Fishy Thoughts (Work in Progress)

January 10, 2010

Nanocube in 2010

It's been quite some time since I've updated this particular blog. Almost 3 years. I guess having our first baby will do that to one's time and priorities. ;-p Since my last post, I'm sad to say that my poor Nanocube and its denizens have suffered from neglect. It wasn't until this past Friday that I finally got around to making some stock changes and cleaning up and redecorating the cube.

For the past few months, the sole remaining hearty souls remaining in the Nanocube were all bottom dwellers: 4 yoyo loaches, 2 true Siamese algae eaters, 3 upside-down catfish, and a pleco. How they survived on the sporadic food that I'd drop in for them I'll never know. Particularly the upside-down catfish as I only caught glimpses of them every now and then since they never came out when the lights were on. I didn't even know all 3 had survived since they were first introduced to the tank. But somehow they flourished. Particularly the loaches and the upside-down catfish cause they were pretty darn large. But, I finally decided to begin my reconstruction plan and unfortunately they no longer included them.

So I fished the 4 loaches and 3 upside-down catfish out of the cube and traded them in for some new stock. Now I've had a pretty annoying tiny snail problem for a long time, mainly infesting the porous filter material in the back of the cube. Not really too much of a big deal but still annoying. But I hadn't realized the extent that the loaches were eradicating these snails from the cube itself until I had lifted out all the decorative pieces in the tank and found a mass grave of tiny conical snail shells littering practically the entire substrate. Was quite impressive. Now that the loaches are gone, I'm using some anti-snail drops to hopefully deal with the remaining live ones (if any) in the filter material.

As for the new stock, I picked up 6 each of my old-time favs, the furcata rainbow and panda cory along with 3 otos. The rainbows and otos seem rather young so hopefully they'll have room to grow in the cube. Still on the lookout for some albino koi swordtails but haven't seen any in the stores recently. Wouldn't mind picking up a paired set of German blue rams either but it's tough finding a matched pair. Will also probably try to add some more plant-life to the tank which is currently dominated by the massive clump of java fern that's grown onto the driftwood as you can see in the photo above.

But, I'm in no rush so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully I can get this cube back in decent shape again within the year. ;-p

Posted by ronin at 2:13 AM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2007

Nanocube in 2007

Ha, this Nanocube is in serious need of a layout overhaul. Actually it's not too bad but currently the main piece of driftwood is situated to the rear left corner which makes no sense. I'll eventually try to bring it front and center and sort everything else around it. I'm not sure if I want to keep that big white rock in the rear right but it provides a semi-private area for fish to hide in if they need to. If I can find something that will fit in the tank better I'll definitely get rid of it. This photo was taken after a major trim of the plants in the back. Just cut everything down and replanted. Hopefully it'll look a bit better once it grows up again.

Currently there are 2 trios of livebearers in the tank. The short-finned mollies I've had forever and they still seem to be ok. A few fry were born but only one survived to any reasonable size and he eventually died as well. The trio of albino koi swords are new. Hopefully they'll last longer this time. There aren't as many fish to compete with them this time around.

Managed to get another quad of furcata rainbows as well. This time they're all male I believe so they're a bit of a rowdy group, chasing each other all over the place. My dabble in rainbows has ended as I donated my last Bosemani back to AF since it was terrorizing the other fish and oddly enough, trying to mate with the short-finned mollies. I think I'll stick with the furcatas from now on. They're small and very pretty.

Posted by ronin at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

June 9, 2006

Red alert...

Damn, had an outbreak of popeye in my Nanocube the last week and lost 6 fish to it before it seems to have stopped or been eliminated by the Maracin that I've been dosing the tank with for the last 4 days. But it wiped out my true Siamese algae eaters, a praecox rainbow, and my male gold barb. Crossing my fingers that whatever the heck it was it's gone away.

Posted by ronin at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

May 19, 2006

DIY

Woke up yesterday morning to the sound of splashing water coming from downstairs so I rushed down to check it out. Turns out that the tube connecting the Nanocube's pump to the outlet came loose so instead of being pumped back directly into the tank it was splashing out of the back and side. Luckily it seemed to have happened relatively recently so cleaning up wasn't too bad. I think I'll need to get some sort of tube clamp to make sure it doesn't happen again cause after I connected the tube and started the pump again, it came loose in the afternoon. Good thing Erin was around to catch it this time.

Anyway, in the evening I decided I might as well spend the time to swap out the pump with the Marineland Maxi-Jet 900 that I had just purchased off of eBay. The ACCELA powerhead that comes with the Nanocube puts out 266 gph which I felt was a bit too strong for freshwater fish (unless you only keep ones that like extremely strong current) so following the advice of the JBJLighting support guy, I replaced it with the Maxi-Jet 900 which clocks in at 230 gph. Not a huge change but the next model down would have been only 160 gph which would be too low.

