[AdeDunn]

Couldn't think of a better title than that. Basically I'm turning my 180 litre octagonal that was originally an aquarium, then a vivarium:-

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Back into an aquarium. Given that when I converted it I attached Gorilla Glue + Xaxim covered polytyrene panels to the back and sides using aquarium silicone, it's a LOT of hard work. Doesn't help that this crazy tank is just over 70cm deep, and on a tall cabinet stand. Oh and is incredibly heavy. lol

Work so far:-

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Taking the day off today, as not feeling too well plus I'm exhausted from working on this yesterday.

[odin]

Oh wow you really have your work cut out on that one! I'm not jealous at all haha. Yeah i'm feeling a bit under the weather and tired and i think its just something doing the rounds.

[AdeDunn]

Yeah, I wasn't sure I wanted to tackle it to be honest, but at the end of the day it's too expensive a tank to just leave sat or to get rid of. Playing with the idea of doing a marine shrimp setup in this one, undecided though as been so big it'd take more live rock and sand than a smaller tank. Whatever I decide I'm probably going to cover the back with black waterfall foam as the clear silicone on there isn't coming off. Managed to get the black off on one side, and the brown is coming off ok on the other side, but the clear is flat refusing so I'll just use it as a key for the foam to keep it on the tank. If I do go marine it'll soon be covered in coraline algae anyway, and if I don't it'll just look like a black background, so win win.

The hardest part is going to be getting the rubbish out of the bottom, and rinsing it out. As I mentioned it's VERY deep and incredibly heavy, the glass is incredibly thick.

[odin]

Think you deserve a beer or 3 after tackling that job.

[AdeDunn]

Funny you should say that, I drank a couple of Corona Extra the night I started this. lol

[odin]

What did you keep in this before?

[AdeDunn]

Ahhh, now there's the question!

It began life housing black tiger shrimp, or was supposed to. At various times it also housed chilli rasbora and some lovely small rainbowfish. Never really worked out though to be honest, nothing lasted long in there for some reason (I now suspect that that reason was the poor surface area to volume ratio).

I then converted it into a vivarium, and for a long time it housed poison dart frogs. I quite that hobby last year though as it just proved too darned expensive! Was quite a viv though, I even used it for products tests of Arcadia Reptile's Earth Mix substrate before it came on the market, and I was sent a Jungle Dawn Grow and Glow that I was sent from the US as I had a good rep for testing and reviewing new products that I tested on there too.

Anyway, think I have some pics of the froggy inhabitants that were in this tank at various times (not together).

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[odin]

Ahhh cool, are they difficult to look after?

[AdeDunn]

Yes and no. You don't have to faff around with water chemistry etc like you do with shrimp, so in that respect no. However they only eat very small live insects (ie. fruit flies), which means culturing them in large numbers. All it takes is for your cultures to all crash and you have starving frogs pretty quickly. Sure you can order new seed cultures, but often these arrive either freshly made or on the cusp of crashing too. I did ok for years, I'd found a good source of clean seed cultures and my cultures were doing well too. Then I had to start getting seed cultures from other sources and these introduced both mould and mites into the ones I was making, causing crash after crash after crash, leaving me having to buy more and more cultures to try to keep my frogs going.

One or two vivs with them in is manageable, I had a BIG collection though, so when I ran out of money and it all started to go wrong it went VERY wrong. Then there are the frogs that seem to just drop dead for no apparent reason.... Heart breaking.

My advice to anyone considering trying dart frogs is keep to 1 or 2 vivs of them, or just stick with shrimp and avoid the heartbreak.

[odin]

Yeah, I wasn't sure I wanted to tackle it to be honest, but at the end of the day it's too expensive a tank to just leave sat or to get rid of.

I know the feeling, i have 2 spare tanks im not using as ive got no room to set them up but i just refuse to bin them.. I'm hoping to have a shed at some point that i can have all my tanks in and get a rack!