Happyfeets 55gal

happyfeet

happyfeet

Member
I know I posted a while ago about my tank and my bet to make one for under 500 bucks.
Well I finished, it's done cycling and currently supporting life.
Final Tally
Tank - $100
Stand - $50
Rock - Free - included with tank
Overflow box - $25
Skimmer - $25
Sand - $20
PVC Piping - $20
Lighting - $120
20gal Sump - Free, had a extra tank lying around
Powerheads - 5 bucks each, stumbled across them BRAND NEW in box at a yardsale still in the plastic.
Mag 9.5 - $70
Mag float - $10
Total $450
I cycled the tank and the cycle ended after 1 week, I thought to myself "No ways it's done", so I poured in some ammonia and spiked it way up there, and I woke up two days later to 0 Ammonia and a quickly falling Nitrite reading. Once all my params hit 0 I stocked it with 4 Blue Green Chromis and after a week they were still doing fine so I added some more livestock.
I'm on its 3rd week.
Currently its stocked with
4 Blue Green Chromis,
1 Pistol Shrimp,
1 Yellow Goby,
5 Blue legged Hermit Crabs,
10 assorted snails,
1 Feather Duster
Current Params are:
Specific Gravity, 1.024 - Going to raise it slowly up to 1.026 over the next couple of days
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - .5
Phosphate -.25
Ph - 8.2
Temp - 79
So far the only deaths have been 1 Emerald Crab, and I'm pretty sure the other one died too, but I haven't been able to find its corpse.
I apologize I don't have the best Camera in the world.

Here is my yellow goby

my Blue Green Chromis

My main filtration, Turf Algae Scrubber. This picture was taken during the first week of the tank, the scrubber is just a completely brown mat right now.
 
posiden

posiden

Active Member
That tank looks nice.
IIRC, you will want to clean your screen more often while it is in the slimey, brown matt phase. Like every couple days.
Did you ever get the flushing figured out all the way?
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
$450.00!!! Well done...
What good fortune on those new power heads. Someone had no idea what they had, $5.00 each!!
 
happyfeet

happyfeet

Member
Originally Posted by Posiden
http:///forum/post/3159146
That tank looks nice.
IIRC, you will want to clean your screen more often while it is in the slimey, brown matt phase. Like every couple days.
Did you ever get the flushing figured out all the way?
I got it figured out enough, I put some more water in the sump and all noise ceased so I never bothered replumbing the whole thing. If I'm feeling active down the road I probably will try a new plumbing scheme, but this one is working just fine now.
 
happyfeet

happyfeet

Member
Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3159168
$450.00!!! Well done...
What good fortune on those new power heads. Someone had no idea what they had, $5.00 each!!
No kidding, at the very same yardsale there was a bunch of other saltwater tank stuff, including a 150 gallon tank and a beautiful wooden stand/canopy. Evidently all the stuff she was selling was her sons who died in the war. I wanted to buy the Tank, but evidently someone already snatched it up and was looking for a truck to haul it

The tank sold for 50 dollars
 
skate020

skate020

Member
OMG dude, im not joking, i've got a 23g, barely anything really in it, and i've spent like £700 on it, thats like $1200 or so?
dude, you have someing special to be able to find all that for under $450, nice work
 
happyfeet

happyfeet

Member
I've gotten a lot of people telling me that haha. One of the guys from my local club came over to see my "budget tank" and was absolutely amazed that it didn't look shitty.
Which was a compliment... I think.
 
happyfeet

happyfeet

Member
Well everything WAS going great until the other night. I noticed my feather duster puking, my emerald crabs dying, and my hermits being very lethargic.
My Chromis and Goby were acting funny, can't explain it, just not being themselves.
Water Readings keep reading fine
After narrowing down and narrowing down the problem I finally figured out what happened.
I noticed that about the same time I got my cockroach problem (Neighbors apartment is infested because he is a slob, they are coming through the walls into mine) I noticed the fish not doing well and a bunch of deaths. Like within the same day this happened.
I started thinking what I did differently that day, and aside from feeding twice (neighbors kid wanted to see) nothing had been done differently. I realized that I had done something in the home I don't normally do. I zapped a bunch of Cockroaches with RAID, in the kitchen.
After doing some research I've found that releasing the chemicals at a high pressure causes some of the particles to become airborne. They traveled out of my kitchen and propelled by the ceiling fan in the hall made it to my fish tank, wreaking havoc.
So lesson learned NEVER USE RAID IF YOU HAVE A FISHTANK
I'm just really glad I found out now and not a year or two down the line.
On the bright side the Yellow Goby and the Chromis seem to be doing a lot better now, the feather duster is on its last leg and the hermit are on the fence. Snails seem to be doing better they are moving again, but everything else is dead.
 
posiden

posiden

Active Member
Well.................Oops.
I will tell you, depending on the type of roach you are trying to kill. Raid or any other "spray" at the local hardware shop will only make things worse. If it is the German roach, within a month you will have almost twice as many as you started with. Treatment must be done right. So, ID the little bugger and treat it the right way. I am not trying to lecture you, I am just telling you how it works.
 
happyfeet

happyfeet

Member
Originally Posted by Posiden
http:///forum/post/3160366
Well.................Oops.
I will tell you, depending on the type of roach you are trying to kill. Raid or any other "spray" at the local hardware shop will only make things worse. If it is the German roach, within a month you will have almost twice as many as you started with. Treatment must be done right. So, ID the little bugger and treat it the right way. I am not trying to lecture you, I am just telling you how it works.
No kidding? This is my first time dealing with them, I called in the experts and so far I haven't seen anymore at all. They put down a paste type poison so it wouldn't go airborn and cause anymore damage.
Side note, The tank has reentered the initial cycle. The RAID killed all my algae, my Macro Algae seems to have lived, but all of my other Algaes and the Bacteria that converts Nitrite to Nitrate has been killed. As a result Ammonia is reading 0 but Nitrite is going up and up and up. Trying to do water changes to keep up, but I just can’t do that many water changes that fast.
Very disheartening first foray into the hobby.
 
posiden

posiden

Active Member
Originally Posted by Happyfeet
http:///forum/post/3161567
No kidding? This is my first time dealing with them, I called in the experts and so far I haven't seen anymore at all. They put down a paste type poison so it wouldn't go airborn and cause anymore damage.
Side note, The tank has reentered the initial cycle. The RAID killed all my algae, my Macro Algae seems to have lived, but all of my other Algaes and the Bacteria that converts Nitrite to Nitrate has been killed. As a result Ammonia is reading 0 but Nitrite is going up and up and up. Trying to do water changes to keep up, but I just can’t do that many water changes that fast.
Very disheartening first foray into the hobby.
When I first got out of high school I killed bugs for a living. If things are the same, which I dbout they are. The paste is called max force. It is great stuff. It is the only bait that we used at the time I was an exterminator. We didn't use it for the "water bugs" which are roaches,that are living outside of the home. We only used it for the german and the brown banded.
Bummer about the tank. Although it is better now then latter when it is full of the expensive stuff.
 
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