Aaron's Fish Tank

Sponge Out

2009-10-25T23:24:00.000-04:00

The sponge filter is coming out. Not a moment too soon either. The sponge is starting to fall apart. Without that air pump running its a lot quieter in my office.

New QT Tank

2009-10-14T21:43:00.003-04:00

Ok, so my original QT tank was set up right at the beginning of November last year. That rubbermaid tub served as an ad hoc fish tank for nearly a year. I never did get around to spray painting the back black. Oh well. Anyways I've wanted a real tank for a while to replace it, it was never meant to be anything but a stop gap on the way to a real tank.

So I finally got one, and a proper filter. With a little bit of outage money I splurged on my fish. I have to say, the "saving money" idea with the sponge filter and rubbermaid... not so much. The rubbermaid is about $15, the ten gallon tank was $13 at Petsmart. The sponge filter was $12 and the Penguin 100 was $18 at Petsmart. So the all told my old setup cost $27 and my new one cost $31. I can't say there's any monetary savings involved unless you've got a suitable container just sitting around. Still, it works and I'm a touch nostalgic for the old makeshift rig.

Anyways, I'm kicking off the new tank with four long fin serpaes and another platy. Three days in everyone is looking good and healthy. I've got the sponge filter running concurrently with the Penguin for the moment to help get the cycle rolling on the biowheel. I'll let it go for two or three weeks then yank it. Once it's out I'll put in a few more of the old plants in.

Oh, this is also my first non-sand tank. I decided to go with gravel because it's easier to deal with if I actually have to use it to treat a fish. I can either disinfect the gravel or just put in new. It took about fifteen minutes to rinse out the whole tank's worth. I like sand better for show tanks but this works.

New Betta

2009-09-20T22:36:00.002-04:00

He'll never replace Shark, but he's pretty good in his own right. Maki is settling right into his new home. Much like Shark at first he didn't seem to know what to do with all the space. He's adjusted though, in fact he's taken to swimming up to the front of the tank and begging for food when I get in to work in the mornings.

In fact he's so settled in he's even started his own ragged little bubble nest.

Long Overdue

2009-08-23T21:39:00.002-04:00

This is overdue, by months honestly. I'll hopefully get something more in depth up but...

I'm pretty sure I've got two batched of platy babies. I've moved about five of the biggest from the QT tank to the main one where they seem to be doing well. The remainder are hanging out in the QT a little longer as they're still on the small size.

I've lost Shark. My betta at work died. Dropsy got him. It busted me up quite a bit. I'm still bummed out as I find myself looking at the tank expecting to see him swimming then.

Platy Babies!

2009-06-02T23:33:00.004-04:00

Wow, here we go again. First of all I decided that after over four weeks in QT if my platy was preggers she was going to have dropped the fry by now so I decided to move them both over to the main tank. I did, everything went fine. They settled in rather quickly and got into the swing of things.

I headed to the fish store to pick up some more fish. Unfortunately they were out of panda cories. Only when I'm looking to buy them of course. So I picked up some neons instead. I acclimated them and put them in the QT tank. Then I noticed something, lots of somethings. Little orange somethings. My platy had been pregnant and she had a LOT of fry. At least 15 that have made it to a good size. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out but at this point they're too large for the neons to eat. In four weeks I'll move the neons over. I'm waiting until I can sex the platies so I can only move females to the main tank.

Big Fat Shark

2009-05-28T21:22:00.003-04:00

Yes, my little Mekong is growing up. She's a good four inches long now, most of the way to her adult size of six inches. But more than length it's her girth. The girl is getting chubby. Her colors are vibrant though, dark black and bright red. Aside from a few extra ounces around her belly she's the picture of health. I'll take fat and happy any day.

And here she is pigging out with one of the cories and one of my new ghost shrimp. I got the shrimp as a rather hearthless way to test to ensure shrimp could survive in my tank. They can. After two weeks I've still got at least four that I've seen and who knows the other four could still be hiding out in the tall plants at back. I figured what the heck, 0.90 cents for all of them. If the fish made them a snack or the jumped like the amanos I'm not out any real money.

While I like my rasboras and Shark at work my favorites at the moment are the plants in the tank. My Java fern is a bit odd. It seems to lose as many leaves as it grows. The good news is that it no long looks ratty like it did when I first got it. Oh! Look below it, see the little green shoot? It had babies. I plucked it from the end of a frond and "replanted" it. Tomorrow during the weekly cleaning I think I'll move it to a rock on the left side of the tank, see if the direct light lets it grow better.

My crypt though is growing like mad. I need to take a look into how to split it because I'd like to transplant an off shoot to another part of the tank.

If you've got plants in your tank but aren't running CO2 injection I highly recommend Flourish and Flourish Excel.

Pregnancy

2009-05-18T17:37:00.002-04:00

It's about time for the platies to come out of quarantine. I lost one of them early on. It was one of those unexplainable deaths. Happy, active, no sign of disease or sickness the next day she's dead on the bottom of the tank. The other two have been doing ok and I'm really enjoying having the QT tank running in my office again.

I've decided that I'm going to leave the platies in QT until they give birth. Once the little ones are free swimming both mommies are going in the main tank. I'll give the little ones a couple weeks to mature before looking for some new fish for QT. Probably some more panda cories.

Quarantine Set Up

2009-04-24T21:00:00.002-04:00

Anyways, after the losses I've decided to build back some of my stock, specifically non-characins since no one but tetras have been having issues. I set my quarantine tank back up, with sand this time since I'll be dropping corys into QT soon.

However... that's a month in the future. I was in Petsmart and had a moment of weakness. Petsmart is the only place that has red wag platies. I love red wag platies. I bought three female red wag platies. I made sure to get only females, small ones, and none that were visibly showing. There's probably zero chance they're not knocked up but I'm hopeful they'll hold off on giving birth until late in quarantine and I'll be able to move the moms right over into the main tank and let the babies grow out in the QT. At the very least I've got a week or two to get a few more to get some more small plants to help the fry hide if they're born early.

After the platys and maybe platy fry I'll be getting some more cories, 4, and 4 more neons. There could be a couple more serpaes in the future but not until the remaining three have a good two months of good health.

Rollercoaster

2009-04-08T16:14:00.003-04:00

Since the last post I've been on a bit of a fishy roller coaster. I've lost two rasboras to the fungal infection. The infected long fin serpae died. Two of my female guppies were also in a bad way, one blew up like a balloon and the second developed a bent spine in only two weeks. To top it all off my interest in the 90 gallon tank apparently rekindled the owner's interest in it. He decided to try and fix what's wrong with it. That was a huge disappointment.

Ok so its not so much a roller coaster as free fall.

I'm not sure what my course of action from this point is gonna be. I'm thinking of setting up the quarantine tank and putting the serpaes in it. Leave them in there and see if anything happens to the remaining three. I do know I want more neons and cories. If anything happens to the serpaes I may give up on them and use rummynose tetras.

Salty News

2009-03-29T22:54:00.002-04:00

It's not all doom and gloom. Most of my fish are in good health.

Also my wife has notified me that she knows a woman who is trying to get rid of a 90 gallon saltwater tank. They don't want anything for it, just get it out of their house. I'm really hopeful that I'll get it.

Been a While

2009-03-16T23:09:00.003-04:00

It has, hopefully in a few days I'll have some pictures to post.

Most of the reason is the same as always, nothing is really happening. Well, mostly nothing. I've got to admit that there is something seriously wrong with my serpaes. Since I've gotten them they've been slowly dying off one by one. The symptoms are always the same. The serpae starts to get pale. Their eyes start to bulge, they get lethargic, they take to hiding, and then they die. The entire process takes about two weeks. My most recent one died on Saturday. Unfortunately my last long fin now has one severly distorted eye. I have a bad feeling that he'll grow more pale soon and die.

One of the rasboras in my tank has a discolored patch behind is dorsal fin, a little fuzzy, like a fungus.

Shark is also not staying to the front of the tank but the back.

To top off the fun times, I haven't seen any evidence of the fry lately. I suspect they've all been eating.

Right now, things kinda suck.

The Circle of Life

2009-02-15T20:57:00.004-05:00

Yesterday the 48 gallon surprised me. When I went to vacuum the tank like I usually do. When I moved the fake tree stump to clean under it I saw a lot of detritus swirl around. And around. And around. In fact quite a bit of it wouldn't stop moving. I got down close to the tank and found...

Babies! Small black fore body and clear tails. I don't know who's getting it on in my tank but someone did. At least eight fry are in there. In fact I managed to vacuum one up. I was able to scoop him up in a cup and put him back in though. Unfortunately with this tank it's deep and has tons of cover. It's almost impossible to find a fish that doesn't want to be found. That's good news for the fry. Since I know my guppies are all female that leaves the pandas, serpaes, or neons as the culprits. Given the coloration of the fry I'm hopeful it was the pandas. I hope so. First off I want more of them and second they're pretty stinking cute as little ones.

The rest of the circle of life? Friday night I couldn't find my second platy. Nothing turned up Saturday when I vacuumed the tank. Then Saturday night when I was getting some frozen food fixed for them I spotted my platy.

What was left of him.

Apparently the cannibals in my tank don't care for scales since that's all they left of him. Yikes.

The circle of life baby, it's brutal.

Ammonia Spike Over

2009-02-06T17:31:00.001-05:00

Well, the ammonia spike looks to be over. I tested yesterday and today with no sign of ammonia. Good deal.

Heater on the Fritz

2009-01-30T22:32:00.002-05:00

The 200W heater I got for my 48 gallon tank lasted almost long enough to get it through the first cold snap. About a week ago I went to feed my fish and when I opened the hood I got a blast of hot moist air in my face. This has been pretty normal since the tank was supposed to be almost 80 in a room that was maybe 65 degrees. This was HOT though. Looking at the thermometer I saw the temp was all the way up to 86 degrees. Yikes. I quickly unplugged the heater and let the temp settle down. I spent a while monkeying with the heater but nothing seemed to work. Since the temperature was so low I couldn't just switch back to my 100W heater, it didn't have the grunt to deal with the low temperatures.

So for about a week Angela and I kept the temp in the safe zone by monitoring the thermometer and plugging in and unplugging the heater. Not fun. Thankfully the temperature has come up so my 100 and 50W heaters can keep things ok. I'll need to get a new heater either with a warranty on this one or just buying one.

Ammonia Spike

2009-01-29T23:34:00.003-05:00

I've been fighting a bit of a conundrum with my Eclipse at the moment. For some reason I'm having to deal with an ammonia spike. Given that the tank is over six weeks old, almost seven actually, and it's not big and well stocked it's odd that this would show up now. It's been three weeks since the rasboras were added. The two things I've done lately are starting a proper vacuuming routine (not the epic failure that was the turkey baster. Fish poo shows up remarkably well on white sand, on black... not so much) and adding the diverter.

It wouldn't make a lot of sense for the vacuuming to be the cause, I'm removing things that make ammonia. The diverter doesn't make sense either. Potentially there could be fungicides in it but the packaging makes no mention of it and the diverter is the same material as the old one that's been in the tank for four weeks.

Consider me stumped.

The downside is that the growths on the rasboras are back. he upside is it looks like the ammonia is coming back down. With any luck this spike will be over soon.

There is more good news though, it looks like the algae problem is about beat. After a good scrub about two weeks ago the brown algae is not making a come back. There's small spots here and there but it's not expanding. Also the filamentous stuff on the driftwood is looking pretty bad. It is no longer gauzy and swallowing the piece, it's stringy, weak, and looks to be barely holding on. My new crypt is also looking good as well. It hasn't grown or anything but after a week in the tank it's holding steady.

Green Life!

2009-01-20T21:20:00.003-05:00

I haven't updated a whole lot lately. Frankly there's not much to say. The fish keep swimming, I keep feeding them, things keep on keeping on. My 48 gallon is going well. Mekong, my red tailed black shark, is behaving herself very well. She keeps to herself and to her side of the tank. She doesn't even get in the face of the other fish if they wander in to "her" territory. She does occasionally bum rush a serpae but in her defense they are usually asking for it.

My eclipse is also going very well. I added a diverter to the output of the filter to reduce the current so that Shark doesn't get knocked around. I made it myself and it works great. There's very little flow in front of the filter where previously it'd drive him to the bottom of the tank.

I had a situation with the rasboras at the end of last week. One of them developed a white lump under his mouth, about 1 to 2mm in size. A day or two later they all had it. I was nervous about it but rather than try to medicate it without a clue I just made sure the water was as good as it could be. Today I found that three of them had cleared up completely and the other was down to just 1mm in size.

I also got my first live plant today. It's a crypt, a low light simple to keep plant. Oddly enough it's the most expensive living thing in any of my tanks. Here's hoping it does alright and helps out with keeping the algae down.

Shark's New Roomies

2009-01-05T23:02:00.003-05:00

I decided to go ahead and add a few new room mates for Shark. I added in four harlequin rasboras. They're small now and will max out at just over an inch. They're peaceful and calm, so they won't stress out Shark. Finally they're a nice silvery color so they're a nice counter-point to Shark's dark color.

