Fighting MTS - Tank Progression vs. Addition

[nabokovfan87]

Hey everyone,

I think a lot of us can identify with wanting to have a setup like Dean or just having a rack of tanks, but absolutely not having the place to hold them.  I wanted to share just a tidbit of my journey back into the hobby and talk about a unique way to view your tank when you simply can't add another one beside them.

I had a tank when I was really young, it was a 20-30G aquarium we had in the living room and it was mostly my mom and I doing the majority of the work. We had an under gravel filter, the colorful gravel, satin plants, the whole thing. (I do miss the dragon ornament we had!)

Needless to say the reason I purchased a tank years ago to "get back into it" was to try to bring some of that enjoyment to my stepbrother and stepsister who wanted pets, but due to allergies in the house we are very limited on options. After months of waiting for pricing, we got a 38G bowfront from Marineland and tried to find a spot for it. It was by far the nicest tank I've owned and I really appreciated the quality over time of that tank.  The siblings had bettas in their room in bowl.  Everyone got to pick a fish and everyone got to help decide what to add to the tank.  I chose panda corys, someone else chose a glofish, someone else chose some rasboras, and we had some other small fish in the tank as well.  Unfortunately, the clerk at the store put all the fish in one bag and they didn't even make it out of the door before we ran into issues.  It wasn't a great start and we had to go back to the big box store and start all over.

Eventually with more research and watching the tank, we ended up with some ghost shrimp that became a snack, added a bumblebee catfish, and we got the tank to a point where it was something we got to look at during dinner.

Eventually we realized the tank had to move, and we needed a proper stand, which ended up with the $/Gallon bargain and a new 55G I setup.  We then ended up with actually getting a proper plant light, and we had a lot more room to "fill".  Trying to keep some interest and life in the tank we ended up adding some more active species.  we had the corys, an angelfish, and the siblings now had proper 10G tanks in their room for their bettas with an actual filter and decorations.  Unfortunately, once the angelfish got slightly bigger we discovered exactly how aggressive they could be.  We also learned the importance of treating for diseases and trying to get their bettas with a little higher quality of life. (and I also tried a long time trying to express the need to not overfeed)

Eventually the 55G ended up in my room, we found someone who locally enjoyed angelfish breeding and he took the guy off our hands.  It really, absolutely sucks when big box stores don't have a policy or ability to take back a fish that doesn't work in a tank.

So now I had this planted tanks and this is really where I want to talk about the subject at hand.  I have a blank canvas and I have a few fish in there, but it's not the type of tank where there is a theme or there is a goal.  Stocking at this point consisted of some corys, a bristlenose pleco, and some glofish tetras that needed someone to care for them.  This is the point when I really dived into aquarium co-op videos and started to really learn about how to setup a tank with a bit more tactfulness. 

Personally I had enjoyed the plants themselves and diving into what plants I thought I could grow was the focus. I wanted to have sand substrate and stem plants with some Anubias.  The goal was to have tall plants but have the ability for the fish to swim around and to swim through them.  My "idea" was to try to have a tank that felt like the kelp forests here in California where the big sharks like to cruise around.



We found a very interesting fish at the shop one day, and went home with a red tailed black shark for my new "plant forest".  I had added some hardscape and was trying to get my "feet wet" as far as how to make a tank look good. I got some aquascaping tools, a few different options for rock and wood.  For the most part all I have locally is some mopani wood and I had ordered some seiryu/dragonstone from the co-op.

Eventually I saw Cory's massive tiger barb school in the 800 gallon and I was in awe. So at that point it was pretty clear what the theme of the tank was going to be. Green plants, green fish, and just a lot of life and area for the fish to explore.  I added some clown plecos as well and some amano shrimp to help with algae.  Overall, I was very happy about what the tank had become.  I added some CO2 and everything was going really well for a good amount of time.

Due to some issues with the tidal filters and their ability to snag a wide body fish in the surface skimmer when they were sleeping, the tiger barbs had a good life, but it was extremely frustrating when I would wake up and lose one. This sent me down a road of changing filters, and eventually realizing I don't really like any of them. Eventually I added some otos and despite QT they had brought in some ich and I ended up losing a lot of the mass of tiger barbs 😞 . 

I opted to keep the tank as a planted focus from this point on. I found some SAEs by fluke chance and spent weeks trying to identify if they were "really an SAE" or if it was a flying fox.  I had a few of those in the tank and Grace the shark was defending her area of the tank while the SAEs were on the other side taking naps on the hardscape all the time.  I also managed a bit of luck later down the road to find some butterfly loaches, which was just one of the most amazing things to sit and watch their behavior. The tank was now focused on cooler species, high flow, river type of a scape. 

 Trying to get to the point of the story here....

I think it's a unique opportunity you might have if you don't have a lot of room for an additional tank itself. Changing just the wood, plants, substrate, location of hardscape, or even the filter location can absolutely change the feel of a tank. If you are in a situation where you can add a fish, depending what you find, your own research, and what the shop happens to have in stock, can also be a key variable for what your own tank becomes.

