The Fish Fence

A couple of years ago, I was the lucky recipient of a 100 gallon tank that FarmerTodd wanted to pass along. I was in awe of it when I saw it at his house, and I wanted to set it up as much like he had it as I could. He had an open topped sort of wooden canopy that I liked, but the wood had suffered from its exposure to water.

My Dad is a retired carpenter who occasionally can be persuaded to build me things. He does beautiful work. We have an agreement, when he builds me something, I finish it. My work isn't up to his level, but I've improved quite a bit since I started. He built me a canopy for the tank. He also bent some conduit into two "L" shapes. With the "L's" turned upside down and screwed to the back of the stand, we hung the canopy from them. That worked out great. The canopy is heavy, too. It's made out of oak. It's hung with chains, so I can raise it to do maintenance or whatever.

I wanted to keep the tank open topped, but nobody likes to find dried up fish on the floor. Eventually I came up with the idea of the Fish Fence. (If anyone can think of a better name for it, I'm all ears.) I found a product made out of PVC. It's made to be used as exterior trim on buildings and can be painted. It comes in various shapes. I bought a couple boards that were 7" wide, and a piece of quarter round molding. Dad built the fence for me. It's very simple. It's exactly the same outer dimension as the top black trim of the aquarium, and sits directly on top of the tank. There is a piece of quarter round in each corner. The quarter round serves to stabilize the corners, plus it extends below the rest of the fence a little. The little legs rest inside the black trim of the aquarium top and keep it from sliding around. I spray painted it black. It's not heavy at all, and sometimes I take it off during maintenance.

It's worked very well, I have only had two or three dace jump over it. I got some black eggcrate like the reefers use to propagate corals, I made some panels to fit over the top of the fence. I put them on for a couple of weeks after I bring any dace home, and haven't lost any more. After they get used to aquarium life they aren't so twitchy. One day I would like to replace it with clear acrylic, then I may go higher. I thought about acrylic at first, but didn't look into it.

Here it is before painting:

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Here it is installed:

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And here's the payoff, emersed vegetation! This is giant hygro. It was covered with fragrant little purple flowers last winter. I loved it. This is actually a lousy picture of it, it covered 1/3 of the tank before I had to prune it back.

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Oh wow Susan, this is awesome!

Wow, it's cool that your plants can come up out of the water. Have you ever looked at the paludarium contest entries in the Aquatic Gardeners Association's aquascaping contest? http://showcase.aqua...tegory=3&vol=-1 They make me want to set up a paludarium, too!

That's very cool, it makes me feel more optimistic towards starting my own planted tank. I wish I had a fish room like that.

Thanks for the idea, that is awesome. I've tried less fancy methods to "bounce" fish back into the tank and have had only limited success. I may have to try and build one of those.

As a matter of fact, you could probably market that, as a large percentage of reef/saltwater keepers like to keep their tanks open on top.

Nice! Is the fence black both inside and out? You might want the inside painted white (or lined with "space blanket" found with camping supplies) to minimize loss of light.

Nice! Is the fence black both inside and out? You might want the inside painted white (or lined with "space blanket" found with camping supplies) to minimize loss of light.

If I'd thought of that, I would have left the inside white. It's black inside and out. I used the spray paint made for plastic, and it was hard to work with. It takes more force than normal to work the spray nozzle on the can. I have a trigger mechanism to slip over normal spray paint cans, but it wouldn't fit on these. My fingers were ready to drop off by the time I finished spraying it.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone! One of my dreams is to someday build a ten foot paludarium slash river tank just like this only bigger and better. It will have roots and an overhanging bank along one side.

My "fish room" is a portion of my living room. We have an odd "T" shaped living and dining room, and I took over one side of the top of the "T." It helps to have a tolerant spouse. He doesn't care what I do as long as he doesn't have to carry anything heavy too often.

Hi Susan...
How about some new pics of this nice 100 G tank?
Does the oak canopy have a pully system to raise it? What kind of lights are in it?
What kind of fish are residing inside, plants?
Did the jumper problem get resolved?
Looks like several very nice aquariums!

Nice looking tank and cool idea.
i love open top tanks and feel it makes a huge difference in plant growth. I confess I eventually stopped replacing the jumpers until I had only less skittish species left.

My biggest problem with open tops is evaporation. I actually had designed an automatic makeup water system and had several components collected when I had to give up my big tanks.
Now I have all smaller tanks and it's easier and cheaper to have glass or acrylic tops which are awesome for preventing evap. It helps that my tanks get lots of sunlight now. i can spare what light is stopped by the covers.

Hi Susan...
How about some new pics of this nice 100 G tank?

Hi Casper!
I'm ashamed to admit that it's not much to look at right now. I didn't get much of any collecting done last year and there are only 8 or 10 fish in it. I hope to remedy that this year!

Does the oak canopy have a pully system to raise it? What kind of lights are in it?

No, I really didn't anticipate it being that heavy! I hoist it up by hand one end at a time and use s-hooks to hold it up. It has fixtures for 4 three foot fluorescent bulbs in it.

What kind of fish are residing inside, plants?

There are a couple of those nice blue head chubs I got during our North Carolina trip in 2010 that are doing well. Also another couple of chubs, a couple of shiners, two orangespotted sunfish, and an unknown number of madtoms. Oh, and an ancistrus to keep the algae off the rocks. It only comes out at night, so I forget it's there.

Right now, the plants are not growing much, I cut way back on feeding and the plants are starved. There is still a lot of Vallisnera, but not much else right now.

Did the jumper problem get resolved?

I figured out how to manage it. I got some black egg crate and made covers for the tank. After I put dace in the tank, I put the covers on for a week or so, then I take them off. By then, the dace have calmed down enough they usually don't jump out.

Looks like several very nice aquariums!

Thanks!

Nice looking tank and cool idea.
i love open top tanks and feel it makes a huge difference in plant growth. I confess I eventually stopped replacing the jumpers until I had only less skittish species left.

My biggest problem with open tops is evaporation. I actually had designed an automatic makeup water system and had several components collected when I had to give up my big tanks.
Now I have all smaller tanks and it's easier and cheaper to have glass or acrylic tops which are awesome for preventing evap. It helps that my tanks get lots of sunlight now. i can spare what light is stopped by the covers.

Thanks, Mike! I do have a LOT of evaporation. The 100 gallon and my 65 gallon are open topped, all my other tanks have glass lids. It makes a huge difference. Someday I would like to make an ATO system.