Beardedbillygoat’s Fish & Shrimp Tank Journal

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Here fishy fishy fishy

A local hobbyist is moving and I took him up on his offer to obtain some cool species 

We have very soft water in the NW and my kH hovers around 1-2 typically while gH is in the 4-8 range. Using RODI water and gH/kH + keeps us right in the pocket. I was surprised that he’d been keeping a group of Caridina at these parameters and having very slow but successful breeding of his colony of Crystals. My wife is now obsessed with putting in more red into the tank thanks to these as well as some 

Chili rasboras. Gorgeous. 7 in a 60 g is not a lot. She wants me to get a dozen or more. She’s loved these since we bought some for a friend’s birthday tank that I redesigned. I’ll have to honor her request to keep the Fish Wife happy.  

I’ve been intrigued by this fish in the last 6+ months as some club members and then a speaker at GSAS had mentioned them
 
Panda 🐼 loaches. They are loving the 2 powerheads and the seclusion that the tank provides. 

His most prominent schooling fish in the tank were these 

Emerald eye rasboras. I’m going to try again for a shot - doesn’t at all capture the eyes 👀. Might take some video. 

So the epilogue to this is he mentioned that another tank he was taking down he was considering taking all the inhabitants vs rehoming them and I said let me know as most of the fish in that tank are ones I have or could rehome easily. Well I got the call and am very excited for a date in a couple week to go over and grab these fish. 

My wife has been reorganizing and changing up the living room and the eventual plans are going to lead to a new location for our 45 g tank. I’m planning to take advantage of this and do a new scape, substrate system and potentially the filtration. Might hook my canister filter to an undergravel filter. Not sure. Exciting to plan. I saw this George Farmer video from awhile back where he scapes a taller tank and thought this could be doable. 

Hope all are well and hope you all stay healthy as we head into viral season. Have fun!

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/5/2023 at 8:18 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Panda 🐼 loaches. They are loving the 2 powerheads and the seclusion that the tank provides. 

A fellow fish club member has a managed to start breeding these. The fry have really fun patterns. 😅

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

A German breeder indicated that he puts tubes into the substrate sticking out horizontal to perpendicular and the Panda loaches climb in there to breed. I’m just trying to keep them alive! 

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 10/7/2023 at 6:25 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

A German breeder indicated that he puts tubes into the substrate sticking out horizontal to perpendicular and the Panda loaches climb in there to breed. I’m just trying to keep them alive! 

Must be like bamboo in nature…makes you wonder how he got the idea. 🙃

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Very glad your HOB fail didn't cause yet another disaster with your fish stock! You've had more than your fair share of those! I'm glad to see Fish Wife is participating, that makes our hobby more fun. :-) 

[TheSwissAquarist]

How are the new fish doing?

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@TheSwissAquarist they’re doing good. I’m going to do a water change and get some pics. The same club member just had me over and gave me more fish, plants and a filter! I’ll work on an update!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Over the last 6 months I’ve stepped back from the hobby in many ways but my passion and interest remain. I think even when we’re not emulating the FishTubers and obsessing about our hobby we can still be innovative and interested in advancing our hobby. It’s taken me 29 pages of this journal to write that and it’s ok. I’m really still very in love with the hobby. That makes my heart glad like it did when I was 10 and got my turtle tank which begat a goldfish tank and a koi tank and an African cichlid tank and on and on. 

Of late my FishWife has made it clear that the way I approach the hobby needed to change. I have had this idea that money would buy me happiness in my hobby. I also used it to try to buy my way out of problems. Instead it brought many poor and rash decisions on me, my fishwife and my fish. So I decided a few months back to focus on 1) if I’m buying only local, no shipping 2) if at all possible rehome and repurpose 3) utilize my club, online forums and other ways to keep my hobby and interest going. 

This led to my most recent connection with a hobbyist we’ll call L. He’s moving and he’s had about 4 beautiful setups in his office that he was looking to take down 3 of them. Initially it was a 22 long 3 weeks to a month ago and now it was a beautiful 120 P ADA tank. This was fish and shrimp as well as plants, equipment etc. 

Panda loaches x 4. I get glimpses of them chewing on biofilm and hanging in the flow of the powerheads in the corners. Gorgeous patterns. I’d say as babies and juveniles they’re pandas but this is a more leopard like pattern which is very handsome. 

