"sort of" converted freshwater tank.

[thefatman]

quick question. when i setup the reef, i slowly started pawning off my 7 freshwater tanks to various family members, 4 went to my mom

anyway, one of the tanks i gave her was a fw with my prized irridescent sharks. almost 8 years old now, and about 8" long each.

this tank also has a school of 7 tiger barbs, and a rose tetras.

i already felt the tank was overstocked as it was, but i also always ran two powerfilters on it.

now my mom has decided to break down her pond for the winter, in fear that her cheesy 50 cent goldfish might freeze. and added them to the tank with the sharks and the tiger barbs.

a few of her goldfish are well over 6" long. (btw: we aren't talking nice "goldfish" or "pondfish" we're talking 50 cent feeders that she stocked her pond with. the largest are now 3 years old )

anyway, today i was thinking, are there any drawbacks to putting a wetdry on a fw tank? the nitrogen cycle and bacteria work the same way in fw, so i assume the wet dry would be far better filtration on her now severely overstocked tank, than the hang on power filters are.

next up is a skimmer, can one be used on a fw tank? or does fw make too large of a bubble size, for a skimmer to work properly?

and finally, what about live rock? she likes the look of the rock, and i would love to see her get rid of thosestupid castles! i was thinking about buying some dry base rock, and putting it in her tank. should grow the fw bacteria within it, jsut as it would in a sw tank.

any thoughts before i partially convert her

btw: this is all part of my slow plan to fully convert her

[SouthernReefer]

sorry, skimmer won't work on freshwater. you might be better off with a canister filter or penquin type filter. as far as wet/dry style, i never seen used on fresh water before.

[thefatman]

that's what i thought on the skimmer idea.

i've seen wet drys for ponds before, so i thought it might work on the tank as well. only reason i would prefer wet dry over a canister type filter, is because i HAVE a wet dry, that was pulled off my 55 sw tank

i hate to have it jsut sit there. i'd like to use it on her tank if possible. if not, i guess it goes on ebay, just in time for christmas

[Doug1]

OK JAy you caught me with the title, I have never known you to "Sorta" do anything
As far as the wet/dry on the FWFOS(fresh water fish overstocked) sure that would work, it would keep nitrite and ammonia down, but it will generate hi nitrate levels, water change is easy on a FW tank tho, right.
As far as rock,its possible that a calcerous(limestone) rock might be OK , but as far as bio filtration I don't think it will work as well as the wet/dry, but if its just for looks

[SouthernReefer]

you could use some texas holey rock in your fresh water tank. it really looks nice in a fresh water planted tank.

[thefatman]

yeah, jsut for looks. since it will also have the wetdry below.

limestone?! SWEET!!! our shop is NEXT DOOR to a limestone quarry mom will be happy. since she was the one wanting to know if she could put rock in it to make it look like mine. well it wont REALLY look like mine, but wil lcertainly look better than those stupid castles and fake branches