I have a 5 gallon tank on my desk in the office. Right now it only has a single goldfish in it but I do love aquariums. I wish I had the time and money for a bigger setup and more exotic fish.

 

Many years ago I had a friend who had 3 or 4 connected fish tanks set up like a Super Mario game. All the scenery in the tank was 8 bit art and he had green pipes interconnecting the tanks. iirc each tank was set up to look like a different Mario level.

 

It was really cool. I’ve lost touch with him but he was spending a lot of time trying to design a vertical connecting tank, not the horizontal connections, for the full Mario experience.

 

Spent probably 10 years in the hobby keeping and working at a saltwater aquarium store. Really miss having a tank, but don't miss the money and time sink.

 

I used to have multiple freshwater tanks and don't miss it- it's a pain keeping up with everything. It was neat when the kids were young but eventually, nobody cares and it just becomes a time-sink and/or a money pit.

 

I don’t have a pain with my 40 gallon at all. I do 25% water changes maybe every 6 months and have basically zero weekly maintenance outside of feeding the fish and topping off the water. It’s a planted tank with a nice piece of fake drift wood in the middle, and it’s a 40 TALL so I also have the surface covered in rapidly growing plants that keep the water clean. Any water I add is straight from my well, unfiltered & untreated. Most of my maintenance is just pruning back plant overgrowth and removing dead leaves/limbs. My plants keep algae to virtually nothing.

I have [or had] a 264 GPH canister filter running it [rated for a 75 gallon tank], through a canister pre-filter, and that’s the best & easiest way to go. The pre-filter contains the sponges (the mechanical filtration), and the main canister is solely used for biological filtration (every tray is filled with ceramic rings). That way the actual water cleaning is magnified significantly, while the maintenance aspect is reduced to nothing. No having to bother with taking the canister apart when the mechanical filtration is located in the pre-filter, which is a piece of cake to clean.

Here’s the PRE-FILTER set up. The output from it goes right into the main canister filter. Only thing I need to do is rinse those sponges once a month. Main canister basically never needs to be opened.


Unfortunately my main filter was cheap and developed an unfixable leak within a year [do NOT buy SUNSUN or AQUAFLOW or anything from CLL Pet Supplies unless you want cheap main filters that break when the power goes out + zero customer support. SunSun as a pre-filter is ok though]...... so I had to resort to my backup HOB filter by itself that came with the tank. Even with that though, I still only do 25% water changes like once every 3 months thanks to the plants. I never use charcoal either. All the purifying is biological, from the ceramic rings and plants. Even with the HOB alone, I eliminated the charcoal element. There’s just a layer of filter floss, then as many ceramic rings inside a mesh bag that I can fill, and I fitted a pre-filter sponge over the intake tube inside the tank. For the HOB setup, I rinse the pre-filter sponge like once a month and rinse the filter floss maybe once every 2 months. The tank is a breeze, and I find the plant maintenance aspect to be enjoyable.


Still have all 3 glowfish Tetras I started with 3+ yrs ago, and the other 12 fish are all 2+ yrs old. Only lost a small handful of fish, and 85% of those seem to be Cory’s from the same breeder, usually Panda’s; meanwhile my Cory’s from a different source are nearly 2 yrs old.

 

I had corys for about a decade and they breeded in my tank, so about every six months I'd take them to the local pet store and trade them in for credit...that was pretty neat since they said Corys almost never breed in home tanks. Mine was like yours though- heavily planted and straight well water. The fish seemed happy anyway and we'd have to clean thoroughly maybe every month. I never researched filters though and just used the basic ones...I probably should have looked at a better setup.

For now we have 1 tall 25 gallon tank (might be a 20 or 30 as well...we can't remember) and it gets bad algae blooms about once a week. The plants are gone and we have 4 or 5 remaining fish...a few tetra variations. It's a sad tank and I tried to give it away on Craigslist but there were no takers....people wanted the tank for free but not the fish.

 

That’s really neat about the Corys! I had a pair of electric blue rams that bred a few times but by day 2 the eggs would always be gone. Total bummer. Female blue rams are the coolest. Definitely the best personalities IMO. Love how when they see you they come swimming up to the glass, acting like a dog wagging its tail when you come home. Went on vacation for 10 days; all that my 27 yr old stepdaughter had to do was turn the light on and off each day. That’s it. That’s the only maintenance the tank needs. She couldn’t even do that. Came home and both $20 rams were dead [that I had for 2 yrs], along with a reallly fu**in cool $30 koi beta. By the way that half of the plants were wilted & dying and a complete lack of any & all algae, I could tell the lights were never turned on, and it spiked the water.

Here’s a pic of the tank [well it’s my 6 yr old granddaughter’s that I got for her room]. I went inexpensive & low maintenance for his one. Pool filter sand for the bottom. Plants that all get their food from the water column so that I don’t need to worry about ferts. This is what it looks like with about 3 months of complete neglect [outside of a little bit of plant pruning].

Doing the filter the way I mentioned makes a big difference. Most people now get only the canister filter, set up the traditional way: 1 tray of filter floss or sponge; 1 tray of charcoal; 1 tray of bio media. That’s a pain in the a**, plus less effective. A) we don’t need charcoal if the tank is planted. B) hooking up a $20 pre-filter to the main filter lets you use all of the main filter for the most important duty— bio filtration. C) the pre-filter allows for a greater degree of mechanical filtration [3 layers of sponge, from coarse to fine], plus keeps all of the debris & muck out of your main filter to prevent your bio-media from getting clogged. D) it’s a snap to clean to pre-filter. E) it requires significantly less opening & closing of your main filter, greatly reducing the risk of accidental breakage or leakage, the latter of which is a massive PIA.

I wanna get a 125+ and really go all out with it.

 

I've always had at least one tank going. Right now, just have a 30 and a 15. The key is definitely investing in a high quality filter. I have a canister filter for both tanks. might be overkill for the 15, but it reduces maintenance dramatically

 

Sweet. I wanna get some cherry shrimp for mine.... if they could remain uneaten. Love the Corys. I’m sure they’ll appreciate you providing them more buddies. I like the Julii’s. They don’t lose their color the way the peppered do.

I just added a school of neon tetras to mine, plus a synodontis cat [but he likes to hide a lot], and 3 female bettas [they’re a bunch of fun, highly recommended].