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Everything I had not tried with the 240G -
125G Lake Tanganyika Community Setup
with Tropheus

Since it took about a year from setting up my 240G Frontosa tank to having it on this web site, here are some preview snap shots of my latest project, a 125G Tropheus tank.

[Show as slideshow]

I like to try things out and experiment, so I did a lot of things different from the 240G, just for the heck of it. I kept only the things that were so good that I couldn’t even begin to think of an alternative. These are for example the automatic water change system and the fantastic lighting solution I found. This time the tank was bought second hand, since used 125G tanks seem to be cheap and plentiful at places like Craigslist, eBay, and Aquabid. Mine is an Allglass tank dated 5 March 1990. It’s a heavy beast without any side or center braces. I built the cabinet and canopy from scratch, and I had help from my Dad who was over to visit from Germany. I made them very similar to the Glasscages ones I bought for the 240G, but I also made some significant changes. I have added building instructions for the canopy, and time permitting the stand will follow. The tank is filtered not by a sump system, but by an Eheim 2260 with Eheim diffuser. I’ve been drooling over the 2260 since I was a kid, and now I finally got one. The thing is all I ever dreamed about! There is no UGJ system this time, but the current in this tank is wicket - and the hyperactive tropheus seem to love it! The tank background this time was painted - in deep jungle green. The color was my wife’s idea, and I reckon it looks pretty sharp - different from the usual black or light blue. The main decoration is a huge piece of wood, which I found locally in the forest.

The main fish in the tank are a colony of 25 Tropheus sp. ‘Black’ (Pemba Orange Flame), which fellow OCA member Brian Shrimpton donated to be auctioned off for the benefit of the Jim Smith fund at the 2007 OCA X-mas Party. I got them for a steal! The pictures of the adult Tropheus in the slide show are copyright Brian Shrimpton, and show the parents of my fish. I hear he has more of the fry for sale!

On 28 January I added a pair of wild caught Eretmodus cyanostictus ‘Burundi’ to the tank. I’ve got them from Dave Hale (Somethingfishyinc.net), who received them from an importer just four days before I got them. I believe they are my very first wild caught fish. Dave said he had previously had Tanganyikan gobies come in pretty battered, but these guys look happy and healthy, and they are taking food greedily. I hope they’ll do well in my tank and breed soon!

Collecting Wood For Aquarium Decorations And How To Treat It

Since putting this preview of the 125G up, everybody asks me what to look for one when using wood from the forest in a fish tank, and how to treat the stuff. So here it goes:

What I look for is wood that looks old and weathered, but is still hard. If it is kinda mushy and crumbly, it will rot quickly in a tank, and foul the water. If the wood is nice and hard, you can keep it in a tank for years and not have problems. I’ve had pieces that I found here in Ohio in tanks for close to three years, and they still look great. Java fern really loves to grow on this stuff, and seems to take root a lot easier than for example on rock.

I use a brush and a big screwdriver to remove all loose bits from the wood before I put it in a tank. I never boil it. I’ve read that boiling will actually lead to the wood rotting quicker in a tank, but I don’t know if that’s true. At any rate, boiling in my experience isn’t necessary. There will be no fish diseases in a piece of wood that’s been lying in the forest far away from any waterway that’s inhabited by fish! Mind you, I have also used wood that I found near the Cuyahoga River. That’s might be bit more risky, but I reckon your odds of getting away with this unscathed are far better than when you introduce fish from a chain store without quarantining them! If there really is a little worm still crawling out of the wood, your fish will probably consider it a tasty treat!

If you could soak the wood before putting it in a tank, that might be a plus, because my wood always browns the water quite a bit in the beginning. Frequent water changes, and if required filtration via carbon, will get rid of this problem within a few weeks. For a piece of wood to become so waterlogged that it will sink by itself can take a long time though. I had pieces in a 29G that stayed down after 6 months, but I also have one in another 29G that’s been in there for well over a year, and still needs a rock on one end. The monster piece in the 125G you see here weighs 28 pounds (12.6kg) dry, so I actually worked up a bit of sweat lugging it back to the car! To hold it down, it has 3 pieces of Ohio top rock (sandstone) weighing a total 34 pounds (15.4kg) attached to it using 3″ drywall screws. This type of rock can be drilled very easily using a masonry bit, and the screws can go through the rock into the wood, or through the wood into a plastic dowel that sits in the rock. It’s very easy to do, gives a very natural look when complete, and you don’t need the laborious curing process that people need to use when anchoring rocks in concrete!

Regarding the type of wood, I don’t think I’ve ever found a piece from a needle tree, like pine, spruce or fir, that was weathered and still hard. I reckon these trees have lighter, softer wood that rots quicker. Leaf trees seems to do much better in that regard, and I really don’t think it matters much which one you choose. I am not aware of any that wouldn’t work at all.