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January 30, 2005

R.I.P.

Lost another female koi sword tonight. This is one of the three that I had picked up just before our honeymoon. Came back from the honeymoon with one of the three missing and the other two sick. Been dosing the tank with almost every type of medication on hand but seemingly to no avail. The last remaining female koi from this batch seems almost ready to go too. Not sure what the problem was. White spots on the tail along with ragged tail edges. Ick? Fin rot? Used ick medicine for awhile which didn't seem to do much. Also used Melafix and Pimafix which didn't seem to help either. Just a bad batch of koi's I guess.

Whatever the problem is, doesn't seem to have infected any of the other fish though. Hope it stays that way.

UPDATE [2/2/05]: The last remaining koi female from that last batch of 3 has passed on as well. =(

Posted by ronin at 10:47 PM | Comments (2)

Out with the old...

in with the new! Finally set up the Eclipse System 3 tank that I picked up on craigslist for a cool $5. =) Filled it up with the remaining Eco-Complete from the 5.5 gal and transferred over the 2 Amazon swords, Java moss, and log decor from the existing 2 gal tank. It's a good thing the 2 and 3 gal tanks share the same bio-wheel size cause I can just pop over the seeded one from the 2 gal and not miss a beat.

Moved the 3 female guppies over to their new home and transferred the 1 male guppy over to our 12 gal tank while I was at it. Last but not least, introduced the remaining 5 pygmy cories as well. Water seems to be a bit cloudy but hopefully that'll settle down in a day or so.

Broke down the 2 gal and gave it a thorough cleaning. My experiment with using black sand as a substrate is now officially over. No more. Too annoying. Eco-Complete will be my substrate of choice from now on. Dang, didn't realize it had such a huge algae outbreak on all the walls. These algae scrapers work really well. Takes the algae right off and the algae also just rinses right off the scraper with water. Nice. Currently soaking the tank and filter components with some vinegar. Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this tank. Maybe take it to work?

Posted by ronin at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)

New changes and additions...

Took a trip down to The Pet Shanty to see what it was about. They have a pretty good selection of freshwater fish although conditions seem to be less than optimal as they cram way too many fish into too small of a tank it seems in most cases. Prices are pretty good compared to Absolutely Fish but that's not too surprising. Apparently they just got in a new batch of koi swords and they looked good. The males actually had noticeable sword extensions to the tails as opposed to the last batch at Absolutely Fish that had none. And they were priced at $8.99/pair while Absolutely Fish was $6.99 each. The employees seem pretty nice and friendly too. Their selection of plants could use some work though. Mostly potted stuff.

I was ecstatic to find that they actually had pygmy cories available. Have been searching high and low for these guys for AGES. Took a while to actually find them in the tank that was labeled cause they were so small. Picked up a dozen cause I was going to put 6 in my 5.5 gal and the other 6 in the new 3 gal. On arriving home later though, I discovered that I seemed to have been shortchanged by 2 cause there were only 10 cories. Oh well, probably shouldn't try to cram that much into the 3 gal anyway. Also picked up a decent piece of driftwood and 2 Java ferns but haven't had the time to prepare them yet. Erin doesn't seem to be too keen on the idea of adding the wood to the 5.5 gal. Says she likes how I have the tank planted as is. Hrmm...

Anyhoo, looped around and swung by Absolutely Fish on the way home. Picked up:

    • 1 sparkling gourami (hopefully female)

Sparkling Gourami

Above is a pic of the biggest sparkling gourami currently in the tank doing what it normally does, peaking out amongst the plants.

    • 1 red honey gourami (male)

Honey Gourami

Above you can see my new honey gourami, part of the Elite Stingray filter, and the hornwort and sagittaria plants.

And some more plants:

    • 1 tropica sword
    • 1 potted glosso

Hmm... looking at that glosso site, just realized I planted the darn thing wrong. Ah well, gotta go back in sometime and fix it. Need to get tweezers first.

Anyhoo, the 5.5 gal tank is coming along quite nicely I think. Besides the unfortunate chocolate gourami, all the other fish seem to be doing ok. The Endler's had no problems ever since they were put in but the sparkler's seem to be settling in more slowly. Anyway, keeping my fingers crossed.

Posted by ronin at 9:49 PM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2005

First inhabitants...

Well the previous day I ventured back to Absolutely Fish to pick up some new inhabitants for this tank. Jumping the gun a bit cause I'd prefer to finish planting and decorating the tank first but I saw some fish there while I was picking up the plants the other day that I just couldn't resist for too long. Anyhoo, I came home with the following:

    • 4 Endler's Livebearers (male)
    • 2 sparkling gouramis (hopefully 1 male and 1 female)
    • 1 chocolate gourami (male)

Endler's Livebearer

Above is a pic of one of the Endler's as it was picking at a corkscrew val.

I decided to go with all males for the Endler's because I didn't want to have to deal with fry in the tank. Already got my fill of that from my mom's guppies.

The sparkling gouramis are still pretty young so still hard to determine their sex. Hopefully it'll turn out as planned. May want to go back and pick up another female hopeful just in case. Hopefully when they settle down their colors will begin to show. Currently though their bright blue eyes are pretty incredible.

The chocolate gourami was really an impulse purchase. Unfortunately I should have done a bit more research before I got it cause it died today. Apparently a very finicky critter in terms of living arrangements. Shy creatures that need a good amount of cover and hiding places, soft and still water, relatively low PH, and same-species companions. Oh well, live and learn. I would love to have a tank just of these guys in the future cause they're really darn cute.

Anyhoo, I'm still waiting for them to get in some pygmy cories cause I'd like to get about 6 of 'em in here. I could go the AquaBid or mail-order route but shipping and handling of live animals can get pretty darn expensive. Tom, the freshwater guy at Absolutely Fish said he'd most likely get them in in 2 weeks so looks like I'll have to hold out till then.

Posted by ronin at 11:37 PM | Comments (0)

January 27, 2005

First!

Finally had time to set up my 5.5 gallon AGA tank yesterday (1/25/05). Had bought it before our honeymoon so didn't have time to do anything with it till now.

Equipped it with:
    • 10 lbs CaribSea Eco-Complete Planted Aquarium Substrate from Absolutely Fish, aka my fav LFS (Local Fish Store).
    • Hagen Elite Stingray 5 underwater filter from PetSmart.
    • Hagen 25-watt Mini-Compact Submersible Heater from PetSmart.
    • JBJLighting 14" Desktop Formosa Lighting System from Reef Encounter.

Took me practically forever to find a suitable lighting system for what I wanted to do with this tank (make it planted). Not many companies make strong lighting systems for tanks smaller than 10 gallons. This Desktop Formosa has two 18 watt bulbs so I'm pumping 36 watts right into the tank. As a comparison, our 12 gallon Eclipse system can only fit a single 13 watt bulb. Unless I retrofit it with do-it-yourself lighting. No handyman am I unfortunately.

Then planted it so far with:
    • 2 narrow leaf chain swords
    • a bunch of hornwort
    • 1 tropica sword
    • 4 corkscrew vals
    • 1 narrow leaf sagittaria
    • a cluster of floating salvinia

Initial Setup

Still rather under-planted so will be on the lookout for more in the coming weeks. Need to get some low ground-cover type plants if possible. Oh, and definitely need to find a good piece of driftwood to fit.

Posted by ronin at 1:14 AM | Comments (0)