Mattyzz Posted May 10, 2021 Share Posted May 10, 2021 (edited) Hi! Well lets start I was super hesitant to even think about a journal but maybe this help me keep things of my mind so I can actually focus on my major as a Computer Science. How did I get into the fish hobby? When I was younger I always witnessed my families numerous attempts to keep fish in various ways. They bought gold fish and stuck them into 5 Gals and took all the fish out to clean the tank... with soap. This was when I was about 10 and they tried again with this massive(to me) 39 Gal Jebo Bow Front (without soaping). After the numerous fails they gave up for a long time. We've kept many pets such as cats, dogs, birds, turtles, a dove that got hit by a car mid flight that my dad nursed back to health, and a neighborhood possum. Fast-forward to beginning of pandemic my mom comes home with a betta in a light-bulb shaped container which probably holds 8oz of water with a fancy light underneath. That is kind of where I went and said, "Whos taking care of the betta?" my mom looks at me and obviously its me. I started taking care of that betta (unfortunately don't have him anymore. SIP Cherry.) Where I'm At Presently. I recently got a new bed for my tiny 10x10 room and had to reorganize all my fish tanks around which are a 24 Gallon, 2-10 Gallons one has some baby fish in it. I'll do my best to get into the details but here's the current take after everything has been done. WARNING: I'm a scatter brain so things will change mid-post writing. I apologize in advance. This is a 3 Tier-Shelf that I drew up which my dad then found spare wood laying around his shop to make. The front, legs, and back wood are Poplar while the left and right joining sides are Mahogany. I sanded the whole shelf down with 120grit and stained it with a water based Poly+Stain. The Shelf measures 36''L x 22''W x 60''H. Top Shelf Supplies mostly. The Fluval 307 is something I got on sale. Middle Shelf 24 Gallon Life Guard Aquatics with integrated sump. 6 months uptime. No Co2 Fish Stocking 2 False Juuli Corydoras 5 Panda Corydoras 8 Emerald Rasboras 8 Pygmy Corydoras 8 Platinum Medaka Ricefish 3 Otocinclus Catfish 1 Honey Gourami 2 Reticulated Hill Stream Loaches 4 Nerite Snails 1 Purple Mystery Snails 2 Kulhi Loaches 2 Panda Loaches Amanos and Neos Which I don't know how many there are. I know its a TON of fish but everyone has been doing fine and I realized I really just loved putting fish in the tank. I may split the tank mates up at some point but the interactions are just interesting to see. Plant Stocking Back left to right then to front Ambulia Ludwigia Super Reds Ludwigia Palustris Cryptocorynes Anubis Java Fern Monte CarloBottom Shelf 10 Gallon Aqueon Tank which is filled with meds and such for now. 10 Gallon Visio Tank which holds approximately 20-30 baby ricefish of varying ages (1wk-1mo) Desk Tank UNS 10 Gallon Fish Stocking Blue Plakat Betta (He has a mustache) 4 Ember Tetras (I had 6.... 2 just disappeared) 3 Otocinclus 1 Nerite 1 Bamboo Shrimp Plant Stocking This one doesn't have an order. Staurogyne Repens Crypt Parva Mini Bolbitis Anubias Java Fern Red Melon Sword Bacopa Ambulia Amazon Frogbit Salvinia End First Post Well that was a lot to write. Sorry if the formatting is all wonky as some weird things were happening as I was putting pictures in. Hopefully I remember to post bit on odd stuff that happens. My fish tank hobby did benefit from a few other hobbies as well and I hope to post them. I apologize for my scatter brainy-ness. Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz Fixing Pictures! 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorydorasEthan Posted May 10, 2021 Share Posted May 10, 2021 3 minutes ago, Mattyzz said: Hi! Well lets start I was super hesitant to even think about a journal but maybe this help me keep things of my mind so I can actually focus on my major as a Computer Science. How did I get into the fish hobby? When I was younger I always witnessed my families numerous attempts to keep fish in various ways. They bought gold fish and stuck them into 5 Gals and took all the fish out to clean the tank... with soap. This was when I was about 10 and they tried again with this massive(to me) 39 Gal Jebo Bow Front (without soaping). After the numerous fails they gave up for a long time. We've kept many pets such as cats, dogs, birds, turtles, a dove that got hit by a car mid flight that my dad nursed back to health, and a neighborhood possum. Fast-forward to beginning of pandemic my mom comes home with a betta in a light-bulb shaped container which probably holds 8oz of water with a fancy light underneath. That is kind of where I went and said, "Whos taking care of the betta?" my mom looks at me and obviously its me. I started taking care of that betta (unfortunately don't have him anymore. SIP Cherry.) Where I'm At Presently. I recently got a new bed for my tiny 10x10 room and had to reorganize all my fish tanks around which are a 24 Gallon, 2-10 Gallons one has