A guy i work with was getting rid of alot of some of his tanks because of the new baby his wife and him are about to have. Well i scored a 55gal tank and a bunch of accessories for FREE! I just need to clean everything up very well because he used it as a brackish tank. Here are some pictures, some of the accessories i have no clue how they work or what they are for.











i definitely need some help.

It looks like you have a canister a sump and a protein skimmer<2nd to last picture.>

Might need a marine oriented person to chime in.

Sweet!
Don't you just love the word "FREE"!

yes free is nice. I dont need any of the marine stuff, if someone wants it they can have it for FREE.

FREE its a great word why carnt someone offer me a tank for FREE i want another tank just funds are not there. nice tank you got there any plans on what you are gona put in it :drunk: FREE

just freshwater community fish.

that sounds nice. when you have got it set up post some pics so we can see the finished article :woo:

well its not finished yet but here is an update. we've got everything cleaned up and the tank filled with water, plastic plants and rocks. I personally like the white rock.








the water is still pretty murky, we're going to let it sit for a month or two before we add fish. I think i am going to add one more XXL plant though, and i may replace the two hoods, the lights work fine but the hinges for the covers are broken.

any and all suggestions/comments are welcome.

Looking sweet.Might want to get a couple more cave thingys.Coffee cups and terra cotta flowerpots work good.Always want to give the little guys and bottom feeders a place to hide.

looks like you guys are off to a great start, tank looks awesome.:tup:

how are you going to cycle the tank, fishless or with fish? just curious.:)

you could always jump start it with some media from an established tank filter.

Looking good guys!

Can't wait to see it with fish!

Personally id be tempted to go for a bogwood tangle off to one side, with a few larger plantis planted amongst it, so that the wood anchors them down. It makes a great pH buffer, keeping it nicely acid, it also allows shier more reclusive fish to hide in it.

Also certain fish, such as panaques (a type of armoured catfish) require the wood in their diet, so it will help them out no end!

My old man has a 55 gal tank with the same "Magnum 350" filter that i have, so i think im going to trade them around and use his. His tank has been established for a while now.

whats a bog wood tangle?

Also the water cleared up nicely. What type of fish should i go for? I dont want to put fish together that are going to kill each other.

just a couple update pictures. We added a few things and moved stuff around. Almost time for fish

It's looking good!

Looking really good!

What are you interested in?

A bog wood tangle? just get some nice twisty bits of bog wood (also called mopani wood) and stack it up so its tangled nicely a bit like magrove plants

im not really sure what bog wood is. I checked the lps and i didnt see anything called bog wood.

i would like to do something like that but i dont really know what im looking for.

I have found that driftwood is much easier to get, I have some that I harvested myself from the wild.

were having trouble getting the ph down in our tank. Well water is really basic, and stubborn as hell. Over the last week weve used up an entire bottle of ph decreaser.

What is your ph?
I personally don't bother with the liquid ph stuff, it never worked for me and was a waste of $$.
Fish are more bothered by drastic fluctuations in ph than a steady high ph.

well we bought 5 zebra danios and 5 neon tetras to "break in" the tank, and all 5 of the tetras died within a week. the danios are doing great though, all fat and happy.

the ph is pretty close to 9, we put in 30 gallons of spring water and it didnt really help the ph much. We dont really know what else to do.

stuff some peat in your filter. you should be able to find it in granule form and use a media bag to hold it. that and some driftwood will help you.

update:

Our tank is doing well now. We replaced the 5 neon tetras that had died and added 5 black skirted tetras.

We did have 5 fancy guppy males and the danios in the tank tortured them, they would chase them around and bite their tales. So i put the guppies in my fathers tank.


We also scored ANOTHER 55 gal tank, complete, but thats another thread...

also just picked up a powder blue gourami, and two dalmation lyretail mollies.

how do we keep our danios from biting all of the other fishes tails?