Next up I'll update you on a DIY project I embarked on with their filter.

Christmas

2008-12-30T20:49:00.003-05:00

Well, there's not a whole lot going on lately.

The 48 gallon is doing just great. Everyone is fat and happy. Mekong (my RTBS) is right at home. She's bum rushed some of the other fish when they get to nosy with her cave but for the most part she seems quite content. The serpaes are calm and well mannered and the neon herd is staying out of the way. The remaining platys are behaving themselves. The guppies have started to demonstrate an interesting behavior. In the morning when I turn on the light I've noticed all four of them huddled down together in a corner under a cave. During the day they just bum around and ignore one another but apparently at night they like to hang out together.

The Eclipse at work has been an interesting trip. Initially I wrapped the intake in foam to try and slow down the flow through the filter. Well apparently the resitance was too much for the pump. I had problems with the pump overheating and just shutting off. Obviously this would be a bad thing to happen when I wasn't around. I've removed the foam on the intake and for the last ten days it's run without a problem. I also packed the filter with bio-max pellets. Unfortunately I packed some spots too full and had some pellets fall into the biowheel and jam it to a halt. Ugh. Thankfully I seem to have solved all those problems and the tank is mechanically sound.

Biologically... well it appears to be cycled. No ammonia readings, no nitrite readings, and no nitrate readings. It's a bit odd for a tank that's three weeks old with a fish like Shark in it. I've had two algae outbreaks. The first is good old brown algae, yay. The second is only on the driftwood and is this wierd fuzzy gauze. No the pic isn't out of focus, its the algae.

Shark is doing well. He's always excited to see me and eating well. He doesn't seem to mind the current in the tank. Playing in it at times and at others finding quiet spots. His coloration is absolutely gorgeous, his pectoral fins have an iridescent sheen to them that wasn't there a week ago. He's continued to get darker and richer every day.

Sometime next week I'm going to look into adding some harlequin rasboras or maybe platys to the tank for some additional movement.

That's what's been going on lately.

In The Tank!

2008-12-18T23:08:00.003-05:00

My girl is now in her tank! I put her in a day early, sue me. Like the serpaes she immediately took to her new home She darkened up instantly and her tail took on a deeper red. I dunno what's going on with the quarantine tank but for some reason the fish just don't get to their best color in there.

Anyways, she started to check out the other fish and the tank and they started to check her out. To my delight she headed immediately for the slate cave I made for her months ago. She's decided that its hers and spends a lot of time hovering around it. She's been the model fish so far and has kept to her side of the tank. I was worried she might bother the corys or vice versa but they seem to ignore one another.

She's gorgeous and I already love having her in the tank.

Tank at Work

2008-12-14T23:10:00.001-05:00

For my birthday/Christmas I received just what I asked for, a 6 gallon Eclipse fish tank and all the fixin's, of course it was the only thing I asked for period so take it with a grain of salt.

To my wife's chagrin I couldn't help myself and had to immediately prepare my tank to go to work. An extra wooden brace for my desk due to the weight, cut a piece of foam to cushion the bottom, rinse my black sand. Yeah, black, it's awesome. I got everything ready to go and brought it to work. Since I'd found a great looking betta the day before and was going to get it on my lunch break I had to set it up before lunch. Thankfully my boss didn't seem to mind as I spent about an hour puttering around with it getting everything in and the tank filled. At lunch I met my wife and we got something to eat then we took my boy to the store to find a fish. He hadn't gotten a nap and was too cranky to be any help but he was enthusiastic about getting to see the fish.

I picked out my fish and came back to the office and put him in. After the tiny cup he'd been stuck in with water that was... well its best not to talk about it, he seemed to enjoy having space to swim. He spent most of the rest of the day swimming around his new place poking his head in every corner. He was shy and would scoot away when I got close to the tank but today he's gotten a lot bolder, even spending time watching me work and interacting with me a bit. I put my finger next to the tank and he tracked me running it up and down the side. Yeah it's not much but try and get a platy to do anything but beg for food.

Last night we asked my boy to name the fish. He knows four words for fish, fishy, guppy, shark, and whale. Shark won. Shark is already proving to be far more photogenic than any of my other fish, holding still long enough to get some great shots of him.

The wood has already started to stain the water a golden hue, I'm loving the look. Sadly I didn't estimate sizes very well and the T-Rex skull I got for the tank is just too big to get in it. It'll have to wait for another tank.

Some of you are probably wondering what is wrong with me. Putting a fish in an uncycled aquarium. Well what you can't see in the pictures is that the filter is loaded up with biomax pellets under the blue cartridge and behind the biowheel. Those are the same pellets I've left in my aquarium's filter so they are already seeded with bacteria. All I've got to do now is wait for the bacteria to migrate from the pellets to the biowheel. I plan to leave them in until the first cartridge change then I'll take them out.

December Update

2008-12-09T22:30:00.003-05:00

First off my an update on my main tank the 48... everything is perfectly fine. Everyone is doing well in their new home. The quarantine tank residents are just as good. All three neons are just fine. My shark is a female as it turns out, she has a dark gray belly instead of a pure black one. She's also a total sissy. I don't get to see her in all her glory much because she hides whenever I get near the tank. Oh well, another week and they go in the main tank.

Shark, "Oh No!"

2008-11-24T11:43:00.004-05:00

With the serpaes in the main tank there's room in the QT tank for something I've been waiting five months for, my red tailed black shark.Well my RTBS and three more neons. Before I put them in I broke the tank down and removed about half the gravel, there was just too much and I had to dig a pit so I could fit in the filter and still put on the lid. I also pulled out the baggie of biomax since the sponge was cycled and the bioload went way down.

And here's my pride and joy. I have to say he's skittish... well he's a complete sissy. He spends most of his time hiding under the heater, the filter, or in a cave/rock. He'll even run and hide when a neon swims by and he's easily ten times their size. I don't want him vicously attacking everyone in the tank but a little back bone would be nice.

It makes it even funnier that when I first brought my boy over to look at him. I told him I had a shark in the tank and pointed to him. My boy spotted him and immediately backed up saying, "Oh NO!"

Serpaes

2008-11-22T21:27:00.010-05:00

Well this Thursday marked the end of the fourth week of quarantine for the serpaes and in they went to the main tank. I was delighted to see how they've integrated so far. They've been model citizens so far and keep to themselves. I was surprised how quickly they colored up, they were never very vibrant in the QT tank and they were almost clear while they were being transfered to the main tank. After only six hours in the main tank they were a more vibrant orange/red than they'd even had in the store.

Yes, I'm starting off my post about the addition of my serpaes with a picture of my cories but I was pretty dang excited to finally get a picture of them that's clear and in focus.

As you can see the tank is a lot fuller now that the serpaes were added. It's driving the platys nuts as they are no longer the biggest fish in the tank. They're just two against seven now.

Here's a video of the tank, ignore the reflection of the football in the back ground.

As an update on my temperature woes the recent cold snap has left everyone in the house in long pants, socks and shirts at all times. The 100W heater has struggled with the temperature keeping it only around 73 degrees or so. I finally broke down and purchased a 200W heater online and added it to the tank. Almost immediately the tempeature jumped up to almost 80 degrees. Now I've unplugged the 100W and I'm trying to dial in the 200W to keep things about 78 or 79 degrees. My QT tank has no problems at all as it holds rock steady at 78.

And here is one of the few pictures, well only picture, I have of my shrimp. Unfortunately right after this picture both he and all his friends climbed out and jumped to their dooms. My best guess is that the former owner of this tank probably dosed it with a copper based medicine pretty heavily and is seeped into the silicone. I'll test the tank eventually but for the moment I'm just going to add any more shrimp. It's a pity because I really liked these guys.

New Tank

2008-11-12T20:54:00.012-05:00

Sadly my first fish tank looks to have lasted only about four months.

The good news is that everyone took the move over to the new tank just fine.

Things got started on Friday when I moved the tank into the house. The top of the stand itself wasn't perfectly level so I bought some foam to set underneath it. I couldn't help myself and I had to put at least a little water in it.

On Saturday I washed sand. Since water and dirt were intimately involved Charles had to get in on that action.
In goes the slop.

I was actually a bit surprised when a single bag of sand was enough to fill the bottom up but I didn't fight it, washing sand is an absolute pain. Once the sand was in I went ahead and filled it up. I used the tap in the sink to do it. I'd seen too many lizards in the front yard hose to really trust it. 48 Gallons 2.5 gallons at a time. Ugh.

On Monday things started to move. I went ahead and started to pull out about half the decorations and give them a bleach dunk. I didn't want any of that brown algae making the trip over if I could help it. Tuesday I put in the decorations I'd cleaned on Monday and then emptied out the rest of the decorations from the 55 gallon. I moved the heater over to the 48 gallon and then started netting fish. Lemme tell you, trying to net an inch and a half fish out of a four foot tank is no easy task. I actually felt a bit bad about all the stress they were getting but it couldn't be helped. Eventually everyone got moved in and the rest of the decor got a dunking. Finally on Wednesday I put in the last of the decorations and everything was in.

The end result:

I'm very pleased with the way it looks, even more than I thought I would. It was a real pain to aquascape though, lots of depth but not width, sort of the exact opposite of what I had before. I think I need a few taller plants, maybe another one that attaches to the wall but overall it's looking very nice. One thing I didn't expect to like was the anemic light. As you can see the tank is rather dim, it's got all of 15 watts of lighting right now. The darkness makes the aquarium look pretty sharp, especially as part of the living room's decor.

Not So Baby and Sexism

2008-11-08T14:19:00.001-05:00

As you can see the babies are growing up and getting big. Big enough that I went ahead and sorted them out. Of the five there was only one boy, the guppy with the bent spine. Since they were getting older I figured I'd separate them before they reached maturity. The boy went down into the quarantine tank and the girls get to stay in the main tank. Angela asked if the boy was likely to get pounded by the serpaes.

Yep.

New Tank Background

2008-11-05T15:33:00.005-05:00

Here's the new tank with its background sprayed on. The initial granite spray went on well but even though it looked even it was blotchy. So I went ahead and gave it a black base coat. After it everything was fine. I'll get a better picture after I take off the masking and get it cleaned up.

Corner Tank

2008-11-04T21:22:00.001-05:00

In other news I went ahead and bought that corner tank. The tank itself looks to be in good condition. A good cleaning should deal with it. The stand is a piece of crap. It's made out of particle board, you know, sawdust and glue. The stuff that turns into oatmeal when it gets wet. Yeah, that's the material you want to make a fish tank stand out of. So I got a new tank stand made. The guys that made it for me made it out of the scrap they had laying around and what they had laying around was 1/4" stainless steel. Because of this the stand weighs a ton, easily a hundred pounds, maybe one twenty five. The upside is you could park a truck on top of it and it'd hold up fine. Seriously, I ran the numbers.

It also came with a Penguin 170 filter, what is it with me and collecting legacy filters? Anyways, I cleaned that one up and went ahead with putting it in my existing tank. I didn't bother with the cartridges, just some biomax pellets and a load of filter floss. I figured I'd use it to help polish the water and get some flow in the left hand corner of my tank where there isn't much. When I first started it up the thing sounded like a gravel tumbler and for about 24 hours afterwards. However whatever seemed to be the problem worked itself out and now its as quiet as my other filter. Well, almost. For some reason this one sits higher on my tank and the water splashes down into the tank from a height of about an inch or two. This does two things, one it makes a racket just like you'd expect a waterfall to and second it makes one heck of a falling current in the tank. The circulation is good in that part of the tank, its always been a bit of a dead zone, but this is spinning my fish around if they get caught in it. I've got to cut some holes in the lid that came with this thing so I might use that plastic to make a comb to break up the flow going back into the tank. Not likely to do much about the noise but if it can break up the flow I'll be happy.

All that being said my sweetie loves the corner tank. She loves it too much in fact. After telling me how much she loved it the first thing she said was, "Why don't you move your tank into this one?" Well because this corner tank was going to be a briny mess and home to a homicidal little mantis shrimp. Then I got to thinking about it. The tank really does look good and I'd love to get a tank out into the part of the house where everyone is, really let everyone appreciate my fish. So I'm going to be moving tanks.

Yikes.

So I've got more work to do on my hobby which I never mind. My first step is going to be getting some plywood feet cut out for the stand, both to protect the floor and distribute the load. After that I'm going to be spray painting the back panel of the tank with this granite looking stuff.

http://www.rchuntingstore.com/servlet/the-171/KRYLON-MAKE-IT-STONE/Detail

I've seen someone else do it on their tank and it looks awesome. It give the background some character rather than being flat black. That particle board stand is going to be sacrificed as a spray stand, about all its good for. I'd burn it but the fumes from the glue would probably make my babies be born naked.

After that its back to rinsing sand and then filling up.

