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Aquired: Empty 55 gallon tank. Now what? Answer: Frogs.
Skoal Cat
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Just as the thread title says. I have an empty 55 gallon tank with a nice stand and I'm open to all suggestions. Courtesy of my pops, it came with the nessesary aquarium doo dads (filters etc). I've had fish tanks before and can go either way on doing it again. I had good reptile contacts and I have some fish/coral contacts to work with. Pictures of ideas would be awesome.
I've kind of been wanting to do a large tank filled with a school of tetras or other small fish.
Update below: Probably going with froggies.
I've kind of been wanting to do a large tank filled with a school of tetras or other small fish.
Update below: Probably going with froggies.
Skoal Cat on
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Here are some easy (and fun) reptiles for either.
Horizontal: http://www.boatips.com/images/corn%20snake.jpg
Elaphe Guttata, commonly known as a corn snake. They are cute as the Dickens and a really easy beginner snake.
Vertical: http://snakebuddies.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/tree-boa.jpg
Corallus Caninus, commonly known as the Emerald Tree Boa (They can be tempermental, so I wouldn't recommend them to a beginner.)
Pretend to everybody that there are fish in there, and see how long you can keep up the charade. Cheaper than real fish, and arguably as entertaining.
Or an axolotl - look, he's smiling!
If you're considering fish, hit up fishforums.net and read up a bit on fishless cycling, and weekly maintenance (there's stickies in the newbie forum there). Very, very few pet stores will give you useful advice on getting the tank established or week to week maintenance, and "very, very few" drops to "pretty much none" in most of the US. A lot of that info is mentioned in the fish thread here, but it's a bit more organized on that site. I know you've mentioned having tanks before, but if you're iffy on doing it again it might be worth seeing if there were things you could do to make it all easier and more sustainable. It's pretty mind boggling initially, but I'll be honest: a 55 is pretty much the best tank you can go with. It's big enough that you can do virtually anything with it, and it's still small enough that weekly maintenance is a matter of an hour or less.
Have you had reptiles before? Snakes in general are pretty easy - 55 gallons is big enough for anything but the biggest monsters, really. My 4 foot kingsnake is in a 15 gallon and it's big enough that he's had rats evade him for a few hours before he finally nails them. As for lizards, desert reptiles are the easiest to get into. Generally hardier and more fault tolerant. I've been interested in getting a uromastyx for a while, since they're vegetarian and I got tired of how much my leopard gecko costs to feed.
55 is a good size for 4-5 of them. And they are awesome. The tank didn't come with a chiller, did it? What sort of climate do you live in?
If you're not willing to do SW then I am going to advise you no to doing a planted tank. But for cool tanks ideas, http://www.designsbynature.net/products-page/ has cool shit.
No matter what, even with all the shit, doing a cool tank of that size is gonna cost you a few dollars or a lot of effort. Sorta gotta pick one. Unless you're happy with a ghetto tank (Like I am). If you do hella did Axolotls, it is 200$ for the chiller, then you're good for prettymuch ever as they don't need much. That AND your water changes will be easier cause you only need to half fill the tank, they care about the footprint rather than height.
Here is a very well done tank builder calculator, though yeah, I mean. If you're GOOD, you can get away with a lot of shit.
http://www.aqadvisor.com/
editedit: If you want to throw the tank up on it's side vertically and stick a mesh door on it you can do a really cool crested gecko tank.
That Designs By Nature stuff, is that stuff for the back wall of the tank that doesn't look like a giant sticker?
http://www.bigalsonline.com/searchResults.mtw?query=chiller
You really just buy it and then it is done. You can get them second hand for cheaper. Can you check what sort of filters you have??
Are you looking for low maintenance? Some leopard gecko setups are fucking awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a244JCEIQHs&feature=fvwrel
There are entire how to walkthroughs. This site is particularily good: http://www.lizard-landscapes.com/
Leo's come in cool Morphs too. You may want to try going to a reptile show (Sellers, tables, etc etc) and seeing what people have, asking questions?
Or you can buy a python, which hooks up to a sink-tap. But. Still. It is NOT a passive hobby. Two hours a week should be good, but expect your initial set up to be more than that because you need to be doing daily/every other day chemical testing as your tank cycles. Google Aquarium cycling.
Most fish don't really groove on 90 degree water. They prefer steady temperatures. I have never had to do it because I live in Canadeh where it is pretty fucking temperate and I just need a heater.
http://www.aquariumlife.net/articles/aquarium-care/101.asp <--- hot water tips
At 90, for most general aquarium fish, yeah. 90% of what you get in stores has been inbred in controlled conditions for hundreds of generations, they're not as fluctuation tolerant as they once were.
However, many amazon fish would be an option. Standard angelfish may be iffy (mass breeding), but altums and leopoldi angels are pretty tolerant of temperatures in the 85-90 range. Discus can take that kind of heat, too (get locally bred ones, especially if they were bred in untreated water - discus are hard to get settled in if you have hard water), but they're expensive and not really a fault tolerant fish. Also, discus hate their owners. Keep one alone, it goes on a hunger strike and stresses to death. Keep them in a group and they fight constantly. I had a big one systematically wipe out the other 10 in their shoal starting with the smallest, and then when they were alone, they stopped feeding because they really stress out if they don't have the safety of a shoal.
Also, most of the deep bodied tetras and some Lake Malawi cichlids (not sure about Victorians, but definitely stay away from Tanganyikans). Cardinal tetras could probably take it, since they haven't been mass bred for very long, and they're from very hot native waters. Neon tetras are from the same area, but mass breeding has made them very sensitive little guys.