Swapping the pumps was pretty easy and hopefully the tube will stay in place until I get the clamps since I installed the pump higher up along the wall instead of at the very bottom of the compartment like the original pump was.

Posted by ronin at 11:57 AM | Comments (2)

April 7, 2006

Initial Nanocube Population...

Finally got around to breaking down and selling off my old Eclipse System 12 and moving everything to the new Nanocube.

These pics were taken a little over a week ago and already they're old. Tank looks just a little different than it does in this picture. The giant ambulia was too tall so I wound up cutting off the bottom third and then replanting both portions side by side in the back. Not sure if there'll be enough light or even if the bottom stem of the top half will regrow roots but guess we'll find out in a few weeks. Also tried moving the left Amazon to the left side of the tank but it had a tough time standing straight in that area since it seems like the water flow is strongest there. So I moved it back towards the middle and left the left side of the tank mostly bare except for the crypts.

When I saw this beauty at AF I knew I had to get it. Just love it, hope it does alright. Provides a great backdrop for my little furcata rainbows school. =)

Soon after I took this pic the poor fellow started moping around one day and then just up and died the next. Very disappointing cause he sported great coloration. Maybe it was the internal worm problem that I just read that livebearer's are often susceptible to cause when I fished him out of the tank his white abdomen had streaks of red within it seems. *sigh*

My sole remaining koi sword for the time being until I'm able to find another batch that has the bold colors that I like. Maybe I'll be able to get some more at the American Livebearer Association Convention at the end of the month.

I originally picked up 3 of these guys thinking they were schooling fish. Apparently not as the alpha male seemed to spend a lot of time picking the other 2 to death. Which is a pity cause these are really pretty fish. Their coloration is real interesting as well cause they have nice solid horizontal black stripes when the light is on but at night they sport thick vertical black stripes instead. Kinda weird that they can do that. Don't mix in other similarly-shaped fish that have black horizontal stripes with them as these guys'll act aggressively towards them as well. Like my 2 ill-fated true Siamese algae eaters. But otherwise he seems to get along fine with everyone else.

Even though I have no snails in this tank I kinda like these guys. They're real thin so they can squeeze through just about any nook and cranny and have no problem going horizontal to do so. They are pretty voracious feeders as they'll eat from all levels of the tank, even the top.

Posted by ronin at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2006

I need a Python...

Finally had some time to set up my Nanocube after having it sit idle for 2 weeks. First off had to put together the cabinet stand. The instruction sheet that came with it was simply horrible. Believe me, I just spent the last 2 weeks putting together bookshelves and entire desks and the instructions for this thing was the worst of the lot. Now that I took another look at what the final product is supposed to look like I just discovered that I installed the door and the 2 side panels upside down. Mutha@#$@#!!!! But that's alright. I wanted the door to open from the right anyway instead of from the left like they have it.

Having wasted like 2 hours trying to figure out how to put the stand together, I finally unboxed the tank itself and set it up on the stand. No big deal. Next came the arduous task of filling the tank to check for leaks. Considering that all I had was a light blue washbasin, this took awhile. But after all was said and done, the tank was finally up and running smoothly.

Will let it run for a day or two to let the carbon and ceramic bio ball bags spit out its dust and loose bits before clearing the water out and adding substrate. Got 2 20lb. bags of Eco-Complete (25% off this month at AF!) all ready to go. The new MSS surface skimmer that comes with the 2006 models seems to work ok but using it requires you to fill the tank up to literally the very top. Which makes the transparent cover protecting the lights pretty much submerged in a thin layer of water. A bit apprehensive about that but we'll see how that goes after awhile.

Posted by ronin at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

Beginnings of a new tank...

Earlier this month we moved into our new place and I decided to get rid of the 12 and 6 gal Eclipse tanks and consolidate everything into one 24 gal Nanocube by JBJLighting. The 5.5 gal AGA tank I'd keep but clear out to use as a hospital tank when needed.

Took awhile to actually find a cube in the area since I didn't want to pay for shipping the heavy beast along with its stand. Reef Encounter in Hackensack, NJ which I saw had some before wasn't planning on carrying them anymore since there had been issues with the earlier models that cracked after awhile because the glass wasn't thick enough.

Finally found what I was looking for at Fishtown USA in Flushing, NY. Not my favorite place to get to during the weekday due to the usually horrendous traffic in the NYC area which is unfortunate since it's actually a pretty nice store. And the biggest surprise of all was that they actually had 6500K Compact Fluorescent bulbs for it! 6500K bulbs are mind-numbingly hard to find for the JBJLighting Desktop Formosa that I use with the 5.5 gal tank and when I talked to Nanocustoms about ordering the cube from them the sticking point was that they were out of the 6500K bulbs and none of their distributors had them either. So I even picked up an extra pair of bulbs just in case.

The guys at Fishtown USA were nice enough to open up the box and go over the tank with me to check for anything fishy and they also swapped out the 50/50 bulbs that normally come with the tank with the 6500K ones that I wanted instead. Anyway, the one they were selling were the new 2006 models with the thicker glass which they say should solve the cracking problem they were having with the earlier models.

