Dawn

Many months back, I had a disaster in my 45 gallon tank. A heater went bad on me, overheating the tank, I lost everything inside. The plants survived and the snails survived (go figure). I loved the tank, planted with turquoise rainbow fish and a chocolate pleco. I let this tank run with nothing more than a yoyo loach which I moved from another tank. My kids have been giving me grief about this tank for awhile now. But money is tight and replacing with more expensive fish (like I wanted) wasn't an option. So I headed off to a big box store about a week ago and came home with 15 mollies. 5 each of orange, black, and long fin. I haven't lost a single fish. And this tank has never looked better. I did a few small doses of meds just in case, but mostly just added them to the tank. The plants are starting to look awesome...bright and green!! These little guys have cleaned off most of the algae. For a fish that I wouldn't have given a first thought to a year ago, I sure do love these little guys. It was a heartbreak for me when that tank went down, but I've been enjoying it so much this week.

A few months ago, I purchased 2 Auratus juveniles for my mixed 60 gallon African cichlid tank. I thought they were 2 females. But as it turn out I have 1 male and 1 female. I pretty much knew when the male started changing colors I was going to need to re home 1 or both of them. A couple of weeks ago I decided to move both of them to an empty 29 gallon that I had purchased for other reasons. I named them Bonnie and Clyde...they were causing that much trouble in the other tank. The 29 gallon tank has blasting sand for substrate and some vallisneria. When I put them in there, I added a cichlid stone and some small paver stone for them. Clyde immediately started redecorating (surprisingly not the val). He removed all the sand from under the sponge filter and under the cichlid rock, bringing both items down to the glass bottom. I'm working from home and this tank is in my office. It has been very entertaining to watch these two work. While Bonnie moves some sand, Clyde is definitely the hard worker. He even politely chases her away when she tries to help out. After being in there for 2 weeks, it was time for a water change. So I did a gravel vac and I wanted to clean the sponge filter as he had put a good amount of sand on top of it. This resulted in me pretty much putting the tank back in order. you know.. my order 😄 Here's my question and I can't find any topics on this...Clyde was sulking in the corner of the tank for hours. So much so that I was concerned about him. He has since gotten back to work and is putting things back in order...his order 🙄. In the future...how do I clean this tank? I don't want to stress him out more than is necessary, but I can't clean the tank without messing up his home.

Me too!!!

I'm looking forward to you showing us all how it's done. You are so good at this!! Congrats on the new house!!

When I do a "just" a water change, I use a pond pump to pump water out of the tank and into the sink. I then just reverse it to fill the tank back up. But when I do a gravel vac, I put the pump in a 5 gallon bucket and put the siphon hose into the 5 gallon bucket. Well today after getting everything set up, I forgot to put the end of siphon nose into the 5 gallon bucket, it was on the floor. Oops! LOL

After 5+ weeks I believe they are turquoise rainbow fish. The largest ones are really starting to look like their daddy.

Update from 8/1/20. They are getting bigger, but still very hard to get pics of. Most of them are about 1/4 in now. Though we I've seen some smaller ones still in there. I'm using a Canon EOS to take the pics with manual focus. So some of the guys are blurry. Also, I added a new light and did a water change, which removed tannins, so that is the difference in color background.

I have black blasting sand in two of my tanks. I use the black diamond course. It looks great and I've not had any problems.

Here are pics of the babies that I discovered in my tank on Saturday, July 18. I had just set up the tank on 7/15. In order to get things moving, I added the sponge filter from 1 tank and some hornwort from my 45 gallon. That 45 gallon houses 5 Zebra Danio, 6 Leopard Danio, and 5 Turquoise Rainbow (2 male, 3 female). I was finally able to get some better pics to show size. I predict there could be 30 - 40 fry currently inhabiting this 29 gallon tank. I also added 2 mystery snails as a cleanup crew after feeding these little ones. Prior to discovering the little fry, I had added 2 new pieces of mopani (sp?) wood. So the water is a bit dark due to tannins. This will be my journey into discovering what type of fish these may be...are they danios (they're pretty dang small) or are they Rainbow?? I'll try to make weekly updates with pics on this post. In the meantime, anyone want to guess species???

I know :(...when I bought them they were both sexed as female. And I didn't know any better...It's a 60 gallon tank. Thanks for the feedback!!

Just got my first sponge filters from Aquarium Co-op. The cichlids approve!! My fish were very curious and nibbling at it right away. It was pretty cute. Gotta love cichlids, they are not afraid of anything.

I tried to get pics today as I would like to start a journal. But I just don't have the right type of camera to focus on them. I do like that suggestion. Thanks!!

I'd personally stick with Rainbows, but get some different types. I really like Millenium, Bosemani and Turquoise.

These are so awesome and creative. Nice job!!!

WOW!! I just recently started up a brand new 29 gallon (July 15). I Inserted a sponge filter from one tank and hornwart from another tank. In the tank that I pulled the hornwart from, I have Turquoise Rainbows, 2 different types of Danios, and Otocinclus. I know for sure I have male and female rainbows. With the Danios, there are 11 so pretty sure I'd have both sexes there too. Some of the babies have a blueish hue to them. They are so tiny, I only noticed them because of the light reflection. I thought they were air bubbles. I have no idea what they are. I'd love for them to survive, but what is the chance they will? 🤨I received my HOB filter today and I was going to get that up and running. But the prefilter I ordered from Aquarium co-op won't be here til early next week. So I'm thinking I should wait until I have the pre filter. Thoughts? Who else has had surprise babies?

I live in Minnesota, it's one of those states with liquid rock!! I have a water softener because it helps with running the household...dishwasher, washing machine, hot water heater...and of course my hair!! When I am doing water changes, I use the by-pass on the water softener. So all of the cold water I use for is hard water, and the hot water amount I use is so minimal, it doesn't have a big impact on the hardness. The biggest problem for me is sometimes I forget to stop using the by-pass. 😄

What is extremely high? You may consider more than 15% water change. I do 50% weekly and have had no issues with that amount so far. Also, be careful with that API...make sure you are following the Nitrate instructions correctly as that can have an affect on the results. I only use my Master test kit on new tanks or when I did a major overhaul on one of them. Otherwise I use test strips for routine testing.

I recently bought my 4th tank. It's a 29 gallon that was set up 7/15 evening. The plan is a well planted tank with Guppies!! I've already put in my XL sponge filter from by 60 gallon to get things going. The 60 is an mbuna tank with 20 older juvies in it. It also has a Marineland 350. But I intentionally overfeed a bit to get these fish to grow. With everything running optimally, I can do a 50% weekly water change and keep the Nitrate to max 40 at water change time. But I'm worried that taking the sponge filter out will have a negative impact on this tank. I've already added 2 Amazon Sword from my LFS to the 29. But I also have hornwort in my 45 gallon. If I put the hornwort in the new tank, will that help get things going? I also added some cholla wood from an established tank. I ordered a Marineland 200 for this tank but I won't have that until 7/18. If I add the plants from an established tank and remove the sponge filter once I get the HOB, will that be enough to seed the tank?

Looking forward to this new forum. I've been back in the hobby for about 6 months after taking a 10 year hiatus.