Steamy fish-bowl

[Prof. Erwin Lindemann]

A typical "19th century fish" would be the goldfish. Or a local fish like the stickleback (it's local here...). those fish don't need a heater, just some filtration. And no bowl for the goldfish. I did not find any english text about the disturbed orientation, but as written before, there are hundreds of reason against fishbowls.

Look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfish#In_aquaria.


 

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

Yes. Goldfish were the first ornamental fish kept in Europe. The Paradise fish (the "red" wild-type colour phase) was introduced to the hobby in Europe in 1869, to the US in 1876. It's hardy and can survive in cold water, does not grow near as big as a goldfish (reaches about 3 inches) and is more colourful and behaviorally interesting than goldfish. It is a labyrinthfish, like a betta, and like a betta can survive in poorly oxygenated water, so it was an ideal specimen for Victorian tanks.

Sticklebacks of various species are native to salt and fresh waterways around the world. Many of them are stunningly beautiful and stay fairly small. Their breeding behavior is fabulous to watch. I should like to keep them but never have. I did spend many a happy hour watching them stake out their small territories, dig their nests, and mate in a tiny shallow baylet in New Brunswick.

[Captain_Minty_Gearhertz]

I have never been able to keep fish, water and the threat of small siblings always prevent me... Cool bowl though.

[Victor Corbett]

"Trilobites" would be an interesting creature; http://www.otherlandtoys.co.uk/aquasaurs-habitat-p-1153.html

[Igaus N. Wierzba]

I have heard this problem before with almost all fishtanks being to smal. Why are they still sold?

As for me, I only like my fish one way: in nature.
But honestly, I have a problem with all pets  Not that others have them, thats fine. But getting some myself is just... a no-no.

However I do like the look of a fishbowl. Maybe some plants, a mini nautilus and a sleeping Chutulu. And of course a hidden key somewhere in there that leads to all my dark secrets.


I am amazed by the sheer information that have been thrown ontop of me when I entered this thread. Bravo I say, bravo!

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

I have heard this problem before with almost all fishtanks being to smal. Why are they still sold?

Really, most tanks sold are big enough to house something. They are just not big enough to house what most people put in them.

Really, about the minimum size to keep a single betta (betta 'barracks' like have been mentioned earlier in the thread often appear to violate this, but betta breeders who use them change out water really often and that's how they get away with it) is 2.5 gallons. Five gallons is much better. With water-changes, at least twice a week. But you see people keeping bettas in one litre jars and vases, or less, and only topping off the water that evaporates out (doing that does nothing about contaminants, as they don't evaporate out). They think that they can use a five gallon tank for a 'community' set up with several different species of small tropical fishes. No, no, no.

And people don't listen. A month or so ago, somebody showed me her new betta, in an unfiltered plastic betta-tank of about one litre. I said, "You had better scoop that fish out in a teacup every day and change out all the water in that little tank, or that fish will die." Sure enough she didn't, and sure enough less than three weeks later, the fish was dead.  But hey, why should she listen to me, when the fish-store workers and the manufacturers of that tiny tank say it's fine? Heck, the stupid little tank came with a divider and packaging that claimed it was adequate housing for two bettas.

The major chain pet-stores in the US (PetSmart, PetCo, etc) have care-sheet handouts for different species of fish that they sell, and these handouts almost invariably recommend tank size and tank-maintanance schedules that will prove deadly to the fish. They persistantly stock and sell fish that almost nobody can house -- they'll sell some poor sod a small shoal of five two-inch black pacu, saying they'll be fine in a 30-gallon tank, but in a year or two those pacu will grow to be two feet long and you could barely stuff five of them into that tank if you diced them up. If you want them to live they need 150 gallons each, and, being schooling fish, they get stressed out and sickly if you keep just one.