After I got it home, it proceeded to sit in its box for over 2 weeks before I finally had the time to take it out and put everything together.

Posted by ronin at 11:57 AM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2005

Ahhh....

Nothing quite as pretty as a tank freshly scraped of algae. Things seem so much clearer and prettier now. =)

Think I overfed the fish the other day as both female koi swords are mucho fat!

If it weren't for the fact that she's not koi, my female black sword would probably be my fav in the tank. She's quite active and oblivious to the other fish in the tank, just goes about her business looking cute and doing whatever it is she does.

The clown plec's finally getting used to his environment I think as he's becoming more visible. Seems a bit territorial though. Either that or hungry.

Posted by ronin at 2:22 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2005

What the?

While cleaning out my spare 3 gal tank to put it back into use as a quarantine tank for my new male koi swordtail who seems to have either ich or a bacteria infection, one of the side walls cracked! Pretty straight crack running from the top edge halfway down the side. Crap! I could still use it as a quarantine tank I guess although it's gone from a 3 gal to a not quite 1.5 gal. Grrr.... Oh well, gives me an excuse to go buy one of those nice seamless glass tanks. =)

Posted by ronin at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)

December 4, 2005

Touched by Death...

Man, leave the apartment for one day and the fish start falling like flies. Came back in the evening to one dead black swordtail in my 12 gal, one dead female guppy in my 6 gal, and one dead chocolate gourami in my 5.5 gal. Damn.

The black sword had what I thought was a bout of ich earlier in the week so I had been dosing the tank with ich medicine and Melafix. The ich seemed to have gone away but I noticed that she had her fins clamped most of the time for unseeable reasons. Was going to move her and the newer koi female out to my old 3 gal which I pressed into duty as a quarantine tank but she died before I could do that. =( So I just moved the new koi female who had just been moping about the tank lately. Not eating, dorsal fin usually clamped, hiding in the back. Not sure if she's sick or just being picked on by the old koi female. Hopefully she'll start eating while under quarantine. Right now I just have it dosed with Melafix, Pimafix and Maracin Plus.

The female guppy was one I had brought over from my mother's place last weekend and she had been in bad shape then so it wasn't a surprise really. Actually she probably died a few days earlier, I just didn't see her remains until now. She had lived a pretty full life I think, gave birth a few times, her offspring was probably in the same tank when she died.

The chocolate gourami was a surprise. When I had seen him at The Fish Tank, he was one of only a few left and his color was a bit faded but a few hours in my 5.5 gal and he had regained his color and was seemingly swimming around without a problem and wasn't being harrassed by any of the existing gouramis. I hadn't seen him eat yet though but I doubt he died from starvation. So not sure what happened with him. Guess water conditions still wasn't good enough. These chocolate gouramis are sure turning out to be pretty picky.

Posted by ronin at 4:17 PM | Comments (0)

December 2, 2005

Two replacements...

Somehow lost 2 of the 3 peppered cories this past week so picked up 2 more (of the long-finned variety) at AF the other day. They're really young and small but really damn cute. Hope they last though.

Two of my 4 swords don't seem to be very happy though. The new koi is just drifting about with clamped fins usually and one of the blacks is still pretty active but also has clamped fins. I may separate the 2 out into a quarantine tank for awhile to see what happens. They may be harrassed a bit much by my old koi female and the 2 rams.

Posted by ronin at 12:00 PM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

New koi...

Came back from AF with a new female koi swordtail. Apparently they got in a new batch last week that was marginally better than their last batch and this female was one of the better looking ones. Still have to find a good male to go with them though.

Also noticed that they have successfully created lyretail koi swords over in Asia and some were on sale at Aquabid. I guess it was only a matter of time but I just don't like the whole lyretail effect.

Posted by ronin at 3:49 PM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2005

Bad pics of new fish (and one old)...

Decided to try to take some pics of a few new additions to the 12 gal tank. Quite hard to take pics of most of these guys as they never stay still for too long. And I didn't bother cleaning the spot algae from the front panel first. Anyway, first a pic of an older fish, the last remaining koi swordtail in my tank. I've been meaning to get some companions for her but none of the LFS' have had any in stock recently. =( But she seems to like being by herself just fine. Occassionally chasing the 2 black swords around. But I really like her pattern.

New fish after the break...

This is one of the two juvie black swords that I got recently. This one has yellow fins and seems to be the dominant one (do females have a pecking order too?) as it's always chasing around the white-finned one. So I'm not entirely certain as to the sex of the two yet though they appear to be female currently. This one also has more shimmer in her body coloring.

This next one is the white-finned black sword. When I was examining her tank at AF, she was the one who caught my eye cause she was just playing by herself in the filter stream, minding her own business and not bothering anyone.