some baby fish in it. I'll do my best to get into the details but here's the current take after everything has been done. WARNING: I'm a scatter brain so things will change mid-post writing. I apologize in advance. This is a 3 Tier-Shelf that I drew up which my dad then found spare wood laying around his shop to make. The front, legs, and back wood are Poplar while the left and right joining sides are Mahogany. I sanded the whole shelf down with 120grit and stained it with a water based Poly+Stain. The Shelf measures 36''L x 22''W x 60''H. Top Shelf Supplies mostly. The Fluval 307 is something I got on sale. Middle Shelf 24 Gallon Life Guard Aquatics with integrated sump. 6 months uptime. No Co2 Fish Stocking 2 False Juuli Corydoras 5 Panda Corydoras 8 Emerald Rasboras 8 Pygmy Corydoras 8 Platinum Medaka Ricefish 3 Otocinclus Catfish 1 Honey Gourami 2 Reticulated Hill Stream Loaches 4 Nerite Snails 1 Purple Mystery Snails 2 Kulhi Loaches 2 Panda Loaches Amanos and Neos Which I don't know how many there are. I know its a TON of fish but everyone has been doing fine and I realized I really just loved putting fish in the tank. I may split the tank mates up at some point but the interactions are just interesting to see. Plant Stocking Back left to right then to front Ambulia Ludwigia Super Reds Ludwigia Palustris Cryptocorynes Anubis Java Fern Monte CarloBottom Shelf 10 Gallon Aqueon Tank which is filled with meds and such for now. 10 Gallon Visio Tank which holds approximately 20-30 baby ricefish of varying ages (1wk-1mo) Desk Tank UNS 10 Gallon Fish Stocking Blue Plakat Betta (He has a mustache) 4 Ember Tetras (I had 6.... 2 just disappeared) 3 Otocinclus 1 Nerite 1 Bamboo Shrimp Plant Stocking This one doesn't have an order. Staurogyne Repens Crypt Parva Mini Bolbitis Anubias Java Fern Red Melon Sword Bacopa Ambulia Amazon Frogbit Salvinia End First Post Well that was a lot to write. Sorry if the formatting is all wonky as some weird things were happening as I was putting pictures in. Hopefully I remember to post bit on odd stuff that happens. My fish tank hobby did benefit from a few other hobbies as well and I hope to post them. I apologize for my scatter brainy-ness. Great looking tanks! Your fish preferences seem to be very similar to mine as well. I look forward to seeing how your experience in the hobby progresses! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted May 10, 2021 Author Share Posted May 10, 2021 I see our profile pictures have been destined to meet. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted May 10, 2021 Author Share Posted May 10, 2021 (edited) 10 Gallon Betta Tank Filter Adapter Thingy Much shorter post from my original. I had bought this used "HOB Canister Filter" solely because I wanted to try one out. This particular one is Dennerele one. It runs alongside my regular Hang on back filter but I ran into an issue. The HD Tubing I bought has terrible bending radius before it kinks. I have quick disconnects for the intake and the disconnects pure weight was kinking the tubes. Here was my solution as I currently have a water-cooled computer but with hardline tubing. Short Context on Watercooling a PC. You setup a pc with plates that have a closed system of water flowing through fins. The head is pulled into the plates then pulled away by water. That water then goes to a radiator on the pc to be cooled off where the cycle continues. Similar to car cooling. It REALLY isn't that much better than air cooling from a noise/performance perspective. A comparable air-cooling setup costs much less. Two methods soft tubing which is similar to our average canister filter OR hard line which uses Acrylic or PETG Tubing that you heat and bend to get the desired shape/length. Anyways I had leftover tubing from my PC that I kept as scraps. I took those pieces and then hooked them together with bits of tubing between. We have this! I'm not too worried about the individual joints coming loose as there really isn't a whole lot of pressure going through the tubes. That would blow them off (I would know as my computer loop has done it many times.) Its still easy to take apart and it sits much better on my desk. Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz Fixing Pictures pt.2! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted May 11, 2021 Author Share Posted May 11, 2021 (edited) Got my Cryptocorne Pink Flamingo today from the Co-op. Super happy that I finally get to have one regardless if I don’t where to put it yet. Miro seems to like it though. Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz Fixing Pictures pt.3? I think this was fine... 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betsy Posted May 11, 2021 Share Posted May 11, 2021 I got one, too!!! So fun! 