The fish stores essentially lie, because they make more money that way. Sell somebody a complete ten-gallon kit for sixty bucks, and twice as many fish as it can handle for another twenty. The fish all die, the new hobbiest doesn't know why, he tries again with more fish, he buys a bunch of unnecessary chemical additives and medications, fish keep dying. He's spent several hundred dollars by the time he gives up on the hobby eight months later and gives the whole set-up to a charity shop, where I pick it up for ten bucks and throw out most of it because it's crap. That person's failure to keep fish makes the store money. Somebody who knows what he's up to might spend $500 on a new, big tank, filter and heater plus the right size and number of fish for the set-up, and then go for years and years only buying fish-food. Such a person might make the $60 ten-gallon kit work and end up spending $100 on that tank over the course of two years. The store profits by not telling newcomers to the hobby how to do that, and it also profits by selling smaller tanks in general, because that guy who's willing to spend sixty bucks on the tank and then follow it up with another $300 trying to make it work will say, "Fishkeeping is too expensive," if you tell him, "Really, that ten-gallon will be harder to maintain, if you wanna have fun as a beginner, start with a forty." The ten-gallon looks to him like a fun, inexpensive start, but the forty looks like an expensive commitment, and he'll walk out. Even if the bigger tanks were not more expensive, lots of people desire small ones because they can sit on a desk and look pretty without being in the way.

There's also these silly false beliefs passing themselves off as common knowledge. One is 'fish don't grow too big for their containers' which is true only in the same sense that it's true for all animals. Confined in too small a space, they will grow stunted and deformed, then die. Confined in a small space that's not kept clean, they'll be poisoned by their own waste. The other is that fish have short life-spans, which isn't true for most commonly-kept aquarium fish. Guppies are short-lived. Eighteen months. Many of the tiny tetras that are popular will live to be eight years old. I ran across a guy who was bragging about his mad fishkeeping skills, saying he'd had a lot of oscars and did great with them, some of them even lived two full years. The average lifespan of a well cared-for oscar is ten. A lot of times people who are 'experienced' fishkeepers are failing and don't realise it -- their care regimens are killing fish after fish, but they think the fish died of age.

The 'trilobytes' are Triops. They are interesting creatures. I've never kept any. Their lifespan is indeed short, at about three months. The bummer of them is, while they will breed, you must empty the tank and let the substrate sit around slightly damp for a while and then add new water to get the eggs to hatch. This cyclic empty/full tank thing doesn't appeal to me, as a tank sitting there with a bunch of damp earth in the bottom doesn't look handsome in the living room.

[lilithbunny]

Your advice is good, although I have to dispute your recommendation for size of betta tanks. Perhaps goldfish need a 5 gallon tank, because they are so dirty, but that is way more than enough for a single betta. With a 2.5 to 5 gallon filtered mini tank occupied by a single betta, I'd only do partial water changes every one or two weeks. If you feed your betta 4-5 times a week the amount you are supposed to (enough pellets to be approximately equal to the volume of his eye), a 1-2 gallon bowl will suffice if you change the water twice a week.

I wouldn't keep a betta in anything smaller than a gallon for long-term housing, though. Every "betta bowl" I've seen in pet stores is much too small. You see bettas in tiny little cups in pet stores because the people at the store are too ignorant/lazy to take them out of their shipping containers. Bettas are hardy little guys, I'd imagine most pet stores wouldn't stay in business very long if they treated all their fish that way.

[Nigel Wetherby]

Maybe you should Steampunk up some fishbowl decorations?
Sunken airship?
skeletal sky pirates still clinging to their treasure...Etc

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

Your advice is good, although I have to dispute your recommendation for size of betta tanks. Perhaps goldfish need a 5 gallon tank, because they are so dirty, but that is way more than enough for a single betta. With a 2.5 to 5 gallon filtered mini tank occupied by a single betta, I'd only do partial water changes every one or two weeks. If you feed your betta 4-5 times a week the amount you are supposed to (enough pellets to be approximately equal to the volume of his eye), a 1-2 gallon bowl will suffice if you change the water twice a week.

Ah, yeah. I wasn't clear about filtered vs. unfiltered. 2.5-5 gallon filtered betta tank, fewer water changes, probably even less than you say. I don't have a tank like that to tell you how its contaminant levels rise. Unfiltered one, twice weekly water changes. Just as you say. At least according to the people I know who breed bettas in 2.5 gallon unfiltered cubes. They tell me that a one gallon bowl is too little, probably because they have hard-wired their water-change schedules into their brains and the one-gallon bowl 'creeps' and will need an extra change from time to time compared to the 2.5s.

Goldfish get big and don't belong in little tanks. Expect the thing to reach eight inches with the bulk to match, which means a big tank and switching a lot of water around. They should stop selling goldfish until people get it into their heads that the darn things don't stay small, and stop chucking them into wild waterways when they get so big they make the tank ugly and smelly and cloudy but miracuously fail to die in the weeks when the aquarist is making his annoying scheme to contaminate my pond with his unwanted carp.

