My Fish Tank Story

Day 1? Not quite ...

Hello and thank you to anyone taking the time to read my first ever blog.

After all the ridiculous level of carry on I've had with my recent rediscovery of my love for tropical fish I thought I might as well tell my story. I hope you find it interesting, amusing and maybe even insightful (but don't hold your breath on that last bit haha)

This particular story starts only about 6 weeks ago. After a break of about 10 years from tropical fish keeping I decided to get back into it and bought a 2nd hand 4ft tank from a guy in Consett, Co. Durham. I got it home and gave it a clean down (water only of course) I sat it on a good sturdy unit and started to buy the required equipment over the course of a week or so.

I bought a Fluval U4 from ebay for just over £31 including P+P. I bought the heater brand new from my local aquatics shop, Fish Alive in Durham.

To start with we decided to take the cold water fish from the pond in our back garden and place them in the tank to help kick things off. Everything was great and for about a week we kept the cold water fish in until I took a trip to my other local aquatics shop, Chilton Aquatics in (surprise surprise) Chilton, Co. Durham

I took a look around the shop and hadn't noticed any Oscars. I asked the owner about them and he tok me to their back room where they have even more fish. He showed me some Lemon Oscars which were absolutely stunning but I didn't have the £16 asking price at the time. He then showed me the Tiger Oscars which were only going for £4 each. I had to have one and once I got home all but 2 Rudd were put back into their pond.

From the start the Oscar decided to show them who the boss was and had a pop at them whenever they went near him, depite them being 3 times the size of the new arrival. Although he was bossy in there he never actually attacked them or harmed them in any way.

Next up was a Silver Shark from Fish Alive and as soon as he was added to the tank the Rudd bullied him. To my amazement the Oscar was having none of it and became the Silver Shark's buddy and personal bodyguard.

So anyway, things were starting to take shape nicely in the tank until the day we were laying concrete outside for the new driveway. We had got about 3/4 of the work done and our daughter came out to tell us that the tank was leaking. I went into the house expecting something silly that she'd got wrong (it wouldn't be the first time bless her haha). However to my horror I saw that a crack had appeared in the tank going from the bottom right corner up in a 45 degree angle to the top. Water was seeping out quite rapidly as you can imagine. I ran to the front door to shout my wife Donna into the house and we quickly got the fish out into a clear stacker box and emptied the tank. I set up the pump and heater in the box and had to leave them there for a couple of days.

After a quick look on ebay I managed to find an L-shaped tank, 2ft x 2ft complete with unit hood and lighting in Billingham. A mere 30 minute drive away The seller added his number to the advert so I phoned him up and explained the situation we were in and would he consider selling it straight away. He was only asking £50 for the setup so we hooked the trailer up and off we went. We got the tank home and immediately set about getting it ready to transfer our smallest family members.

Once again we were up and running again and the "new" tank was great. We added a Jack Dempsey and a Firemouth and there were no problems at all. Even the Oscar was behaving himself around them. Afew more days went by without incident of any kind until one afternoon I was at right here at my PC (about 4ft from the tank when I heard a strange sound behind me that sounded a bit like a piece of gravel hitting the glass from inside. I turned around and once again to my horror a crack had appeared on one of the front faces of the tank going from the bottom corner and heading across the glass about a foot and 2 inches high.

Bear in mind that this tank was placed in a different part of the room to the previous one.

Gutted didn't begin to describe it. I could not believe what was happening. So once again I found myself in the position of emptying the tank and putting the fish into the box. Sigh!

By this time Donna was saying that maybe we should just get rid of the fish and give up. I was at such a low point and that evening I sat in the back garden for about an hour. Just sitting quietly and feeling so down about the whole thing.

The next day I did some googling and discovered what I thought wasn't actually doable. The tanks could actually be repaired. Who'd have thought it? haha

So I bought some aquatic silicone and some glass and set about patching the 2 tanks up.

The above shot is of the 4 footer repaired and completely water tight. This now belongs to my father-in-law who we live with due to his ill health. The repair is visible but will be covered with plants.

This tank will be housing the cold water fish from the garden pond which will be filled in

The two tanks were set up again and filled with total sucess. We even built a new corner unit from 2 cabinets and some conti boards.

