Chris
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Everything posted by Chris
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I've lost a couple cherry shrimp since moving them. One was an older female, and the other was a juvenile. Everybody else looks good... thinking it was just stress from being moved. Pretty uneventful week otherwise - everybody is cruising along.
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Moved the ricefish fry into the 10 gallon with their parents. Cherry shrimp went into what was the ricefish fry tank.
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Its funny how relaxing working on tanks can be, huh? I did a 50% water change on most of my tanks this morning. Started around 10, and am finishing up with the last one I have time for at 12. I got all of them done except for the reef tank, which will probably take all of 15 minutes this evening. I did the math - I changed about 120 gallons of water! Woof. Most of the tanks are freshwater. They get drained out into the yard, and refilled from the tap. I temp match with my finger (to get it close enough) and add Prime once the tank is filled. The saltwater tanks get drained into buckets, and then I mix up new water in those same buckets. Its been a while since I've done any maintenance on the clownfish tank, and even longer since I've checked the salinity. It was at 1.028 - whoops! 1.026 is considered natural sea water, so I was a bit high, especially for this fish only tank. I mixed the new water aiming for 1.020, and got about 1.018. It saves on salt cost to mix it a little lower, and fish don't mind the slightly lower salinity. It can actually help with some diseases and parasites, as on average the fish can handle the lower salinity better than the parasites can. Oh, and I moved the swordtail fry into the guppy tank. I got tired of daily water changes on that teeny tank, and I figured he'd do okay in here until he was big enough to put into the 55 with his parents.
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Good call. Gambusia are relentless. I ended up with a few that came in with our feeder minnows when I worked at Petsmart. Cool fish, but rambunctious!
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- panda garra
- platy
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Chonk!
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Loving the rosy barbs in the 55. They're definitely getting chunky, and their scales shine like crazy. The swordtails are thriving. They've really chilled out since being put with these more boisterous fish. They used to be little terrors - not anymore! The bristlenose has at least doubled in size the past month. And he's gotten so much thicker! Still lots of growing to do, though. This is my girlfriends favorite fish out of all of the tanks. And, finally, the centerpiece - the blue gourami. He's done some growing, and is generally one of my favorites in here. I love his color, and all the other fish are super quick and active while he just kinda calmly glides through the water.
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FWIW, I haven't found Buce to be much harder than any other rhizome plant. I haven't tried many varieties, but the ones I have do fine with low/medium light and no C02. Brownie Buce seems to grow the best under these conditions - a shop light and a weekly dose of easy green. I'm sure others that are more into plants will likely have more recommendations, but don't overthink it too much.
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I kept 6 in a standard 5.5 for several months. I felt like it was fine - although they're definitely a fish that will take advantage of more space if it's provided. I'd try 5 or 6 and see how you feel.
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Apparently I'm a barbarian... lol! I usually just dip the tip of my finger in the tank to get it wet, dab it into the micron, and then shake it off into the tank.
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Our new anemone friend took a walk underneath the rockwork today. Not surprising - the lights on this tank are brighter than the ones at the store, and these anemones are known to be rock-dwellers anyway. The green star polyps seem to be pretty happy. I turned the light down from 40% on all LEDs to 15% on whites and reds and 30% on blues. Hoping that'll help with algae and keep the corals a bit happier - the corals near the surface are "squinting" a bit because of the high light.
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Sorry to hear you lost him! He looked really well taken care of. I disassembled my 47 gallon rimless tank today. I've had it for years and only set it up once for a few months. Never really found the right stand and build for it. Hoping to use the glass for some smaller custom tanks. I broke one of the end pieces during disassembly - it was the first one I removed. As usual, that first panel is the toughest to get off in good shape.
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Have any pics of your beardie setup?
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I dig it! I picked up these pewter storage containers last year.