This is a not so great pic of a juvie male Borelli dwarf cichlid. He likes staying near the driftwood so his color sorta blends in with the dark wood. You can see a little bit of the real pretty metallic blue highlights that you can occassionally see on his face and jaw. Awaiting a mate if I can find one.

This next one is one of two male German blue rams in the tank. Originally I had thought I had chosen a male and a female but upon arriving at home one of them changed patterns and turned out to be male as well. He tricked me! =p Oh well. They pretty much stay on opposite sides of the tank and will spar a little if they see each other but nothing serious. I may have to take one back eventually if I find 2 females.

This next pic was the best I could do to get a pic of my shortfinned molly (poecilia mexicana) pair. This one is of the male, I also have a female of about the same size. They're supposedly wild-caught. They may look rather bland but they have nice yellow fins and under the right lighting conditions they have a very pretty row of metallic silver spots running the length of their bodies. They're quite active and will swim all over the tank, leaving no nook unsearched, no cranny unexplored. Very tough to take a pic of them because of this constant movement.

This last pic is one of the three new peppered cories that I just picked up for this tank. We originally had 6 bronze cories that were some of the original denizens of this tank but we lost 3 along the way. Never got around to replacing them until now but didn't want bronze ones anymore. These looked rather active at the store so I got them. Nice patterning. Still like the panda cories better but I have bad luck with those so far.

Posted by ronin at 3:44 PM | Comments (0)

November 1, 2005

That's the end...

of that. The pristella tetra with the spine disorder passed away overnight. Straightened out again after death though. Wonder what exactly was the problem...

On the other hand, the swordtails seem to have settled down and am keeping aggression to a minimum. Although one of the blacks was picking on the now-deceased tetra for the past 2 days. Rather odd. Are fish able to tell when others are sick? If so, why pick on them? Some sort of survival of the fittest thing?

Posted by ronin at 9:55 AM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2005

Two new additions...

It's been awhile since I've added anything major to any of my tanks. Actually, that's not true, I've added a few here and there but nothing survived for very long for some reason. I had high hopes for a young German blue ram but I guess he didn't like the almost 50% water change I did one time cause he passed on shortly afterwards. Anyway, dropped by AF earlier today and picked up a coupla new additions for all 3 of my tanks since they were having their red dot sale and also cause I remembered to print out and bring along their monthly coupon that gave 15% discount on all livestock for October.

Anyway, the two new additions to the 12 gal tank are two juvenile black swordtails. Originally I was only going to get one but as I was staring at the tank for awhile I noticed the second one had orange fins which the first one didn't and it looked rather nice so I wound up picking her up too. At first I thought these 2 were females cause they lacked the noticeable male traits that swordtails have but now I'm not so sure since they're obviously still young. I just watched them display at each other which I had only observed when 2 males were fighting before. So maybe these two might wind up actually being males. Which would be a problem cause I don't want them impregnating the sole female koi sword that was already in here.

Not that that currently seems to be a problem cause the female koi has become suddenly rather aggressive, running at either of the new swords when she sees them. Rather odd. Guess she got used to being the sole sword in the tank for the last few months. =p

Anyway, the new black swords are quite nice though. Not full on black since that would be cancerous but with gorgeous shimmering blue scales intermixed with the black. They seem to be doing fine so far so here's hoping that the koi stops her rampage after awhile.

I also put back the Eco Aqualizer which I had not used for the last few months. Got kinda tired of having to clean it out every month cause it seemed to get gunked up with algae or something. Will probably have to do that again but we'll see.

Posted by ronin at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)

October 17, 2005

Bizarre...

Seems like one of our pristella tetras has scoliosis or something cause his head is now permanently angled slightly to the left. Really odd. Acts otherwise normally though.

Posted by ronin at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2005

Big Tank Update...

Getting my ass kicked in the 12 gal tank by some sort of internal bacterial infection that's taking down one fish after another. If it's not a swim bladder infection it's dropsy, so something is going on, just can't figure out what it is. Did a 50% water change last night and dosed with Melafix. Probably overdid it though (too much water changed out) cause the remaining German blue ram ain't looking too happy. Will probably have to remove the filter and clean it again cause the water flow is decreasing.

Also can't seem to get any plants to flourish in this tank. 13 watts in a 12 gal definitely isn't enough. May have to try to jury rig the damn hood to fit more light or just get rid of this tank completely... Eh, probably not till after we move.

Posted by ronin at 1:52 PM | Comments (0)

August 30, 2005

Idle...

lotsa non-fish stuff going on the last few weeks so sorta been neglecting these poor fellas. Hopefully get back to them soon. Have been a bunch of deaths in the 12 and 6 gals though which is sad but ah well, part of the hobby I guess.

Posted by ronin at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2005

Shrimp do the darndest things...

We have our tank lights on a timer so they usually go off before we go to sleep. Glanced over at the big tank and saw an amusing sight where our young flower shrimp, in an attempt to get closer to source of the water output, decided to use our sole large resident snail, who was making his way up the glass, as a perch. Pretty funny. The shrimp fell off a few times but clambered back up a few more times.