[Honeythorn]

Ben Franklin, I may have to express my immense love for your knowledge.

I am in complete agreement with almost everything you have said. All very sound and correct advice as far as I can see.

Perhaps goldfish need a 5 gallon tank, because they are so dirty

WRONG.

Goldfish of any sort in existance cannot, and should not be kept in anything under 55 gallons. And the only sort that can be kept in 55 gallons, are 2-3 fancy type goldfish with a very efficient external filter, for optimum water quality ( 25-50% water changes each week are still nessecary ) . Comets, Shubunkins and the ordinary types all belong in ponds and nowhere else, unless you have a tank as long as a wall and the filtration to go with it. Goldfish can also live for over 30 years when kept as they are supposed to be.

but that is way more than enough for a single betta

 I am adamant in my view that anything under 5 gallons needs to cease existing immediately. Just because a fish has a labyrinth organ and is able to survive in a small volume of poorly oxygenated water, does not mean that it should be kept that way. 5 gal is my absolute rock bottom limit, and last resort/temporary location . I refuse to keep a betta permanently in anything below ten gallons .

 Many thousands of people go by the old rumour that because in the wild they survive in little hoof print sized puddles, that everything will be spiffy in terms of water quality and swimming space when their betta is kept in what amounts to a pot. WRONG.

If you please, below are pictures of a typical wild betta habitat, and a man collecting wild bettas.


"http://www.plakatthai.com/mahachai/bettaecology.jpg"

"http://www.plakatthai.com/bettahabitat/catch1.jpg"

Notice the man is knee deep in water? As you can see these areas from which the local people collect their fish, are definitely more than 1-2 gallons in volume. They collect them when the fish are at their best and the males are building bubblenests ( I suspect this is how they locate males , by scanning the water surface for signs of bubblenests ). Clearly these fish are not remotely freaked out by the large stream of water they are living in. The only reason some captive bettas dislike larger tanks, is because they have been kept in tiny pots their entire lives, and know nothing else. Keeping a tank heavily planted will make the fish feel more at ease, due to the many hiding areas.

When the dry season comes and the water evaporates into small pocks of water, a vast number of the wild  fish die. No one collects them when they are in that state. They also do not breed in those puddles.

So this invariably leads me to ask why anyone in their right senses would wish to re-create what is effectively the worst and most stressful point of the wild counterpart's life? What purpose does that serve?

It seems to me that many do it so that they can still have a fish, but don't have to take up any of their precious space. I am incredulous since most people can invariably clear or find a square foot of space somewhere in their home. There is no excuse in my opinion. None at all.

Filtration is absolutely nessecary, as the bacteria harboured inside the filter media break down waste produced by fish. But even then weekly water changes are needed in order to prevent the media from becoming overwhelmed by excess waste, the bacteria can only consume so much.  Plus a larger tank is easier to maintain in terms of water parameters, as Mr Franklin has already said. The smaller the volume of water, the more concentrated the waste becomes. Why make life difficult for yourself and the fish by having to hoik it out of the little pot every couple of days? A filter saves so much time and keeps things more stable. Finding a heater and filter for a 5-10 gallon is also much easier than for anything smaller. There is no way you can keep the temperature in a room at the correct level constantly without a heater, especially if people are going to be coming in and out, and opening doors or windows ect. A 25 watt heater ( which is the smallest available that I have seen ) will keep a stable temp regardless of wether doors or windows are open.

[CapnHarlock]

Ahhhh.. Miss Honeythorn .. lovely AND understands Aquarium filtration - I'm indeed smitten

When I bred bettas and dwarf gouramis, years ago, I did find a use for the 5 gallon tanks  (My local aquarium shop had a glut of them and they were REALLY cheap) as temporary breeding and fry-raising tanks and for raising brine-shrimp to feed the babies. They also make good sealed terraria, but, I agree, they are too small for fish.

An aside: If you use external-filtration, and are tempted to purchase any of the "bio-ball" filter media (which works admirably well as a bacterial substrate), instead, make a trip to the nearest dollar/pound store, and get several bags of plastic (not foam) hair-curlers. They work just as well, at a tenth the price. The coarse plastic kitchen scrubbers from the same shops also work well as washable/replaceable screens for large particulates.