I couldn’t say no to a community puffer. Tetradon schoutedeni or the Congo Spotted Puffer is a truly special fish. Smart, social, handsome and just magical. We’ve had her for 2 days and the boys are in love. Her colors have improved each day and she munch on some blood worms and some snails - it’s an impressive pop when she gets a ramshorn. 
 

My 60 g breeder has been housing a group Of diamond tetras since the summer- once again someone was breaking down their tank and posted on the club page. To my amazement in the last 2 weeks I’ve been seeing babies! 

Guppies guppies guppies! I’ve had a group of Santa Claus guppies for awhile and I really like them. 

Part of this latest gall of fish are Japanese Blue Guppies. The metallic colors are intense! 

I am enjoying how my 60 gallon display is growing in. I ran it as high tech but I stopped the c02 as I couldn’t keep up with the maintenance. 

Have fun everyone!

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/17/2023 at 3:00 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

I am enjoying how my 60 gallon display is growing in. I ran it as high tech but I stopped the c02 as I couldn’t keep up with the maintenance. 

You said it well in the opening of your post there.  How we enjoy the hobby is pretty critical and this is one of those things in life where you invest yourself in such a specific way, like meditation, and you have the chance to see a bit more about yourself thought that process.

It's good to see the enjoyment of the 60 above.  I have had plenty of tanks, but I always find a lot of enjoyment when I focus on or limit myself in some way.  Having the ability to tighten in on the focus and keep one or two things as the mindset really helps for my own enjoyment of the hobby.  As always, I wish I could do more or have more, but sometimes the joy is to focus on what you have and how you can find the happiness out of that.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’ve got a 20 g long going with some cherry and Bloody Mary shrimp. I’ve had it going since spring and I’m really pleased with some of the females. 

The legs are mostly red which is for me a great trait. I like how deep the red is. Threw in some banana leaf I had maturing in a tub today and caught her in repose. 
 

My 45 gallons been fun. Weekly water changes are necessary due to all the high protein foods I’m pumping in there for Princess Peach the Puffer. 
 

At first I think she wasn’t too fond of the chain loaches and cory gang but now she follows them about some days hunting snails with the loaches. 
 

Eventually the tank will be moved and rescaped at that point I’ll remove all the bristlenose plecos. With the new inhabitants I’ve really enjoyed the giant otocinclus a lot. The first shot is a little where’s the oto shot but the other 2 pics are more obvious I guess. 

Ive yet to catch them in the flow as I’ve seen them many times - they’ve been camera shy as I approach. They’ve got 2 distinct colorations so i think it’s dominant subdominant coloration or different sexes. They’re very attractive I think in that catfish kind of way. 
 

Im planning for the tank updates but I’ve got my eye on upgrading to a 65 acrylic. We’ll see if my wife will go for it - I just think if you’re going to have tanks as show pieces they should be show pieces. We’ll see If she agrees with me. But tanks and especially stands are not cheap. https://truvuaquariums.com/products/65-gallon-freshwater-acrylic-aquarium
 

Enjoying the hobby and my paired down fish room. Have fun everyone! 

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/11/2023 at 12:47 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Kind of awesome how all of the small things look big in this photo!  George Farmer dropped a video today of someone who has a tank with amanos that are confirmed, 20 years old.  Now I have a new target to get to! 🙂

I think it was a chain loach in another photo and that one looks awesome too. I love how dark the pattern is.

Nice work, looking good!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@nabokovfan87those chain loaches are Brilliant just so interactive and enjoyable. 
 

I’ve really enjoyed this trio of Nigerian red Killifish. I see them more often, their colors are out and vivid and although people say killi females are bland this bold black and white with flecks of pink and purple is really stunning. 

It’s a great little 10 g cube and with the frogs it’s just really enjoyable. Some new planting and it’s just a nice cozy little scape for my son to enjoy! 
 

Have fun everyone! 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

 

Always love starting with Not So Sad Bowl update. Presently housing a pair of Pea Puffers, 3 common Otos, 3 SAEs and it’s been a fun aquascaping challenge. Deep substrate with an integrated UGF. Plants are an interesting mix - Crinum front and center, moss carpet up front, mix of rhizome plants, dwarf sag, little po lets of crypts, I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of it’s limitations. 

