Hi ,this is my first post so hopefully i'm in the right spot .
I kept pearl gouramis as the main feature of the tank (3ft) last time i had fish ,before the children came along .I had great success in creating extreemly mature and gracefull specimens the first time around and my love for the adult pearl is to this day thriveing .
Seven years later i now about 4 months ago have set up a small 2ft tank and it went like this
Money is a major factor so i bought a tank for £40.it had a heater internal sponge filter and thermometer ( hood with light included)
I am insistant on condensation trays even though people say you dont need them in todays fish world because everything is insulated .I still perchased glass strips and perspex and used aqua silicone and fixed a condensation tray .I did this for two reasons .1 when you lift the hood off ,water drips everywhere if there isnt one ( gouramis like a warmer tank ) .2 it keeps the air at a constant above the water level and gouramis like to often breath above suface .
So now not having what i'm used to in undergravel ,i saw no need for a bed as such with sand or gravel .So i sat the tank on its black inset on a mdf board covered in sand paper and varnished giving the illusion of a sand bed .Next i bought four bags of river bed pebbles from morrisons for £2.I got two peices of slate to stand upright to hide the heater and took a trip to the beach at Allonby where i like near and collected interesting larger stones and a box full of shells .I created a mixture of pebble base shells and small caves with small flatter peices of slate ,raising from front to back slightly .I left a kind of shore line round the front and half way on both sides at the front and put a thin layer of a kind of black and gray gritty sand which i bought for £4 at the fish shop and blended each ingredient into each other .Next i bought two peices of mopani wood and wedged them up ontop of the slate higher up at the back of the tank .I have a good solection of plants the full length of the tank and weaved them in and out of the wood in front of slate and covering cave entrances .....also trailing the surface of the water ( floating plants seem to be hard to come by in my area so i have improvised with alternatives ) .I have a moss ball aswell which looks good and is said to keep algea in controll .
stocking with fish i chose three chocolate gouramis ,two bristel noses ,a male and two female pearl gouramis and 7 dwarf red river shrimps .
Its been three and a half months now and i have to say contrary to all the info on the net that you should not buy chocolate varieties because they will die ,has turned out to be unfounded in my case .these little lovelies are in tranquility and picture of health ,even gracing the tank with my pearls like adopted family at times .To cut a long story short ( i could go on all day at the section of nature i have created 2 ft long ) every thing is a picture of health .
As i have been here before 7 years ago this is not new .
But although i have had dwarf gouramis creating bubble nests and my pearls glowing red at the throats and coloured up magnificantly ................the breed has eluded me on my first time of keeping .
This time i am hoping to take my interest further and achieve the breeding cycle .I have heard all manor of ways to achieve this but the one that strikes me the most is to let it happen in the inviroment i have created in the tank and wish to let it all happen in the tank as it is .
Can you wish me luck and any suggestions would be appreciated to achieve my goal .
PS by the way yes my chocolate do seem fairly choosey eaters but find they like a little of everthing .freeze dried blood worm ,tuefex,ant eggs suprizingly ,and a small amount of flake .My bristle noses love frozen mixed veg from asda and are plenty active otherwise .
Anyway hope i havent bored anyone with my inexperiance and self bloating .
I kept pearl gouramis as the main feature of the tank (3ft) last time i had fish ,before the children came along .I had great success in creating extreemly mature and gracefull specimens the first time around and my love for the adult pearl is to this day thriveing .
Seven years later i now about 4 months ago have set up a small 2ft tank and it went like this
Money is a major factor so i bought a tank for £40.it had a heater internal sponge filter and thermometer ( hood with light included)
I am insistant on condensation trays even though people say you dont need them in todays fish world because everything is insulated .I still perchased glass strips and perspex and used aqua silicone and fixed a condensation tray .I did this for two reasons .1 when you lift the hood off ,water drips everywhere if there isnt one ( gouramis like a warmer tank ) .2 it keeps the air at a constant above the water level and gouramis like to often breath above suface .
So now not having what i'm used to in undergravel ,i saw no need for a bed as such with sand or gravel .So i sat the tank on its black inset on a mdf board covered in sand paper and varnished giving the illusion of a sand bed .Next i bought four bags of river bed pebbles from morrisons for £2.I got two peices of slate to stand upright to hide the heater and took a trip to the beach at Allonby where i like near and collected interesting larger stones and a box full of shells .I created a mixture of pebble base shells and small caves with small flatter peices of slate ,raising from front to back slightly .I left a kind of shore line round the front and half way on both sides at the front and put a thin layer of a kind of black and gray gritty sand which i bought for £4 at the fish shop and blended each ingredient into each other .Next i bought two peices of mopani wood and wedged them up ontop of the slate higher up at the back of the tank .I have a good solection of plants the full length of the tank and weaved them in and out of the wood in front of slate and covering cave entrances .....also trailing the surface of the water ( floating plants seem to be hard to come by in my area so i have improvised with alternatives ) .I have a moss ball aswell which looks good and is said to keep algea in controll .
stocking with fish i chose three chocolate gouramis ,two bristel noses ,a male and two female pearl gouramis and 7 dwarf red river shrimps .
Its been three and a half months now and i have to say contrary to all the info on the net that you should not buy chocolate varieties because they will die ,has turned out to be unfounded in my case .these little lovelies are in tranquility and picture of health ,even gracing the tank with my pearls like adopted family at times .To cut a long story short ( i could go on all day at the section of nature i have created 2 ft long ) every thing is a picture of health .
As i have been here before 7 years ago this is not new .
But although i have had dwarf gouramis creating bubble nests and my pearls glowing red at the throats and coloured up magnificantly ................the breed has eluded me on my first time of keeping .
This time i am hoping to take my interest further and achieve the breeding cycle .I have heard all manor of ways to achieve this but the one that strikes me the most is to let it happen in the inviroment i have created in the tank and wish to let it all happen in the tank as it is .
Can you wish me luck and any suggestions would be appreciated to achieve my goal .
PS by the way yes my chocolate do seem fairly choosey eaters but find they like a little of everthing .freeze dried blood worm ,tuefex,ant eggs suprizingly ,and a small amount of flake .My bristle noses love frozen mixed veg from asda and are plenty active otherwise .
Anyway hope i havent bored anyone with my inexperiance and self bloating .