As for the move itself, well some of the decor is getting left behind. I've only got about 74% as much surface area on the bottom so I won't have room for all the rock work, I think. My fish are going to be very unhappy because before I move any of them I'm taking all the decor from their tank, nuking it again with bleach water, then stuffing it in the new tank. For about a day they're going to have to just deal with living in an empty tank. I'll probably leave the lights off. Once I get all the stuff in the new tank I'll net all the fish out and move them along with the filter to the new tank. Oh, right now I'm planning on moving the 170 first and use it as a water polisher over there as well. All the new sand will no doubt raise a sand storm in the new tank.

All that being said I'm going to have to alter my stocking plans a bit. I was thinking red tailed black shark and a German blue ram because of the length of my tank and the cover available. With the different shape of my tank though I'm not sure I'll have the space on the bottom for both fish to stake out their areas and not get into it with one another. I'll probably leave the GBR by the wayside and just got with the RTBS.

Oh, one thing that's not going to cut it on this tank is the light. It's a wennie little 18" 15W deal who's bulb is ugly right now. I was already planning on upgrading the 55's lights eventually to support plant growth, so now upgrading the new tank's lights is still in the plan. I've done the math and a 24" light could fit on top of the tank, it's just going to take some cutting of the plastic to fit it all in. I'll have a little over hang but just like a quarter inch nubbin. Right now I'm thinking the 24" version of this:
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3733+9654+12109&pcatid=12109
That would give me 2.9 watts per gallon and that should be enough to grow whatever I please in the tank.

What am I going to do with the 55? Well I do still want a GBR and maybe some gouramis. Oh, and rummy nose tetras and harlequin rasboras are always nice.

Quarantine Tank Pictures

2008-11-04T21:12:00.004-05:00

Ok, first its not that cloudy. Second its not that pink. Its the light. As you can see I have too much gravel and I've left in the biomax pellets. The sepaes seem to be doing well for the most part but once they're done I'm going to spray the back of the tank black and replace the gravel with sand.

Quarantine and Babies

2008-11-03T21:14:00.001-05:00

Well there's a lot of stuff going on right now fish wise.

First off my quarantine tank is set up and running. It also has its first residents, seven serpae tetras. Four longfin and three shortfins. Unfortunately it started out as eight with a four/four split. Two days ago I found one of the shortfins dead. An examination of his body didn't reveal anything wrong, no pineconeing of scales, no protruding eyes, body wasn't distended or deformed in any way, and no obvious wounds. My tank's water parameters all check out as well, steady at 79 degrees, 0 ammonia and nitrites, 5ppm nitrates, and a 7.5 pH with a water change three days prior. I have no real idea what befell the little guy. I'm resisting the urge to go out and buy another just to keep things at eight. We're through a week and a half of quarantine, if I toss another fish in we get to start right over.

Speaking of the tank here's a quick reminder of what it is.
~20 Gallon rubbermaid container
Sponge Filter
50W Visitherm Deluxe heater
Quartz gravel (Going to go to sand since I'll be keeping corys in there eventually)
One donated rock ornament
Two terra cotta pots
Two fake plants
15W light fixture

The tank is working out well, my pre-seeded filter cycled the tank in less than 48 hours. Since then the water parameters have been stable and match my main tank as closely as I can manage. The serpaes are all active and eating well.

Cold Snap

Well we had our first cold snap here in Florida and I learned something. First, my 100W heater really is no where near enough to keep my 55 gallon warm when the temperature plunges to 45 outside. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be though. My tank got down into the low 70's, around 73, but it never went much lower. Yes, that's not warm enough for my fish but that's not as bad as I thought it would be and its only for about 8 hours. During the day it was able to keep up and keep the temperature around 77 or 78. Looking back I really wish I'd bought my heater online. Online the cost difference between a hundred watt heater and a two fifty watt heater is like $2. I'm probably going to need to buy a bigger heater here soon, real soon, as in get my credit card out right now kinda soon. When the temperature starts to go lower and stay there that 100W is just not gonna cut it.

Stooges

I'll admit, I never wanted to be a live bearer daddy when I started. As cool looking as some guppies and platys are I didn't want a tank overrun with them. So I got three male platys. I knew some aggression issues were possible but I figured in my sparsely populated tank there would be enough room that they could avoid one another if they got too pissy. Thankfully the stooges all seemed to get along just fine with one another. About two weeks ago I noticed that one of them seemed to be hiding a lot more. The other two seemed to chase him any time he came out of hiding. Over the next two weeks I observed him being more and more listless, hiding a lot and progressively eating less. Unfortunately by the time I got worried about him the serpaes were already in their tank and I didn't have a free spot to put him in. I did my best to keep the tank in good condition but he grew more and more listless. Finally he took to wedging himself behind rocks or under plants and just drifting in place, gasping for air. Finally a few days ago he passed.

It sucks because he was one of my do-over fish, one of the first to go into the tank after the pH crash and he'd been with me four months. Him dying and then finding the serpae the next day have me bummed. I'm especially down because it looks like the other two turned on him and hounded him to death. I may try a quartet of female platies later on, the shop has some gorgeous sunburst ones in, but then there's the babies to deal with.

Fry

Speaking of babies. I'm about to stop being able to call the guppy fry that. The two largest are as big as some of the neons now. I noticed it because I did my daily neon count a week ago and counted ten of them. Since I knew there were only nine in the tank I was understandably confused until I took another look and noticed that one of the neons was a guppy. Four of the five survivors look to be just fine, if a little fat in the belly, but the fourth has a birth defect, a severly bent spine. I think all five are female but I'm not sure. I need to really keep an eye on them now and sex them so that I can seperate the girls from the boys before they learn about the birds and the bees. The look a lot like their momma with their spotted tails. So long as they're all girls I'll be happy to keep them in tank.

Another Tank

2008-10-17T21:54:00.000-04:00

Well I got turned on to another tank by a co-worker. A neighbor of his was looking to get rid of his fish tank so I got it. Twenty bucks for a corner tank with a penguin filter. The filter itself is worth twenty bucks. The tank and stand I dunno but a heck of a lot more than 20. No I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. Yes, I won't be eating much for lunch for a long while as I save up the cash to get it wet and eventually put in fish. I may use it as a betta/cory tank.

Any ideas?

QT Update

2008-10-16T13:53:00.000-04:00

I decided not to wait till the end of the outage to get my sepaes. Angela pointed out that I didn't really have guppies or platys in my plan so stick to the plan. Well sticking to the plan means serpaes in the QT to begin with. Dang, I'm so broken up over that. Anyways, I got things set up. I got a big metal plate to help support the bottom and set my container on there. In went gravel, caves and then water. The water all came from my main tank, siphoned off intentionally to help the QT start off as close to my main tank as I could. Add in filter, a few el-cheapo plants, and the heater and I'm ready to go. Now for the fish...

Bad Fishy Daddy

2008-10-15T18:17:00.001-04:00

I really have been. Working 12 hours a day for three weeks straight with four more weeks to go has left me without much free time. What free time I do have has been taken up playing with and bathing small children, fixing dinner (some nights), and keeping up with a honey do list. Not a whole lot of time to deal with my tank.

Big mistake. I got it in my head that I could let things slip for a while until I got a good night to do it. After all I can't make nitrates in this tank if I wanted to. Even after 12 days without attention my nitrates were still only about 10 ppm. What was the problem then? In a word, detritus. In non fishkeeper lingo that's a combination of fish poo, uneaten food, and gunk. My sand was literally covered in it. This is partly because when I vacuumed my tank out there was literally nothing in it but water, fish, and sand. So I know lots this had been in there a while hiding where I couldn't vacuum, but a good bit was because I hadn't cleaned in almost two weeks. I learned my lesson, the tank gets a cleaning every Saturday come hell or high water.

Why was everything out? I'm sick of the algae. I know I know, it's part of a new tank but it's freaking ugly. It's not even a mild brown, its sickly blackish nasty brown. So I started Friday night by removing "half" of the decorations and plants from my tank. I say half in quotes because it turned out to be no where close to half. Anyways, in the sink I mixed up about a 7 to 10% solution of bleach to water. I took the plants and such and got ready to scrub. I took a plant, swirled it in the water and pulled it out to wipe down and... it was clean. I kid you not, ten seconds of swishing in that solution killed the algae and sloughed it right off. Made things go pretty quick actually. I dunked everything in the bleach then rinsed it till the slimy feel and stink of the bleach was gone then I let them air dry. Saturday night I pulled the rest of the decor and waged chemical warfare on the remaining algae. After that I cleaned and redecorated, sort of. I only put the stuff in I washed off on Friday night. Sunday night I put the stuff back in I washed Saturday night.

So the tank got cleaned and redecorated. I moved the hygrophalia around to provide more of a divider in the tank. I'm looking to break up sightlines across the entire tank, from a fish perspective. Some caves got moved. My vine is not on the right wall instead of the right side of the back wall. Gets it away from the filter flow a bit more. I like it over all, I think it'll be good for the serpaes.

Video

2008-10-14T19:30:00.000-04:00

Angela took some video of my tank. You'll get to see why I call the platys "The Stooges".

Another Update

2008-10-13T19:57:00.002-04:00

First off, the fry are doing well. The best we can count now there's five fry still going strong. One in particular is getting BIG. No evidence of color or sex yet, I'm going to separate boys from girls the moment I can though. I don't mind some fry once in a while but until I've got some more fish in the tank I don't think I'm going to let them breed. I can deal with one or two surviving from each drop but 5+ is dangerous.

In QT/Hospital tank news I've got all the pieces together, now its just a matter of waiting for my sponge filter to marinate and then I can set it up. I've got about another week to go on the sponge filter before I put everything together.

To keep it cycled while I wait on the serpaes at the end of the outage I may buy a couple more neons and a platy or two... don't tell my wife. It's goofy but I really love the neons. Their bright blue and red colors, the way they school together, they're just great looking fish. I've found a lot of varities of platy I'd love to see in my tank.

Late September Update

2008-09-25T20:24:00.004-04:00

Well things are still just going on. Sadly I lost Thing 1 a few days ago. Maybe the stress of giving birth got to her, I honestly don't know. She had been acting perfectly normal the day before, eating, swimming, with her full color. The next day she's stuck near the airstone upside down and dead. There's nothing wrong with the water, I had tested it two days earlier at the water change and ammonia and nitrites were both zero with nitrates under 10ppm. After Thing 1 died the same. pH was stable at 7.5. She had no signs of anything wrong with her at all. The kicker is that all the fry are still present and accounted for, all seven of them. I have to believe that anything wrong in the tank bad enough to kill momma would have wiped out the babies as well.

Everyone else is doing well, my pandas are coming out more during the day. The neons are all still cruising around in their school and brightly colored. The stooges are still being the stooges. The brown algae is still present but not nearly as aggressive. It's supposed to be a symptom of new tanks and go away eventually, hopefully I'm on the downside of it.

I got the money saved up to purchase some additional plants from a fishforum.com member. About half the plants are ones I want for the main tank and the rest are going into the QT tank. I hope to hear from her soon so I can get the stuff.

In other news of the QT I tested its water-tightness and everything was fine. I also cleaned the gravel that came with the original tank. Finally I drilled the lid with a bunch of 1/4" air holes. That's really all I can do until I get the filter. Thankfully I should have the filter in three weeks, that gives me two weeks to let it marinate in the main tank, then with one week to go on my outage I'll set up the QT tank with the filter, the ceramic rings from my filter and toss in two or three of the young guppies and let it roll for a week. Then I put the guppies back into the main tank and get my serpaes.

I've also lucked into a few freebies. A co-worker hooked me up with some odds and ends from a 20 gallon tank, including the rock below that's going in the QT. He also knows of someone with a 30 gallon tank looking to get rid of it. I told him if they just want to be rid of it I'll take it but I can't afford to pay for it. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky.

Growing Up

2008-09-13T22:41:00.003-04:00

Well our guppy fry look to be doing quite well. At their peak there looked to be at least seven of the little guys swimming in the tank. I haven't been able to see that many recently but I think we've got at least five little guys hanging on. They aren't so little any more though. What were originally black dots with skinny tails have grown into guppies. They're small but very recognizable as guppies. The other fish in the tank seem to ignore them but I did catch one of my neons running one of the fry off during feeding time. Bully.

Babies!

2008-09-07T21:48:00.002-04:00

First, the bad news. One of my neons died. I have no idea why. They were all looking good and doing fine. The next day I count only nine and a quick survey of the tank finds number ten pale, dead, and sucked up against the back side of the filter intake. Shoot.

Thing 2 also passed away. At some point for some reason she got a small wound on the top of her head and a very large wound near her caudal fin. I didn't see the wounds and she almost immediately caught a fungal infection. The infection was extremely aggressive, going from a tiny fleck of white to a huge growth in less than 24 hours. She didn't make it.

Finally, I am learning to hate pandas. Ten pandas in my tank and I'm down to three. My water quality has been perfect, zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and my nitrates haven't even gotten over 10 ppm. They just kept turning up dead. I even lost one of the older ones. I've decided that I'm not replacing the pandas anytime soon. I know 3 isn't a great number for a social fish like a cory but I can't keep replacing them at $6 a pop. I want to get my other fish in at some point and replacing pandas is a drain. Aquaria Studios has some Sterbai cories...