Denisoni barbs (aka Roseline sharks) are extreme heat, probably the best bet for those temperatures since many are wild caught, but they've become almost impossible to find - they were harvested near extinction before captive breeding was well established, so after the big boom of them a few years ago you can't get them very easily.
Edit: Tossing in there, a native fish tank is always interesting, and you can usually keep them at ambient temperatures no problem, even if it gets hot. Check your state laws for collection guidelines, but once you get them home, there's next to zero enforcement of state laws that would make keeping them illegal. I have a few local fish that I caught in season with barbless hooks and brought home in a bucket. They're illegal for the three months of the year you can't catch them, but the only point of enforcement is the DNR water patrols.
On the other hand, it's also always an experiment - not many North American fish are in the aquarium hobby, so knowledge of how they adjust to captivity or how to care for them is pretty limited. I can tell you not to even try with bass - they will promptly freak out and beat themselves to death against the glass.
Is this an over-the-back filter? I'd either add a second one on the other half of the tank, or get a canister for a 55 (assuming this is a standard 48x12 55). Fluval has some nice affordable options - my 55 runs on a 405, I think. Over-the-back filters don't do that well getting horizontal flow, I had pretty consistent water quality problems even with an extended capacity Aquaclear filter supposedly rated for 115 gallons, but had no problem running a 55 with two of them. The Fluval is just a lot less visible equipment in the tank, and also less noisy.
If you're prone to power outages at any time of the year, the wheels are also a potential issue - they're good for getting oxygen to a large bacterial colony, but if the water stops, the wheel stops. Most filters will stay full of water, in which case the bacteria won't start dying off for a day or so, but dry they'll be pretty much gone in a few hours. If you're home, just pull the wheel off and drop it in the tank. I keep my filters on a computer UPS - you'd be surprised how long one of those can run a tank.
Note, the carbon cartridge, you can really do without. They're a borderline scam by the filter companies to get repeat purchases out of owners. The carbon gets saturated very quickly (a matter of hours in some cases, usually 1-3 days, in any case much more quickly than they suggest replacing it), and most of the time isn't removing anything worth removing. Use them when needed - removing medicine after a treatment for example. Regular use just ends up costing money.
THE COLORS DUKE, THE COLORS!
I spoke to one of my reptile friends and he got me looking into Paludariums
Half land half water, perfect... right? We were talking about designs and he was also thinking we could caulk a plexi divider in the tank and make a little pool type area which would give some solid ground for stuff to walk on.
So, thoughts on frogs? What colorful pet breeds are there? Anything I should know going ahead? Thoughts on a paludarium or other semi-aquatic set up? My reptile guy told me he could find me a breeder if I worked out ahead of time what I was looking for.
I have a feeling that these things are somewhat high-maintenance. Though they do look pretty cool.
but damn
a nice frog tank is prettymuch a show piece of itself and then when you get the frogs it's sort of just like whatever
I would recommend carving out the tank from something then covering it in something waterproof. There are lots of guides on shit like this. Do you intend for it to be fish-worthy water? Rather than doing a whole water bottom you could just do a waterfall.
Depends on the type of frog.
Most of the tree frogs posted earlier need trees and stuff to climb on. The more vertical space they've got the happier they'll be.
On the other hand, a pacman frog doesn't really do much in the way of climbing (or moving for that matter). On the downside, pacman frogs will eat pretty much anything that's smaller then them and will try to eat anything they think is smaller then they are. So, not the best base for a community tank.
What are some breeds I should consider?
I love the look of live plants and have kept them fairly well in aquariums. Is this going to be significantly harder in a frog tank?
Should I carve things to climb, or should I get actual branches etc?
Should I just go to a good reptile store?
From what I researched while I was interested in getting a tree frog as a pet, the White's tree frog is a good bet for a starter. It's fairly widely available, and pretty hardy and tends to be more affordable then most other breeds, though it does tend to be less colorful. It's also large enough that you'll be able to find it if it escapes before it turns into a bit of jerky.
Plant wise, I'd imagine tropical plants would be pretty easy to keep in a frog tank, since plants and frogs like a lot of the same stuff. Good light, good heat, high humidity etc... Also, the frogs aren't likely to be munching on the plants, so, that's a plus.
If you've got the space to put in a hand carved frog climbing wall in your tank, I'd say go for it if you can minimize the splinters. Include some natural branches in the tank as well. Between those and the live plants it should give your frog space to hide and variety for climbing.
I want to add that it's been years since I was actively researching frogs as potential pets so my information may be out of date or poorly remembered.
If you've got one nearby, good reptile store is a great place to start and a wonderful resource. A bad reptile store is worse then nothing though, so check the place out before you drop to much cash.
Time to start designing!
I guess some land frogs don't need much, but tree frogs want to climb and hide. I also want something that looks fucking gorgeous, so I am definitely doing more than one would "need" to.
No don't listen to anyone!!!!!
I have frogs. I have frogs on frogs (literally they are breeding)
You want cute little frogs, you say? DART FROGS!!!
I have a breeding pair of Dendrobates tinctorius "cobalt blue"
and a red eyed treefrog.
The red eye is hells of narcoleptic, and you never ever see him out and about. He's cute when he's asleep, don't get me wrong, but that's the only time I ever see him.
The darts on the other hand are always out and about begging for food. Yeah you heard it, these pigs hop up and down in front of the glass watching me, waiting for me to get some food in front of them.
Frogs do require live food, which means, for red eyes, a trip to the cricket store, or dart frogs, breeding wingless fruit flies in mason jars at home.
Oh yeah, and they don't climb glass, so you don't have to worry about the frogs getting loose in your house.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
They cast a shadow like a sundial in the morning light. It was half past 10.
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