Forest Family Aquariums

[ForestJenn]

I like the idea of an aquarium journal here on the forum.   We have four aquariums currently.

Jenn's 40 Gallon

(36x12) tank started up earlier this year

• Penn Plax under gravel filter run with a Tetra Whisper 60 air pump
• Hygger submersible heater (300w)
• Hygger full spectrum LED programmable light.
• Gravel substrate
• Hardscape includes 4 small pieces of spider wood and some dragon stone

Plants

• 1 bunch Crypt Wendtii
• 1 Amazon Sword
• 1 bunch Pogostemon Stellatus "Octopus"
• A couple varieties of anubias (nana and nangi I think)
• 1 Christmas Moss Bridge
• 1 Dwarf lily bulb

Livestock (specific epithets change, so sorry if I've got any of these wrong)

• 12 Black Neon Tetra - Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi (7 females and 4 males?)
• 12 Panda Corys - Corydoras panda (Some boys and girls?  Maybe?)
• 1 Bristlenose catfish - Ancistrus sp. `RIO UCAYALI`   (We think female, but may be juvenile male.  There are some bristles along the upper lip, but they're getting longer) "Waldo"
• 2 goldeneye cichlid -Nannacara anomala (1 male and 1 female)  "Bob and Margaret"

Adrian's 10 Gallon

Standard 10 gallon, started up years ago as a community tank and then transitioned to a betta only tank.  Now housing a small community again.

• Aqueon HOB filter
• Tetra submersible 50w heater
• Original Fluorescent hood light
• Gravel substrate
• Hardscape includes various small pieces of driftwood and the cutest little castle tower picked out by a 5 year old Adrian years ago.

Plants

• 1 Pogostemon Stellatus "Octopus"
• A couple crypts (not certain what kind anymore)

Livestock 

• 1 betta  - Betta splendens (male) "Lotus"
• 5 cardinal tetras - Paracheirodon axelrodi (sex undetermined)
• 2 baby bristlenose catfish - Longfin Green Dragon Ancistrus sp. (too young to sex - they are itty bitty)  "Vortex and Nebula"

Adrian's 29 Gallon 

(30 x 12) Started up on July 24, 2020

• Penn Plax under gravel filter run with a Tetra Whisper air pump
• Hygger submersible heater
• Aqueon LED hood (light to be improved soon!)
• Gravel substrate (black)
• Hardscape includes 1 seiryu stone, 1 very large piece of driftwood and one piece of spiderwood

Plants

• 2 bunches Amazon chain sword
• 1 bunch Crypt lutea
• 1 Pogostemon Stellatus "Octopus"

Livestock

We kickstarted his tank with some bacteria from his 10 gallon and some Frytzyme 7.

• 10 Black Neon Tetras  - Hyphessobrycon herbertaxelrodi (looks like mix of males and females)
• 2 Sunset Honey Gouramis - Trichogaster chuna (females)  "Solar and Star

This tank is destined to be his Bristlenose breeding tank.  Vortex and Nebula have several months of growing to do in the interim.

Jenn's Betta Tank

This tank is currently a 2.5 gallon kit tank that we bought when we purchased Rowan the betta.  It's a bit of a long story.  I have a 5 gallon Marineland kit sitting next to my chair.  We'll get this up and running this weekend.  Thank you to Aquarium Co-op for the instructions on how to pimp improve the kit filter.

• Hardscape includes one castle 
• Gravel substrate
• Tetra submersible 50w heater

More pictures coming soon.  My husband is dragging me off to the hardware store to pick out a new mailbox.  Fun times!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by ForestJenn
Consistent bolding is good

[DaveSamsell]

@ForestJenn, I think the aquarium journal is an excellent idea.  😊

[ForestJenn]

Everything seemed like it was going awry last night when we realized that something was munching on the tail fins of my smaller corydoras.   You can read my over-dramatic post about it here at the link below.  One of my main causes for upset is that we were seeing this sort of territorial bullying in the absence of breeding behavior.  Every source I consulted suggested that outside of breeding, this is a cichlid that should get along with most other appropriate community fish, especially corys.   

I knew that we'd have some territorial behavior from the female, but that's why I structured the tank the way I did.  Three distinct areas with different kinds of cover.  But the female hadn't colored up in the classic checkerboard pattern that you see, so I assumed that she wasn't ready.

Well, you know what they say about assuming...

We have eggs!  Margaret was a much darker color this morning and acting sort of sneaky.  So we went looking.  She laid them in an almost vertical depression behind the largest of the three dragon stones in the back.   I was NOT expecting that.   I have some catappa leaves in the tank and one of them is laying flat under some branches on the wood.  I was really expecting her to nest there.  Shows what I know.  There are other flat surfaces available to her as well.  Apparently she's just contrary.

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Congratulations! Maybe just break up the sight lines more then? Moar plaaantsss!!! My answer to everything.... 🙂

[ForestJenn]

An update on the 40 gallon.

The eggs were looking good through last night before lights off.  One egg went white, but all of the others were a pretty tan color that blended into the dragon stone very well.  They disappeared over night.  We're not certain if Mom gave up or if she has moved the fry.  We can't see any fry, but she's hanging out in a cave formed when I leaned the stones against each other during scaping.  So it's tough to say.  Between myself and the forum, I'm not hopeful.  She hasn't adopted the classic checkerboard coloring that she should have while guarding fry.  But then she wasn't colored up while guarding eggs either.   It makes me wonder whether or not the species identification is correct.  But that's an aside.

I'm seeing little splotches of algae on the glass.  That's a first for this tank, so I need to clean that up during the next water change.  If I could be sure that there are no fry, that might mean today.  Since I'm running an undergravel filter, my preference is to vacuum gravel weekly regardless of where my nitrates are sitting.   I didn't do that over the weekend (although I wish I had, since I think it's better to do a water change with eggs in the tank vs brand new fry.)

[Daniel]

You never know. And never get your hopes up about a first spawn. It often takes a few times to get it right. The good news is that if they have spawned once, chances are most excellent they will spawn again. Just keep them fat and happy and wait for the next batch.

[ForestJenn]

And we have fry in the 40!   Nannacara anomola babies!

 

[Daniel]

Congratulations! So happy for you and mom. What are your feeding plans?

[ForestJenn]

Just now, Daniel said:

Congratulations! So happy for you and mom. What are your feeding plans?

That is an excellent question!  We had planned to pick up baby brine eggs last week, but then didn't...so I'm thinking about my options now.  I'll let you know how we proceed.  🙂   This was a surprise since we thought it'd be a bit before we saw more eggs.   It looks like she hid her fry better than we thought she did.  These have to be from that first batch of eggs that we thought would hatch last week.

 

[ForestJenn]

It's about time for an update:

40 Gallon:  

Everything is ticking along.  I'm seeing a lot of that green stringy hair algae and the nitrates crept up to almost 40.   I believe that this is a combo of over feeding while trying to get food to the last batch of fry and length of time the light is on in the tank.   We lost the first batch of fry.  Even though we saw them eating, they slowly disappeared over the course of a week.   There's another clutch of eggs in the middle of our Christmas moss bridge.  I'm tempted to pull them because it would be easy, but I'm going to go ahead and give her another chance in the community tank.  Sorry for the poor photography.  I just snapped off some shots with my phone and I'm afraid there are some reflections.

29 Gallon

The tank is growing in so remains a little empty looking.  It's currently stocked with 10 black neon tetras, 1 female sunset honey gourami, 6 otocinclus and two baby long fin green dragon ancistrus.  There were originally 2 femal gouramis but we lost the smaller of the two today.   No sign of injury or disease and the water parameters look great.  We purchased her locally so I don't think it was our very soft water.  She just never seemed to thrive.  We're obviously keeping our eye on things but I think this was just one of those things.   She'll be buried under the maple tree later today and my son isn't quite so wrecked.  Poor kiddo.

10 gallon and 5 gallon betta tanks. 

Both bettas continue to do their betta thing.  I'm going to revamp the 5 gallon one of these days.  The flow is just a little high I think.  

 

[Daniel]

@ForestJenn did any of the Nannacara anomola babies survive?

[ForestJenn]

On 9/27/2020 at 9:20 AM, Daniel said:

@ForestJenn did any of the Nannacara anomola babies survive?

We had several fry make it through the first week, and I saw them eating.  But they were all gone shortly thereafter.  Mom was guarding eggs again recently but I'm not sure what happened with them.  She's still hiding in the rock caves, so there may be more fry but I haven't seen them.  The quarantine tank is empty right now, so if I do see more fry, I can move them over.  I don't think they're going to survive in the community tank.

In other news the chili rasboras bred in the new 10-gallon shrimp tank.   Our lone fry there is growing like a little weed.  We've seen a couple baby shrimp in that tank but either they didn't make it or they are harder to find.   

[Daniel]

47 minutes ago, ForestJenn said:

 Mom was guarding eggs again recently but I'm not sure what happened with them.  She's still hiding in the rock caves, so there may be more fry but I haven't seen them. 

I figured that, but just had to ask. 😞