60g River tank.

gregpape23 · 06-09-2008, 06:40 PM

A few people have asked for pics of my river tank...so here it is!

Top view ^^

trojannemo · 06-09-2008, 07:49 PM

ok that looks interesting but im having a hard time understanding things...how do the fish get around? can they go from the lower level up? why so few fish for 60G?

missfish · 06-09-2008, 08:15 PM

yeah it looks really interseting, did you build it yourself? Is it 60G as the total size of the tank or the area thats filled with water? As Trojannemo said can the neons move all over the tank or are they in a compartment all of there own?

gregpape23 · 06-09-2008, 11:39 PM

I kinda built it myself. I ordered the plastic pieces and all I had to do was silicone them to the bottom, wall, and the other pieces. It took a really long time. like 1 month. Working on it about 1hr a day. 60g is the total size of the tank. I estimate that there is about 20-25g of water.
I have experimented with different fish to see which ones are more daring to go exploring in other levels of the tank. The neons, will go in stages 1 and 2. (1 being lowest) Danios will go in almost all of the stages but have a hard time getting to the highest one (big jump), but every once in a while I will see one in there. I hear swordtails are jumpers, so I will try them. (the danios are in my planted tank right now.)
Even if the fish CAN go in other stages, it is usually easier for them to just to stay in the lower ones. Few reasons why so few fish. 1. The tank is not in a high traffic area, so no one really sees it. therefore, im not compelled to spend money on fish that I will only see when doing wc's and a few other times. 2. I just moved a few of the fish that used to be in there into my planted 10. 3. Other than neons, I really like small brightly colored fish in the river tank. they look great. But unfortunatley the only small brightly colored fish my lfs has are $13 ea.
If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!

Rychek · 06-10-2008, 09:21 AM

Ah, that's not what I had pictured at all. It's a nice looking tank though! Thanks for sharing.

trojannemo · 06-10-2008, 10:36 AM

well now that you explain it i like it less!
it's a great idea, but there's definitively room for improvement. my fiancee and i, while trying to make heads or tails of it, thought of something i think would be better.
have that same design, but in a way that from the lowest level they can go around the wall, and behind the way the water level rises until they get to the end of the tank, and it's at the level of the highest part on the front of the tank, so they dont need to jump up, just swim around...
of course, then we'd need a way of holding back the water so it doesn't fill the front of the tank...ahhh

gregpape23 · 06-10-2008, 11:00 AM

They are not really jumping from stages 1-2 and 2-3, just fighting the current. But ive never seen them get from 3-4, but i know that they have done it before. The danios really enjoy playing in between the levels, sometimes going back and forth many times.

I dont know how (neither does the company I bought it from), but water does get behind the walls, (it is supposed to) and if the fish are small, they can too. But there is no way of getting from behind one wall the behind the other. I suppose one method of allowing the fish to easily go from one stage to another would be to simply drill holes right underneath the waterfalls into the next stage. that would of course, let less water go over the water fall, but in return allow some small fish passage to higher levels.

missfish · 06-10-2008, 08:53 PM

I reckon a bigger school of neons would look excellent! They might even get the courage to move levels more often, and some more danios so they can play in the current! I reckon a few hardy aquatic plants would be good to. Give it a real natural theme. But I really like the idea, I'm thinking about doing something like that to my turtle tank.