3 1/2 tanks journal

[cmo1922]

On 3/23/2024 at 12:28 PM, Ladette said:

Your tanks are amazing! Definitely goals! Thanks for sharing them!

Thank you so much! I feel fortunate to be in a place in my life where I have the space and time to keep a few aquariums going!

[cmo1922]

Not too much to share. In the 10 gallon, a few emerald dwarf rasbora babies here and there but nothing I can see surviving. 

In the 20 gal, the 3 platy and 2 corydoras kids are all still doing well and growing. Is it possible to overfeed babies? Sometimes the platy baby bellies look like they are going to explode! They are swimming at lower depths of the tank now, foraging for food. I'm also surprised how brave they are. I saw one win a fight with an ember tetra twice his size for some flake! And sometimes the gouramis will chase them from food and they just come right back for more!

In the 29 gal, just some weird stuff going on with my adult platies which I've been posting about in diseases. Also someone dropped some babies this week which Chubs promptly ate. I've still got one more treatment of praziquantal next week. The treatment must have helped with something going on, as I'm not noticing any flashing now at least. But I'm still seeing some weird behaviors, with some fish hanging around the surface.

Finally, a good pic of my daughter's mystery snail Anna showing her teeth! She is huge now, about the size of a ping pong ball. Thanks for reading!

 

[cmo1922]

Lots of aquarium changes and updates. We recently moved up north, and I had to give away my 29 gallon and 10 gallon aquariums to a friend. I was sad to do it, but glad I could provide a friend an easy way to get back into the hobby!

As for the 20 gallon, I couldn't part with it and decided to take a chance and transport the whole thing still set up in the back of the car. I dropped the water level to 1/3, left all inhabitants inside, and put in in the back of the car for the journey. It was probably a very risky decision and a nail bitter all the way from FL to the Northeast every time we hit a bump (which was a lot). The journey took 2.5 days. By the time we arrived all ember tetra had perished. I think they died of shock (I have noticed this species will pass out when stressed - I'm guessing all the bumps and changes were just too much for them). Surprisingly, the corys, the honey gouramis, shrimp and snails survived. 

Once we arrived at the new house, I set up the tank in the garage to monitor for leaks. After about a week of no signs of leaking, I was pretty confident the tank was ready to go into the basement (also...OMG I have a basement now for my future aquarium room!!! My husband is "thrilled"). Here is the tank, no changes except the lack of ember tetra 😞

The water here is SOFT. I got a TDS meter which read 40. Coming from FL, well, that's shocking, and I was quite worried about my snails and shrimp. On the plus side, I'm hoping this will allow me to keep some fun plants like epiphytes, which I have always had trouble with in hard water, and also allow me to start my dream tank (55-75 gal soft water Amazon aquarium).

I'm now remineralizing with equilibrium to about 200 TDS and plan to add tiny bit of baking soda once my wonder shells run out. I can already see erosion on my ramshorns... trying to keep the kH 1-2 if I can manage and keep the inverts happy.

Speaking of epiphytes, the Petco here has a amazing assortment of ferns, anubias, buce, ect attached to various hardscape. As I can't have just one tank, I set up my old 6 g waterbox with the hope of eventually starting a crystal shrimp aquarium with tons of epiphytes. I still am intimidated by crystals, so I just moved some cherries over from the 20 gallon to maintain a colony of, for now. Here is the little tank, which has been set up for about 6 weeks.

[cmo1922]

Continuing with the tank updates! Anna the mystery snails did end up passing a couple weekends ago. I got her as a nickel sized snail last fall, so I think it was just her time. She was huge, about golf ball sized, at her death.

My daughter was pretty bummed about Anna's demise, so I went to buy some new snails at the LFS. And, to my excitement, I found some Bolivian rams, my dream fish. I had tried to find them last year when I set up my 29 gallon, but they had been sold out from my preferred source every time I checked.

These rams were in great shape and very friendly. As I just have the 20 g long and the 6 gallon (for now...;) ), I only bought one (which I believe to be a male). I did a short quarantine in the 6 g (which really sped up the algae growth for my shrimp and snails, as you can imagine!) and into the 20 g he went, last weekend.

This fish is everything I hoped for - derpy/adorable looking, completely friendly to the other fish (Cories and honeys), picks at the shrimp a little but not a crazed murderer like an apisto or betta, and is super friendly to me and my kids when we come to the tank to feed or observe. Gonna start a school once I have the bigger tank, but he seems perfectly content with his current roommates for now!

Edited 9 hours ago by cmo1922

[PonyPlantedTanks]

Your tanks are beautiful! Sorry about your loss of the cute ember tetras, but glad everyone else made the journey well. Your 20g still looks incredible! I’m envious of your Val and crypts😍and what a cute Bolivian Ram! I can’t wait to keep one of those someday, too! Keep us updated on how things go with him!