Slimmed Down Fish Room Journal

[WhistlingBadger]

Do ghost knives play well with others, including larger tetras (Hyphessobrycon rosaceus to be specific)? I've thought about getting one for my 150g.

 

[Boundava]

Do ghost knives play well with others, including larger tetras (Hyphessobrycon rosaceus to be specific)? I've thought about getting one for my 150g.

Yes, they eat invertebrates and are relatively shy unlike a clown knife that gets to be huge and will go after anything that can fit in its mouth.

 

[Boundava]

So the eels were active this morning too
Mrs Bean

Venom the unicolor fire eel juvi

Kregory our Borneo eel, front and back

There are 2 other eels in the tank as well, m. Maculatus. Wasn't able to get a photo of them

Today, but here is one from a couple days ago.

Originally Venom the unicolor fire eel was going to stay in the 125 and all the others were going into the 120. However Venom is hanging around the other eels a lot (social butterfly) so we're going to move them all into the 120 this coming weekend. That may change as s/he matures but right now s/he's playing nice.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Yes, they eat invertebrates and are relatively shy unlike a clown knife that gets to be huge and will go after anything that can fit in its mouth.

We're talking about Apteronotus albifrons, right? They look kind of fun.

 

[Boundava]

We're talking about Apteronotus albifrons, right? They look kind of fun.

Yes, we have a little girl (you can sex them by their faces) and she is a lot of fun to watch as she moves, so different than other fish, hovering like a UFO or USO, lol.

 

[Boundava]

Unfortunately the angels we got were from Aquarium Adventures are apparently of bad stock as of the 6 we purchased only 3 are currently visible in the tank with 1 confirmed body found.

My royal platinum Xingu pleco Lokii has gotten comfortable enough to move out of her original spot under a piece of wood. I have briefly seen the knife, but they are more nocturnal so I will check tonight if she is active and to feed her

 

[Boundava]

So final count is 2 surviving angels. Sis found 3 of the four bodies.

I am not 100% loving the way the tank has settled so I am going to pull out some DW and I think the majority of not all of the anubias.

As the anubias doesn't have another home I will take them to Fish Planet and maybe get a discount on some shrimp and endlers for my turtle's water feature.

Forgot to mention that the anubias is all from my 75 gallon years ago and is over 14 years old. I had the majority attached to a background I had built for Ghost (RIP), my albino BN pleco.


I also need to clean the FX6 on the 125 as well as do another 30-40% WC and a 20-30% WC on the 120 with the wolf fish and severum as the two plecos make it a mummy mess. The Acara that used to be in the tank would clean that up but the severum don't do that.

 

[Boundava]

So haven't had a chance to do any of the above for the 120s or 125. It's ok I'll either do it after work or Saturday.

So Sis knows an eel wholesale who had a large Borneo eel like Kregory so we decided to add it to our collection and she should be here Wednesday.

Turns out that with these eels sexing is easy as the females are larger and broader in body with red coloration throughout. So Kregory is a female and the newbie will also be a female.

 

[Boundava]

Today I pulled out 90% of my 12+/- year old anubias from the 119 eel tank and rearranged some driftwood and caught the eels from the 125 and got them in the 120.
We also added 2 more angels and 10 paleatus corry. We wanted a larger Corey but we didn't really want to have anything shipped to the house so fortunately Fish Planet had these. I was looking for emeralds but these are good too.

I don't have any photos but if I remember I'll try to get some uploaded tomorrow.

I was originally thinking of not adding any more plants but as we were catching the eels they were hiding in the large groups of the c. usteriana that I have and the 125 so I think I'm going to either grab some large c. balansae or more userana or I may get some upon apongeton ulvaceus though I am unsure if my royal pleco will eat the bulb as Ghost my BN pleco used to do to all plants with bulbs.

Also think I will rearrange the DW and add a piece or two. The addition of plants my help as the tank is just too bottom heavy in my opinion.

 

[Boundava]

So not a lot going on. For those that didn't know, my 120 gallon SA tank full of plecos, cichlid, cory and tetras had a catastrophic heater failure cause an increase in heat and decrease in O2 leading to 96% of the tank to die off.
I moved the survivors to the 125 and cleaned the tank up.

The tank is now home to my 9 spiny eels of varying sizes, a group of 7 pepper cory (from 17), a black knife, a Royal pleco, a common pleco, a 3-beacon pleco, baker's dozen school of giant danios, 2 or 3 congo's (survived from 19), and 5 angels (survived from 17).
I think one of the live caught wild eels is at the end of its life and maybe leaving us soon, unfortunately.
My second time with congo with similar results, they were to be dither fish to calm the eels (an expensive failure). First choice had been the much less expensive ($5 vs $15) giant danios. Ladies and gents, always go 1st choice. The store had there stock die off too so I got to exchange them, however their die off led to 8 cory and 6 angels dying as well

Sis wants to redo the 33 gallon that was a brackish tank. She wants to do some rare cichlids and mountain swordtails so we are going to be setting it up this weekend.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

So not a lot going on. For those that didn't know, my 120 gallon SA tank full of plecos, cichlid, cory and tetras had a catastrophic heater failure cause an increase in heat and decrease in O2 leading to 96% of the tank to die off.
I moved the survivors to the 125 and cleaned the tank up.

The tank is now home to my 9 spiny eels of varying sizes, a group of 7 pepper cory (from 17), a black knife, a Royal pleco, a common pleco, a 3-beacon pleco, baker's dozen school of giant danios, 2 or 3 congo's (survived from 19), and 5 angels (survived from 17).
I think one of the live caught wild eels is at the end of its life and maybe leaving us soon, unfortunately.
My second time with congo with similar results, they were to be dither fish to calm the eels (an expensive failure). First choice had been the much less expensive ($5 vs $15) giant danios. Ladies and gents, always go 1st choice. The store had there stock die off too so I got to exchange them, however their die off led to 8 cory and 6 angels dying as well

Sis wants to redo the 33 gallon that was a brackish tank. She wants to do some rare cichlids and mountain swordtails so we are going to be setting it up this weekend.

Wow, multiple bummers. A 33 gallon brackish could be fun, though. Mountain swordtails are so cool. Maybe you could add a little land area for a fiddler crab!

 

[Boundava]

So not a lot going on. For those that didn't know, my 120 gallon SA tank full of plecos, cichlid, cory and tetras had a catastrophic heater failure cause an increase in heat and decrease in O2 leading to 96% of the tank to die off.
I moved the survivors to the 125 and cleaned the tank up.

The tank is now home to my 9 spiny eels of varying sizes, a group of 7 pepper cory (from 17), a black knife, a Royal pleco, a common pleco, a 3-beacon pleco, baker's dozen school of giant danio, 2 or 3 congo's (survived from 19), and 5 angels (survived from 17).
I think one of the live caught wild eels is at the end of its life and maybe leaving us soon, unfortunately.
My second time with congo with similar results, they were to be dither fish to calm the eels (an expensive failure). First choice had been the much less expensive ($5 vs $15) giant danios. Ladies and gents, always go 1st choice. The store had there stock die off too so I got to exchange them, however their die off led to 8 cory and 6 angels dying as well

Wow, multiple bummers. A 33 gallon brackish could be fun, though. Mountain swordtails are so cool. Maybe you could add a little land area for a fiddler crab!

Yeah the brackish was fun while I had it up. We had some of the brackish bumblebee gobies in there and then I added some other fish...a brackish leaf goblin (scorpion) fish, I don't remember their exact scientific name. It turns out they are only brackish as juveniles and as adults they prefer salt water. How do I know, because when I broke the tank down there was one left and I put it in the saltwater tank with my sister's clownfish and they are the best of friends right now and he has doubled in size since going into full saltwater. If I can find more of the leaf- goblin fish I would like to add more to the saltwater tank since they are social.

 

[Boundava]

So got the 33 cleaned up. The silt from the brackish aragonite sand had dried into a very hard layer and I did wind up scratching the bottom of the 33 a little chiseling it off. Vinegar helped the clean up on the sides, top rim and lids.
Wound up using some red flint sand that was previously in the 75 as the substrate. Also built a bank out of egg crate to make is seem like the one side was the river bank and the rest of the tank was the river bed. Filled that egg crate hill with large red flint pea gravel from the empty 120 (the one that cracked but is still needing to be removed from the basement) and topped it off with sand. Got a rare bacopa when we were at the GCCA swap that we put on top of the "bank" to grow emersed. Yesterday I went way out Madison WI to a fish store called The Big Kahuna were I got a blenny, two yellow shrimp (hopefully males) and some pogostemon and dwarf sag for the 33 gallon.

Here's the tank as of the 23rd

Some photos with the new plants and a bit more rocks we found from prior builds...nothing like having some box o rocks sitting and waiting for future use, lol.

Sis was feeding the eels so here's some photos of the 120 eel, 125 and 120 acrylic:

125

Oops...too many files. To be continued, lol.

 

[Boundava]

120 acrylic
2 severum, 2 plecos (only one visible) and one Jelly Bean (wolf fish pouting at the last photo, he didn't want a photo with his meal!)

 

[Boundava]

So redid the 20L shrimp/bororas/rasbora.

Old

New

Photo above is my Igawazo 2009 sword plant. It was one and about 2 years ago I cut it at it's rhizome into 2. Surprisingly when I pulled it out the smaller one had a bud that broke off. It's a beautiful and slow growing sword plant.

Turns out I only have 4 shrimp in here so I purchased some from Aquatic Arts and am waiting on shipping confirmation.
I added some pogostemon, Lagenandra meeboldii "red" and weeping moss. I also pulled out the old DW and added some holey wood with moss sporadically placed. I had 4 pieces but only 2 sank after 2 hours of soaking in hot water.
I have a 6 gallon tank with tiger shrimp I want to redo as well so if on of the other two pieces are waterlogged I may use it in there.