Posted by ronin at 12:29 AM | Comments (0)

July 24, 2005

State of the Aquarium (Eclipse 12)

Just thought I'd attach a quick pic of what our 12 gallon Eclipse tank currently looks like. For some reason the plants aren't really doing all that well in this tank. May consider replanting some of the old swords and Java ferns soon.

Bought what's hopefully a young pair of German blue rams for this tank. The male is quite pretty and seems to be pretty active, roaming all around the tank. The female (hopefully), on the other hand, is quite shy. Usually hiding either in or behind the pipe decoration.

The replacement bamboo shrimp that I brought back from AF last week seems to have adapted well. It actually came out into view and was clinging onto one of the onion plants below the water outflow area for awhile. Still small enough to do that without folding the plant over I guess. Otherwise it spends its time upside down in the pipe decoration too.

Posted by ronin at 2:26 PM | Comments (0)

July 14, 2005

Just a brief update

"Donated" a group of 9 guppies (6 male, 3 females) from my mother's tank to AF this past weekend and left with the lone small red honey gourami that they had left along with another sparkling gourami. The red honey was to replace the one (with no color that we thought was female) that we had just lost. Under slightly mysterious circumstances I might add. I noticed it's tail losing chunks every few days but never saw who was doing it. Couldn't have been the other red honey cause I don't think it's mouth is that big. One day just found the doomed one plastered against the filter intake and that was that.

The new sparkling gourami I wanted to add to the big 12 gal tank as well to accompany the one I had moved over from the 5.5 gal just in case it turned out to be female. However, during the acclimation process when I was floating the bag in the tank, the existing sparkling got quite aggressive and seemed to want to chase the new one in the bag through the bag. So that was out. Wound up putting him in the 5.5 gal instead.

The new red honey didn't exactly get a friendly welcome from the existing one either. The established one would chase the new one around the tank on sight and it's kinda funny when two gourami meet cause they look like they lash out at each other with their feelers. Anyway, it's been a few days now and it seems like the established red honey has grudgingly accepted the fact that the new one ain't going away. No more chasing anymore, at least that I've seen.

The new sparkling has taken to its new home relatively well it seems too. When I first put him in he seemed to be a little aggressive towards the larger flamingo gourami for some reason but now everything seems ok. The lone male koi rules the roost it seems. I still feel bad about keeping him in such a small tank though. =(

Posted by ronin at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

June 30, 2005

Temporarily overpopulated again...

I guess Erin has been a bit bored lately so she's been rearranging the 12 gal and 3 gal tanks a bit. She said the black female guppy that was originally in our 12 gal was pregnant so she somehow caught all the 20+ odd guppy fry from the 3 gal and dumped them into the 12 gal and then brought the one female guppy into the 3 gal. So the pregnant guppy was sharing the 3 gal with just a pygmy cory. The guppy didn't look that pregnant to me but lo and behold the next day there were 2 new fry in the 3 gal. Weird. We're keeping the mother in the 3 gal for another few days just in case.

Meanwhile we've got a ton of these guppy fry in the 12 gal. Surprisingly none of the existing large fish go after them so they're pretty safe. Maybe this will give them more room to grow out in but we'll see. Makes the 12 gal way overpopulated though.

The drab red honey gourami we have in the 12 gal seems to be losing chunks of her tail every night. Don't know who's doing it but the other gourami in there seems to be fine. Grrr....

Lost the old female guppy with the curved spine this morning. Been looking a little weak the last few days and last night Erin transferred her over to our "quarantine bowl" along with another female guppy cause she said they looked sick. But she was dead this morning. Oh well, she had a fruitful, if somewhat short, life. She contributed to the current 20+ fry group that I mentioned above so her biological destiny was fulfilled at least.

Speaking of curved spines, according to an article in the September 2005 issue of Aquarium Fish Magazine, that may be caused by a lack of vitamin C in their diets as they were growing up. Will have to check if the food we're feeding has a decent amount of vitamin C supplemented in it.

Posted by ronin at 4:09 PM | Comments (0)

June 18, 2005

Lesson to remember...

Swordtail males HATE each other. Never own more than one unless you have a big enough tank so they can be far, far apart. Which unfortunately I don't have. Anyway, picked up another trio of koi swordtails from AF last night and added them to the 12 gal tank. The existing male koi immediately went on a rampage, targetting both the other male and even the females. So this morning I took him out and exiled him to the 5.5 gal tank. Brought over the 2 male Endler's while I was at it.

So the new lucky male koi has the big tank all to himself along with 4 females.

On a negative note, my remaining female gold barb seems to have come down with some sorta fungus or bacterial infection cause it has these red ulcers on one side of its body that's looking rather raw so I started dosing the tank with antibacterial and fungal medicine. We'll see how it does in a week.