Ok, the good news, Thing 1 finally dropped her fry! We got home from the grocery store on Sunday and when I walked by the tank I saw one of the neons dart after something small and white that shot into the plants. Well I don't have anything small and white in my tank... WHAT THE HECK IS IN MY TANK!? So I stop what I'm doing and make like an idiot pressing my nose against the tank to figure out what weird thing is invading my tank and... I spot a guppy fry hiding in the hygrophalia! I call out to Angela and she comes over to look. Sure enough there was a guppy fry hiding in the plants. For the rest of the day we'd check on Thing 1 and the tank looking for more fry. So far we've seen five at the most. I don't know if any of the little guys will make it to adulthood but I'm hopeful.

In other news that's neither good nor bad I'm seriously considering setting up a quarantine tank. Between the pandas and Thing 2's untimely demise I've started to worry. What if the next fish that dies doesn't die because they're a wuss or a bad fungus. What if a fish drags in some bacteria or a parasite? I don't have a huge amount of money invested in my fish just yet, but it's racking up. So I'm thinking before I lay out for a big school of serpaes or more pandas or something like that maybe I should get a quarantine set up.

What I need is:
1) Container - A real ten or twenty gallon tank would be nice but something food safe that holds about ten or fifteen gallons of water would do just fine.

2) Filter - A simple sponge filter sized for a 20 gallon tank would do the trick. Alternately I could do a big water change daily. I don't really like the idea of doing that on a 15 gallon tank/bin because that means a lot more work. Siphon water from the Q tank and toss. Siphon water from the main tank into the Q tank. Replace new water into the main tank. I'd be doing daily 5 to 10 gallon changes though... not so much fun, and a lot of tap water conditioner. Given that a small sponge filter costs about what a bottle of Prime costs and I already have an air pump I think a sponge filter is a better idea.

3) Heater - My computer room isn't that cold. It's probably a steady 75 degrees in there. My current heaters don't have to pull that hard to keep it up to 79 degrees. I might be able to pull the 50W heater from my main tank and add it to my Q tank. It's probably too much for the small volume, but it won't have to run that much anyways. I could always wrap a towel around most of the Q tank to help insulate it.

4) Decorations - I don't need substrate, or at most just a very thin layer. I got a 5 gallon tub worth of light colored gravel with my tank but I'm not wild about the stuff, its sharp and light colored. Dark and round would be better. I've gotten a weird looking but functional rock... thing, from a co-worker I could add in, and I've still got left over slate. Throw in a few of the fake plants I'm going to get from someone I know, but don't really want in my main tank, and I should have enough stuff to keep the Q fish happy.

5) Light - Probably don't need to bother, a subdued lighting might help anyways. If I do need one though I've still got one of the 24" fixtures left over from the box of parts I got with the tank.

So what do I really need for a Q set up? A 10 to 20 gallon Rubbermaid container like this:
http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=productDetail&productId=217004-315-FG3J9000CLRBF&lpage=none
Fifteen gallons, no wheels or penetrations down low. Clear so I can see inside and I can drill holes in the top for air. Gravel I have, sort of. I could use the stuff that came with the tank but I'd rather get some dark colored stuff so figure $5 for a bag of it from petsmart or the LFS. A sponge filter, hopefully I can pick something up for under $10 along with some fittings for the lines.

All told I figure for $30 or less I can get a quarantine tank set up. I'm loathe to put off buying more fish for even longer, but I'm just as unwilling to watch the ones I already have die.

Scum

2008-08-29T20:44:00.002-04:00

Something has been bugging me about the tank for a while now. When viewed end on the water has looked hazy. I've blown it off to be just the water being a little cloudy, after all I was looking through 4 feet of water, a little stuff in it is to be expected.

Well it's not haze, its algae. Its not concentrated like the brown stuff that's popping up all over but its a general scum coating every square inch of the glass. Tomorrow on the way home from Sea World I'm picking up a scrapper. I'm also going to pick up some Prime. My tetra water conditioner is running out and I need some more and everyone seems to rave about Prime.

Guppy Love

2008-08-27T14:00:00.001-04:00

I forgot to mention that the remaining first female guppy is already pregnant. Since she's already showing its unlikely its happened in my tank, she was probably knocked up when I bought her. Thanks to guppy biology it'll be six weeks before any fry she or her new friend produce can be sure to be Panzer's. It doesn't that much in the grand scheme of things since I'm rooting for nature to win and the rest of the fish to eat the fry. If they don't though I'd love to see the fry and know they are a result of the fish in my tank. I specifically picked the two girls out to go well with Panzer and I hope they'll make nice looking fish.

Also, I need names for the new girls, any suggestions?

Cory Death Watch Day 9

2008-08-26T20:56:00.002-04:00

Nine corys in my tank, six out and in the trash. I've not only lost most of the babies but I've also lost two of my older pandas as well. I'm down to just one baby and two adults in my tank. I don't know why they are having these problems but I know I'm done with these devil fish for the moment. Instead of wasting money on pandas I'm just going to save it for serpaes. I'm going to proceed with the rest of the tank residents and finish things up before I revisit the corys. I might forget the pandas entirely and go with something like a sterbai or something. If I wait a loooong time I can get wild caught pandas after I add CO2 and driftwood to my tank and lower the pH.

On to something happier. I was at the fish store today and looking around. I was about to leave and I stopped by the guppy tank to see if any of the girls looked good enough to replace my lost one. Well as it turned out just as I was about to give up and head off I spotted her, a gorgeous female guppy who would go perfectly with Panzer and the other girl.

You can see the new girl on the left, along with Panzer showing the goods to the girls.The stooges had to get in on talking to the new girl, Panzer was not amused.

And a new shot of Panzer solo.

Disappointment

2008-08-23T12:57:00.002-04:00

There's no other word for what I feel right now. Thursday morning the red female guppy died. I attribute it to her being dropped and my ham fisted attempt to pick her up and put her in. Later on the same day on of the baby panda corys died. So far I'm losing 50% of the baby pandas. This morning I saw something I really didn't expect. One of my larger older pandas died. I saw nothing on him that would indicate why. Right now I've got three baby pandas and two older ones left and I'm not buying any more for a long while. At least until I get a quarantine tank set up. In fact if any more die I'm seriously thinking about writing off pandas and instead going with another kind of cory like a sterbai or something. Or maybe just some wild caught pandas.

So in addition to all the death lately my tank is undergoing an outbreak of brown algae. This is normal for a new tank and should clear up eventually but right now it's just making my tank ugly which when combined with the fish losses just depresses the crap out of me.

Silly Guppies

2008-08-20T21:43:00.004-04:00

Some updates. On Tuesday Angela called me at work to tell me that two of my new pandas were dead. To put it simply I was bummed. I know pandas are delicate for corys so I should have been ready for it but the new guys seemed to be doing well in the tank. When I got home I tested my water and everything was fine, zero ammonia, nitrites, and not even 5 ppm of nitrates. Well I knew that pandas were delicate, still stings to lose them.

In other news Panzer, my guppy, turns out to be a bit of a jerk. Since he went into the tank he's chased the Stooges around relentlessly. The sight of it is ridiculous as anyone of the platys is easily twice to three times Panzer's size.

So on Monday night I decided to go to my LFS (Aquaria Studio) and see about getting some female guppies in the hope they'd keep Panzer occupied. Yes, I know, they'll breed like rabbits. I know, I'll have fry all over the dang place. Panzer is just too good looking and Angela likes him too much to be rid of him. My only hope is that the lack of good tight cover will let the rest of the fish pick off the fry before they grow.

Well as you might know Tuesday was hurricane day around here and AS was closed. I guess they figured not many people would be looking to buy fish mid-hurricane. So I went back and checked today and the store was open, not that Fay had gone anywhere. Anyways I picked up two female guppies, in the process probably driving the guy helping me nuts as I tried to coach him onto exactly which two I wanted out of the swirling mass of fifty in the tank and sent him back again and again to try and get the ones I wanted. Well while we were talking I asked him if they'd lost a lot of the pandas and he said yes. I told him about the two I'd lost and low and behold, even though I was long beyond the 24 hour guarantee my coming back to the shop over and over and waiting patiently while other customers were helped paid off and he offered to replace them for free. So I left the shop with my two guppies and two replacement pandas.

First the guppies. One of them has a snakeskin tail not too unlike Panzer's. The other is an orange and red guppy that was as close to the one in the book that Charles liked as I could swing. The snakeskin female is more lively than the other by a long shot, probably because the orange girl was dropped outside the tank when I tried to introduce her. Long story, don't wanna get into it, suffice it to say that I am going to keep an eye on her as her entry was way more stressful than it should have been.

And then there's the pandas. Both of the new guys are looking good and so are the other five that were in the tank to begin with. In fact the whole panda crew is getting more lively by the day. That's not saying a whole lot but seeing them out on the sand snuffling around from time to time is nice.

Plateau

2008-08-17T17:49:00.004-04:00

My tank reached a plateau of sorts today. My wonderful, loving, beautiful wife let me splurge today on fish. After church and shopping we headed to the fish store where we picked up a quartet of panda cory catfish, two more neons, and a lone guppy. What that means is that I'm considering my school of neons and my shoal of panda corys complete at ten and seven respectively. With those two schools finished up I've got to move on to other species and I'm content with what's in my tank, no pressing need to bulk up the schools. That's a good thing because the next fish I'm getting are the sepaes and I'll need to get all eight at once. I've got to save up the fiftyish bucks I need for them and until then I'm happy to leave my tank be.

Speaking of my tank the fish count is twenty one right now. Ten neon tetras, seven panda cory catfish, three mickey mouse platys, and one guppy.

The neons are doing well. The two new guys regained their color, going from nearly white back to rich blue and red, in less than thirty minutes and immediately started to school with the eight that were in there to begin with. The new guys are more small ones but I don't mind, it'll be nice to see them grow up in my tank.

The panda corys I bought were young ones maybe a half inch long tops. The new guys showed more guts than the old guys, hiding initially but quickly moving out and starting to root in the sand. The young guys located the older guys pretty quickly and encouraged the older ones to come on out.

The stooges continue to do well but todays additions seemed to have stressed them out a bit. They're chasing each other around a bit more than normal.

The lone guppy I got is a gorgeous red snakeskin. He surprised me because when he hit the water he immediately started to push the platys around which is probably leading to their stress. For a top swimmer he's also spent a lot of time cruising the mid and low levels.

Charles got a kick out of watching the new fish swim.

Meow-Fish

2008-08-10T21:10:00.003-04:00

Fish day came early this week, on Friday. I picked up three new additions for the aquarium, panda cory catfish. So far everyone is looking to be doing well in their new home. They're still a little shy and staying hidden behind my stump and under the vine. That spot seems to be very popular with some of the neons and now the catfish. Of course I did it intentionally, I figured that much cover would let the fish have a good spot it they got nervous and it works. I'm hopeful that over the course of the week the catfish will get settled and come out more. When they get another member of their shoal on Saturday maybe that will help even more. I'd also like them to figure out the sinking pellets I'm putting in because everyone else has and swarms on them long before the catfish wander over.

Everyone else is doing good. The stooges are still being themselves and my neons are no where near as skittish as they used to be. Even the one that was making me nervous has got his color back and is prowling around with all the other ones.

Day two of lettuce was a failure. I didn't even see anyone sniff it. I'm going to try and get them to eat it by offering them nothing else tomorrow. Maybe if they've got no other options they'll give it a shot. In the mean time I'll see if there are some other options for vegetables for them.

Update and Lettuce

2008-08-07T22:37:00.002-04:00

Not much to report really, and I'm happy about it. Everyone is doing well and getting along. By my reckoning Fe, the sole survivor of my pH crash has been in the tank for about six weeks. The stooges have been in for four. Fe's buddies, my other neons have been in for two and my last group of four neons have been in for almost a week.

There is one neon that's giving me some pause. He's looking scrawny and for most of this weak his colors have been pale. Normally this means something is wrong but my water tests out fine. This also looks a little bit like it could be neon tetra disease. NTD is a nasty parasite that causes neons to loose their color, waste away, swim erratically and deform into a humped shape. It's eventually fatal and there is no treatment. It's not contagious in the water but it can be contagious if another fish eats the dead carcass. Naturally I'm nervous about the little guy. In the last 24 hours he's perked up in color and is more active. I'm hopeful it wasn't NTD and he was just under the weather.

Yesterday I tried to give my fish some lettuce.

The ingrates didn't touch it.

Fish Pictures

2008-08-02T22:31:00.006-04:00

Today I brought home several new additions to the tank, four more neon tetras. After weekly maintenance I got the new guys acclimated to the tank and put them in. They immediately joined up with the neons already in the tank and schooled together. The stooges introduced themselves as well in their own special way.

"DURR! Who are you!?"

Blundering through the school like bulls in a china shop. In spite of this all four perked up in a hurry and filled in their color in not even two hours. I busted out the camera and decided to get some pictures of everyone in their new home.

Paranoia

2008-07-29T23:14:00.003-04:00

Tonight my wife said something that made me very nervous.

