those malformed ones, these have nothing to do with a normal functioning fish. I know keeping fish in a tank has nothing to do with "nature" but what people do to these goldfish is beyond everything. (and not educational for the children in my eyes). If you want low light and low maintanance consider Big Tom's and Alistair's tanks.
Natural environment, few fish, maybe even some live critters, that can be very nice.

What do you mean by 'malformed' ones?

As for something along the same vein as Tom and Alastair's tanks, I love these tanks and think they are amazing but it's not something that I want to do.

I've seen some amazing Goldfish tanks in the past, and since keeping them when I was younger I've always wanted to do something proper with plants and plenty of swimming space for them.


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I certainly won't be keeping anything as 'extreme' as most of those. I would consider those to be show fish, that have been bred specifically for competitions.

I guess using the term fancy goldfish covers a very broad spectrum, I'm just talking about fantail goldfish. No bubble eyes (which I've kept in the past) or lion heads etc

You probably won't like that, but that's fine as you are entitled to your opinion. As I've said I've been wanting to do this this ever since I was about 10 or so, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to give the fish a better life than being crammed into tanks that are far too small for even a handful of Shrimp.


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I too have a soft spot for the fantail, despite it's altered shape, from fish keeping days as a child. I think any goldfish fancy or otherwise would be a very lucky fish to end up in a huge planted tank like this. If i had a tank that big I'd be tempted by fantails too and the majority die in filthy, tiny tanks. This will be fantail heaven!
 
This will be fantail heaven!

Fingers crossed.

Not much in the way of progress today, I've just cleaned the tank and that is it. It looks very clean now and I can't wait to start filling it and stocking it.

Should be going to get some blocks tomorrow hopefully so with a bit of luck the tank will be in place by close of play tomorrow.



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Alastair that would be fantastic, if you can work out postage costs etc and let me know we'll sort something out.

Very generous of you, thanks.


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Not a problem. Just let ms know how many you need and I'll pack them into a box and get them couriered. Should only be about 13 pound via UPS.
 
Not a problem. Just let ms know how many you need and I'll pack them into a box and get them couriered. Should only be about 13 pound via UPS.

That's brilliant Alastair, thankyou. I'll have a think as to how many I think I'm going to need and I'll get back to you.

I've been and got some blocks this morning, and the tank is in position. The blocks have only been done very roughly at the moment so as I could move the tank from the Middle of the lounge to make sure it fits.

It fits!

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Now I've got to work out how I'm going to box it all in and make it look good. At the moment I'm sat here staring at it with a very big smile on my face, trying to imagine layouts etc etc


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That's going to look ace when it's finished . It's sure going to beat watching anything on TV.
How many fancies do you reckon it'll hold?
 
Just been showing the wife these pics and looking up at our doorway and the look on her face was priceless :lol:

Ha! Thankfully my wife didn't need any persuading at all, she was more than happy about it. I've just got to close down two of my other tanks in the lounge, leaving me with just a Fluval Roma 240 and the monster.

That's going to look ace when it's finished . It's sure going to beat watching anything on TV.
How many fancies do you reckon it'll hold?

Yeah, the tv could end up redundant.

Re stocking, I have no idea. Obviously it's going to depend on what filtration I use, and I'm not going to crowd them. At the moment I'm thinking maybe 8 or 10.



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Ah you are living on of my dreams too. I guess most fish keepers started out with goldfish or guppies and will always have a soft spot for them. If only I had the space. I have to limit myself to two tanks. If I ever gave up on planted tanks my 300L will immediately be filled with fancy goldfish. Besides the bubble eye, I'm pretty OK with the rest. Black moors are my favourite.
 
Black moors are my favourite.

Mine too, trouble is as they tend to have the telescope eyes they can sometimes struggle to find food before the other tank mates scoff the lot.

I've just spent a little bit of time on the boxing in, it's very rough and made just using some left over OSB from when I replaced my shed roof. It looks ok I guess, the centre panel comes out to allow access to the filter 'bay'.

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Quick update.

The 'cabinet' is mostly finished now.

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Very slow progress really as I've been raising the money to buy a Fluval FX6 so that I can just run the one filter rather than multiple smaller filters.

I should be picking that up over the weekend, then it's onto the lighting from Alastair and starting to muck around with hardscape etc

Fingers crossed this will be up and running soon.


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