[UPDATE - 6/22]: Gold barb is all healed now. Guess the anti-fungal, anti-bacterial double-dose actually worked. =)

Posted by ronin at 11:03 AM | Comments (0)

June 15, 2005

Filter shrimp difference...

Was watching my two filter-feeding shrimp last night and noticed that even though both had those filter hands for feeding, they used them differently and had some other behavorial differences too.

My bamboo/flower shrimp would typically park itself near heavier water flow and then stick its filter hands out and remain motionless, occassionally drawing a hand towards its mouth to eat. It'll also occassionally make the rounds of the tank, picking up food from the gravel with the hands in a constant motion. It also seems to be less intimidated by the other fish in the tank.

The vampire shrimp on the other hand is one heck of a digger. I guess it uses those two large, spiny front legs to do the digging cause since it's arrived, it seems to have dug quite an impressive space underneath the left driftwood and that's where it spends its days, usually hanging upside down from the wood. It won't venture outside and search the gravel for food like the bamboo/flower shrimp and its a more proactive water-filter feeder. Instead of remaining motionless, it constantly fans its filter hands through the water and draws them to its mouth in a continuous cycling motion. It's just too bad that it hides so much cause I rarely get more than a glimpse of its head and hands at work or its tail.

[UPDATE]: Looks like the vampire shrimp does scour the gravel for food as well but it still tries to stay hidden when doing so so it's only scouring the area under the two driftwoods.

Posted by ronin at 8:22 AM | Comments (0)

May 24, 2005

Yay! More shrimp!

So I made a brief trip out to AF earlier and was surprised to see that Tom had actually gotten a few vampire shrimp in. So naturally I had to pick one up. Still relatively small too so should fit in with the existing flower shrimp just fine. =)

Posted by ronin at 5:50 PM | Comments (0)

May 21, 2005

I'm a nut...

Took a drive down to Aquarium Center today which uh, isn't something I'll be doing often since it's down by Cherry Hill. So pretty much 2 hours each way. =p Anyway, they have a nice shop with the largest selection of rainbows I've seen and a pretty good selection of other freshwater fish as well. Of course I couldn't drive all the way down there just to come home empty-handed but there wasn't much I wanted so I wound up with:

• 2 male tequila sunrise guppies
• 1 flounder

Yeah you read that right, a flounder. Of course it wasn't till I got home and looked it up on the net that I found out that it prefers brackish water. =( Ah well, we'll see how it goes. Quite an interesting find though. It's about three-quarters of an inch right now and supposedly can get up to 4 inches long. Flat as all hell and can even stick to walls.

The tequila sunrise guppies have these bright yellow tails with bright red edges. Quite pretty although one of the two that I received seems to have a bum eye. And their tails aren't as wavy as fancy guppies.

Posted by ronin at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

May 18, 2005

Changing of the guard...

Well, I finally broke down and did it: took 2 gold barbs (the largest female and 1 male), all 4 espei rasboras, the lone gold pristella tetra, and 2 black female guppies down to AF. Came back with:

• a pair of red honey gouramis
• 1 dwarf onion plant
• 1 tall anubias plant

And also 4 cory habrosus for the 5.5 gal tank.

The red honeys were quite fun to watch. They actually swim around and feel things out (including other fish) with their two feelers. Love these little gouramis. =)

Posted by ronin at 8:12 PM | Comments (0)

May 17, 2005

Starting anew (Part I)

Before Erin left for Taiwan last week she took the time out to clear out all the dead and dying plants from the 12 gal tank. This left us with a rather bare tank. Guess we've been sorta neglecting our fish-keeping duties for the last month. Anyway, I started the replanting process by picking up two tall and thin onion plants from AF to plug into the area right in front of the filter output. May be too thin and flexible to provide a stable platform for the bamboo shrimp though. Also moved over some of the extra java ferns, anubias and crypts that I had temporarily kept in the 3 gal tank. So now it's not looking too bad. Will wait abit to see how the new plants grow out.

Cleaned up the clear plastic shell covering the light so the tank is nice and bright again. Well, as bright as it could be for a 13 watt light. And took the time last night to clean up the filter too which re-upped the water flow dramatically. So now it's a decent looking tank again. Put up some pics when I get the chance.

Oh and the 4 sick female guppies all seem to be ok now. Also thinking of clearing out some of the fish by donating them back to AF. Even though we've already lost a bunch of fish to attrition, with the 4 large gold barbs around I think we need to slim down some more. Thinking about giving up 2 of the gold barbs (if Tom'll actually take them, may be too large), the 2 cherry barbs, the gold pristella tetra and the 4 espei rasboras. Hopefully that'll clear up a lot more room for the remnants... that is if I can catch them. Always an adventure, netting fish.

Posted by ronin at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

April 18, 2005

Damn diseases (take 2)...

So somehow the 3 black guppy females had survived a week in the goldfish bowl where I was dropping a fragment of anti-fungal tablet once every 2 days and a dose of Melafix daily. They didn't seem too happy about it but survive they did. And they were joined halfway by one of the orange guppy females who I had recently moved from the small 3 gal tank to the 12 gal and came down with similar symptoms.

