Blueberry Bay

A journal of my aquarium from day one to finish. I originally started this on another site, though I am not satisfied with them as, continuously they edit it over petty bs. (aquariumadvise.com). Blueberry Bay is named after my House, which is blue and purple like a Blueberry. Ill post pics and dates as shown on other site in order on initial post, then update as time goes on.

Day 1: 12/10/2012

I got this tank last night and I'm gonna put together a log of how I set it up on this site. Its 75 gallons. I got it from a guy on cl for $300. It came with canister filter and other accessories. Im deffinently gonna do angels as i always liked them, but ill add other types too. Im thinking maybe a zen aqua scape theme. The gravel he gave me is brown but im gonna get white gravel.

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2 months later... 2/22/2013

I just finished making the background. I used foam board, silicon (as glue), Dry Loc (with charcoal cement colorant) as paint. I added some finer detail work with a lighter to give the foam some rougher rock like texture. The background is designed as a two filtration system, while hiding all utilities. The first filter is obviously the canister filter. the second is the back of the background will basically be an air stone filter. The design is inspired from Lava rock on a beach in Hawii.

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image-629910323.jpg Oliver helping me measure... hes a cat fish.

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image-1813378358.jpg the back is designed so fish/water can get in and out easily, also 2 caves in back.

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Cutting pieces of foam, shaving them up a bit, and gluing them in place on front.

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First coat is base cement colorant with dry lok

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Now first coat of Charcoal cement colorant and dry lok

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still painting

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all done first coat, letting it dry before second

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finally all done part 1 and 2. glued it into to tank now part 3.

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this part I did after the first part of aquarium. it only took about 3 hours. i only did it last because I ran out of silicon :/

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Because I was starting to run low on dry lok I started not seeing the point in using the base...

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All glued in :-)

After rinsing twice no residue came off.

2/22/2013: added Dolomite Gravel

The water got very cloudy from the gravel. the tank was running with water in it for the past two days and the background has held up since. I also added fake plants to the background as I thought it would break up some of the black. I would have used real plants except I wasnt sure If the roots would dig up the foam board, or if the foam was good for the roots.

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2/28/2013: Fish Time!!!!

I added some stones I had. Sodalite, Hawaiian Sand Glass, Geode tea light holder, and another Hawaiian Sand glass (dark blue). Also bought some Microsword and added a damaged Amazon sword from an old tank. it should come back as there's plenty of roots, though the leaves are choppy. Also the first batch of fish!!! a Pleco named Bob, A glofish Barb named Sunny, and a Paradise Gourami named Rizo. Also a motorcycly led light I ordered came in for a realy cool light effect... It looks better in person then pic.image-3966655347.jpg

3/1/2012: some touch ups. I added this vine from an old lizard terrarium today. The water got pretty cloudy from digging in the gravel. Nxt payday ill probably replace it with real plants, though in the mean time i think it looks great. So far the only real plant i want is Tiger Lilly... Ill keep an eye out for interesting low growing plants, suggestions are welcomed immensely. though if the dolomite didnt cloud the water the ammonia cycle certainly did.

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Later on that night I went to the pet store and got:
2- rainbow turquoise
2- boesemani rainbow
2-gourami dwarf neon
1-dwarf powder blue gourami
1-gourami flame
4- japanese algae shrimp
2- molly butterfly
4- tetra bloodfin
4-cherry shrimp
2-tiger barbs
1-blue gourami
1-gold gourami
5- porkchop rasbora
2- red tail shark
(Already added)
1- paradise gourami
1- pleco
1- glo fish barb

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More pics of fish soon to come, but this pretty much brings things up to speed

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Permalink Reply by Jessie Powers on March 4, 2013 at 6:38pm

Its been about a week since the fish arrived and only 1 Japanese Algae shrimp casualty. I gathered this was due to not having enough salt in Blueberry bay so I added a little less then a cup (75 tsp = 1.5 cups - 0.5cups= 1 cup) of Himalayan rock salt. I almost prefer this salt as it has a variety of naturally added minerals to it, and it doesn't seem to cloud the water as much as the iodized table salt so much. It is more expensive though nothing is too good for my fish. the other fish are fine, some are getting behind the back at night, and come out a little stressed. If it shows to be cause for concern I may turn the bubbles off at night so there isn't so much activity behind the tank. the ammonia levels rose yesterday to 2ppm, as to be expected, a 30%% water change brought it down to 0.5ppm. the level is holding below 1ppm so it may not be worth much concern.

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