Aquarium Beginnings

My current 75 Gallon started out it's humble beginnings as a 10 gallon hex tank that I had bought back in the mid 90's when I lived at home. I had set it up once and could only keep fish alive a maximum of 6 months. had I known what I know now, those same fish would have lived up to 5 years. I was discouraged and packed the tank up and put it in storage.

Flash forward to about 2004, when I rediscovered the aquarium in storage and my aquarium fever started all over again. This time for the long haul.

Many of it's inhabitants are over 3 1/2 years old and doing quite well.

2004 - 10 gallon hex

This is my aquarium that I used about 10 years prior when I lived with my parents as a teen. I kept Tiger Barbs in it and they didn't do too well, only lasting about 6 months. I didn't know about water changes or chemicals or anything like that at the time. After the last of the fish died off, I just put it in storage.

Halfway through 2004 I rediscovered this aquarium while cleaning out some storage space. I decided to set it back up. My wife and I put it in the living room next to our TV and stocked it with a few Tiger Barbs.

I look back now and cringe at the decorations in this tank.

2005 - 29 gallon

Just less than  a year later, a friend gave me his 29gal aquarium, which I setup in my home office. I started learning a lot about fish at this point and started purchasing more fish to learn about and enjoy. The Tiger Barbs moved to the 29gal and I put the 10gal Hex back into storage.

I started purchasing more fish at this point. A few of the fish that I purchased turned into a learning experience and should have never been put in such a small tank, nor kept together with some of the other fish. But this is what part of learning is all about since the pet stores know very little about the livestock they sell. I made my purchases mainly from PetSmart.

I love the beach, palm trees and all things tropical, thus the theme that I had started. I was going for islands in a blue sea theme.

Fish included the Tiger Barbs from the previous tank, and new tank mates were a Pleco, Clown Loaches, Bala Sharks and Rainbow Sharks.

2006a - 55 gallon

I had decided I wanted to upgrade again late in 2005 and go with a nicer setup. I turned this into what I wanted to get for Christmas and my Birthday for 2006 and just asked for cash from everyone.

A few months later, we found the stand that we wanted and I went ahead and purchased a new 55 gallon aquarium to go with it, along with all new filters and pumps.

My taste started to change for the new aquarium. I still liked the tropical theme, but wanted to now add a "beach" to the theme. Also, for the first time I added some river rock to create some caves for my loaches. The rocks came from a dried river bed in Zion National Park.

2006b - 55 gallon

I was now trying to care more about my fish than the way the aquarium was decorated, so I started adding more rocks and caves. This was kind of an ugly period in the evolution of my aquarium as various themes were being mixed now.

Some new inhabitants during this time were YoYo Loaches, a Border Loach and a Peacock Eel.

2007 - 55 gallon

In 2007 we moved to a new house. I decided that since I had to completely setup the aquarium all over again that I would go with a much more natural setup than I had ever done before. I was given quite a bit of river rock and cut slabs from a friend's family rock quarry, which I used to create a more natural environment for the fish.

The move went well, I only had one causality  and my Bala Shark got an infection due to jumping out of the bucket multiple times during the move, but he healed just fine with some meds in the water.

2008a - 75 gallon

Our stand could accommodate up to a 75 gallon aquarium, so  I started looking for one due to the fact that several of my fish had simply outgrown the 55gal. My Bala Shark, Clown Loaches and the Pleco were all close to 8-9" in size and needed more space. Also, I was about to adopt quite a few fish from a friend that was moving out of state and could not take the fish with them.

I started searching Craigslist and found a 75 Gallon aquarium that I picked up cheap. The tank turned out to be an older O'Dell model that was 1/2" thick glass (drillable, Hrmm future mods?).

I had been wanting to switch to sand for a long time and decided now was the time. I decided to clean the rest of my river rock I had collected from various places. These places included a friend's family quarry (gray and rough cut), Grand Canyon (reds, oranges and yellows) and Pigeon River (black and smooth pieces) in the Smoky Mountains. The substrate is just sandbox play sand from the local hardware store, which I found out I can safely use after doing quite a bit of research on the subject.

A friend came over after work one day and in an hour or so we quickly had the entire tank upgraded from the 55 gallon to the 75 gallon and all the fish survived (except one). The Bala Shark had also become infected again due to jumping out of the bucket again, but is now OK after being treated.

I had also upgraded to new filtration and removed all air pumps from the tank.

Added to the tank were a few adopted fish from a friend that included Clown Loaches, a small pleco, hatchet fish, a black skirt tetra, rummy nose tetras and a pair of cory cats.

2008b - 75 gallon

I decided to add some powerheads for the fish to swim in since the majority of them come from swift moving streams and rivers. They immediately took to the current, especially the tiger barns and all of the loaches.

The current was washing some of the sand out from under the rocks causing massive cave ins. Because of this, I decided to rearrange the rocks a bit to accommodate for this.

I am not happy with the way it currently looks and will be redoing all the rocks and adjusting the powerheads again in the near future.

My goal is to create a completely natural looking river/stream environment for the fish to enjoy.

2007c - 75 gallon

I quickly realized after adding a new light to my tank that it encouraged extreme plant growth, which included algae. My rocks had turned a dark green and was looking pretty nasty. Most of the rocks had fallen from where they were originally placed and it was looking in sad shape.

I decided to simplify the look of the tank and give the fish some more room to swim about. It looks pretty sparse right now so I may add some more rocks back in to fill it out a bit.

 

Timeline