So Friday I moved them back to the 12 gal tank. Apparently still not a good idea cause the symptoms started reappearing. So this time I'm treating the whole damn 12 gal tank cause whatever it is that's causing it is obviously in the big tank and hopefully this final treatment will take care of it for good. Fingers crossed.

The original koi swordtail male seems to be just about ready to give up the ghost now too. Acting like the last koi male did just before it passed. He's been getting really thin and looking kinda old lately with the back half of his body sorta sagging a little. Ah well, when he passes I'll be left with just one trio of koi's left. Unfortunately the 2 females don't seem to have any interest in breeding. Probably leery of the giant gold barbs.

Posted by ronin at 11:14 AM | Comments (0)

April 8, 2005

Damn diseases...

Something's been infecting the 3 female guppies that we have in the 12 gal tank. Not sure what the heck it is but been fighting it on and off for over 2 weeks with all sorts of medication. Anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, whatever. Lost the one snakeskin male guppy during the process and one of the females is missing half her tail while another seems to be losing chunks from hers. Not sure what's going on. Have the 3 separated out into the goldfish bowl and dosing with anti-fungal tablets for now cause I think that's what the problem is. The entire bowl is blue because of the tablets. Will see how this treatment progresses.

The odd thing is this seems to affect only the guppies. The rest of the fish in the 12 gal didn't seem to be affected at all. I think it first started out as an ich outbreak which got passed on to some of the swordtails but that was cleared up a week or so ago. Strange.

Posted by ronin at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2005

Gosh darn it...

My previous alpha male kohaku swordtail passed away last night. Not sure exactly why but probably either old age, injury or shame. I noticed he and the third male going at it 2 days ago so not sure if there were any injuries due to that or if he just wound up on the losing side and couldn't bear to live with the shame of defeat. =p Anyway, I'll miss him.

Oddly enough, this guy below seems to have become the alpha male now. Not exactly sure what happened to the original alpha but he seems to be a lot weaker now as well.

Posted by ronin at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2005

Lucky shrimp...

Couple of days ago I had the cover of the 12 gal tank open while acclimating a noble gourami that I had just gotten from The Pet Shanty. I noticed that the bamboo shrimp had made its way into the filter tray again but thought nothing of it cause it's usually there every now and then. Was sitting on the sofa working on the laptop when I heard a slapping sound from the aquarium and then a light "thud". Shit, the idiot shrimp had jumped out of the filter tray and fallen into the gap behind the tank. So I proceeded to do what I did last time but wasn't as lucky this time around. Took a while to get the shrimp back up using the tape on a pole method and when I finally managed to get him back into the tank, he was sans one long antenna and looked a hell of a lot closer to death than before. I actually thought he was a goner cause he wasn't moving much afterwards. Plus he seems to have a protrusion on his head that I don't recall seeing before.

Anyway, he stayed in one place pretty much for the rest of the day/evening and it took him about 2 days to seemingly recover enough to climb back to his usual perch on the hornwort. I gotta hand it to him, he's one tough lil' fella.

Next time I'll make sure he's safely back into the tank before I do anything with the cover open.

On a side note, the gourami passed away after two days. Guess it was nicknamed the "frail gourami" for a reason. Just another gourami I won't touch again (along with the chocolate) until I have more experience and better water.

Posted by ronin at 12:31 AM | Comments (0)

March 16, 2005

Ich?

Also seem to have caught an outbreak of ich amongst the three half-black female guppies in the big tank. Kinda odd cause none of the other fish in the tank seem to have it. Since I don't have an extra tank or bowl handy, I had to put them into a plastic washbasin that I've regularly used during water changes. Kinda feel bad but can't do much about it until I finish feeding the rest of the live brine shrimp that I recently bought to the fish. They're currently being stored in the goldfish bowl which is what I usually use as the sick fish tank.

Posted by ronin at 11:34 PM | Comments (0)

Oops...

I think I may have accidentally killed the 3 remaining Endler's that I originally had in the 5.5 gallon tank. I moved them over to the big tank cause I decided to make the 5.5 gal tank a small gourami tank but I think my damn gold barbs decided that the Endler's were lunch or something cause I saw the big female chasing after one when I first put them in and now I can't find any of them. =( Hopefully they're just hiding in the back or amongst the sword leaves.

I didn't think moving the Endler's over would be that much of a problem cause we routinely bring over juvenile guppies that were of about the same size and they all turned out ok. Grrr.... damn barbs. I really want to get rid of them but I'm afraid they're so huge now even the fish stores probably won't want them. =p

Posted by ronin at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

March 8, 2005

Invertebrate intelligence...