🥳🥳🥳🥳🥳 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted May 11, 2021 Author Share Posted May 11, 2021 (edited) 24 Gallon Tank - Observation I was watching the community eat when I noticed an odd amano. I pulled out my camera to find well... it was missing an eye! This poor little guy... I'm trying to figure out what happened. Maybe a fish caught him off guard after a molt? I feed them well so I wouldn't expect them resorting to eat each other. I'll keep an eye on him... no pun intended. Speaking of amanos I have an absolute unit of a amano (I think). Blue Neo and medium-sized Ramshorn for scale. He's easily a 2-inch Amano as he is as large as my full grown Trillneatus Cory actually I would say he is about the size of a medium sized bamboo shrimp. I was at one of our LFSs one day and noticed this guy hanging out in a tank with recently surrendered Angels. I asked the owner how long he has been in that tank and even he didn't know this guy was there. None the less I went, "I need him" and the owner fished him out with his hand. Now he lives with my community and he is quite the shy one even though he has plenty of other amanos around even if they aren't as big as him. Seeing him is a sight. He's almost a bronze color compared the usual clear that my other amanos have. His personality isn't as voracious went it comes to food as he tends to be much more casual at feeding time. His fellow amanos always rush to the scene of sinking wafers and are quick to run away with them. I wonder if he knows, "Yea I'm the big shrimp around here, so what?". Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz Words... and fixing pictures pt.4! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted May 13, 2021 Author Share Posted May 13, 2021 (edited) 10 Gallon Betta Tank - No Heater Sorta. I didn't mention before but my Betta tank has heater but its not plugged in. For context I live in California and in my area (San Bernardino County) It stays pretty warm during the day all year. After seeing the Co-op's video where Cory explains you probably don't need a heater I promptly unplugged the heater as a "seeing is believing". Low and behold the temperature never drops below 76F and in my observation its probably a combination of ambient temperatures along with my PC which sits on the table with Miro the betta. I'm going to pull the heater out at some point. Short little update for now but here's my derpy betta and his interesting colors. Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz Fixing pictures pt.5! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted May 21, 2021 Author Share Posted May 21, 2021 (edited) Finals are almost done woo! I finally got around to uploading some videos of my extremely short body (I call it stubby body) Platinum Rice Fish. I have another one that you could call short body but he/she tends to hide more. He has to work a lot harder to swim as you can see. I definitely can see that I need to make sure he's not struggling to hard. Interestingly enough both him and the short body one came from the same day of eggs. Edit: The stubby one is a female. I just checked a few minutes ago and saw that she has eggs. Edited May 21, 2021 by Mattyzz Update on Stubby Girl 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted June 2, 2021 Author Share Posted June 2, 2021 (edited) New Tank Time! Whew it's been awhile but here's a new tank I set up recently. It's simple in these two pictures and yes I added my panda corys from my 24G almost immediately after setting up but that was because I have a cycled filter (or so I thought) on hand and I had to water change the 24G at the same time. Process on how I felt safe adding the panda corys right away. 1: I had to change the water from the 24G that the panda corys were in already. So I went and put that removed water into the 10G about 5G worth.. Naturally that panda corys are already used to those parameters so putting them was easy. 2: Topped off with 5G of fresh dechlorinated water. To dilute the nutrients present the current water. 3: Take the filter of the Betta tank and place it on the 10G and run it. It was perfect! Catching the panda corys was all patience and not swinging the net around wildly. I just slowly moved the net and sometimes the panda corys just hopped in.... BUT I had issue with the sand... I'll save that for a follow up. Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz Fixing Pictures pt.6 and I think everything is fixed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betsy Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 Awww! I'm sad that I can't see your pictures!! Your tanks sound SO awesome!!! (Betta tanks are my favorite!) Just to check...I always attach the picture files to my post and then press the little plus sign. Are you using that method? Or something different? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted June 3, 2021 Author Share Posted June 3, 2021 Oooh I have been dragging and dropping them from google photos. I’ll definitely go back and use that method instead. You are right I can’t see them on my phone but I can on desktop. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrozenFins Posted June 3, 2021 Share Posted June 3, 2021 I did the same thing too with google photos. I figured might as well because its more effecient. I quicker way of putting photos in to your post, is after downloading them on to your device just copy and paste. Thats what I do, seems to work fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted June 3, 2021 Author Share Posted June 3, 2021 I’ll give that a shot. Hopefully it works since I upload from my iPhone I believe .hiec extensions aren’t supported everywhere yet. Thank you to both of you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted June 3, 2021 Author Share Posted June 3, 2021 (edited) I think I fixed all the pictures in the posts. Hopefully... maybe? Here is a picture of Airplane my first corydora (originally a batch of 3) to test! Also my icon. I just noticed there is a oto photo bomb. Edited June 3, 2021 by Mattyzz 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted June 10, 2021 Author Share Posted June 10, 2021 Full Tank Shot Time! Thought I'd give a status update on the now 3 tanks along with some full tank shots so here we go! 24 Gallon Community Tank Did a water change yesterday since I hadn't since I added a few more 3 Stripe Corys to the tank. About a month I believe since the last change. This tank doing very well surprisingly considering its a heavily stocked 24 Gallon tank both plant and fish wise. I'm looking on upgrading this tank to 36 Gallon (UNS 75P) to give everyone more left to right space. Current tank dimensions are L23" x W15 15/16" x H 15". The new tank would be L30" x W18" x H18". Slowly going to save up money for that and start cycling a Fluval 307 Canister as I start to build up supplies. Look carefully... my chonkiest cory is poking his head out of the Crypts. 10 Gallon Betta Tank This tank barely receives any attention aside from water top offs and cleaning out the mini canister every so often. The parameters are rock solid in this tank and that may be due to the relatively light stocking. (Betta + 4 Ember Tetras + 4 Otos + Nerite + Shrimp). Miro the betta has shown a lot more personality being on my desk. I'm always at my computer so he tends to swim up to the right side of the glass and wiggle his face at me. Sometimes he simply sits on the anubias and watches me. This tank is perfect aside from dwarf shrimp simply dieing off for no reason. Amanos and the bamboo shrimp are fine! This tank used to be bustling with 100s of neos but out of nowhere I came home to a bunch of them dropping like flies. They all had a milky muscle prior to death and would flip out around the tank uncontrollably. This same thing happened to the 24 Gallon but it has long since passed as neos are living again but I think it was because I rescaped the tank and it tossed up ton of detritus. However whatever disease is looming about Miros tank I'm in the process of trying to eliminate. I did a low dosage of Ich-X (2 drops) to see if it helped. I then waited for a few weeks then bought shrimp again. Unfortunately i'm down to 1 left out of the 6 I got. Again the amanos and bamboo shrimp are fine. New 10 Gallon Tank Stocking 10 Cardinal Tetras 2 Panda Corys (had 5) 4 Otos 1 Nerite 2 Amanos This tank is a bit of roller coaster. First of all lets continue where I left off about the sand. The sand released chlorines into the tank which in turn killed my pre-cycled filter. This resulted in ammonia spikes and nitrite spikes. I solved the issue by adding a wonder shell to combat it. This isn't the final form of the tank. I have some spider wood on the side but I need to get my hands a bunch of rhizome plants to complete it. Extra Bit Otos are crazy. That is all. Once I figured out the cause of the cycle crash I then went on to monitor the tank. Diatoms grew and I went, "LOOK! Oto food". I promptly bought Otos that week and within a day they clean the tank SPOTLESS. I unfortunately didn't get to catch a before and after of the full tank. I did catch a plant before and after. Before Pink Flamingo 2 Hours Pink Flamingo Next Day Pink Flamingo 3 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colu Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 Beautiful tanks 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrozenFins Posted June 10, 2021 Share Posted June 10, 2021 I am in love with your crypts! especially the wendetii in your first picture! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattyzz Posted June 11, 2021 Author Share Posted June 11, 2021 (edited) @Colu Thank you! @James BlackThat's roughly 7-8 months of crypt growth with Root Tabs shoved underneath every month. A few of them have started to create new sprouts I love the pinkish underside of the wendetii and the corys absolutely love it as their go-to hang out spot. At this point I think there is enough decaying debris that I don't need to root tab as much. Edited June 11, 2021 by Mattyzz 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smoore Posted June 14, 2021 Share Posted June 14, 2021 I like your planted tanks! Great job!🙂 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now