Aquariums...anyone?

[bkohlman]

I am a 5th grade teacher and have two aquariums in my classroom. One of them the students take care of completely, including having to raise funds, clean, and decide what type of fish. The other is mine, with a bluegill/sunfish hybrid that I have had for about 2 years. Anyone else have aquariums?

[Bluebasser86]

Used to have a big 55 gallon aquarium with a flathead catfish that started out as a little 4.5" fish and ended up over 2lbs before I had to turn it loose. Also had a soft shelled turtle the size of a silver dollar and two longnose gar between 6-9 inches. It was a really fun tank to have and watch how they interacted but man it was expensive to keep! It takes a really expensive filter to keep the water clean and it's crazy how much that flathead and those gar can eat! It was nothing for them to go through a couple dozen minnows a day. Thankfully the turtle was happy munching hotdogs so he was a little cheaper to keep. The flathead got too big so I put it back in the lake it came out of and the gar shocked out changing the water one day so it's at my parents house with regular aquarium fish in it now.

[bkohlman]

Nice.....I hope to get a few other small native kansan fish.

[Tuckahoe Joe]

Not me but my brother had a 55 gallon salt water aquarium. Don't know the names but he had a whole bunch of differnet kinds of fish, hermitt crabs, corals, and other things. It was really cool but saltwater gets expensive and it takes a lot of work. If your tempeture or Ph is off by even a little, you can end up with a tank full of dead fish. And some of those fish run 40-50 bucks a piece and sometimes more.

[clayton86]

We used to have a 46 gal bow front with 2 albino oscars and a Florida gar and then a 55 gal with a large mouth bass in it. They were fun to have but pricy to feed and keep clean especially the oscars they are filthy. I traded the 46 gal for a Remington 1100 20ga a few years ago and sold the 55 gal for 200 cash I paid less then 200 for both tanks fully set up!

heres some pics of the bow front don't have pics of the bass

[Bluebasser86]

We used to have a 46 gal bow front with 2 albino oscars and a Florida gar and then a 55 gal with a large mouth bass in it. They were fun to have but pricy to feed and keep clean especially the oscars they are filthy. I traded the 46 gal for a Remington 1100 20ga a few years ago and sold the 55 gal for 200 cash I paid less then 200 for both tanks fully set up!

heres some pics of the bow front don't have pics of the bass

Them gar can really eat can't they! I was amazed how much my two little long nose gar could put away.

[clayton86]

the gar actually only usually ate 1 or 2 feeder fish but I think its cuz them oscars would pack 10 in there mouth at once and steal them out of the gars mouth so he would get what ever was left once the oscars mouths were full of fish.

[scaleface]

I had them and use to stock native fish in it. Bass, Bluegill, Sturgeon, Drum, Crappie ,Channel Cats, bullheads,Crawdads all shared the aquarium and most of the time were not good mates. The bluegills actually sucked the eyeballs out of the sturgeons . Every time Id introduce a new fish Id also introduce a new parasite. Then I stocked it with different minnows. Darters , Top minnows , and others.

It was fun but a pain to keep clean. Now it has a plant growing in it.

[Hi Salenity]

I still have aquariums but they are all salt. I have downsized a lot. I used to have a 6' in-wall that was the headboard of my bed that was really cool!

This is a pic I just took with my phone. It needs cleaned.

[Hi Salenity]

LOL I just noticed the fish are hiding.

[bkohlman]

My students love "Barbie the Bluegill" and always are asking me to catch a "Ken"

[MrBadGuy]

i´v got an aquarium with african bass from the malawi lake.Very beautiful fish.My aquarium has 92,5 gallon. it#s an corner aquarium.

[J Francho]

I used to do a couple marine, and a bunch of cichlid tanks. Liked to keep a live planted aquarium around too. Too much work with kids, and I can't seem to do with just one. here's some pics of the reef.

[7mm-08]

Currently I have 6 tanks with African cichlids. In the past I've kept tropicals and native fish such as bluegill and warmouth. The warmouth may have been my favorite fish ever but it got too expensive to feed. It could easily down a dozen feeder goldfish a night if I'd let it.

[Bankbeater]

Not since I was a little kid.

[bassin is addicting]

at one time i had 2 55 gallon and 2 30 gallon freshwater.

i had all cichlids. primarily south/central american and some african.

i would have some pair up. they would clean out an end of the aquarium, moving the gravel and cleaning a flat rock and lay eggs....i could watch them go thru the whole process. the would get very aggressive toward the other fish, keeping them all away from their "spot". once the eggs hatched they would protect them..even if a few of the small fry would wander off they would suck them up in their mouth and then spit them out with all the other ones back in a small group. when they were big enough but still very small, i would siphon them out with a hose into one of the smaller tanks and raise them and then sell them to the local pet shops.

convict cichlids are real easy to breed.

i would think that would be very interesting for your class to watch.