55 Gallon Tank - Journal Type... Thing

So last Thursday I drug out the 55gallon tank I've had sitting in my dining room for several months. I set it up in my driveway and filled it up, to see if she held water still... I figured since it went from being in use to just sitting in my dining room it should be fine. And it was! It's still sitting out there, no leaks or anything. The next step is emptying it and bringing it inside, adding the substrate, and filling it up again and getting it going!

Here are some pics of it filling for it's test run:



My dog, Karly, wants to know exactly why we are doing this...


Tank is all filled up... She still doesn't get it. LOL


And here are some of the "stuff" I have for it...


We have a tombstone maker in town and he always has bits and pieces of broken stones.

I got the plants from Michael's, LOL. I had wanted to do a planted tank but it's just not plausable for me to maintain this size of a planted tank with my schedule/experience. Though in the future I would love to at least attempt a smaller planted tank.



I'm not sure what I want to stock with, or anything really... Just tropical freshwater is all I know for sure, haha!

nice start, what you using for substrate?

Looks like common playsand. I hate the area I live in, you can't find anything worth finding, that's for sure.

nice!!!
cant wait to see wat u end up puttin in their!1
also wanna see how them plants look in the tank lol

I dunno what to stock with yet...

What are your ideas?

Looks like your off to a great start!
I think planted tanks are very easy and require less maintenance than non planted.
What method are you using to cycle the tank?

I'd like to find some bio-spira but on a recent trip to the "fish store" I couldn't find it. Naturally. :P So I'm going to take some water and filter media from a friend's established tank and put it in mine, and cycle it that way. I'm hoping it won't take *too* long to do it that way.

The cycle in a bottle stuff is a waste of money, Bumming old filter media is the best and easiest way to do it. Just feed the tank a pinch of cheap flake food every day till your levels even out, then a big water change and sand vacuuming and your ready for a few fish. Just add the new fish slow, like 3-4 a week.

I think the dog wants to bathe in that tank, LOL

You think I should just forgo the water and just get the filter media? My friend normally runs two HOB filters and replaced one of hers with the filter I'm going to use with mine, then I was going to take my filter back home and start running it in the tank. Do you think that will be good enough or should I grab water too?

Cheap fish food, noted. I have to get another kit I think, this one doesn't register ammonia! Kind of need that one, LOL.

I also need to grab a gravel cleaner (fancy syphon I guess!) for cleaning the sand... I hate myself for getting rid of so much stuff! *meh*

I think I should also set up this 15 gallon I have in storage for quarantine. Only thing is it doesn't have a lid. Hmmm. I should look into that.

The tetra laborette is a good test kit, it runs about $25, much cheaper than most.

To easily siphon and clean sand get a big fat one, that will allow the sand to fall back down and the wastes to get sucked up, nothing fancy needed

You don't need to get old tank water if your getting a well seeded filter, how long has it been on your friends tank?
Borrowing some decor if you can will also help, the good bacteria live on most surfaces of the tank as well as the filter, I think if you can borrow some decor with some large surface area you could probably go ahead and put 2 small fish in there. But if not....
To easily cycle the tank just add a pinch of fish food a day till the ammonia is 0 and the other 2 in the acceptable range then a good water change then 2-3 hardy fish.

For dechlorinator I like Prime the best, its got the most bang per buck

Tanks only need lids if you have jumpers in them, out of my 20 some odd tanks I only have one with a lid on it.

Just rinse out the 15g and set it somewhere, it wont need water in it till your QT-ing someone. Just keep the filter for it running on your main tank so that its well seeded for when you need it and when you are done with it wash it out very well with chlorinated tap water to kill any evil critters and put it back on the main tank.

The filter has been running in there for about a month, month and a half nearly. Is that long enough? It'll probably be in there another week until I get the tank moved indoors. I still need to set up the stand and wash playsand. Do you think 100 pounds of sand is enough?

I did pick up a bottle of Prime, glad now I went with that route! :D

Thanks for all that info, I really do appreciate it!! I am so excited to get this thing going.

Still undecided as to what to put in it... I just am not drawn to anything in particular yet I guess!

50lbs will be plenty.
Don't get the filter till you know what fish you want, Its ready to support 3 small fish.

i take it you are doing freshwater???

You bet. I plan on moving in a year, probably not the best time to set up saltwater. One day, though, I definitely am.

Nice keep the pics coming. CUTE DOG!