TomSaintJames
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- Nov 5, 2012
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Hello everybody, I decided two weeks ago to get back into keeping fish. This was spurred on by a colleague of mine donating me a 2ft aquarium complete with the kit. I had to replace the filter and heater as they were old and not very efficient, but other wise it's a free tank!
I first kept tropical fish when I was about 16 or so and remember how exciting it was, and when we moved to a bigger house I was allowed a 3ft aquarium in my room. But I went to college and so donated my fish and plants to our local agricultural college (if you're wondering what agriculture and tropical fish have in common, there is a method of growing crops, albeit small scale, using tropical fish and aquarium). But now i've finished my education and have settled down a bit more I can justify fish! And a snake too, but that'll have to wait till next year.
So, the tank. I've gone for a coral sand, black gravel and black sand substrate with some planty substrate mixed in too. The theme is a slow-water, heavily planted tank. Like this;
Sorry for the rubbish photo quality, before I could figure out what settings to use on the camera the battery died, so I chose the best three. I didn't get any photo's of my fish so you'll have to wait for those
The left side was decided by my liking of the fern-like frondy stemmed plants, and the right-side needed to be quite heavy to cover the filter and heater etc.
I basically saw plants I liked, bought them , and then tried to arrange it so it looked natural and pleasing. Then I bought some more a week later, rearranged them and was happy! The red lilly in the rear right corner will grow up to cover the filter and the thin grassy stiff and the really quick growing rosette-like stuff will cover the heater.
The fish I have so far are two golden honey gourami's and ten pygmy corydoras. I originally wanted natural coloured honey gourami's, but my chosen shop only had golden, and in the correct lighting they do look quite stunning! The pygmy cory's are very endearing, they flit and shoal all around the tank and constantly hoover up stuff from the substrate and plants.
Future fish plans? More, of course! I don't want to overstock the tank, or make it look too busy so I have several thoughts. The first was to have 5/7/9 lampeye killifish and the same number of clown killifish - then I read up about clown killi's and how shy etc they are, and I worried they'd get bullied by the honey gourami's, and with the lampeye's (i've had them before and think they are very fab little killi's) I think they would look much better in a tannin/blackwater style tank with dim lighting and a dark substrate. So what I think I'll do is have a shoal of threadfin rainbow's - i've never had them before, and they do look beautiful at my local fish shop, also I think they'll somehow 'work' in my tank. The other fish i'd like in here are peacock gobies, really stunning little fish.
Future tank plans? I need to sort out the lighting, the tank lid only lets light in through a letterbox shaped slit in the middle of the lid, so this only lights up the center of the tank, leaving the rear, sides and front dim. So what I would like to do is get a clip on style, overhead light unit and have an open topped tank with some small, pretty floating plants that will hopefully flower (need to find something of this nature as of yet).
Questions.
Has anyone had experience with this light unit?
Would threadfins be ok to add to the tank, say in two weeks time? (tank will be a month old then, I have been using instant bio filter stuff with water changes and initially, now the ammonia and nitrite levels have dropped off to low/normal).
Would the peacock gobies and little cories disagree? And would I need to provide some kind of cave/rocks etc for them to hide in, or would the plants be sufficient?
My next tank (when we move to a bigger place in the next two years, as we're just house sitting until a relative retires) will have to be a dim, blackwater style set up with lots of bogwood and java ferns with a soil based substrate. The centerpiece will be chocolate gouramis, clown and lampeye killies. With loads of moss balls and ferny like plants
Anyone have a suggestion of a nice, not too large, flowering floating plant?
Thanks, comments and advice gratefully received
I first kept tropical fish when I was about 16 or so and remember how exciting it was, and when we moved to a bigger house I was allowed a 3ft aquarium in my room. But I went to college and so donated my fish and plants to our local agricultural college (if you're wondering what agriculture and tropical fish have in common, there is a method of growing crops, albeit small scale, using tropical fish and aquarium). But now i've finished my education and have settled down a bit more I can justify fish! And a snake too, but that'll have to wait till next year.
So, the tank. I've gone for a coral sand, black gravel and black sand substrate with some planty substrate mixed in too. The theme is a slow-water, heavily planted tank. Like this;
Sorry for the rubbish photo quality, before I could figure out what settings to use on the camera the battery died, so I chose the best three. I didn't get any photo's of my fish so you'll have to wait for those
The left side was decided by my liking of the fern-like frondy stemmed plants, and the right-side needed to be quite heavy to cover the filter and heater etc.
I basically saw plants I liked, bought them , and then tried to arrange it so it looked natural and pleasing. Then I bought some more a week later, rearranged them and was happy! The red lilly in the rear right corner will grow up to cover the filter and the thin grassy stiff and the really quick growing rosette-like stuff will cover the heater.
The fish I have so far are two golden honey gourami's and ten pygmy corydoras. I originally wanted natural coloured honey gourami's, but my chosen shop only had golden, and in the correct lighting they do look quite stunning! The pygmy cory's are very endearing, they flit and shoal all around the tank and constantly hoover up stuff from the substrate and plants.
Future fish plans? More, of course! I don't want to overstock the tank, or make it look too busy so I have several thoughts. The first was to have 5/7/9 lampeye killifish and the same number of clown killifish - then I read up about clown killi's and how shy etc they are, and I worried they'd get bullied by the honey gourami's, and with the lampeye's (i've had them before and think they are very fab little killi's) I think they would look much better in a tannin/blackwater style tank with dim lighting and a dark substrate. So what I think I'll do is have a shoal of threadfin rainbow's - i've never had them before, and they do look beautiful at my local fish shop, also I think they'll somehow 'work' in my tank. The other fish i'd like in here are peacock gobies, really stunning little fish.
Future tank plans? I need to sort out the lighting, the tank lid only lets light in through a letterbox shaped slit in the middle of the lid, so this only lights up the center of the tank, leaving the rear, sides and front dim. So what I would like to do is get a clip on style, overhead light unit and have an open topped tank with some small, pretty floating plants that will hopefully flower (need to find something of this nature as of yet).
Questions.
Has anyone had experience with this light unit?
Would threadfins be ok to add to the tank, say in two weeks time? (tank will be a month old then, I have been using instant bio filter stuff with water changes and initially, now the ammonia and nitrite levels have dropped off to low/normal).
Would the peacock gobies and little cories disagree? And would I need to provide some kind of cave/rocks etc for them to hide in, or would the plants be sufficient?
My next tank (when we move to a bigger place in the next two years, as we're just house sitting until a relative retires) will have to be a dim, blackwater style set up with lots of bogwood and java ferns with a soil based substrate. The centerpiece will be chocolate gouramis, clown and lampeye killies. With loads of moss balls and ferny like plants
Anyone have a suggestion of a nice, not too large, flowering floating plant?
Thanks, comments and advice gratefully received
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