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

Ahh. Why thank you, for the compliment.

Filtration is absolutely nessecary, as the bacteria harboured inside the filter media break down waste produced by fish. But even then weekly water changes are needed in order to prevent the media from becoming overwhelmed by excess waste, the bacteria can only consume so much.

Minor point, but. It's true the bacteria can only consume so much, but if you are doing your water-changes to prevent the filter from becoming overwhelmed, you need a bigger filter, or more surface area on the filter media. There should be enough bacteria to consume all of the waste. The trouble is, at the very end of the cycle you have bacteria-waste, nitrate. The filter isn't overwhelmed, it's working perfectly. It just can't remove nitrate. Live plants can, and with enough plants you need (nearly) never change the water -- you remove nitrate when you prune the plants, its all bound up in the plant tissue. My Venezuelan biotope tank behaves this way. When I test the water, it always reads 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate. I don't do routine water-changes on it. Most of the time I top off what's lost from evaporation. When I pull plants out I end up with little scraps floating around and I remove water in the course of syphoning them out and replace that water with fresh. If I didn't care how it looked and the floating fragments of plants didn't clog the filter intake I wouldn't have to, though I am told that if I went for years like that then the water would be depleted of trace minerals and the plants would suffer.

I guess I'd be okay keeping a single betta in a five gallon filtered tanklet, but don't see the point -- second-hand ten gallons are abundant and very cheap, it's much easier to find filters and heaters sized to fit them, and those are cheaper than the less common ones for fives, and the actual desk-space required for a ten-gallon is not much greater than that needed for a five. The 2.5 gallon unfiltered cubes I eye with suspicion, but my betta-keeping friends do seem to do fine in keeping them clean with their twice-weekly complete water-changes (with live plants in there to help.) Their fish do usually seem to live into old betta age, over three years, sometimes as long as six. I did have one of those folks tell me that his bettas, when he reduced their numbers, dismantled the 'barracks' and moved the 'keepers' from 2.5 cubes into 10 gallon tanks, developed 'personality' and became more active and responsive to the fishkeeper's presence. I imagine that the 2.5s don't provide enough space to really meet the fish's behavioral needs.

I honestly think that the tiny tanks are popular because the small size has its own aesthetic appeal. And, of course, they are advertised being suitable for more/bigger fish than they can handle. It'd be nice if there was a species of fish that was well-adapted to living alone but half the size of a betta.

[Honeythorn]

The only fish physically small enough would be dwarf topminnows, but minnows are schooling fish so that wouldn't be at all feasible in a 5 gal as they would need space for swimming and display.

One could keep a 5 gal nano tank containing 3-4 Cherry or Amano shrimp, planted up with a very small piece of bogwood and mosses such as java or christmas moss ( shrimp love mosses) and/or submerged Riccia. Moss balls would also look excellent and add a mildly surreal quality to the underwater landscape.

You could possibly do away with a snad or gravel substrate altogether for this sort of tank, and simply get a piece of slate cut a little smaller than  the inner dimensions of the 5 gal, then firmly affix the moss or Riccia with a hairnet. Once grown and filled out the moss would effectively be the substrate or "carpet" for the shrimp.

 Set up the tank with correct lighting, heater and a small sponge filter ( you can make one from a fish food pot, gravel, filter wool and an airstone+ pump ) or HOB filter, cycle the whole thing and add shrimp.

 It can easily fit on a desk, and one could construct a steampunk style frame or small unit to fit around the tank.

I may have to draw up a design for this actually. I want to try it in the future

[DonQuijote]

ok.... so this seems not as much a design issue any more.... but a regular guide about setting an aquarium. ok, let's say (it would be no mistake) that i want to buy myself one, and populate it with creatures. however i am an incredibly lazy person, so i'd like it to be as maitenance free as possible. something more like a biotope. i'd like to do the feeding and the topping with water every other time, when it evaporates, and nothing more, if possible. up to know, i have learned to establish nitrate-nitrit-whatever bacteria, and put in as much plants as possible, to keep toxines to a minimum. now, here are my requests, if i may be bold enough:
i'd wish to have some numerical informations about the most maintenance free species. : what volume of water they need to have enough exercise, water temperature and ph-level.
then, i'd like to calculate my setup, for i don't exactly know what it will look like. for that i need to know about how much ammonia they produce in a given time, then, assuming that the tank is cycled and all ammonia is converted to nitrate, that is absorbed by plants, how much ammonia in form of nitrate can plants absorb? etc.... this, to calculate the perfect setup in theory.....
so basically, i'd like a summary concerning my soon to be very first fish tank.

