Slimmed Down Fish Room Journal

[CaptainBarnicles]

Ew it's got red eyes!

 

[Boundava]

Let's not be rude ...

 

[Boundava]

Well (strongly believe its a) she has arrived!

Last time we had a starlight eel we were in a house that was sold to us with the promise it was lake water, but was actually municipal well water. We had a fish room with a centralized air system and over 40 tanks ranging from 5 to 125. Some fish were doing OK in the water, many others were not doing well and eels like to search for other water sources when they don't like what they are in-hence the jumping. Unfortunately the starlight eel we had hated its tank water and jumped multiple times even with a weighted lid. We rescued him/her twice but the third time it was out of the water too long. I have been wanting to get another since then-a bit over 5 years ago! These guys are extremely rare and usually a by-catch. fortunately my Sister's egal eye found the only 2 that Wetspot had for sale and within minutes they were both gone-fortunately one went to us!

The some of the other eels came out to investigate Nebula before she decided to check out her new digs, lol. Sexing eels is tough, but she has a very round body and is big in general. Females are usually wider and bigger than males so we are thinking its a she.

 

[Boundava]

Nebula, the new starlight spiny eel is doing great. She started eating a couple days ago which is fast for a wild caught eel of her size.

All of the eels are enjoying the extra wiggle room, lol.

We may have some new additions coming next week, I am still waiting on the seller to verify with me. They have 3 maculatus eels about 6" in size. I would like to get all three to add to the one I currently have.

Next on my list is to find some tapir eels to keep Mrs. Bean company... although with her voracious appetite and habit of stealing food (literally) out of the mouths of other eels, maybe I am okay with waiting

 

[Boundava]

Well the gentleman selling the maculatus eels got back to me and they should be arriving Tuesday. That's great because they will be delivered to work and I am done at 12:30. Just have to remind myself to leave. I have been staying a little later to help my coworker since another worker is on vacation and we have been hit with a lot of work this week. Hasn't helped that I have been fighting a nasty nasal infection with lots of coughing and sore throat...stuffiness all the fun stuff. Boss was nice enough to let me go home early Wednesday. However we got 1.5X our normal workload Thursday and were down the vacation employee and another employee who called in sick. Worked 2 hours overtime just to stay afloat. Left work with a hot mess for my coworker who also stayed an hour later. To make up with what we couldn't do yesterday in general maintenance, I stayed an hour and half longer today too... effectively recouping the 4 hours I lost going home early with my overtime.

Have to say I love this new job...pay, hours, management and employees are great. Never thought I would like getting up a little before 3 am, but ending your day at 12:30 (and no limit on overtime if work is available) is great.
Bonus they allow fish deliveries, lol.

 

[Boundava]

Ok well I have a new plan for my mostly empty 120. As of yesterday the tank inhabitants were 3 Congo tetra, a dozen giant danios, syno catfish, 4 angelfish, a Royal pleco, a 3 beacon pleco, a ghost knife, 3 SAE and a smattering of Cory. Today it is minus the tetra, danios, angelfish and syno as I spent some time catching these (heavy on sarcasm) wonderful buggers. I also caught the tapiris eel from the 125 (Mr. Bean) as he is stealing worms out of other eels mouths- literally.
There is another eel that is as big of a PITA, but Peter is going to move to the 120 along with the parrot fish, Marigold.

The 120 is soon to be home to some new fish and a slightly different direction for me. I saw these fish from a member of the last forum I was on and wanted to get them, but they were rare and hard to source at the time.
Astronotus crassipinnis, or bumblebee Oscar is what will be inhabiting the 120 probably next week. I placed an order for three 3" fish.

In order to get the tank ready for the fish I removed the above mentioned fish. I also had added a thick sand bed since the eels were originally going to be in this tank and like to burrow in it. So yesterday (since I had to partition the tank and empty 80% of the water to catch a aforementioned buggers) I took time to remove about 5 pounds of wet sand. I also had an assortment of crypts and Anubias floating around so I tossed the crypts in the 125 and brought some of the nana to Fish Planet. I found a giant barteri that I put in the 125.

Today I am going to continue to get the tank set up by adding a second FX4 filter. I have one that I had to order a new motor for. I was also going to clean the current FX4 but I did such a large water change that I don't want to encourage a mini cycle by cleaning too much.