"Uh oh, I only count six fish."

To a man who's lost nine fish that's not a reassuring thing to say. I tried to remain calm about it but I couldn't find my fourth neon tetra either. I went behind my tank and lifted the backdrop to find my neon in the bottom right (from the dining room) corner. Hidden behind the fake stump and under the bushes. So yay for effective cover for my fish.

Unfortunately his color was faded and his was flicking his fins a lot. Now it could just be that before I snatched up the backdrop it was shaded back there but then maybe not. A neon's color, in fact most fish's color seems to fade when stressed or in the dark. Well I wasn't going to risk it. I knew my nitrites had been climbing the since Saturday and were up to about 0.5ppm. Supposedly that's low enough that the fish should be fine but I had a fish that didn't look so hot that had been just fine twelve hours earlier.

So I did the first thing that came to mind. A water change. Fifteen treated gallons later my school of neons has no more absenteeism. Almost the moment I started to add fresh water the pale neon came out of hiding and started to regain his color.

Call me paranoid but I lost six neons in 48 hours. It's not happening again if I can do anything about it. Even if my wife does look at me funny.

Back

2008-07-27T18:17:00.003-04:00

Well we're back from vacation. I'm pleased to report that all four of the guys made it through just fine. I even got another surprise, a 0 ppm ammonia reading and a nitrite spike. It looks like my tank finally decided to move on with its cycle while we were gone.

To celebrate I went out and got three more neons. They're in a bucket right now acclimating to the water. They should be ready to join Fe in an hour or so. Hopefully the Stooges won't be too rough on the new guys.

I also went ahead and re-aquascaped the tank. Since I had the new background on it I could set things up a bit differently. With no more need for 360 degree viewing I moved some things around. The hygrophalia is all now in one big clump. The bush is now behind the artificial stump. I'm liking it a lot more now. I still need some plants on the left, another big clump would be perfect, but I'm close to it being spot on.

Oh, Angela was nice enough to buy some velcro while she was at the grocery store and that's holding my background on.

Wish List & Plans

2008-07-21T08:44:00.002-04:00

Since I've got nothing else to do on vacation I figured I'd start a wish list, those things I want but am in no real hurry to get. I'll also go over my plans for the tank.

Plans:
1) Background
Last week while holding a crying five week old I came to the realization that my wife was right, my tank would look better with a background. I'd left one off because I thought I'd love to look at my tank from both sides, from my den and from the family room/dining room side. So far all my tank enjoyment looking has been from the family room side only. Given that I put up a piece of black cloth on the den side. The tank looked fantastic, sorry for the lack of a good picture. Unfortunately the tape I used to hold it up wouldn't last, with or without a toddler pulling on it. When I get back I want to find a better way to secure it up.

2) Plants
More of them. A nice thing about the background is I don't have to worry about cluttering up my view from the den side so I'm thinking about re-aquascaping things. I can pile my tall plants along the back of the tank and push my shorter ones to the front. I still need quite a few more tall plants though. I really don't have much taking up the higher portions of the water column.

3) Fish
So long as everyone survives vacation I'm going to start stocking my tank up. My plans right now are to add on neons until I get to about six to eight. After that I'll slow down, maybe only buy a neon at a time until I hit my goal of a dozen. At the same time as I'm slowing on the neons I'm going to start getting some rummy-nosed tetras. Once I have all eight of them I'm going to sit on things for a while, make sure everything's steady. If everything looks good I'm going to start on my panda corys. Nice and slow to start, one or two at a time. The final big addition will be the BIG addition. I'm going to save up the cash to buy an entire school of serpaes in one shot. Eight to ten in a go. Once that's done my big species should be taken care of. A dozen neons, eight rummys, eight corys, ten serpaes, and the three platys. That's 41 fish. I'm rethinking the rasboras, I don't think there will be enough room for them in a large enough school. After that it's the german blue ram and the red tailed black shark. I'm doing them both at the same time in the hopes of preventing them from fighting. They'll both be new to the tank at the same time and hopefully pick out their own territories without too much fighting. After that I'm officially done. I say officially because I'm probably not going to leave well enough alone. So long as everything seems to be ok I will likely monkey with things a bit. I would like to get some more upper level swimming fish but both the ones I like could be problematic. A dwarf gourami is probably a bad idea, but so might the guppies I wanna try. The only thing that worries me about the guppies are the serpaes. I'm hopefully that in such a large school of them, 10, the serpaes will behave. The only way to find out how they'll do is to throw them in together and see what happens. I think the large school of serpaes should keep their nippiness in check and let the guppies swim in peace.

4) Biomedia
More of it. I've got a 50 gallon pack of biomedia in my filter right now but I want to get some more. I know I'll have more tanks in the future and I'd like to have enough extra to seed new tanks later.

5) Peat
I'm seriously considering using peat in one compartment of my filter in order to soften the water. I'm not sure if I want the tea colored water but I've also heard that carbon can take the color out. I've got some more research to do on this but it's something I'm thinking about.

Wish List:

1) UV Sterilizer.
One day I'd love to keep a dwarf gourami, in fact I'd love a mated pair that could make more little dwarf gouramis. From what I've read they are highly susceptible to bacterial infections. On top of that just for the health of my fish and to get rid of algae in the water I'd like to get one of these. Until I've got $60 bucks free and no more fish or decor to buy it'll have to wait though.

2) Plant Blub
I want to get a blub for my light fixture that will support plant growth. I want to plant my tank one day but that's way down the road once I get all the fish I want and I'm happy with how things are going.

3) CO2 Injection
Once I start planting my tank I want to look into injecting CO2 to help the plants. Probably start with just a yeast reactor, not a pressurized tank.

4) More Tanks
Duh. Start off with a 5 gallon tank at work for a betta, then a 3 gallon at home for some shrimp. A 20 gallon for that stand I built and one day a monster salt water tank. Some day.

Vacation

2008-07-21T08:29:00.002-04:00

The family went on vacation this week. Friday we headed to the beach for ten days. So what about my fish you ask? Well first a little biology lesson, fish are not like humans, fish are cold blooded animals. Unlike humans, cats, or dogs, fish don't need to continually eat large portions of food to give them the energy to regulate their temperature. Yes, most of the food you eat goes to just keeping your body temperature up. This means that fish can survive on a lot less food because their bodies aren't looking for something to burn all the time to keep their temperature up. In nature fish don't eat like they do in your tank. My fish get two square meals a day. In the wild they'd eat when they found food, and sometimes you don't find any. Going without eating for a while is what fish are designed for. Most fish can go a week easy without ill effect, some two.

So my fish should be alright while we're on vacation. I fed them regularly prior to leaving and changed out 50% of their water the morning we left. My wife's sister will be stopping by to drop off our cats and when she does I left some food premeasured in a cup on the counter for her to give the fish. I figure I've done all I can to ensure that they will be taken care of while we're on vacation. I hope when I get back Fe and the Stooges will be fine, if a little hungry.

Maintenance

2008-07-13T19:25:00.002-04:00

Saturday is weekly maintenance day for my tank. The first thing I do is a water change/gravel vacuum. I give the sand a good once over with the vacuum to pick up uneaten food and fish poop. If I don't they'll decay and in the process make ammonia, a lot of it. Since the gravel vacuum is also a siphon I wind up sucking out about five gallons of water. Once the vacuuming is done I put my bucket low on the floor to suck the hardest it can and pull another five gallons of water out. All in all it takes about fifteen minutes.Once I've pulled out the ten gallons its time to put it back. The first two and a half gallons get the water conditioner for the full ten gallon change along with the pinch of buffering salts, the next three buckets just get salt. That takes about another fifteen minutes. After that I use a fork to stir up the sand to keep it from getting to compact and going anaerobic. Finally I rotate my filters, I pull out the cartridge on the right, move the one on the left into the slot on the right and put a fresh cartridge on the left. Since they've both been in the tank for two weeks now I'll remove the first one, in two weeks I'll yank the next one. If I keep up that schedule each cartridge will stay in the tank for a month with them on average being two weeks old.

All that takes about forty minutes to work through. Really it's not too bad.

For the aggravation I treat my fish too some frozen brine shrimp. Unfortunately being the first time I'd done this I put in WAY too much shrimp. I had to fish a lot of them out with my fish net. Next time I'm going to give them about a third of what I did. Given how much they had to eat they only got one small meal on Sunday.

Successful Week

2008-07-11T18:50:00.003-04:00

Well tomorrow marks the one week point in this round of fish. Fe soldiers on as always, refusing to do the appropriate thing and hide in fear since he lacks a shoal. Instead he prowls the tank spending little time amongst the cover spread around. The three stooges are as animated as ever, begging for food and showing no signs of undo stress. In other words after a week everything looks to be going well.

So now what? Well unfortunately for my tank we're going on vacation at the end of next week so it's probably not the best time to add more fish, though I desperately want to. Angela's sister will be stopping by to drop off our cats and I'm going to have her feed my fish. If everyone makes it through the vacation fine then I'll start to stock up when we get back. First on the list are more neons to give Fe a proper school, after that probably the rummy's.

A note on stocking up, I found another good local fish shop. Ocean Blue has a sister store called Aquaria Studios. It's not as close to my house but it is near work. I like the store better frankly. The shop keeper said they turn over the stock slower than Ocean Blue and I can tell, all the fish are larger than the same breeds at OB. Larger older fish that have been in the store longer are more stable and likely to survive. Maybe not critical with small fish like the tetras but larger more expensive fish will be better off if they aren't fresh out of the packing box.

I also spotted another future denizen of my tank, a german blue ram.

Tell me that's not a good looking fish.

Still Going

2008-07-09T18:21:00.003-04:00

Well, five days in and so far everyone is doing pretty good. Fe is still firing on all cylinders but he's a freak so he doesn't count. The three platys are all still very active and a lot of fun to watch. They seem to play tag with one another, chasing each other around. All three come rushing up to the glass when they see me, begging for food.

They're already more loyal than the cats.

In other news the tank water is completely clear, all the haze from the sand is gone and has been for a while.

Let's Try That Again

2008-07-06T22:30:00.004-04:00

While Fe continues to swim defiantly he was looking lonely. His refusal to capitulate to my inept attempts at fish keeping left me in a rough spot. With him in there I couldn't cycle the tank fishlessly, the ammonia levels a fishless cycle generates would be lethal, even for him. However cycling the tank naturally would take too long as we're going on vacation at the end of July and a fish fueled cycle would certainly drag on for that long, if not in ammonia then certainly in nitrites. Perhaps I'm too impatient but just leaving the tank as is and doing nothing for almost a month doesn't sit well with me.

So I decided to cheat.

Yes, cheat. If you read this you know that I knocked the idea of dump in starter bacteria not too long ago. What I did is I asked the guy at my fish store exactly how he gets his tanks going. He recommended this stuff:

Well I bought a bottle, yes it is refrigerated, and I used it. If this stuff works as advertised and the way the fish store guy says it does I should take care of most of the cycling process in a few days as the bacteria take up residence in the tank.

I also bought three more mickey mouse platys. So far Mickey II, Donald, and Goofy are all doing well. In fact the three of them are more lively and active than Mickey ever was. When they see someone coming up to the tank they move up to the glass and beg for food. When I moved the thermometer and temperature probe in the tank they gathered around my hand and wouldn't leave my hand or the items alone for a while afterwards.

While platys are not listed as schooling fish in anything I've seen I think that having a few more of their kind might be helping with their quick acclimation.

We'll see if my cheating is going to pay off.

Unfortunate Circumstances

2008-07-05T22:03:00.002-04:00

I've held off posting this for a few days, its a combination of embarrassing and... well its hard to call the loss of three fish worth $14 tragic but there it is. Yes I lost three more fish. My mickey mouse platy and the two cories.

In my endeavor to get my pH under control I dosed my water with buffering salts. The salts react with the alkalines in the water and make CO2. The downside to controlling pH in this way is that each time I add water during a regular water change the pH will go wonky as I add pH 8.0 tap water to the mix. Which means more salts which means the pH jumps around, etc. The best solution to dealing with the pH problems is to use reverse osmosis water which has a perfect pH of 7.0. Once I figure out the ratio of tap water to RO water to hit 7.5 I can alway use that ratio for my water changes.

Anyways, back on subject. I was testing my water's pH regularly so i would know when I had hit a good pH. The problem is that the test kit has two tests for pH, a low range one that goes from 6.0 to 7.6 and a high range one that goes from 7.4 to 8.0. Well with how high my pH was I was using the high range test. Unfortunately I can't tell colors. I bottomed out the high range pH test at light orange without realizing it and kept on dosing the salts. The big problem is that the pH scale is logarithmic. That means it's not a constant scale. A pH of 8.0 is ten times more alkaline than 7.0 and a hundred times more alkaline than 6.0. That means when the pH drops it'll start slow then go incredibly fast. Well it did.

My platy and both cories died and my neon wasn't looking good. When I used the low range pH chart it was bottomed out at 6.0. Well that tremendous a pH change is what did it. So the high pH killed off my first batch of fish and then dropping killed off the second.