[Honeythorn]

To be honest, if you don't want to do more than that then I really wouldn't advise keeping any sort of fish at all. Especially in a small tank like a 10 gal or below . You would have to do a fair bit of regular maintenance to keep the water parameters stable.

For something simple and easy to care for you'd really be better off with shrimp. They are little characters, I have a Ghost shrimp who is fascinating to watch, especially when he eats. A few shrimp will also not produce as much ammonia and waste as fish, so you could keep the water change to once a week. Just pick a day and stick to it. I do both my tanks on Sundays.

You really should do at least a once weekly water change as well as topping up. This is really not remotely difficult. Just siphon out 25% of the water, and replace it with dechlorinated water of a similar temp ( the heater will bring it up to the correct level ).

For low maintenance plants, Java fern and Java moss are great. I have had great sucess with growing Hygrophillia Polysperma in a low tech tank ( as in low-moderate lighting and no CO2 injection of any kind )

A tank such as this http://www.arcadia-uk.info/product.php?pid=68&mid=10&lan=en&sub=&id=4 ( Ignore the complete crap about it being suitable for goldfish, it isn't remotely. )

Would be perfect for shrimp, and you could always steam it up by building around it. Perhaps some Cthulu corner covers with the tentacles crawling upwards and along the bottom?

[CapnHarlock]

At most hardware/DIY stores, there is an interesting product (which I have never used for its original purpose)
- wall-corner protector - It is a clear plastic, L-shaped molding, with a double-sided tape backing, that comes in about 3-foot lengths. When sprayed black (or metallic) it can be cut to size and applied to the outside corners of a modern all-glass tank to give it the look of a more old-fashioned welded-frame aquarium.

Be as fanatically-careful as possible about any paint used around tanks and equipment - seal everything with a kitchen-grade clear acrylic, just to be certain.

No fish in this tank, but you can see the corners

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

i'd wish to have some numerical informations about the most maintenance free species. : what volume of water they need to have enough exercise, water temperature and ph-level.

What's the pH of your tap-water? Choose species that you like, that stay small, prefer the pH of the water you have available (adjusting it is a pain and if you are messing around adjusting the pH, then the pH is unlikely to stay stable. Stable pH is more important than perfect pH.), and don't tear up plants or other fish. Keep in mind that many of the little fishes available in the aquarium trade are shoaling species. In too-small groups, they are always stressed (they don't feel safe) and some of them are aggressive with each other. In small groups, they'll all pick on one and kill it until you've got just one, or two that chase each other all the time, but in big groups the aggression is spread widely and they don't harm each other. Consider a group of six to be about minimum for shoalers.

When you've picked species you think you'd like, post your potential stock-list and ask again.
 

then, i'd like to calculate my setup, for i don't exactly know what it will look like. for that i need to know about how much ammonia they produce in a given time, then, assuming that the tank is cycled and all ammonia is converted to nitrate, that is absorbed by plants, how much ammonia in form of nitrate can plants absorb? etc.... this, to calculate the perfect setup in theory.....

What size tank? A filter setup rated for the size tank you have will transform all ammonia to nitrate. With big messy fish, you'd want a filter rated for a larger tank. It's okay to overfilter any tank, with the possible exception of one with a betta or with long-finned fancy guppies -- the exaggerated fins can act as sails and then the water-flow off the filters will push the fishes around, making them constantly tired.

How much nitrate the plants can absorb will depend on the plants. The 'easy' plants like "Java Moss" and "Java Fern" don't require as much light, which is why they are 'easy.' But they grow slowly. You can calculate, based on the dry weight (you'd have to dehydrate them) of the clippings off your plants, how much ammonia has been taken by the plants. The book (Diana Walstead's) with that formula in it is back at the library so I can't tell you, though. Anyway, basically, the faster the plant grows the more contaminants it's absorbing. So what you want, to make a tank that balances out so as to require very little water-changing, is to light it in such a fashion that faster growing plants (which require more light) will do well, but not to light it so much that they grow too fast for the CO2 supply and require CO2-injection to avoid them going spindly yellow and dead. How much light that is going to be is going to depend on the size of the tank and how deep it is. The vague general rule (irritatingly expressed in watts rather than lumens) used by hobbiests in the US is that a moderate-light tank requires 2-3 watts of flourescent light per gallon of tank. At two or lower, you must stick with slower-growing low-light plants, at above three CO2 injection is usually required.

