Beastije
Fish Addict
Hi guys.
Had a sad news yesterday, found both of my african dwarf frogs dead, not sure why. They either didnt tolerate the high temps as well as the books said they would, or I overestimated their ability to find food I was providing (small cyclops, tubiflex, frozen small foods,...). Or could have been a water quality fluke though when I did the measurements when I found them, the NO2 was no disaster (not sure how long they were dead in the water though).
Anyway, this brings me to a future stocking options, something to occupy my mind to not mourn the funny creatures I used to have.
The tank is small and does not offer much. The dimensions are 56 cm l x 25 cm w x 36 cm h which gives it a 40 litres give or take. It would be ideal for housing a betta, which I now have, but I do not have a desire to continue with getting another one.
Basically I have three options:
1. go shrimp only
2. go mexican crayfish + some small fish
3. go fish only
Ad shrimp - I love shrimp and would love to have them, but I attempted this few times in the past, and the results were always the same - I would buy 10, see them carrying, see some shrimplets, within a year or less, have no shrimp at all. They require moss plants and something specific I was lacking, every type of moss I have ever attempted to have would end up being a ball of thick green algae. Even this tank, because I used a recycled sand, has the beginning of green algae visible in the filter sponge, on some of the egeria. No matter how much plants I put in. I fear it would go the same route. I am also fairly sure I had some sort of parasite that decimated the shrimp population in the past tanks and am afraid it would be the same here.
Ad fish - this tank offers very little in the type of fish it can carry. Except ember tetras that I have in other tank, I could only go with boraras maculatus - which I had years back, it is a dull fish, shoaling, territorial, very static, Trigonostigma hengeli - which I also had, way more fun fish, but again, already had it, Tanichthys micagemmae or nannostomus which are another one of the very small fish with very small mouths, or a pair of something, like dario dario (or the betta, but as I said, nope).
My experience with small fish was somehow repeating and I think there is something wrong with how I take care of them. I would feed them a pinch every day or every other day, scared of overfeeding, since small tanks have dreadful stability, and whenever I would come back from a week long, or two week long vacation, I would find over half of the fish missing from the tank. Also had mexican crayfish disappear when I was away for a week, same with pygmy corydoras, once also a 5 year old ancistrus and 2 year old betta fish, go away for a week, come back, nowhere to be found.
I want to point out that this disappearing act only happened for me in the 25l tank I had, an then the 54l tank I had with the smaller fish, never had a fish go away during vacation in a 360l one, so I would say it is related to stability and what the tank offers in size (and food)
More about the tank - it has black "sand", small round stones, 1-3mm grain. It has anubias, java fern, egeria densa, now few ludwigia, one cryptocoryne, riccia over half of the surface, duckweed, one moss ball. I can add limnophila if that will help, but I am starting to see the algae on the filter sponge and the egeria does not seem to be growing much (or fast). The java fern is doing ok, same as the riccia, the cryptocoryne has had a lot of new leaves. At this point the tank is 3 months old, but the stocking change will happen when the betta is no more, and the betta is one and a half year old, so he should have many months to live. The temp now is 29C, the Ph I have no idea, I need a new test kit, the one I have is saying something way different than the ph sticker I have from seachem. The entry water should be 7,9 ph, but the other tank seems like it is at 6,4 so who knows.
I will appreciate suggestions on what I am doing wrong or what can I do better
Had a sad news yesterday, found both of my african dwarf frogs dead, not sure why. They either didnt tolerate the high temps as well as the books said they would, or I overestimated their ability to find food I was providing (small cyclops, tubiflex, frozen small foods,...). Or could have been a water quality fluke though when I did the measurements when I found them, the NO2 was no disaster (not sure how long they were dead in the water though).
Anyway, this brings me to a future stocking options, something to occupy my mind to not mourn the funny creatures I used to have.
The tank is small and does not offer much. The dimensions are 56 cm l x 25 cm w x 36 cm h which gives it a 40 litres give or take. It would be ideal for housing a betta, which I now have, but I do not have a desire to continue with getting another one.
Basically I have three options:
1. go shrimp only
2. go mexican crayfish + some small fish
3. go fish only
Ad shrimp - I love shrimp and would love to have them, but I attempted this few times in the past, and the results were always the same - I would buy 10, see them carrying, see some shrimplets, within a year or less, have no shrimp at all. They require moss plants and something specific I was lacking, every type of moss I have ever attempted to have would end up being a ball of thick green algae. Even this tank, because I used a recycled sand, has the beginning of green algae visible in the filter sponge, on some of the egeria. No matter how much plants I put in. I fear it would go the same route. I am also fairly sure I had some sort of parasite that decimated the shrimp population in the past tanks and am afraid it would be the same here.
Ad fish - this tank offers very little in the type of fish it can carry. Except ember tetras that I have in other tank, I could only go with boraras maculatus - which I had years back, it is a dull fish, shoaling, territorial, very static, Trigonostigma hengeli - which I also had, way more fun fish, but again, already had it, Tanichthys micagemmae or nannostomus which are another one of the very small fish with very small mouths, or a pair of something, like dario dario (or the betta, but as I said, nope).
My experience with small fish was somehow repeating and I think there is something wrong with how I take care of them. I would feed them a pinch every day or every other day, scared of overfeeding, since small tanks have dreadful stability, and whenever I would come back from a week long, or two week long vacation, I would find over half of the fish missing from the tank. Also had mexican crayfish disappear when I was away for a week, same with pygmy corydoras, once also a 5 year old ancistrus and 2 year old betta fish, go away for a week, come back, nowhere to be found.
I want to point out that this disappearing act only happened for me in the 25l tank I had, an then the 54l tank I had with the smaller fish, never had a fish go away during vacation in a 360l one, so I would say it is related to stability and what the tank offers in size (and food)
More about the tank - it has black "sand", small round stones, 1-3mm grain. It has anubias, java fern, egeria densa, now few ludwigia, one cryptocoryne, riccia over half of the surface, duckweed, one moss ball. I can add limnophila if that will help, but I am starting to see the algae on the filter sponge and the egeria does not seem to be growing much (or fast). The java fern is doing ok, same as the riccia, the cryptocoryne has had a lot of new leaves. At this point the tank is 3 months old, but the stocking change will happen when the betta is no more, and the betta is one and a half year old, so he should have many months to live. The temp now is 29C, the Ph I have no idea, I need a new test kit, the one I have is saying something way different than the ph sticker I have from seachem. The entry water should be 7,9 ph, but the other tank seems like it is at 6,4 so who knows.
I will appreciate suggestions on what I am doing wrong or what can I do better