I also found a fantastic piece of DW that looks like a tree trunk with roots that I have to rinse outside and setup in the tank. This will be a no plant tank and I will see if I want to add some rocks along with the wood.
Now that I'm think about it, I should move the SAE back into the 125 as it isn't fair for them to be without vegetation and the algae it brings.

Hoping to get this done tonight so the tank will be ready for the fish next week.

 

[Boundava]

So it turned out that the motor was just fine on the FX4. Got it set up on the tank though it was hard setting it up with the tank against the wall. It made it difficult to set up the intake/output on the rim.

I also rinsed the DW I bought for the tank but was too tired to get it in the tank tonight. Sis and I will tackle it Saturday after I get home from work.

The piece is 35" from one end to the other.

Will be pulling the current maker out since the other filter adds extra flow.
The large DW on the left is going to stay in the tank but the Mopani DW on the right is going to be moved to the 125.

 

[Boundava]

So finally got the other DW in the tank. Even with the slate it wouldn't stay down. Good thing I have a lot of large lava rocks and a nice layer of sand that is keeping it in place. Tank was a bit cloudy but will get some pics later when it clears. The Nicrew light should be coming today, however I had purchased a Finnex 24/7 for comparison which arrived yesterday. I put it on the tank put the way the sunlight hits the tank it's hard to see how strong the light actually is. In a couple hours the sun will have passed the windows so I should be able to get a better idea of how strong the light is. I have to say the lights are much cheaper in production and quality than they used to be for this brand. I don't know if it's because he wanted to make them streamlined like other lights but to me they come across as poor quality.

 

[Boundava]

So the tank has cleared up.

Cory are dwarfed by it.

 

[Magnum Man]

I have a couple Mulberry stumps the pigs I used to have dug up... 1st they chewed off the bark, so I had to cut the trees down, ( about 8 inch diameter trunks ) I have them sitting out in the weather, upside down, to wash all the dirt, out of the broken off root end... they have been there a couple years... I'm thinking about adding them to my 250 gallon, when I set that up...

did you buy those locally, or where were you able to buy them???

 

[Boundava]

I have a couple Mulberry stumps the pigs I used to have dug up... 1st they chewed off the bark, so I had to cut the trees down, ( about 8 inch diameter trunks ) I have them sitting out in the weather, upside down, to wash all the dirt, out of the broken off root end... they have been there a couple years... I'm thinking about adding them to my 250 gallon, when I set that up...

did you buy those locally, or where were you able to buy them???

I actually got them from a what is a not so local (it's about an hour and a half drive away) fish store. It's called Aquarium Adventures and it's not the best place to get fish and everything is extremely expensive because they mark it up a lot, but they have and have always had a good selection of wood. It was funny because I was looking online at driftwood, stumps, submered logs that would kind of replicate trunks or tree roots in water, but anything mildly interesting you're talking almost $400 and that's not including shipping. A lot of people on Etsy are now like piecing together different pieces of wood to make a trunk looking piece of wood, but that is also 2 to $300 and really is for smaller tanks as they max out at 16 in tall. So I said to my sister before we look anything else online let's take a look at aquarium adventures and see what they have since they always have a lot of wood in stock. When we saw this piece it was almost like it was waiting for us. There was another piece that I liked a lot but both of them would not have fit in the aquarium with the other piece of wood that I wanted to keep in the aquarium.

However the majority of the wood that they sell now doesn't actually sink which is why I was hoping it being attached to the slate would stay help it stay down. It did not, and it was really fun trying to hold it down while trying to backfill the sand and put the lava rocks on top of it to keep it down with cory and other smallish fish swimming around trying to figure out what the new thing in the tank is.

Oh I'm not sure about mulberry wood, is that safe for aquariums?

 

[Magnum Man]

Mulberry leaves are listed as one of the best leaves to add, so I’m assuming so

 

[Boundava]

Oh yeah, silly me I give the leaves to my shrimp.

mulberry DW?

www.plantedtank.net

 

[Boundava]

Well I was supposed to get my 3 crassipinnis today. Instead I got 1 and a second bag with 3 African blue diamond tetra. Contacted the seller to see what the next step is as I am a bit peeved.

 

[Magnum Man]

OMG... did you order from Predatory Fins... I got 2 dead and 1 live, what looks like rainbows ( I ordered 3 Rainbows ), and what the seller told me, when I called them, were 2 "bumble bee" Oscars, instead of my 3 Blue Diamond tetras...











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