Sometimes you gotta wonder if animals are smarter than we usually give them credit for. Anyway, after a few days of hanging out on the hornwort, I guess my bamboo shrimp wasn't getting enough nutrition cause it made its way back up into the filter casing again. This time however, he was sitting ON the filter itself, right where the water flows out and over from the intake. I've already shooed him back into the tank twice with the use of chopsticks and nets but he still goes up there when I'm not looking. The last time I even took the filter out cause I thought it might be filtering out all the nutrients that the shrimp is looking for before it could get to the shrimp. But that only helped out the shrimp more cause he just sits in the spot vacated by the filter now. I'm going to have to find some mesh for the filter outtake eventually. But at least he doesn't seem to be as skittish anymore when I come to push him back into the tank. Doesn't jump like crazy when I push him around with the chopstick.

Posted by ronin at 10:55 AM | Comments (0)

February 28, 2005

Awesome...

Seems like the flower shrimp has learned its lesson and it hasn't climbed back into the filter since its last near-death experience. =) Now it hangs out on the hornwort that I placed in front of the filter output or in the pipe decoration underneath it. It seems to have changed color too cause it's no longer blue, now it's the normal red/brown that they usually are. I enjoy watching it filter the water. Thinking of picking up some microfood for it just in case it isn't filtering enough from the existing water. Two pics following:

Just heard about vampire shrimp last week. Also filter feeders but they look real badass.

Posted by ronin at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2005

Really sneaky shrimp...

Took some time this morning to try to find the flower shrimp that I had put in this tank last week. It's been invisible for the past few days now so I started riffling through the plants in the back of the tank to see if it was hiding there. Finding nothing, I took out the biowheel again to see if it might be hiding there like last time. Still nothing.

With nowhere else to check, I finally lifted the long charcoal filter that sits next to the biowheel and lo and behold, the damn thing had managed to work its way underneath the filter! There's a gap between the bottom of the filter and the bottom of the frame that holds the filter where water flows through and he was sitting pretty under there. Unfortunately while I was trying to scoot him out of there he jumped completely out of the tank and fell into the gap formed by the two bookshelves that this 12 gal tank sits on. Pretty much as close to a no-mans-land as you can get. Only way I could get him back up was to wrap some packing tape around the handle of a broom and try to get him to stick onto it.

Sticking his body didn't seem to work and I didn't want to push too hard in fear of crushing him but eventually the tape managed to snag his antenna and I pulled him up from there. When I dumped him back into the aquarium at first I thought he was dead cause he just floated down legs up. But after a few seconds he scrambled to right himself and now he's sprawled out on a leaf. No doubt waiting for the lights to go off again so he can make another attempt at the filter. Which kinda bites cause I replanted the long brunch of hornwort right in front of the filter output so that he could hang out on it and feel the flow but I guess he likes the darkness of the filter frame better.

Anyway, I hope the lil' dude's ok and I didn't break anything while trying to recover it. Guess we'll find out tomorrow...

Posted by ronin at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2005

Shrimp, take two...

Also picked up a new flower (bamboo) shrimp from AF last night. This one's bigger and blue-ish in color as opposed to the brown of the last bamboo shrimp. This morning I found it had somehow crawled into the filter outtake. When I lifted up the biowheel to check on it it quickly backed out and scooted off. Weird. Anyway we'll see if it'll return there again.

Posted by ronin at 4:57 PM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2005

Clams!

Received my order of gold Asian freshwater clams yesterday and dropped two into each tank. As of this morning, the 2 in the 5.5 gal are still sitting around while the 2 in the 3 gal have completely burrowed themselves into the substrate. Of the 2 in the 12 gal, the smaller one has disappeared into the gravel while the biggest one is still hanging out on top. Wonder if I'll ever see them again. =p

On a more depressing note, my bamboo shrimp died last night and I think it was because of our giant female gold barb. When I was feeding them earlier I noticed that the bamboo shrimp seemed to be ok. An hour or so later I noticed it was upside down front and center in the bottom of the tank so I went to take a closer look. While I was watching, the gold barb came by and started to nibble at it. The shrimp wasn't quite dead yet so did try to get away but it's not as nimble as the smaller ones so couldn't seem to get away as quickly. Eventually it found its way into the right front corner and seemed safe for awhile but I guess the damage was done cause it died soon after. Damnit, I really wanted this one to survive. Guess I'll have to go pick up a larger one from AF. =p

Posted by ronin at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2005

Big tank pics...

Here's a bunch of pictures from our longest-standing tank, the 12 gallon Eclipse. Probably still overstocked but we haven't had any fish losses because of that yet.

Individual fish pics after the break... lots of 'em. =)

This is our current alpha koi swordtail. He didn't use to be but for some reason seems to have usurped the position from the previous alpha. Definitely the largest of the koi swords in the tank although he has a bum left fin (it points upwards instead of down) but that doesn't seem to affect his swimming.

This one below is a pic of our third male koi sword. He's not much of a fighter, usually fleeing from the more aggressive alpha and beta males. But it was funny to watch him try to woo the ladies while the other 2 males were busy duking it out.