Big fishtank + BigPaw = Possible Disaster?

[PennyK]

I have a 55 gallon fishtank - its about 4 ft long.  I would love to set it up in the living room, but....I have Teddy, in all his puppy exuberance!  Its not a big house so I'm worried that between Teddy's tail and the 2 kids, it might just be a huge disaster.

Anyone here have any experience with small rooms, big tanks, and big dogs?

[schelmischekitty]

we have a 55 and FOUR big paws, 2 kids, and temporarily 3 cats.  we've never had a problem except when we change water they get in the way so we have to put them in a diff room or outside.  forgot to mention we've had ours for years.

[princessnmi]

I don't have a HUGE tank its only about 40 gallons or so, but we have a VERY small house with 3 VERY large dogs and 5 kids and have never had a problem. If you do set it up just make sure you get fish that don't stress very easily. We put cichlids in our tank and they were really pretty colors and everything but the kids going up to the tank and the chaos in the house stressed them out and they went from REALLY bright blues and yellows to white. 

[schelmischekitty]

with cichlids they also do that if the water isn't right.  mine did it and i put a combo of 1 tablespoon epson salt, 1 tablespoon aquarium salt, and one table spoon or baking soda PER gallon.  just make sure you put this in close to your filter outflow or you'll get a white film on your tank.  this helps get their color back, remove ammonia, and destress.  you're supposed to also do a 1/3 or so water change per week, but with this i only do water changes twice a month, which works out easier.

[mjjensen]

 I don't have any of my tanks set up now but when I had my Newf Molly I had eight tanks going. Seven were in my "fish room" which Molly didn't go in but I had a 135Gal show tank in the living room and it was never a problem. I did find that most commercial stands for big tanks tended to sway a bit with a full tank and I worried about Molly knocking it over so I build a custom stand with a 4"x6" frame and a cabinet around it. No chance of her knocking that over. She used to love to watch the fish

[schelmischekitty]

also, with cichlids, crushed coral substrate and coral pieces help keep Ph up, they have strict Ph, Gh, etc levels that must be kept up.

[Gevaudan_Jo]

Well, we first started in Fish we had about 8 tanks, just experimenting with what we can put together... we had cichilds, gold fish, oscars, guppies, betas... the works. i swear. LOL. anyway, the dogs were alright, a bit of drool that we had to clean, from the dogs shaking their heads... and the occasional nose print. But mine never knocked the tank over... We moved to Kirkland and had one small tank with a beta on the table, it had no lid... and we'd catch the dogs drinking out of it...  we got rid of all our small tanks (using them for arachnids and lizards) and turned our big tank into a salt water tank, which is Awesome (if you keep up to the Upkeep). anyway we moved back to cobalt (where we are now) with the salt water tank. the dogs dont bother, yes they do tend to wobble, but never come crashing to the floor. we also have a 40gal with two oscars and 2 plecos. the cats dont even bother them - they'd rather chase webley girl or my lizard. lol
 

[schelmischekitty]

although nobody has had any problems, if you're REALLY worried, i guess you could put some eye hooks in the wall and at least attack your stand to studs.  like i said, only if you're REALLY worried.

[Lyn]

I had a 75g setup (which is also a 4 foot tank) with a pair of Golden Oscars when we first got Bubba. I ended up selling the fish and tank not because of Bubba.. but because I HATE water changes. LOL And with Oscars.. they are darn messy. So I was doing 50% water changes every 4 days using a 5g bucket. Took forever.. Probably overkill but I was trying to breed those 2 since 'Goldens' are not easy to find and the water needed to be as clean as possible. Go figure though the buggers spawned 2 days after I sold them. LOL

Bubba did bump and body slam the stand on occasion which left the tank water sloshing but he never came close to knocking it over. A good solid stand is a must.

[PennyK]

The stand is one of those oak veneer ones that come with the tank as a kit at Walmart.  Its pretty solid.  At the old place we had metal brakets screwed into the wall to stabilize it.  I think I'll do the same thing here....just in case! 

Here are a couple pics from before I tore it down.  It mostly lake Tanganyika cichlids but there were a few oddballs in there too.  The divider was needed due to the aggression of my J. Marlieri breeding pair - nasty!

I'm hoping to try something new this time....fully planted with angels, blue rams, and lyretails swords!

[bluskygirl]

I used to have a fish tank... I took it down because I just didn't seem to have enough time to properly care for it with my kids and the cats and the dog and everything else. Looking at your fish pictures make me want to drag it back out of storage though! Fish are so nice and calming to watch.  Nice pics, everyone! I'm jealous...