Sometimes it just takes time to get to where you want the tank to be. Enjoy that journey.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[BeeD]

Man a lot of things have changed, but I recognize so many of those stages that you went through. I think it was a year before I finally felt that I had enough evidence that my SAE were in fact SAE. My LFS orders them from a wholesaler who calls them Flying Foxes and says SAE and FF are the same thing. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/6/2022 at 5:27 PM, BrettD said:

. I think it was a year before I finally felt that I had enough evidence that my SAE were in fact SAE. My LFS orders them from a wholesaler who calls them Flying Foxes and says SAE and FF are the same thing. 

Exactly the same thing! I spent 4-5 trips to the store trying to identify fin color. I had the original source for this image where they had hand drawn sketches and a lot of detail of what to look for. It's a great resource but I can't find the link.

From what I remember:

1. The black lateral bar goes through the tail fins

2. There is a difference in the direction and number of barbels on the mouth between the flying fox and the SAE

 

Edit: someone found it below!

Edited April 7, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[Widgets]

On 4/6/2022 at 8:27 PM, BrettD said:

My LFS orders them from a wholesaler who calls them Flying Foxes and says SAE and FF are the same thing. 

I cannot find the site now, but I remember reading something about the history of SAE. IIRC, the SAE was originally sold as FF. Then they renamed it to SAE, and started selling a new fish as FF. Some folks are old school and still use the FF name for SAE. The distributor that supplies my LFS sells the same fish as SAE and FF. The LFS keeps them separately, but they have both always been SAE when I have looked (no lighter stripe above the black stripe).

[BeeD]

Looking back, I think I did finally come across this one and realized I needed to focus on the barbels.

[nabokovfan87]

On 4/6/2022 at 5:50 PM, BrettD said:

Looking back, I think I did finally come across this one and realized I needed to focus on the barbels.

yep 🙂

 

Quote

Another significantly identifying help tool is that Flying Foxes and Siamese Algae Eater, both have barbells on there, like little whiskers coming out. But the Siamese Algae Eater and only this fish, not the Flying fox have one pair, whereas the Flying Fox has two pairs, so four barbels.

 

[Widgets]

Here is another writeup. 

https://www.aquatic-gardeners.org/Articles/cyprinid/

[nabokovfan87]

That's the one!

[Tanked]

On 4/6/2022 at 7:40 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

 Trying to get to the point of the story here....

I think it's a unique opportunity you might have if you don't have a lot of room for an additional tank itself. Changing just the wood, plants, substrate, location of hardscape, or even the filter location can absolutely change the feel of a tank. If you are in a situation where you can add a fish, depending what you find, your own research, and what the shop happens to have in stock, can also be a key variable for what your own tank becomes.  

Sometimes it just takes time to get to where you want the tank to be. Enjoy that journey.

If you are not interacting with your aquarium(s), they are just furniture that requires feeding.

Some years back I decided I wanted to make another attempt at live plants.  It only took one day to find out that you can't put TFBs and live plants in the same tank.  When I adopted a friend's 65 gallon community setup a similar experience occurred, and I was out of space.  The barbs didn't want to share their space, so the solution for both tanks was a fish fence.  In the 65, the smaller fish know how to swim through or around the fence, so the planted side provides a place to hang out.  On the plus side: I potentially have four different environments needing no additional equipment.  On the negative side: If you don't like algae, cleaning requires a pressure washer or a tooth brush and a lot of patience. 

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

I was just having a chat with another member about a similar thing. I think the vast majority of us are tinker-ers and this is part of the reason we are attracted to the hobby. This can sometimes get us into trouble- but I think more often than not it's positive. It's a hobby you NEVER know everything there is to know and correct me if I'm wrong but that's part of the fun/interest for most of us. 

It hits every potential human aspect- there's science, engineering, art, husbandry, meditation, problem solving, planning, biology, technology, environmental, horiculture, emergency response, medical, even emotional attachment. (at times even a hit of adrenaline)

My original (in this iteration of me in the hobby) tank is constantly evolving, in fact just this last week I modified it again- but that's what it is- an evolution- evidence of my knowledge/skill/talent/interest or whatever- what I was focused on at the tiime that I did whatever I did to tweek this or that tank. My other tanks also enjoy their own evolutions. Our intentions are always to make things better for the inhabitants (plant, fish, snail, shrimp, etc) while at the same time bringing out our own enjoyment and satisfaction. It's definitely one of the best hobbies on the planet.

Edited April 10, 2022 by xXInkedPhoenixX

[PineSong]

On 4/10/2022 at 12:03 PM, xXInkedPhoenixX said:

I was just having a chat with another member about a similar thing. I think the vast majority of us are tinker-ers and this is part of the reason we are attracted to the hobby. This can sometimes get us into trouble- but I think more often than not it's positive. It's a hobby you NEVER know everything there is to know and correct me if I'm wrong but that's part of the fun/interest for most of us. 

…. Our intentions are always to make things better for the inhabitants (plant, fish, snail, shrimp, etc) while at the same time bringing out our own enjoyment and satisfaction. It's definitely one of the best hobbies on the planet.

I agree totally. I’m a tinkerer (more with plants than gadgets and engineering), and if there wasn’t stuff to do in my tanks, I’d be less engaged for sure. It’s a great balance between peaceful staring, maintaining,and tweaking things.