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- pristella tetra
- black neon
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Stopped by the LFS today. Picked up some goodies for my reef tank - a nassarius snail, a turbo snail, a green star polyp frag, and an orange rock flower anemone. FTS: Turbo: Nassarius: Rock Flower Anemone: Green star polyps: Top-Down: For the uninitiated, turbo snails are the lawnmowers of the snail world. They'll eat algae other snails won't touch (hair algae, some calcified algae, etc.) And grow extremely large. I've seen some that are golf ball sized. This guy is ping pong ball sized, and is too big for this tank - but he'll be a crazy good cleaner, and can be moved to one of my large saltwater tanks whenever he's polished off the algae in this one. Nassarius snails are scavengers - rarely will they eat algae, instead looking for leftover fish food and such in the substrate. This is a pretty large specimen, I mostly got him to help stir the sandbed. Green star polyps are an awesome coral that can get completely out of hand. They have a nice white center with some green tentacles, and a nice purple foot. They grow quickly and can become invasive in the tank if not managed. Rock Flower Anemones are some of the easiest anemones to care for. They're fine without regular feedings, living off of photosynthesis, stay fairly small, and are relatively non aggressive when compared to other common aquarium species.
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Any fish can jump - even bottom dwellers, like plecos. Goldfish aren't huge jumpers IME, but I wouldn't risk going without a lid. I once lost a very expensive clownfish thinking she couldn't jump out of a tank with the water level down 3" from the top. I was wrong. Lids also help with evaporation, which may or may not be important to you. Hillstream loaches, dojo loaches, Hoplo Cats, and Platies all come to mind as fish I've successfully kept with goldfish in the past. In this case, you'd have to purchase adult fish to avoid them being swallowed by the goldfish. It may be that your best tank mates are other large goldfish of the same type (comet) and sex.
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Today is a big day! Kinda. I spawned my first fish outdoors! And it was ridiculously easy. The white clouds I put out in my tub have produced a lot of fry - I was able to catch 2 or 3 at a time with a tiny little net. The only food I've been feeding is a squirt of BBS once or twice a week, and maybe a chunk of bloodworms every few weeks. Everything else has just been what's fallen into the pond. And yet, babies! The golden white clouds that I have indoors, that get fed daily have yet to produce.
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My grandmother had a 55 gallon aquarium when I was a kid. So did my great grandmother. I ended up really enjoying it, so we ended up with a couple of other tanks down the line. We kept everything from angelfish to African Clawed Frogs (before the legal issues surrounding them) to some newts we collected from a nearby creek. Once I was 10 or 11, I got my first tank of my own - a 10 gallon kit from Walmart. I've had at least one tank ever since - I'm 23 now, and have 15 tanks and 1 pond running. I have more now than I ever have. As for why I continue to do it... I really like watching the fish, but mainly I like the tinkering. I like learning about animals, researching about them, messing with tanks and equipment, etc.
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Shot a quick video showing all of the tanks in the fish room, starting with the blue platies and ending with the little swordtail fry I yoinked out of the 55.
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Update to species: Pao fangi breeding project
Chris replied to mountaintoppufferkeeper's topic in Fish Breeding
Whats the tank maintenance schedule on this 20 gallon? Are you changing much water? -
I'm starting to see some of my females get a little more round. Hoping that indicates they're full of eggs, and not just fat! Still haven't seen anything I recognize as breeding activity.
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- member video
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To be fair, this has been an issue for years prior to ChatGPT. Humans are just as bad as AI for regurgitating the same useless advice into careguides and the like. It's nothing new, just now instead of a human being behind the keyboard, it's a program. There are good care guides out there, of course, but for every good one there'll be 10 bad ones.
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Got lots of little orange bellies around this morning...
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Me and the girlfriend were standing in front of the 55, talking about the corys on the sponge filter and I just happened to spot a teeny tiny fry hiding in the 1/2" of water between the surface and the mag float. Looks like a swordtail. I fished him out, and set up a little 2 gallon tank I had laying around with an air pump. I'll grow him out a bit in there and then move him to a more proper grow out. Can only find the one in the tank - I'm shocked he survived long enough to make it to the surface of the tank, with all of the predators in here.
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That might make sense. I was thinking maybe they were just digging into it for food, but they're just sitting there - not groveling around. This probably is the highest-flow surface in the tank.
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Every one of the corys in the 55 is sitting on the sponge filter. Anybody know why exactly they do this behavior?