Well I still had one fish alive. I siphoned off fifteen gallons of water and replaced it with dechlorinated tap water. That high pH tap water drew my overall pH up to 7.5. Amazingly enough my neon survived the correction. No matter how hard I screw up I can't kill this guy.

So there it is, I'm down to one tiny little neon tetra in a 55 gallon tank.

Hey Mickey You're So Fine...

2008-07-01T00:41:00.002-04:00

...you're so fine you blow my mind!

Angela made me do that.

Mickey the mickey mouse platy has suddenly become much more photogenic however, peeking out yesterday and today bumrushing the glass when he sees a human coming. Whatever shyness he might have felt is long gone.

Onnnnnnne is the Loneliest Number....

2008-06-29T16:03:00.002-04:00

I'm now down to one lonely little neon tetra in my tank. The smallest of the batch of seven is now the only survivor. According to the guy at the pet store the likely culprit is my pH. With no contaminates to speak of in the tank, ammonia/nitrites/nitrates, and it coming on too fast to be neon tetra disease I have no explanation for it so I'm gonna go with him.

The long term solution with a tank my size is to use about 50% reverse osmosis (RO) water for my water changes and 50% tap. That should soften up the water enough to keep everyone happy. Unfortunately RO water is a buck a gallon and I'll need five to ten gallons of it a week, that tab will add up fast. Using peat, the stuff in bogs, is another option to decrease the pH, the down side is it'll look like my fish are swimming in tea. It's probably not the end of the world, but I'd rather not, I think. Heck I may try it just to see what it looks like and if I can live with it. I can buy a lot of peat for the price of an RO unit.

Until I figure out what I'm doing long run I'm using buffering salts to drop the pH. Results so far are good, todays dose took it down to 7.8 from 8..0. Hopefully tomorrows will knock it down to 7.6 and the day after I can have it down in the 7.4 to 7.5 range.

Amazingly enough the catfish, supposedly the most delicate fish I own are flitting about happily rummaging through the sand.

Losses

2008-06-29T09:41:00.002-04:00

Unfortunately I lost four of my neons overnight. Three were motionless, laying on the sand on their sides not breathing, not responding to the food added to the tank and not responding to the net or being picked up. Dead. The forth was floating aimlessly. He'd flick his tail occasionally but he was tumbling through the tank out of control. His breathing was ragged and with three confirmed dead and only three still acting normally I didn't think I could take the risk on him snapping out of it.

Unfortunately one of my three remaining neons has a slightly ragged spot on the lower lobe of his caudal fin and he's not staying as close to the other two as I'd expect. Could be nothing but I'm paranoid now.

Time to see if my fish shop has some kind of guarantee.

Second Fish

2008-06-28T21:45:00.003-04:00

Angela's folks saw my fish tank today and felt it needed more fish. Who am I to argue?

These two guys are panda cory catfish. When I put them in the tank for the first time they both found some cover and stayed hidden for a couple hours. They didn't stay hidden though, before two long they found one another and immediately got busy prowling the tank. They've been pal-ing around all night, rooting through the sand chasing one another around.

When we were at the store buying the neons Angela spotted a tank with orange mollies and what are called mickey mouse platies. Well I figure it can't hurt to have some fish in the tank that Angela likes. So in a blatant attempt to get her engaged I picked up a lone platy. Don't worry, unlike my herds livebearers like her platy don't mind being solo. Well unlike my timid little fish Angela's gets put in the tank and immediately starts cruising about like he, yes it is a he, owns the place. Figures. Apparently he wore himself out though because right how he's hiding in the tank's caves and not being very photogenic.

My neons have gotten out of their corner and are schooling about the tank checking things out. Apparently they like the air stone's bubbles and play in them from time to time.

I'm now pushing the limit on fish I can put in an uncycled tank, maybe even a bit over it. I'm going to be keeping close track on my ammonia and nitrite levels so if things start to get out of hand I'll be able to do a water change or add some ammo-lock.

First Fish

2008-06-28T13:50:00.004-04:00

Today was a big day. THis morning we went to the pet store and picked up our first fish, a small group of seven neon tetras. We brought them right home and started to acclimate them to our water.

Here you can see Charles giving me orders on how to take care of the fish.

They look pretty small don't they? Well they are, they won't get much over an inch in length even full grown.

After an hour of small water changes the neons are ready to go in the tank for real.

Our little characins immediately started to shoal together but went right for the one place I didn't think they would, to the back of the tank by the air stone, heater, and by the filter intake. As soon as they got in the big tank their color perked right back and they started to swim about enthusiastically.

I'd imagine their new home is a bit overwhelming, they were kept in the store in a tank with no decorations, not even a substrate, now they're dumped into a huge tank full of plants, caves, and sand. Hopefully they'll settle down and start to explore soon. They'll get their first feeding tonight.

Care and Feeding of Fish

2008-06-27T23:55:00.001-04:00

Your new aquarium looks cool right? Awesome? Your little fishies are swimming around and happy. Congratulations, you are now responsible for pets that are more dependent on you than any other creature save perhaps an infant. That's right, these aren't cats and dogs that you can put out some food for and let outside once in a while and be good. Nope, these fish and their little environment will require constant care and attention from you. You're about to face the problem every zoo keeper in history has faced, how to manage an ecosystem and not kill the inhabitants.

Unlike dogs or cats your fish don't get the benefit of a natural ecosystem to sustain them. Where as dogs and cats can breath the air outside, chase other animals and roam around your fish are confined to that little box of water you dunked them in. They are cut off from the natural processes that provide even the most basic needs for them. You have to watch out for those needs.

Don't worry, its not as scary as I'm making it out to be. I'll assume you read my last post and your fish have a good filter, heater, and other such devices. If you took care of all that you should be good to go in most respects. I'll break this down in to simple categories. Stuff you have to do to get started, then what you have to do daily, weekly, monthly, yearly.

Initially

1) Buy Fish
Sounds stupid but hey, it's step one. First off you have to educate yourself about fish. Don't rely on the minimum wage employee at Petsmart to tell you what you need to know about the fish you buy. Take charge of your own education and PLEASE, do it before you buy a fish. Here's a few tidbits to illustrate why.

Goldfish, cute huh? Well they're really just shiny carp. Those little inch and a half suckers in the pet store will grow to be a foot long, easy, maybe more. They can live 30 years. They're also messy, a 20 gallon tank is just big enough for one goldfish, period. My 55 gallon tank could hold about 4 or 5. The rule for goldfish is 20 gallons for the first one, 10 to 15 for everyone after that and that's just to have enough filtration to keep them from dying, forget having enough room to move around in one fully grown.

Tetras, they shouldn't be kept in ones and twos but entire schools. Tetras of all kinds do best in large schools, six or so minimum. Less than that and they are timid and stressed, likely to die of disease. Serpaes will especially be a treat if you buy them singly. Their natural nippiness will get targeted on your other fish rather than members of their own school.

Guppies, flashy and showy right? Well unless you have fish that will eat their fry (baby fish) your tank will be overrun in sort order as they breed out of control.

See why I say you need to know about your fish before you buy them? Here's a list of the important things to know about a fish before you buy it.

a) Temperament - Are these fish mild mannered like a neon tetra, or is it just a shiny piranha that will clean your tank out for you? How does the temperament vary? Many fish are placid, until they have kids, then its a fishy horror movie as they kill off other tank inhabitants to protect their kids. Does their temperament change as they age? Chinese algae eaters start off placid foragers, once they bulk up a bit they start to kill everything else.

b) Schooling - Does the fish like to be kept in large schools or can it not stand the sight of another of its own kind? Guppies require a 2 or 3 to 1 female to male ratio or the horny little guys will hound the females into an early grave. They don't care though about other members of their species, so you can keep them in ones or whole large groups, just either have enough girls or none at all. Tetras and cory catfish need to be kept in schools, but a red tailed black shark or a betta will fight another of its own kind. If a fish does need to be kept in a school, do it. They're much better off and more fun to look at.

c) Water conditions - What temperature water does this fish do best in? Goldfish like cold water, tetras like it hot. Someone will be unhappy if you keep them in the same tank. Even similar kinds of fish like different temperatures, panda cory catfish like the temperature in the mid 70's, most other corys like it in the high 70s or low 80s. You can usually find a happy medium with most tropical fish. Also know what kind of pH they like. While most tropicals in the pet store are likely raised in the same kind of tap water you have at home some fish are caught wild and aren't acclimated to it, and still others just can't tolerate pH differences. African cichlids need hard, pH 8.0+ water, no exceptions. A discus needs soft pH 6.5- water. Putting them together would make one or both unhappy and eventually dead.

d) Feeding - While most fish will eat fish flakes just like people they need a varied diet. Are they carnivores, omnivores, herbivores? It matters. Find out what they like and plan accordingly. This is important, why? Well you know angelfish? They're carnivores. When they're small they're too small to really do anything, but when they get larger they will kill and eat smaller fish. Yes, angelfish.

e) Size - Remember what I said about goldfish, they can grow to over a foot long? Well they aren't the only fish that get big. Remember pet stores sell young fish, they're smaller, easier to transport, easier to display, and easier to feed. Almost every fish you see in the store will get bigger, some much bigger. Know what you're getting yourself into in regards to size. While your 20 gallon tank might be plenty big enough for that oscar now it won't be in a year when he's over ten inches long and can barely turn around.

Something to be aware of is how many fish will be in your tank. There are all kinds of yardsticks and just as many people who say they don't work. The biggest consideration is how good is your filtration. Good filtration can sustain more fish and bad filtration can't. Personally I'm going to have about 40 to 50 fish in my tank when I'm done. They're all small 2 inch or less fish and I have a filter big enough for a 75 gallon tank.

2) Put them In
Sounds simple enough, just dump the new fish into your tank and go right? Nope. Fish are delicate or at least more delicate than you think. The water in the bag you brought them home in is not like the water you're about to dump them into. A significant temperature/pH/nitrite level/etc change can harm a fish, in extreme cases it will just kill them outright. So what can you do? Get them used to your water slowly.

When you get home take out your fish bucket and empty the water and the fish into it, gently. Now if your bucket is too big you might need a smaller one to do this. Just remember to make sure its never had cleaners in it, in fact just go buy a new bucket, a small one. They're like a buck you cheapskate. Now that the fish and their store water are in the bucket its time to start acclimating them. The idea is to slowly dilute their water with your water until its pretty much just your water. Add small amounts of your tank water, straight from your tank, into the bucket. Do it slowly, the less at once the better. A few table spoons at a time and once every five or ten minutes. Yes, this is slow and mind numbing. Deal with it, you bought a fish tank. After you've throughly diluted their water with yours, even going so far as to fill the bucket once then drain it and do it again, maybe, you can introduce them to your tank, scoop them out one at a time with a net and place them in. Once they're all in then dump in the water you took out. The key to the whole process is taking it slowly. The slower the less stress on the fish the better the chance you didn't just waste your money on a kitty snack. For a really good hands off way to do this google "Drip Acclimation". Or just click here: http://www.aquaria.info/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=379&theme=Printer

3) Wait
The biggest mistake you can make in adding fish to your tank is to add every fish you want all at once. Too many fish making ammonia and not enough bacteria converting it equals dead fish. You have to increase the ammonia load slowly so the bacteria have time to grow and keep up with the fish. There is no way around this, don't waste your cash on products that claim to add bacteria immediately. It's simple biology. To survive an extended stay in a bottle the bacteria would have to be hibernating, to hibernate it'd have to be very cold. Did you buy a bottle at room temperature? Then you just bought a lot of bacteria corpses. Some people have said the stuff that is actually refrigerated actually works, I dunno. What I do know is if the bottle isn't cold its useless. Back to the fish.

Your first few fish should be hardy, and preferably cheap. I've heard a lot of people recommend zebra danios. Personally I'm going to use neon or cardinal tetras. Add your first few fish and then wait. Test your water daily. If your ammonia levels start to spike dangerously high do a water change to take them back down. If your nitrite levels start to spike congratulations you've got first stage bacteria turning ammonia into nitrites, but if the nitrite levels spike do a water change. Ideally you don't want the levels to ever reach danger territory because removing ammonia and nitrites from the water slows the process. When your test starts showing nitrates you know you've got both types of bacteria working away. Once ammonia and nitrites reach zero your tank has enough bacteria to keep your fish alive and its ready for more. Your test kit should indicate which levels of ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates are harmful. If your fish show signs of distress then a water change is probably in order whether your readings are dangerous or not. Once things settle down, chemical wise, you should be ready for more fish. Be patient, patience is rewarded with fish that live instead of fish you have to replace. Keep up this process of adding fish then testing and waiting until all your fish are in. Take heart, as you gain more and more bacteria in your tank it will take less and less time to cycle it if you keep your fish additions small.

That about covers what you have to do initially, so now lets cover the daily stuff.

Daily

1) Feed
Have a good quality flake food (if appropriate) to feed to your fish daily. Give them only as much as they can eat in 2 or 3 minutes twice a day. If they can't finish it all in that time give them less the next time. Fish are opportunistic feeders meaning they will eat everything they can when its available so you can easily overfeed the fish and make them sick. Don't do it. Once or twice a week supplement their flake food with a diet appropriate treat, some fresh brine shrimp or worms for your omnivores and carnivores or some fresh lettuce for your herbivores. Maybe algae wafers for your bottom feeders. Mix it up a little bit.

2) Inspect
Every day you need to give your tank a good once over.
a) Fish - How do your fish look, any tattered fins, weird looking spots? Are any of them behaving abnormally? Does it look like any of them are harassing one another? Remember, if you catch a problem early you can fix it before it causes too much damage.
b) Temperature - Check your thermometer, is the temperature within half a degree of where it should be?
c) Filter - Is your filter running, does its output look consistent? Any odd build up? You shouldn't have any problems if you keep up on your filter maintenance but if something goes wonky you want to know about it immediately, not when your fish start going belly up.
d) Air Pump - If you have one is it running, any leaks in the line? Are your air stones putting out consistent bubbles or are they starting to clog? Just like the filter you want to know if something is wrong here before it starts killing fish.
e) Decor - Any algae growth on the decor, anything fallen over? Fish are stronger than you think, and dumber than they look.

It sounds like a hassle but most of it can be done while you feed your fish or in a quick look over. The inspection of your fish and decor can happen when you're just sitting there admiring them.

Weekly

1) Test
Test your water once a week or if your fish look to be in distress. A cycled and well maintained aquarium shouldn't have too many problems with water quality but like anything else you're better off catching it early and fixing it. Testing will only take a few moments.

2) Vacuum
It's hard to give hard and fast rules about vacuuming your gravel because so many things can influence it, most especially how many bottom feeders you have, the more you have and the less you over feed the less vacuuming you'll have to do. What is getting vacuumed up? Fish poop, uneaten food, anything too big to remain suspended in the water and get taken out by the filter. This gunk can be a source of disease and ammonia spikes. The good thing about vacuuming is that it gets your water change started.

3) Change the Water
No not all of it. While those bacteria take out ammonia and nitrites they produce nitrates. Unless your tank is heavily planted with real plants your nitrates are going to build up and in large concentrations are lethal to fish. To keep them under control you need to remove part of the water in the tank and replace it with fresh DECHLORINATED water. If your nitrates are 40 ppm a 50% water change will reduce them to 20 ppm, that's the theory behind water changes. How much should you change is up to your test kit. If you're testing your water on a weekly basis you can figure out how fast nitrates are building up and how much water you need to change to keep them at safe levels. The idea should be that you do a water change before the nitrates get dangerous and to do enough of one to keep them safe until the next change. Some people only have to do a 10% change per week, some have to do 50%. It just varies but if you need a starting place try a 20% change and see how it goes.

Monthly

1) Filter Maintenance
Do it. Read the manufacturers instructions and follow them. Just make sure to do your maintenance in a bucket of tank water. This increases the chance that the beneficial bacteria in the filter will survive the process. If you have a two chamber HoB filter like a Penguin 350 alternate which cartridges you change out to maximize the amount of bacteria you preserve.

2) Clean
Even the best tank will get algae on it. Use an algae scrubber to clean the glass on the tank and keep it clear. If any of your fake plants or decorations are growing it on them take them out and rinse them in tank water. If the algae is really bad use a mild bleach solution to clean them then rinse them in tank water and allow them to sit out until bone dry.

Yearly

1) Change the Lighting
Change out your light at least once a year. This is far more critical on planted tanks but still important on non-planted ones.

2) Redecorate
This is probably more on the order of a every six months thing but once a year works. Redecorate the tank, most the plants, caves and decorations around. It provides some stimulation for your fish and it also breaks up older established territories and encourages the fish to make new ones.

How To

2008-06-25T23:24:00.000-04:00

First off, take everything I say with a grain of salt. While I've been doing all the reading and research I can lately on setting up and running an aquarium I still don't have any fish. In fact I'm still getting all my sand into the tank. However I'm still going to try and distill what I've learned down and pass it on, but with a strong encouragement to do your own research, come to your own conclusions, and run your own tank.

I'm going to try and run through this like a shopping list. Start with the most basic, tank size, and move on through the really big important things to consider. I'll talk about fish specifically later.

1) Tank Size

If you're reading this and taking me seriously you probably haven't had an aquarium before. Heck I've barely got one, one without fish. So what's a good size tank to get. Like so many things in life moderation is the key. Really small tanks are difficult to manage, with so little water volume variables can change rapidly, maybe too rapidly for an inexperienced fish keeper to keep up with. Big tanks on the other hand take a tremendous commitment in terms of resources. Something in the middle will usually work best for new people, something in the 20-30 gallon range. Something in that range is large enough to change not too rapidly, but not so large that it eats your lunch.

Also consider weight when you think about what size tank you plan on getting. Water weighs 8lbs per gallon, rock significantly more. Its not a bad estimation to figure each gallon of tank weighs ten pounds. That means a 30 gallon tank could weigh 300 pounds, maybe even more if you pile in lots of rocks and substrate. Take a look at where you plan on putting the tank, if you're not comfortable with the idea of two full grown adults standing on it you don't wanna put a tank there. If it rocks you really don't wanna put a tank there. If you're not sure, buy a tank stand or even build your own.

Finally, fish tanks are freaking expensive. I priced out a 20 gallon set up and before I even put in many decorations or a single fish it was going to cost $200 if I bought stuff new. Be open to snagging stuff off of craigslist or ebay.

2) Salt or Freshwater.

Everything I'm writing assumes freshwater. Saltwater is a much larger investment and more complicated. Since I'm doing freshwater that's all I'm talking about here.

3) Filtration

This is a biggy. First off there are three kinds of filtration, mechanical, chemical and biological. Thankfully their names refer to both what they remove and how they remove it. Mechanical filtration is the removal of suspended particles from the water. Sand, grit, scales, fish poop, etc. If you can look in the fish tank and see it floating then mechanical filtration is what is supposed to take it out. Mechanical filtration is usually taken care of via a sponge or filter. Sponges look exactly like what they sound like. Filters in this case look much like your AC filter only denser, or polyester fill. The idea is to create passages through the material small enough that water makes it through but suspended junk gets hung up in it. Every tank needs mechanical filtration.

Chemical filtration is just that, removing unwanted chemicals from the tank. The most common way to do this is via activated carbon, or charcoal. In some filters its kept in its own separate container, in others, like mine, the carbon is packaged with the filter in cartridge. This is a rather savvy marketing move because filters don't really wear out but the carbon is deactivated in two to four weeks. So every two to four weeks they can sell you new carbon and a new filter. Slick huh? I'll talk about how to get around that later. Now there is some debate on whether or not its worth it to have carbon in the filtration system. For the moment I'm going to play it safe and use it.

Biological filtration is the most complex filtration. Get ready for a biology lesson, but I'll keep it simple. Ammonia is lethal to fish. Fish waste and decaying biological matter (food that wasn't eaten, dying plants, dead fish) both produce ammonia. The ammonia must be removed from the aquarium water or very quickly your fish will die from ammonia poisoning. We're in luck however. There is a type of bacteria that is plentiful in nature that eats ammonia and turns it into nitrites. The downside is that nitrites will kill fish just as dead as ammonia. We luck out again because there are more bacteria that eat nitrites and turn them into nitrates. (It's a chemical thing, there is a difference.) Well nitrates are not good for fish either in large doses, HOWEVER, unlike ammonia fish can tolerate certain levels of nitrates in the water and be none worse for the wear. That means we can keep nitrate levels under control through water changes and our fish will be fine so long as we don't neglect them and let the nitrates go bonkers. Biological filtration is the act of encouraging these beneficial bacteria to grow in our aquarium, don't worry they are invisible and you'll never know they're there except by their actions. These bacteria live all over your tank but primarily they live in two places, the substrate of the tank (gravel usually) and on the filter material and bio material in your filter.

While plenty of them live in your filter material its a good idea to provide an alternate place for them to live in your filter. You see those mechanical filters need to be cleaned out from time to time or they clog up. The act of cleaning them, even just squeezing them out, isn't good for the bacteria. The best way to get biological filtration in your filter is by providing a bio media. There are a couple different kinds. In my filter its a "bio wheel" essentially a waterwheel made out of porous material that allows the bacteria to alternately contact water, cleaning ammonia and then the oxygen, giving them a boost in effectiveness. In other filters, including mine, you can add bio media to it. This media is often in the form of porous ceramics(pellets, rings, rubble) or plastic mesh balls. Both provide a huge surface area for the bacteria to live on and a place for them to live that you won't be disturbing constantly.

Now that we've spent all this time talking about theory lets talk practicals.

There are several different kinds of filters. I'll talk about each of them and their benefits from the stand point of the three kinds of filtration as well as other things such as ease of use and cost.

a) Undergravel Filters. Just what the name says, they are filters put under the gravel, sand need not apply. The gravel in your aquarium sits on top of perforated plastic plates. A tube or tubes in the corners is set up to draw water down through the gravel, to the plates, and then push it back out into the tank at the surface. The UGF uses the tanks gravel for biological and mechanical filtration. Some newer models make provision for the installation of carbon inserts to add chemical filtration. These aren't bad filters, but they do require a lot of maintenance and can be a pain to fix. First off since you are using the gravel for mechanical filtration you need to vacuum it regularly to keep it form becoming too full of gunk. Second there's no way to clean the area under the plates without tearing the tank down completely. Finally decorations can create low and no flow areas reducing the effectiveness of the filter. They aren't bad, but technology has improved.

b) HOB (Hand on Back) Filters. These filters... hang on the back of the tank. Aquariums seem to be a lovely hobby where things are what they sound like. Anyways, these can be further refined into two categories. Bio Wheel filters and Power filters. Biowheel filters have bio wheels, power filters don't. Both filters draw water up out of the tank, pass it through filtration media, then spit it back into the tank, they just approach it differently. These filters are excellent for multiple reasons. First they are inexpensive. You can get a HOB filter for a 70 gallon tank for $50. Second they are easy to maintain, everything is right there in its own little box, not stuck down in the tank or anything. Finally they have just one motorized moving part which makes them rather bullet proof and easy to fix. The big two in this area are Marineland which makes the Penguin and Emperor series of bio wheel filters, and the Aquaclear brand power filter.

c) In Tank Filters. Filter that literally sit in the tank. Great if you don't have the room for a HOB, but I have trouble imagining a situation where you're that pressed for three inches of space behind the tank. These are similar to power filters just more of a pain to maintain, and they take up real estate inside the tank.

d) Canister Filters. Filters in canisters. A uptake tube and a return nozzle are the only evidence of a filter in tanks with canister filters. These filters usually sit under the tank in a cabinet to keep them out of site. These are usually the best filters you can buy because the slow flow through them encourages excellent filtration. They also tend to be the most expensive filters.

How do you size a filter? Aside from reading the box, its usually printed right on it, is to look for a filter that can move your water 4 to 5 times an hour. Multiply your tank capacity time four and that's the lowest gallons per hour rating you should look for. If you aren't sure go the next size larger.

4) Heating.

Say it with me kids, tropical... tropical fish. 95% of the fish you see in freshwater aquariums are tropical fish. This means they come from warm climates. These fish are used to water temperatures from the mid to high seventies to low eighties. The modern American home stays somewhere in the mid to low seventies. See the problem? What would happen to your fish if you kept them at these temperatures? The same thing that would happen to you if you wore shorts and a t-shirt and kept the thermostat at 63 degrees. You'd survive but you wouldn't be happy, you'd also be more prone to getting sick. So buy your fish a heater.

The best kind to buy are called heaterstats. These are combination heaters and thermostats and they're so good because rather than just heat the water they heat it up to a point and then stop. This way you can keep your tank exactly where you want it. Where do you want it? Research your fish. Figure on needing 3-5 watts of heater per gallon, less if your tank room stays at a reasonable temperature, more if it gets chilly.

Finally get a back up thermometer, not one of those stick on things you put on the outside. Get a simple mercury thermometer that will stick to the glass on the inside or a digital one with a probe for the water. It's a backup to ensure your heaters are doing their jobs.

5) Test Kit

Aquariums are like pools. You have to monitor the water and make sure it stays within certain parameters.

6) Lighting

Fluorescent. Now there's all kinds of different bulbs and applications and I'm not going to get into it because I'm not yet to that point. What I do know, and what I've seen, is that you want fluorescent lights. Incandescent just don't show off your fish to their best, and I've yet to see an incandescent replacement bulb for sale in a fish shop.

7) Aeration

Oxygen in the water, fish need it to survive. The enclosed environment of a fish tank denies the most common methods of getting oxygen into the water so we have to take responsibility for it ourselves. The good news is that if you have a UGF with bubblers, a HOB filter, or a well placed canister filter return you're probably already aerating the water plenty just from the turbulence of the return water. If you really want to make sure you can buy a small air pump (don't worry about the ratings, those are for running UGF's off them, for the purposes of aeration just about any will do.) some tubing, a check valve, and a air stone for about $12.