Okay next, I decided that as I was keeping Oscars etc I needed a larger tank. Donna said I could have whatever fitted into the alcove by the front window (the window is north facing and gets hardly any direct sunlight). As it turned out this was just the right size for a 5ft tank. Yaaay!!!

I had actually been offered a 2 tank set up (both 4 footers) from Chilton Aquatics with all the equipment and the steel shelf unit they were on. However my heart really wanted a single large tank so I put my mountain bikle on ebay to finance it and started looking. A great company called AC Aquatics from Rowlands Gill was recommended and their prices are excellent but I didn't want to have to wait 6 weeks for it to be made (they are really busy). So I searched ebay, Gumtree and Preloved with no real results that were any use to me. I finally tried the Ad Trader website and BINGO!! There, right at the top of the search results was a 5ft x 15" x 18" tank complete with unit, heater, brand new Fluval U4 fitler, gravel and even 9 Convicts and a Paradise Fish. All for the massive price of . . . £150??!!
BARGAIN!!!
We hitched up the trailer and off we went to Sunderland to collect it.

We got home and immediately set about getting things up and running. The great thing was that I already had a Fluval U4 as stated at the beginning of this blog so I now have 2 running side by side. The results are lovely clean water and a great flow too.

Now I had given myself another headache. What I hadn't known at the time was how aggressive Convict cichlids really were and at first was amused by how territorial they were, even towards each other. I thought nothing of it for a while until I checked back on the tank after a couple of hours and saw that my poor Oscar had been attacked and damaged. No wonder he was looking so nervous and hanging round the back of the tank out of the way. Totally out of character for him.

A little googling showed me that Convicts are just about the most aggressive little buggers there are (Hey, you learn as you go with a lot of things). I even saw a video on YouTube showing a Convict having a pop at an Oscar that was easily 5 times bigger. The poor Oscar looked so miserable and nervous and was making no attempt at retaliation

Really not happy now!!! I took every ornament out along with both filters so I could get a clear run at the Convicts. I got them all out (along with the Paradise Fish) and put them into the stacker box. and added the spare filter and heater and checked on them in the morning. They were all fine and so I phoned Fish Alive and explained what had happened and would they like them. Reluctantly they said yes as they don't sell as well as they used to. Hardly surprising really.

Well with the money I had left from the sale of the mountain bike I went on a shopping spree for more gravel, ornaments and fish. I am now the proud owner of a Tiger Oscar, an Albino Oscar, a Silver Shark, a Firemouth, a Jack Dempsey, a Yellow Lab, a Sunburst and two Corydoras.

Harmony has been restored to my tank and the Tiger Oscar is back to his usual puppy dog self haha.

I plan on adding a Lemon Oscar at least on more Silver Shark a catfish or two and of course a plec.

Update: 14.08.2012
Well here's a turn up for the books. We emptied the 2nd pond and put the fish into the L-shaped tank except for the rudd which are in with the platys and guppies (and getting along nicely) and one goldfish which I put in with the Oscars and other cichlids. After a little bit of "I'm the boss!!", "No, I am!!" they are now getting along like actual buddies and regularly swim around each other with no aggression whatsoever. If anything it's actually calmed the Oscar down a lot and there is never any chasing around from any of the other fish either.
As you can see there are now 3 Oscars in the tank (the Albino and the Blood Lemon Oscars are the latest additions along with 2 more Yellow Labs). I am fully aware that at some point I will need to split these guys up due to size and possible pairing up.

Some people confuse the Lemon Blood Oscar with an Albino until viewed side by side. Then the differences are immediately obvious

Update: 18.10.2012

Okay so this update has been a long time coming but log in problems have caused me to recreate this whole blog with another account.

Where to start?

Well my poor little Albino was set about by one of the Yellow Labs and was severely injured around his dorsal fin and tail. We all feared the worst for the little fella but we took him out of the 5 footer and placed him into the 4 footer and in a very short space of time all the damaged tissue had grown back and he is now happy again. We have kept him in the 4 footer with his new tank mates which include some Angels, the Rudd and a couple of Platys. This is only temporary although he has shown absolutely no signs of aggression towards any of the other fish.

If you look at the photo below you can see the area of the tail that was damaged. The white and clear area are all newly grown

Back in the 5 ft tank life is great for the other fish. They are all getting along well with no aggression that I've seen. As you can see the Oscars are growing very quickly and swim together most of the time. I have also added two Plecs since my last update.