Beginning Aquarium

[PDSimon]

Looking good Won't that betta try and eat the shrimp? Midnight snack!

 

[r.w.girard]

Looking good.

Thank you for your enthusiasm about the tank. It is my little corner of paradise. After all, it is humanity's greatest project, no, to create after their own image? Well, this is mine. A miniature world that I create, control, shape and nourish.

Won't that betta try and eat the shrimp?

As for the shrimp, thus far [with the possible exception of my missing shrimp, although I would guess that it died and the snail consumed its corpse], they have gotten along just fine. Sometimes the betta pesters them but they just shoot away and are fine. But, when I say pesters, I must clarify that I have never seen any aggression. Mostly he just swims near them and they get frightened [although that only occurs after molting]. I watched them very carefully when we first introduced this betta into the tank, following the untimely death of our previous. He was particularly feisty, aggressive and territorial. Of course, he was beautiful. But, even then, he left his tank-mates alone. And he has since calmed down.

And I forgot to mention, I recently bought some water lettuce to float around at the top. I understand that green neon tetras do not much like light and therefore prefer tanks with floating plants. They are all pretty small at the moment and so their root systems are not particularly impressive. But all things with time and good measure.

 

[r.w.girard]

I thought I would update with a picture of the green neon tetras in the tank. They are fattening up great and their color is beautiful. I had one that was not doing so well. It was really small and not fattening at all. I started soaking algae tabs in water so that they broke down. They love it and it is small enough for all of them to feed off it. Since then, it has been plumping up nicely. Also, doing that has been preventing the betta from overeating since he only eats things of a certain size.

They are kind of funny. Sometimes they school really close. Other times they are all over the place. When they are, there is one that is anti-social and hide by itself and then there is another that is hyper territorial, but only when not schooling.

 

[r.w.girard]

In setting up a second 2.5 gallon planted red cherry shrimp tank, whose journal can be found linked below, I had purchased some Hygrophilia corymbosa, which I had intended to plant. But because I am doing a dry start and because hygrophilia grows quickly, especially in its emergent form, I decided to plant in temporarily in my main tank. In fact, I ordered too much of it and so I decided to plant it and then transplant only some of it, keeping the bulk of it in the main tank. So I moved the Eleocharis montevidenis to the background behind the holey rock, which is slowly turning a lovely green, and planted the Hygrophilia corymbosa in their place, in front of the heater in the back left corner. It looked terrible. So out came the hygrophilia and every intention to use them in either tank. But the eleocharis looked so nice where it was that I decided to spread out the Sagittaria sublata across the entire left side, and not just have it grouped in the front corner. So I separated some runners from the main plants and planted them along the side.

I also had ordered too much Hemianthus callitrichoides for the shrimp tank, so, when I spread it out a bit, I had some left over, this I planted at least temporarily in the foreground of the tank. I don't know if it will take or not. I am supplementing carbon with API CO2 Booster and am dosing Seachem Flourish every couple of days. But the lighting may be too low, although there is a certain amount of natural light that does make it in. We will see. But I needed a place to put it while it grows in in the shrimp tank.

In all, the tank is looking pretty good and is becoming more and more densely planted. And the fish level seems to be OK as the ammonia level never moves. Still wonder about Malaysian Trumpet snails though. Maybe I will add some if I ever set up a Dwarf Puffer tank... Anyway, goal now is to get some Java Moss to replace the scraggly Star Moss growing on my lava rock tunnel.

I also realized, in introducing myself to the community that I mentioned the stand that this tank is on without ever photographing it. I am sorry for the picture quality, but here it is. I made it myself.

Lastly, a week or so ago, I found out that my Ivory Mystery snail is a female as it laid a little clutch of eggs but I threw them away without documenting them, about which I was immediately regretful. Well, yesterday, it laid a second which I took the time to photograph. The lighting was not great but it came out decently.