8) Substrate

Aka that crap on the bottom. Gravel is a common choice for a bottom covering and its a good one. It provides plenty of area of bacteria growth and is easy to maintain. Your main consideration should be that that stuff has rounded edges, not sharp, and that you rinse it thoroughly to get out the grit.

An alternative is sand. Sand is easier on bottom dwelling fish and has a different look than gravel. It requires more upkeep, it needs to be agitated regularly and takes forever to rinse clean. It offers just as much if not more area for bacteriological growth.

One thing to keep in mind about substrate, you don't need the fancy stuff from the pet store. A 20lb bag of gravel from Petsmart runs about $14. A $50 lb bag of the same size stuff from Lowes costs $3.50. Sand is the same. Don't bother with the pet store or aquarium store, just go to your local home improvement warehouse for your substrate.

9) Terrain

While every fish differs there are some things that you can be pretty sure of, one of those things is that they like cover. Things like caves, driftwood, and rocks give fish places to hide, make your tank look good, and just improve your fishes well being. Make sure that any cave decoration gets rinsed before you put it in and is intended to be submerged. I'd avoid using rocks you find in your yard since some can throw your water chemistry out of whack and they can carry nasties. You typically want things like igneous or metamorphic rocks. Avoid ones that look to be rusting or are shiny like metal. Sedimentary rocks are a no-no. Make sure you clean any rock thoroughly before you put it in.

For driftwood its even more complicated. Again buy stuff from dealers who sell driftwood, stuff in your yard will cause you more problems and take more time to make safe that it's probably easier to pay a few more bucks for the genuine article. First, the wood needs to be boiled to prevent it from leaking tannins into your water. Tannins will lower the pH (not always a bad thing) and give the water a golden hue. Some people want this, most don't. Boiling the wood several times will remove most of the tannins and disinfect it. Next make sure it sinks. Not all driftwood sinks. Some of it isn't completely waterlogged. If your wood floats you are going to have to soak it. This can take days or even weeks. Either anchor the driftwood down in the aquarium or do it in a bucket but keep it there until it won't float.

10) Plants

Real plants require lots of care, and equipment. Things like CO2 injection, fertilizer, and appropriate lighting. I'm not touching that yet.

Fake plants come in two varieties, plastic and silk. Silk is slightly more expensive, maybe about 25%, but it's more lifelike and softer. This is important with certain kinds of fish who have long flowing fins and like to hide in plants. Plastic plants can slice up their fins where as silk will preserve them. Personally I'm getting silk where I can find them but they're still only about a third of my plants.

As with anything rinse them off well before putting them in the tank.

11) Gravel Vacuum

This is used for vacuuming up debris in your gravel. Get one, use it. It can also be used as a siphon for water changes.

12) Bucket

Yes, a bucket. For your water changes, fish introductions, gravel vac and just general use buy a new bucket specifically for your fish tank. Fish respond poorly, ie roll over and die, in the presence of most household cleansers. Get a bucket just for your tank and label it fish only. Never use it for anything but the tank. I got a 2.5 gallon bucket at Target for $2, at Petsmart it would have been $6.

13) Dechlorinator

All tap water has a form of chlorine in it. Either straight chlorine, unlikely today, or chloramine, most likely. Back in the day you could dechlorinate water by letting it sit for an hour or two before putting it in the tank. Chlorine is volatile and would evaporate. The water companies switched to chloramine specifically because it acts like chlorine but doesn't evaporate off. Chlorine is much like ammonia, not good for fish. Any water that goes in your tank should be treated with a dechlorinator. Most of them now market themselves as "water conditioners" just be sure that somewhere on the package it mentions removing chlorine and chloramine.

14) Siphon

Also known as a plastic tube. Your gravel vacuum's tubing will likely suffice, but have a length of plastic tubing you can use to siphon things with. It's also not a bad idea to have a length of airline tubing to use as a small siphon. That plus a valve will help you acclimate your fish to the tank.

Assembled

2008-06-24T21:34:00.003-04:00

My tank is finally all put together. Sand in, filled with water. Dechlorinated. Everything is running and all my decorations are in. As you can see the bottom is rather busy but not much is going on up top, this is a result of buying decorations with a 20 gallon tank in mind. Chop seven inches off the top of this thing and it'd look pretty full. I'm still tickled to death to have everything together and running.

Now for fish.

Sandbar

2008-06-23T22:04:00.002-04:00

I'm still working on my tank, it's just taking a while. Rinsing the sand is a time consuming process, taking half an hour to forty five minutes to wash 15 pounds of it. I was concerned about how it was going to look since the sand was clumpy and hard to smooth out so tonight after dumping another load of sand in I went ahead and put in about eight gallons of water. I didn't have anything to worry about because as soon as the water hit the sand everything smoothed out and it looked spectacular. I've got about 20 more pounds of sand to rinse and I'll be finished so hopefully tomorrow it'll be done and I can put in enough water to start loading up decor.

Decorations

2008-06-22T01:50:00.002-04:00

Tonight I used the slate that came with my tank to make some decorations for my fish... if I ever get any.

Send money.

Anyways these were built tonight with the aid of a hammer and some aquarium silicone. The first is a large cave, hopefully my red tailed black shark will make this his home, I made it large specifically for him.

The second is a large... pile that I put together. Initially it was just a pile, then I added the long piece of top and made it look like cattle.

Next is a lean to. I tried to add some extra support but nothing really fit without filling up all the space in the middle. The silicone seems to be holding it well and I'm going to bury it a half inch in the sand, at least.

I built these two just for the heck of it.

What I'm really going to need though is something vertical. My tank is ~20" deep and most of my decorations are 6" high, tops. Some of my plants are taller but not most. What I really need is a piece of driftwood or something that will project upwards through the water column. Unfortunately the fake stuff at Petsmart that's the right height is like $40 or more. Oh well, this is obviously a work in progress.

IT'S IN!

2008-06-21T10:22:00.003-04:00

My cleaning is almost done. The tank is in the house, on its stand, and with the hood. Now I am going to start rinsing the sand for it. I've got two fifty pound bags of play sand to get rinsed and clean, this could take a while.

Even More Cleaning

2008-06-20T23:42:00.003-04:00

I spent an hour cleaning even more tonight. As it stands right now everything is cleaned and ready to go save the tank. Tomorrow my wife and I will carry it out back and I'll hose it down and clean it out. Once that's done its into the house and time to start setting things up.

Unfortunately a few last odds and ends managed to wipe out my fish cash so this weekend I'll have a tank fully set up, and no cash to buy any fish. What finished me off was a 100W heater, a 6 pack of filter cartridges, some Fluval ceramic rings and some aquarium silicone so I can turn that slate into some caves.

Oh, I also used my water test kit to see about my tap water. The good news is I won't be fighting any ammonia or nitrites right out of the tap. The bad news is that my water is hard as a rock.

Filter Progress

2008-06-18T22:10:00.002-04:00

I made some good progress today with the tank. I cleaned up the Penguin filter and one of the power filters. I used some vinegar and hot water and scrubbed them both clean, or as clean as I could get them. The good news is that all the parts are present, I just have to rummage through and match up the lift tubes for either filter. I'd post pictures of them except that our camera died at the hospital tonight taking pictures of Isabella so until it recharges no luck.

Tomorrow I'm going to clean up the gang valve and gravel vac then get started on the tank itself.

It's Here!

2008-06-17T21:41:00.000-04:00

My fish tank arrived today courtesy of my grandparents, to put it mildly I'm excited. There's a lot of work to be done but it can get started now. Before I get started though I wanted to give everyone a quick overview of what I got.

First up, the tank and stand themselves.

We'll talk about the junk in it shortly. The tank itself looks to be in good condition. All the seams look to be good and there are no cracks or anything. It does need a good cleaning though. My first step will be to research what is a cleaner I can use inside the tank without turning it into a fishy gas chamber. The stand is a simple metal angle iron stand. A good dusting and a piece of plywood for a lower shelf should be all it needs.

Next up the filters. First the bio wheel.

This is the filter I really want to work, its the better of the three, well four. There's a cover for it and all the pieces are there. It's a Penguin 300, not an Emperor 400 like I thought. The bad news is that its out of production, the good news is that really doesn't matter because aside from the pump there's nothing too complicated about this thing. Just like everything else it needs a good cleaning.

In addition to this filter there were two regular power filters included.

These are a back up to the biowheel. I'm pretty sure between the two I can cobble together one working filter, probably two but we'll see. I'll hold onto one just in case the bio wheel ever pukes its guts. There was also an undergravel filter but since I'm going to have a sand substrate its useless to me.

Lighting looks to be in good hands. I have two choices, a single 48" long unit or paired 24". With just one cord and one piece I figure I'll go with the single piece light. I got multiple hood pieces, I plan on using the least dirty. I'm not sure if the bulbs are the best for the tank but right now they make light. At some point in the future I'm going to replace the bulbs just to be sure they're right.

I got a big air pump with the deal, it looks to be in good condition. It also had a nice gang valve as well. It's way over sized for what I want it for, to run a few bubble makers but hey, I've got it. The tubing that came with it is iffy though so I'm going to get rid of it and buy new stuff.

I also got a gravel vacuum, in need of a cleaning like everything else.

On a really good note I also got a ton of slate rocks. With a little aquarium silicone to hold it together I can turn this slate into some decorations for my fish, stuff like caves.

Now onto the not so hot. Fist off is this big tub of gravel I got.

I'm pretty sure its quartz and for me its useless. My catfish can deal with gravel if its nice and smooth, this stuff is like broken glass. Oh well, sand for me.

Unfortunately I didn't confirm the wattage of the heater when I was talking to the seller. It's all of 50 watts for a 55 gallon tank. That's at least 100 watts shy of what I'd need to keep the water warm. So I'm going to have to spring for another heater before too long, and by before too long I mean before I can put fish in the tank. If I had the cash to swing it I'd just buy two 100 watt heaters and toss out this thing. As it stands now though I'm probably going to have to spring for a single 100 and use this for as long as it lasts. When I save up some more cash I'll toss this thing and buy another 100 watter.

The truly good news I suppose is that I'm ready to go. Now I've got all the gear, all that stands between me and getting things going is a couple days of hard cleaning and a second heater. My next update will most likely be talking about cleaning that biowheel filter up and putting it back together.

Plans, Big Ones

2008-06-13T22:19:00.000-04:00

Being an engineer I can't do anything without a plan. The first thing I did when I found out I'd be getting an aquarium was to go to the library and check out three books on them. Reading all three cover to cover and then visiting some local fish stores I had my plan.

I'm doing a simpler freshwater aquarium using mainly tetras, small hardy fish.

First off, I'll start with a school of neon tetras. They're schooling fish so I'm shooting for 8+ to begin with. They're dirt cheap and hard to kill, so win for me. They're bright and shiny so my son Charles should get a kick out of watching them swim around.

After that come some bottom feeders, panda cory catfish. Again, they don't get too big, about 2" at most and like the tetras they're schooling fish. I figure on 4+ of these. They like to root in the substrate for food so they'll help keep it clean.

Following on their heels come the rummy-nosed tetras. A little bigger than neons, they are also more active. Again they're schooling fish (hmm, trends?) and I'll start with around 8+.

The final members of the tetra horde will be some serpaes. These are the fish that convinced me tetras might be the way to go. They're a lot fancier than the other tetras and look awesome in a tank. Schoolers, 8+ you know the drill by now.

Well that was the end of the small fish horde to begin with however a 55 gallon tank can hold A LOT of small fish. So I plan on adding a school of harlequin rasboras as well.

Last, but not least, is my center piece fish. A lone red tailed black shark. There is some, ok a lot, of disagreement on this fish's temperament and what kind of fish it can be kept with. While everyone agrees that they are aggressive with other members of their own species no one seems to agree if they are with other fish. What I've been advised and decided to go with is to add the shark last and to get the smallest one I can. If the shark is added last she won't immediately stake out the whole tank as HER territory and if she grows up with the other fish she's likely to ignore them when she's full grown. RTBSs are gorgeous fish and I can't wait to have one swimming in my tank.

Well that's the plan so far. With the much larger tank and how small the fish all are I can probably increase the numbers of the small fish I have or maybe even pick out another impressive looking loner or two.

Incoming

2008-06-13T21:45:00.000-04:00

Several weeks ago my wife gave me a choice, I could either get an amazon gift card, or a fish tank.

Obviously I picked the tank.

She's known that I've talked about having an aquarium for a long time but I've just never done anything about it. She knew I'd love an aquarium and I do. I loved it a little too much however as I went out and bought a brand new 20 gallon set up and promptly blew my budget big time. After a little soul searching and an introduction to craigslist I returned the 20 gallon set up and picked up a 55 gallon set up for $75 off of craigslist. Well technically my brother picked it up, the woman selling it was in Lakeland.

So now I'm waiting for my brother to get a chance to come over and bring my tank and equipment. Waiting anxiously because I've been anticipating getting my tank started for almost three weeks. Sometime this week it'll arrive and I'll finally be able to get started.

I can hardly wait.