So pick plants that you like (and can get) and look for ones that have low-to-mid-range lighting requirements.

You won't manage a setup that's as perfectly maintainance-free as you're hoping. With faster-growing plants, you'll have to prune the plants, pretty often. And then you'll have to siphon out the mess you make pruning the plants. Not every week, but regularly. Every few months if you're lucky. And, when you start up, you'll be checking it and testing the water very frequently. Later you'll learn how it behaves and won't need to do this, but the tank will be much on your mind for the first few months.

Mine just has Vallisneria asiatica. Lots of. I'm very happy with this plant. It's got a pretty spiraly sea-grass sort of look, and it constantly spreads by runners, so there are always new young plantlets in high-growth phase. The tank is a standard 55 gallon lit by four t-12 flourescent tubes, 40 watts each, making it not quite 3 watts per gallon.

A 'biotope', by the way, isn't necessarily a tank that takes care of all fish-waste by having plants absorb it, it's just a tank that includes only plants and animals from a specific geographical region. The idea is to make it seem like you've transported a tank-sized chunk of some natural water-way into the glass box in your house. One could make a biotope tank with no plants at all.

CapnHarlock, that is a brilliant repurpose of thise plastic corner-protectors. I thought you'd cut sheet-metal and folded it.

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

Here's a picture of my biotope tank. It looks pretty ghastly these days. I forgot to change its light bulbs, and as flourescent bulbs age and grow dimmer the light also becomes redder. Algae like that redder light. I've corrected and there's a lot less of the stuff than there was a few weeks ago, but it's taking me a long time to really get it under control.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Honeythorn]

I don't have any CO2 in my tanks and the Elodia went balllistic. Same with the Hygrophillia, and the Crypts have flowered 3 times!!   . And I only have 1 single 25watt Tropica lamp.

I was going to suggest sticking some Amano shrimp in there to eat the algae, but then I noticed it was a Venezuelan biotope. Oooops!

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

Well, yeah. CO2 is for high-light setups. I have my doubts as to wether you really need it for those, either. Unless your 25 watt lamp is over a five gallon tank, there'd be no sense in adding CO2. And no sense in lighting it that high for the plants you've got. It might make the hygrophillia take over the tank in an eyeblink, but it'd burn the crypts.

The algae's dying, it's just dying a little slow for my taste. The carpet of it over that bog-log was over two inches deep a couple of weeks ago, and I haven't scraped it off. The DYI light-box over that tank makes it a pain to actually reach inside and then I'm reaching into a dark tank and can't really see what I'm doing, so hand-scrubbing the algae off the log and the plants isn't really an option.

[Honeythorn]

Arrgh, I have to lift the hood of my tank also, which makes the light dimmer, so when I am doing water changes or fiddling about it's really hard to see. I have some very dark blackish algae on the back of my tank, but so far it's stayed there and I often see the shrimp on it, munching away so I do leave one patch near their bogwood  I was thinking of somehow attaching a plain razor to a new unused wooden skewer( possibly with a blob of aquarium sealant, then left to cure )  to try and get bits of algae off the glass that way. Those magnetic scrapers, and even proper scrapers just don't seem to do the job at all.

[Ben Franklin's Electric Kite]

I've seen this tank come up on ebay before:

http://cgi.liveauctions.ebay.com/Fantastic-Art-Deco-Aquarium-Cabinet-c-1920_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ28211QQihZ003QQitemZ130221190290QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

Probably one could fake it and make a very similar tank. Modify a modern standard all-glass tank with metal or metal-look painted plastic to make it look like the three panes. Modify a fairly common standardish stand with Victorian-style wooden onlays from a furniture-restoration catalog like 'Van Dykes' or whatever, and give it a darker old-style finish.

This one looks like CapnHarlock's modified tank, but is supposedly from 1900.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ANTIQUE-ARTS-AND-CRAFTS-AQUARIUM-COPPER-WOOD-AND-GLASS_W0QQitemZ150249807464QQihZ005QQcategoryZ1213QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem