Hello from Nebraska

Cole

Well-Known Member
Hi everyone. I'm from Nebraska and came to this site after watching Cory & Bob on the livestream on Sunday. My wife and I have been in the hobby for about 16 years, going through the various phases of fishkeeping that most people eventually do at some point. Once we bought our first fish tank, we were hooked. Despite going through many ups and downs in the hobby, we've always had at least one tank up and running.

In the early days, we had 13 aquariums in a 2-bedroom apartment. Some of those tanks were decent size, too. It was wall to wall fish tanks. We had 2-110 gallon show tanks, a 90 gallon, a 75 gallon, 2-65 gallon tanks, and bunch of 40 gallon breeder tanks. We've kept lots of species of fish including snakeheads, South American cichlids, some Central American cichlids, rainbowfish, African cichlids (Malawi and Tangs), Australian climbing perch, and many others. We were even heavy into turtles at one point, keeping 3 Fly River turtles, numerous diamondback terrapins, razorback musk turtles, and an African helmeted turtle.

Currently, we have a 600 gallon fiberglass tank that is home to our 15 year old Fly River turtle, named Ra. Next, a 300 gallon Marineland Deep Dimension tank is home to a South American cichlid community, including 5 Geophagus winemilleri, an angel, 2 uaru amphiacanthoides, a female chocolate (temporalis), about 35 Emperor tetras, and about 24 corydoras catfish (rabauti, CW 051, aneus, and schwartzi). Over in the 265 gallon aquarium, we have another South American cichlid community. The inhabitants include 13 tiger striped silver dollars (Mytennis fasciatus), 6 Geophagus red head Tapajos, 2 uaru amphiacanthoides, a chocolate cichlid (coryphaenoides), 4 keyhole cichlids, and a pink-tailed chalceus.

In one of the 2-75 gallon tanks, we house a male chocolate cichlid (temporalis), a small school of black neon tetras, a small school of lemon tetras, and about 12 corydoras (including orange laser, concolor, sterbai, and adolphi). The other 75 is home to a True Parrot cichlid (Hoplarchus psittacus) and a large bristlenose pleco.

Then, we have a 55 gallon tank, which is a temporary home for 9 Mascara barbs and 5 panda garra. Next up is a 40 gallon breeder. Current inhabitants include 6 Rohani barbs and 6 filament barbs. Lastly we have a 29 gallon tank that is exclusively used as a quarantine/hospital.

This coming Black Friday, we're going to be picking up 2-125 gallon ensembles from Petsmart, or whoever has the best deal if we strikeout there. One will be the future home for all the previous listed barbs, plus more panda garra (somewhere around 15 total), a school of clown barbs, and a school of Odessa barbs. We'd also like to add a small school of Dawkinsia exclamatio and spanner barbs (if we can ever locate them). We plan on setting the other 125 gallon tank up to be the future home for fancy goldfish. We just ordered our first two from Cory at Aquarium Co-Op and will be ordering at least one more (a Ranchu) from him in the near future.
 

VickiK

Member with a lot to say
I think you need to do a "Tank Tour" video for Cory's YouTube channel, @Cole

Seriously. I want to see this stuff! This lineup is better than a trip to the aquarium.
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
I think you need to do a "Tank Tour" video for Cory's YouTube channel, @Cole

Seriously. I want to see this stuff! This lineup is better than a trip to the aquarium.

I do need to do the "Tank Tour" video for Cory's channel. I even told him that in Chicago. I am definitely going to do it some time this fall/winter.

I'll post some pics sooner.
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
Here a pic of our 75 gallon chocolate cichlid tank. It used to house the male and female temporalis together, but he became a wife abuser. So, she now resides in the 300 gallon and is the tank boss.

The tank is filtered by 2 AquaClear 110's with ATI Filter Max IIIs on each intake and is heated to 79 degrees using a 300 watt JBJ True Temp titanium heater with controller.

75 Gallon Chocolate Cichlid Tank.jpg
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
The former couple. They did spawn a few times but Cocoa Puff, the male chocolate, ate all the eggs each time.

Chocolate Pair.jpg
 

Cassy Oakes

New Member
@Cole beautiful fish! Welcome to the SITE! i am new as well but your tanks sound so interesting! are u going to continue trying to breed successfully?
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
@Cole beautiful fish! Welcome to the SITE! i am new as well but your tanks sound so interesting! are u going to continue trying to breed successfully?

Nice to meet you Cassy...a fellow welcome, as well, to you. At this time, no. Our tanks are all set up as display tanks, so any breeding that occurs will have to happen within the confines of a community tank. We had the 2 chocolates together in the 300 at one time and they bred in there, but they harassed all the other inhabitants far too much to our liking. So, we set up a 75 gallon tank for them to live in together. But, the male chocolate was just too relentless on the female, so we separated them.

Here's a pic of them in the 300 with eggs.

IMG_1499 (2).JPG
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
WOW! You have some monster tanks! Do all of them run alone or do you have some in tandem?

They are all on their own systems. Each one has their own factory stand and the 300 Deep Dimension has the Monterrey wood canopy. The 265 and the 300 have sumps and the 55 has an Eheim Professional 3 canister filter. Everything else, except for the 600 gallon, is filtered by Aquaclear 110s. The 600 has an Aqua Ultima II pressurized bead filter.
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
That Naughty Naughty Cocoa Puff!

The Orange Laser cats are awesome!

They are probably my favorite corydoras. I'd like to get about 8 or so more. They are the most outgoing cory we have in our tanks, always out and about.
 

Cole

Well-Known Member
No pic of the 600g turtle tank? :(:(:(:(:(:(

Okay...just for you, Bob, I'll upload some build photos of the 600 gallon fiberglass tank...lol.

We bought the tank from Pentair, after consulting a few national herpatolgy specialists (Bronx Zoo & Turtle Survival Alliance) on how to provide a long term habitat for our 15 year old Fly River turtle (Carettochelys insculpta).

Here's a photo of the tank on a stand, built out of 4x4's and 3/4" plywood. You can see where I drilled the bulkheads for running the plumbing for the filtration.

received_1408884905810802.jpeg
 

clownie

Well-Known Member
That stand is awesome!!! Nice job. Did you also do the modification on the fiberglas tank? Looks really...really good!!
 
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