I haven’t discussed my fishroom in awhile. I got a better RODI system from an online retailer and finally got it setup. Rated for 100 gpd but that’s at 60 psi and out the tap I’m in at 40. So I’m probably getting 60% of what it’s capable of. I’m considering a pump to boost up the PSI to 60-90 psi. That’s about $100-140 which brings up an interesting topic….Financing my hobby is something I’ve become more conscious of. I’ve realized over time the impact it can have on other parts of our family life. So in the last 6 months I now scrimp and save from selling plants, fish, shrimp and excess tanks and equipment to fund the majority of the hobby. It’s been enlightening. I and others have spoken about how limitations can bring on more creative and interesting avenues in the hobby. It’s a good challenge. I’m feeling a lot of gratitude towards what I have, what I’ve achieved and what’s ahead. 

Much of what I have in the fishroom has been obtained locally. I’m not buying, selling and shipping online. I’ve stuck with the club and our PNW online communities. Shipping is god awful expensive, hard on the animals and yields so many challenges on the receiving end in terms of husbandry- I work crazy hours as an NP less crazy then I was (down from 60+ to 40-50 now) but I have to keep a balance between my families needs and my hobbies needs. I think during the pandemic this got twisted for me. It’s taken me years to sort through that. 
 

I’ve now got 4 active breeding setups in the fish room. All are planted and I’m harvesting plants from them. I have one tank beside these 4 that’s plant only with lagenandra meboldi red, nurii crypts, AR, and a moss I can’t remember the name of. 

 
1. 60 breeder, it’s a deep sand substrate with a UGF, an Eheim canister and powerhead/sponge filter combos. It’s got a breeding colony of diamond tetras, a colony of mixed ancistrus (plain LF, plain SF, lemon blue eyes, calico sf, and albino) about 6 adults 2 f/4 m and 7 juveniles all LBE, and 12 gold laser corys. The diamonds have 5 generations and they now number about 20 individuals, 6 adults, 14+ juvies and probably 10 more babies hiding 

2. 40 breeder, 7 super red ancistrus with LF genes, 20 Japanese blue gold guppies some with double sword genes and 12+ tangerine tiger shrimp. 

3. 20 long, 30 adult cherry and bloody Mary shrimp, 10 blue aura tiger shrimp, 5-7 Sulawesi orange foot rabbit snails baby baby’s not even 1/2 “, and lots of ramshorns. 
 

4. 20 high, 5 (2:3 m:f) adult Santa Claus guppies and 20+ fry, 6 L519 juvies, blood Mary shrimp, Malawa shrimp and some Aura blue tigers. 
 

Here’s video of 3 of the setups. 

Hope everyone stays warm along with their tanks! Have fun!

Edited January 11 by Beardedbillygoat1975

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Wow, 2 months since I’ve been here posting. Life the universe and everything so on to my tanks. 

The Bowl - well the pea puffers never thrived in the bowl. I had trouble getting them healthy from the start. I tried the triple QT regimen, Colu’s recommendation for deworming and did it 3 x and got skinny puffers and so I pulled them to a qt tank and in the process lost the trio. It was sad but it felt like no matter what I did it was going to go this way. RIP to the trio. 
I have decided that although an 11 g bowl is a good size I was not going to do fish again. I still have an otocinclus in there and there he will stay.

I felt like this was an opportunity to do a Caridina setup. I love mischlings - Caridina with lots of diverse genetics that throw crazy color combos. I’m lucky that locally we have some great Caridina breeders. Our local shop (not the coop) has them for under $10 a piece and a local breeder I know gave me a group of 12 for $5 a piece. So I’ve got some crystals, Tai bees, blue bolts, orange eye tigers, shadow pandas, and some orange neos from my 60 g I put in to make sure it was habitable before putting $100 worth of Caridina in. 

It’s become a really fun tank again. There’s a Where’s Waldo effect to the tank looking for the different shrimp types. 
 

Just did water changes on my 45 and 60g tanks. They’ve been enjoyable. I’ve not gotten the plants where I want them in the 45 g but in the 60 the plants look stellar. The most recent additions are in the 60 - a group of 6 Threadfin rainbows - Iriatherina werneri🌈.

 https://youtube.com/shorts/-SQ2Gq-AAfs?si=WAY2DcQI2w5JCkhF
Also in the 60 g although sightings are rarer are my L397 Tiger plecos, gorgeous fish. You’ll notice this very brown mulm and this is from the group of 6s love of wood 🪵. Lordy I tolerate it because the shrimp love it but every month I get in there and vacuum it out and it’s back within days it seems like.

 https://youtube.com/shorts/-JL8XIrlr2s?si=fXUvLV2AOybrdNU0

I still love the 45 despite my problems with the plants. With the high protein foods the puffer (Princess Peach 🍑 our Congo spotted puffer) I’m just not able to fertilize the plants the way I’d like. Many of the plants look great but eventually I’ll graduate this group to a 60 g or bigger and I’ll plant to run a bigger canister on it along with an undergravel filter.

 https://youtube.com/shorts/x-Jtbr4kKGk?si=Ui0m54SovstMqKSj

I hope you all are having fun and enjoying the hobby. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Did some feeding tonight- one of the advantages of having 2 boys under 9 are the leftover veggies that the shrimps and plecos get. Tonight it was cucumber and the plecos had a ball. 

