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Author Topic: Fish Tanks  (Read 166775 times)
01101010
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Reply #105 on: January 16, 2013, 10:34:34 AM

Quote
Don't you need a certain number of cichlids though, or they'll start eating each other?

You either need to give them enough space to develop separate territories which is like one fish in a huge tank or crowd them enough that they don't develop territories at all. I used to have a 55 packed with mbuna. It makes for a nice visual effect because you have a really ludicrous number of fish for the size of the tank and they get out and about instead of hiding in their lairs.

I mentioned this on the thread a few years ago, but if you want easy to care for small tank compatible cichlids, try Tanganyikan "shellies" like Brevis or Multifasciatus. They have the classic shape, similar to mbuna, but they only grow to be an inch or two and are relatively peaceable. They do the whole cichlid pushing the sand around thing, but the really cool part is is they nest in shells. You get a few dozen escargot shells and they back themselves in and curl up in them. I've heard of people going as small as a 10 gallon with them which is kind of unheard of for cichlids. With 20 more bigger, you can also mix them with a pair of something else smallish, but more territorial. You do half the tank in rocks, the other half in shells and they'll split the tank. I have a 30 with multies and Julies (julidochromis). The shellies all breed like crazy as well.

Now there is a memory prod. The X had two tanganyikan tanks, one with the shell dwellers, the other with her catfish (leopard spotted... synodontis or some genus name). The water conditions need a little more attention to those tanks with an additive - I think it was more acidic and harder than normal tap. I am sure it is online somewhere... When you start getting into water chemistries, you start sliding into the realm of becoming a fish keeper person.

Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
Tmon
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Reply #106 on: March 02, 2013, 11:40:13 AM

This thread got me to fire up my first tank in 15 years.  It's a 25 gallon and right now it has 6 Panda Coryadoras and Bristlenose Plecostomus.  I plan on adding a Dwarf Gourami and 6 or so harlequin raspboras eventually.  I also decided to try live plants for the first time, the water sprite is turning into a nice Jungle and the Java Fern, dwarf sag and Cardinal Plant are doing pretty well also.  My banana lilly doesn't seem too happy but I suspect that it is getting shaded out by the water sprite.  Any way it's a nice addition to the office and gives me something to look at while I'm on the day's 5th conference call.
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Reply #107 on: March 03, 2013, 09:15:03 AM

Everyone should post pics.  I'd like to see.

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Reply #108 on: March 03, 2013, 12:35:16 PM

Older, not very good pics, but

The 80 gal:


The small 16 gal with CO2. Almost all of these plants died. :)


Two close ups of the 80 gal. You can just see the eye of the 13-inch pleco lurking here.




Signe
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Reply #109 on: March 03, 2013, 02:45:48 PM

What a pretty thing to have in your home.  I wonder how insane my cats would go... probably very.  It would be exciting!  If I had a tiny spec of room, I'd get one.  But I don't. 

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Arinon
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Reply #110 on: March 03, 2013, 03:36:07 PM

Clown loaches are the best.  Super entertaining fish.
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Reply #111 on: March 03, 2013, 04:15:26 PM

The biggest of those clown loaches is probably 4 inches long by now! :)

Our dog does occasionally jump at the tank, Signe... :)
01101010
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Reply #112 on: March 03, 2013, 06:46:35 PM

I have no tanks... the pictures from earlier will just have to do.

Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
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Reply #113 on: March 09, 2013, 10:48:34 PM

Added three glass cats and two algae shrimp to the small tank (joining 3 otos, 3 pandas, and three cardinals). One of the cats was nearly dead in the bag, and he didn't make it through the next few hours. Shrimp and other two cats seem to fine, but the cats are just sitting on the ground not moving. All the ones I have had before always sat in the current from the power head waving in the water. Not sure what's up, but they've made it several days and DO move from place to place when I am not looking.
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Reply #114 on: March 11, 2013, 06:06:40 PM

I would love an aquarium, but am just retardedly lazy.  Be better off cooking the fish and giving them a quick death than subjecting them to the terrible results of my ignorance and halfassed care.
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Reply #115 on: March 12, 2013, 01:35:18 AM

Turns out the glass cats are zipping around like crazy at night. So I guess they are strongly nocturnal. During the day, they act like they are dead. I need to get more of them, they are supposed to be in groups of 6. But if I get tat many, I will need to put them in the other tank I bet.

Shrimp seem OK. May need more of them too, apparently they add almost no bioload, and the rule is 1 per gallon. But this is a small tank and I need to watch it. Currently at 3 cardinals, 3 panda corys, 3 otos, 2 shrimp & 2 glass cats.
Tmon
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Reply #116 on: March 12, 2013, 07:50:22 AM

Here's my tank 35 days in (fish have been in a week)



Here's my very young Bristlenose Plecostomus cleaning the cardinal plant.


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Reply #117 on: March 12, 2013, 01:47:34 PM

You're going to want to break up that water sprite. For one, it grows like mad, as you have probably already noticed. For another, though, it actually starts growing root systems up top, that's how it spreads. So prune aggressively, and when you see that happen, break that off and replant it elsewhere. With it that dense and breaking the water surface, it's going to trap all kinds of floating fish food and crud and turn into an algae breeding ground.
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Reply #118 on: March 13, 2013, 05:41:33 AM

Thanks for the advice, I've been planning to prune it for a while but it keeps doing new strange things so I thought I'd just let it go for a while.  I'll probably compost the trimmings since I don't think I want more than a couple of them in the tank.
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Reply #119 on: March 13, 2013, 11:07:21 PM

I did a water change today and saw no sign of the glass cats or the shrimp :(
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Reply #120 on: March 14, 2013, 06:53:54 PM

I spoke too soon, found the shrimp and the cats. No idea where they were hiding!

Got the plants to pearl yesterday after doing a really thorough cleaning of that tank. And there was no sign of them whatsoever. Dunno!

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Reply #121 on: March 18, 2013, 01:43:37 AM

I know I am talking to myself here, but it turns out that the cats that are just sitting there are either a) a different species of glass cat or b) missing their whiskers/barbels. Hard to tell which. There's one with long whiskers who does swim around plenty.
Reg
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Reply #122 on: March 18, 2013, 05:06:24 AM

How would a catfish lose his whiskers like that? Do they fight amongst themselves or something?
Numtini
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Reply #123 on: March 18, 2013, 06:46:15 AM

That's weird, those are all very peaceable creatures and I'd expect the shrimp to disappear first.

We're about to reconfigure our house so our daughter can get out of our room and I'm thinking of trying a nano-tank in the new office with plantings and shrimp. Usually I keep cichlids who dig up and/or eat the plants and I've never tried shrimp before.

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Reply #124 on: March 18, 2013, 09:20:02 AM

I think they lost the whiskers while in the pet store. Who knows what fish they were kept with along the way, you know?

I also have read a few reports of them losing them with overly sharp gravel, but that wouldn't be in my tank either.

For the nano-tank: peacable tetras or hatchets, otos, those would also work fine there with the shrimp.
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Reply #125 on: August 01, 2013, 11:52:54 AM

So, back into this hobby!

I have a 75 gallon craigslist special that came with two 4" african cichlids, and a 14" pleco. I have been slowly adding cichlids, until we seem to have reached the magic number of 8. Anything else I have added is now killed, so they have told me that the tank is full. I love the interactions and hierarchy of africans.

Got a 55g craigslist special and started a tank for the kids. 3 Silver hatchetfish, 3 sunburst (?) platys, 3 cool see through tetras, 2 algae eaters, and a Redtailed shark.  Just ordered a large blue LED, and may try out a few GLOFISH genetically altered ones that look really cool. Any recommendations on number of small fish before i go too crazy?

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Reply #126 on: August 02, 2013, 12:15:35 AM

You said algae eater? The fish sold as "Chinese Algae Eater" is bad news.

1) Only eats algae when little
2) grows a LOT -- like, 6 inches or more
3) will start sucking on other fish and killing them
4) unsure that two will get along, either.

If what you have is a Siamese Algae Eater, that's a whole different thing, peaceable and nice.
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Reply #127 on: August 02, 2013, 07:23:20 AM

Looks like it's the Chinese variant. I think I may take your advice and just return them for a pleco or something. The last thing I need is some killer fish once I bite the bullet and spend a bit on these overly priced GLOFISH.


"I have more qualifications than Jesus and earn more than this whole board put together.  My ego is huge and my modesty non-existant." -Ironwood
01101010
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Reply #128 on: August 02, 2013, 08:10:04 AM

Zebra snails are great for algae and uneaten food, if you want something other than fish in the tank. However, keep in mind if you have to treat your fish for any outbreak that uses copper, you will kill them.

Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
Arinon
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Reply #129 on: August 02, 2013, 08:21:29 AM

I have several SAE in my tank.  They are great and get along with everything.  I remember when I went shopping for them I had to literally tell the pet shop guy which fish to scoop out of the tank they'd labeled "Algae Eaters".  He wasn't impressed and acted like he didn't believe me.  Wish I had better fish shops close by but at least this way I can keep my desire for a second tank in check.   One of these days  I'm going to make a river tank just for some Hillstream Loaches
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Reply #130 on: October 27, 2013, 11:54:25 PM

So it looked like that small tank had sprung a leak. Panic time. Ran to get a replacement 16g tank and transferred everything over. Then did days of leak tests and cannot find a leak anywhere. We now suspect that water had wicked up the plastic clip that holds the glass top up.

So now I have an empty tank... wife is already saying "well, we could set it up in the bedroom..."

Pic of the new tank:



6 ghost shrimp
1 nerite snail
3 panda corys
5 glowlight tetras
That 1 glass cat. Which turns out to be an african glass cat, a whole different species from the usual. Which explains why he acted so weird.

Been replanting... had an outbreak of BGA which killed several plants. A small crypt and the anubias is all that didn't get slimed. So there's an ozelot sword in there and some small ludwigia. I just added hornwort even though it sheds like mad, because supposedly it fights BGA, some sort of natural antibiotic release or something. That's also why so heavy on the cleanup crew....
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Reply #131 on: December 02, 2013, 01:26:33 PM

Same tank as the last post. We did add the baby tears and the hairgrass and one other plant in the back, but everything else is what was already in here. I moved the frontmost sword to background though, anticipating it getting quite tall. There's a small crypt there instead. We added in some cardinals too.



The breeder tank is there because there's a mom-to-be ghost shrimp in there. Hope we get babies, because some of the adults have perished.

The big tank is now much more densely planted:



Added all sorts of stuff. Several sorts of hygro -- the kind in the center back is supposed to get quite long. The giant plants on the side are watersprite that was in the last pic of the tank, just small. The swords from that pic all got eaten by the pleco. I gave him to the LOFS, he was 13 inches and uprooted everything. Also in there now is rotala, ludwigia, microsword, a giant crypt... and some true SAE's. We see the clown loaches much more now, they come out instead of hiding with the pleco. Would love to get some schooling small fish but not sure what would be OK with the rosy barbs in there.
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Reply #132 on: December 02, 2013, 02:07:34 PM

Natural looking tanks are awesome; those look great!  My favorite tanks I've done looked like the bottom edge of a riverbank.  The also tended to have the healthiest fish, though that's likely because of how committed I was to keeping them looking good.

Nice work! 
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Reply #133 on: December 02, 2013, 02:11:24 PM

Looks great!
I've been missing my tanks a little lately and toying with the idea of trying a reef setup. I never got rid of my equipment so I have some of what I need. It's basically whether I want the commitment back in my life right now that I've been debating.
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Reply #134 on: January 08, 2014, 11:14:20 AM

My daughter has been wanting a tank for awhile now (ever since she saw my brother's betta), so I went ahead and picked up a used starter tank from the local listserv and set it up over the weekend. The last time I did a tank was about 15 years ago and it ended pretty poorly with everything dying off from ick and god knows what else. Hopefully going with a smaller tank (2.5 gallon) with a single betta should go a bit better.

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Reply #135 on: January 08, 2014, 12:36:22 PM

You should be fine with a single betta.  They're fairly hardy. 

Generally speaking, more water is better because changes and corrections happen more gradually.  However, my daughter had a carnival goldfish she kept in a 2.5gal for 2+ years with no issues.  Good luck!

Fake edit:  A few nights ago I had a dream that I built a new 75gal.  (I currently have no tanks, though I've had in the past).  When I was trying to find a place for it, I looked over and saw two other tanks next to where I put it, each with a different makeup.  One was riverbed, one saltwater and the other Mbuna.

I think my subconscious was telling me something.  Something really expensive, that is.
01101010
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Reply #136 on: January 08, 2014, 01:46:25 PM

My daughter has been wanting a tank for awhile now (ever since she saw my brother's betta), so I went ahead and picked up a used starter tank from the local listserv and set it up over the weekend. The last time I did a tank was about 15 years ago and it ended pretty poorly with everything dying off from ick and god knows what else. Hopefully going with a smaller tank (2.5 gallon) with a single betta should go a bit better.


Betta's do well in small confines generally, since they are territorial. They also don't need nearly the amount of attention other fish do since they are extremely hardy and have a labyrinth organ for breathing - so filters and bubblers aren't completely necessary. That and water changes can be 'delayed' a couple days without too much trouble. I'd say they are pretty great for kids that have some concept of responsibility - and the size of the tank makes changing the water pretty easy. I had 2 bettas in an off room, each in a 2.5 gallon clear plastic tank I got from walmart, when I was with the xgf; every week I'd fish out the betta into a cup with the tank water and then just pour out the tank and refill and dechlorinate with Prime. Poured the betta back in with the old tank water in the cup and I was done. Gratz to getting your little one into the game... hope it sticks with her.

Does any one know where the love of God goes...When the waves turn the minutes to hours? -G. Lightfoot
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Reply #137 on: January 08, 2014, 02:18:08 PM

I went to my local aquatic store over the holidays just to see if my interest had any legs to it. Lucky for me and my wallet, the itch did not return. Still can't bring myself to get rid of my equipment though, just in case.
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Reply #138 on: January 08, 2014, 05:06:04 PM

Thanks all. I'm hoping that since I also got the betta from an actually reputable fish store as opposed to the local chain petstore, it'll also be a lot better off since they're known for actually knowing what they're doing in caring for their stock

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Reply #139 on: January 08, 2014, 09:01:40 PM

I just broke down one of my tanks and merged my Cichlid stock.  My vics and tamgs seem to be coexisting well so far as I have a female pundamilla holding and a neolamprologous leleupi defending a cave ( which likely means babies).

This means the synodontis cats will be very active in about a week.  Oh also for the fish folks in here lazer pointers work very well :)

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