My girlfriend and I have set up our first aquarium together (this my second one, first for her). It has only been about 4 days since this tank was started but it’s off to a good start!
It is a 35 Gallon Hagen tank, with a custom glass lid, with a 30” Marina light fixture with a Power-Glow bulb. For filtration we are using a Penguin 330 Bio-wheel filter, and for heating we are using a Jäger 150W aquarium heater. The setup is sitting on a beautiful Geometrik stand (made here in Canada!) This tank is located in my room at the foot of my bed, and looks absolutely beautiful while sitting and reading, or doing work on my laptop.
The tank has been up and running for 4 days now, and is progressing nicely! I let the tank run for 24-48 hours before adding 3 Zebra Danios, and 3 Blue Danios to the tank to help advance the Nitrogen cycle. I am testing the tank daily with a Nutrafin Master test kit, and everything looks great! PH started at 8.0, and has now dropped to 7.8 by day four, Nitrite levels are at 0.1 at day four, the first sign of any nitrites since startup, and ammonia is at 0.0, stable since day 1. The water is moderately hard at the moment with a Carbonate Hardness of 80mg/L. I hope all my test results look normal to you guys, since based on my research it looks like it’s off to a good start to me!
The tank is only lightly decorated for now, my Girlfriend (Brittany) and I are planning on going on a few trips over the next few months and are hoping to pick up different decorations from each place we visit. So for now there is an artificial piece of Coral, along with some beautiful red Lava Rock, and various artificial plants. We will also be going to pick out our first few fish in about 3-4 weeks from now, most likely a few matured Gouramis, and eventually a handful of Clown Loaches as well as an algae eater, and possibly some sort of crab to add a little variety.
Please let me know what you think!