My pride and joy is this female longfin standard L144 ancistrus - gorgeous! Elvira is her name! 

Nextdoor is my 20 high with Santa guppies, 6 L519 juvies, and shrimp - Malawa, Aura blues and Bloody Mary’s. 
 

Guppies are such opportunistic creatures as suddenly a treat for the plecos and shrimp becomes there’s! 
 

The 20 long up above has my cherry shrimp and they’re coming along nicely as well. 

I hope everyone is well and having fun. I have some ponds that I’m getting back into shape and a new fish coming tomorrow so exciting times in the BBG fish house! Updates to come and hopefully sooner than later! 

Edited March 21 by Beardedbillygoat1975
Added photo

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Generosity- it’s an attribute I’ve always admired and tried to emulate. As an aquarist I’ve seen a lot of generosity from my fellow fish keepers and I’ve tried to put that back out into the universe.

I put out on the GSAS email that I was starting to plan an Axolotl tank for my youngest son and did anyone have a chiller I could buy as a new one was financially daunting. I got a quick reply from a member and made arrangements to take a trip out to Bainbridge Island where they lived. For our family this involves a little bit - those who have children under 10 know what a roadtrip entails and in our case it was a ferry ride and then a drive. Exciting for sure but for the boys being in a car for about 2+ hours would be a challenge. We made sure they were fed and watered and pottied and off we went.

We arrived and I suddenly fell into an easy banter with this person and she revealed that it was @eatyourpeaswhom I’d known on this forum since its inception. How cool?! 😎 She was as kind and generous in person as she’s always been on the forum. We saw her tanks, Ursula Ferkin and all her clones, her Pea Puffer, her home and her grounds which are beautiful. Her generosity extended beyond this to the chiller - she was giving it to the boys and I. Amazing!! Generous beyond my expectations. She indicated that she’s slowly getting out of the hobby and as her animals pass and tanks change she’s shutting them down slowly and even offered me a tank - my wife prevented that from occurring! Anyway I’m so so grateful. I didn’t take pictures as she’s a private person but I just so appreciate her both for the years I’ve known her here and for what she did for my boys and I.

I am doing some work around my tanks today and will try to take pics and videos later to post but I just had to share this beautiful moment for which I’m grateful. Have fun everyone! 

[anewbie]

On 3/27/2024 at 5:27 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Generosity- it’s an attribute I’ve always admired and tried to emulate. As an aquarist I’ve seen a lot of generosity from my fellow fish keepers and I’ve tried to put that back out into the universe.

I put out on the GSAS email that I was starting to plan an Axolotl tank for my youngest son and did anyone have a chiller I could buy as a new one was financially daunting. I got a quick reply from a member and made arrangements to take a trip out to Bainbridge Island where they lived. For our family this involves a little bit - those who have children under 10 know what a roadtrip entails and in our case it was a ferry ride and then a drive. Exciting for sure but for the boys being in a car for about 2+ hours would be a challenge. We made sure they were fed and watered and pottied and off we went.

We arrived and I suddenly fell into an easy banter with this person and she revealed that it was @eatyourpeaswhom I’d known on this forum since its inception. How cool?! 😎 She was as kind and generous in person as she’s always been on the forum. We saw her tanks, Ursula Ferkin and all her clones, her Pea Puffer, her home and her grounds which are beautiful. Her generosity extended beyond this to the chiller - she was giving it to the boys and I. Amazing!! Generous beyond my expectations. She indicated that she’s slowly getting out of the hobby and as her animals pass and tanks change she’s shutting them down slowly and even offered me a tank - my wife prevented that from occurring! Anyway I’m so so grateful. I didn’t take pictures as she’s a private person but I just so appreciate her both for the years I’ve known her here and for what she did for my boys and I.

I am doing some work around my tanks today and will try to take pics and videos later to post but I just had to share this beautiful moment for which I’m grateful. Have fun everyone! 

And be sure to eat your peas !!!!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

Photo and video bomb 💣 Breeding and rearing projects. Starting to contemplative culling and refocusing some projects. 

Shrimp 🦐 

Santa guppies

Diamond tetras

 
Plecos

L144 

L519 

 

L397

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/5/2024 at 10:05 AM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

Absolutely beautiful.

[anewbie]

On 4/6/2024 at 2:31 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Absolutely beautiful.

L397 - sadly my group of 4 died during the move; have just one left - likely a male. Actually i don't think that is a L397 it has too much black - well there are 30 or 40 similar options 🙂

 

 

Edited April 7 by anewbie

[nabokovfan87]

@anewbie if you have discord there's Jonny from dan's fish on one of the server trying to ID some unknown plecos that look very similar.  Might be a place to reach out to if you're ever trying to track down the correct species.  My condolences.   Moving fish tanks is such a grueling process and losses on top of it makes it so much more difficult. 

I would love to see you have that photo printed / framed or something if you wanted to.  It's that beautiful. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@nabokovfan87thanks so much for the feedback. It’s workable right now in terms of the tanks in the house and the ones in the garage - but if I could setup a full automated system in the garage that would be the ultimate. I really need to work with my wife in the hard work of cleaning out the garage so we can set the stage for the fishroom to be completed. She’s focused presently on setting up her garden and I’m supporting that so we can then move on to the garage and eventually my fishroom. @anewbieas you may recall I had my own disaster after moving - i got my fish room here, had temporary setups and then had a crash of my floating plants and the nitrate bomb killed a good half of my stock. In terms of the L397s ive had them for about a year, # 6, they came about 1-1.5” and are presently 2+”, I only catch sight of them when I’ve fed something they love which honestly is anything not meaty as they love their biofilms and veggies. I’ve had good success with the EBO spirulina paste, any Repashy, and veggies zucchini and cucumbers. I have a constant stream of woody pulpy mulm on the bottom of the tank which the orange neos search for food through. 

Have fun 🤩 and best of luck with reestablishing your setups. It’s a pain in the 🫏 but it’s worth it. 

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

I’m really digging my 45 gallon, water change and some trimming and the Lilly’s are really popping. 

This is Princess Peaches 🍑 home until the 65g is purchased and setup probably 2025 realistically. The inhabitants are quite comfortable as I’ve not done my usual pushing up the numbers to the utter maximum- I have to say I have a deserved reputation as a maximalist and it’s worked until it’s not worked. Lately we’ve had problems with the 5 black spotted hatchets I bought a few weeks back. I was going to the Coop every 2 weeks looking at them - they had 8 and when I finally convinced the fishwife that it’s time and she said yes they sold 3 to someone with a preexisting group and had 5 left. Initially it was awesome they schooled and it worked but then came this week they’ve been chasing each other and have spread throughout the tank. I’ll just have to wait for them to bring in a group again and I’d probably double up to 10. 

I’m waiting for some plants to grow in in the left side near the mattenfilter. I threw In Some water wisteria and sprite to provide some cover for the hatchets and because it’s pond season soon and they’ll be useful. For about 3 hours they seemed super chill and schooled again then all hell broke loose and they’re in their corners again. Good news is fins are intact and as long as they have good food and clean water I think we’ll be ok. 

[anewbie]

On 4/7/2024 at 1:58 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

@anewbie if you have discord there's Jonny from dan's fish on one of the server trying to ID some unknown plecos that look very similar.  Might be a place to reach out to if you're ever trying to track down the correct species.  My condolences.   Moving fish tanks is such a grueling process and losses on top of it makes it so much more difficult. 

I would love to see you have that photo printed / framed or something if you wanted to.  It's that beautiful. 

I do not use discord; too many competing services; enough is enough 😉

 

[Flipper]

On 4/7/2024 at 11:17 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

This is Princess Peaches 🍑 home

She is SO beautiful. 

re: Plecos.   I've had only one pleco and he/she is a tiny dwarf clown pleco.  I've looked that up many times and Google has never found a single mention of a "dwarf" clown, but my LFS sells them.  I've named it Bashful and just assume he's a boy, because he acts like a boy to me LoL

If I ever get a large tank, I'll try a big pleco.  For now, I absolutely love little Bashful.  I feel protective over him, like he's my baby 👶 ❤️

 

Edited April 13 by Flipper