Lorenzo's Fish Tank

Paying a tribute to the little fishy I have to return to the petstore.. the raphael catfish I picked up from Petland will grow much bigger than the guy at the petstore led me to believe, and alas is going to outgrow my tank pretty quickly. He is a very shy fish, and spent the better part of the last 3 weeks hiding behind my back plants.  He only started coming out for food before the lights went out the past couple days.. here’s a pic of the little guy, only 2.5” atm

Wish I could’ve kept him.. oh well :/

Here are some pics of the current status of the tank/inhabitants of both Monstro and the shrimp tank:

Shrimp tank java moss has started growing in thick b^_^d, I’ve also added the banana plant (mentioned before.. I think), pieces of a MASSIVE marimo ball (shirmp love it, lol) and some creeping charlie that will hopefully grow out over the tank eventually and make me pretty purple flower blooms :)

Told ya these guys love the marimo moss ball.. buffet all around!

Here is a possible male(?) crystal red shrimp..

Aaaand I got a pic of another that I HOPE is a female.. fingers crossed! The light green stem plant next to her is the creeping charlie..

Zoomed out view of the plants growing in around the tree base..

I also added some frogbit, I thought it might make the shrimp feel safer and venture off the floor of the tank! (No luck yet..)

Here is my esteemed and lovely new addition, the pearl gourami! No name has been found yet that I feel suits him.. so the search continues. Cutest little guy, he spent the entire photo shoot trying to be in the center of the shots!

Surprisingly, Snitch slept through feeding time today, although I can’t blame him.. I kept them up late last night as the room light stayed on well into the wee hours of the night while I was studying for biochm :/

Also added frogbit to Monstro for the same reason.. I think the pearl gourami appreciated it, he ventures more towards the top now.. and I know Snitch appreciated it.. saw him munching on an old stem yesterday :P

(pearl gourami: can you see me now!?!?) Also added some creeping charlie to back of tank.. sitting next to amazon sword which isn’t visible atm. Not sure if I’m keeping them there or not yet..

Newest plant additions are two little anubias nana petites.. they ahd a rough time during shipping (took a looong time to get here).. so their leaves were very brittle and broke off easy.. hope they make it!

Pic of foreground.. pearl is again trying to be the center of attention..

Giving pearlie a close up.. :P

My dwarf sag. is turning bright red.. not sure if it’s normal or not?? I’m going to assume it reacts this way in high light.. (can see snitch barely in the background in the cave..)

Here is one of five of my berried female cherry red shrimp.. 3 of the 5 are verrry pregnant.. hope they drop their kids soon! I also have 2 males floating around the tank somewhere, but they didn’t come out for the photo shoot, lol

And here is an overall pic of the tank currently…

Hope you enjoyed the pics!! :)

9/27 - Second wave of residents arrived this past week, and didn’t lose anyone during shipping or acclimation! Will post pics first then talk about them..

Current state of Monstro, ignore all the bubbles flying around the tank.. actually they seemed to help clear up the last bit of cloudiness from the tank

One of five red cherry shrimp (rcs) residing in my tank. munching on some brown algae on a tree branch

One of the smaller RCS, hiding out on the cabomba in the back

This was an interesting situation.. so I have been placing algae wafers in the tank since the otos arrived (1 on left), since I still don’t really seem to be having any algae growth yet.. well I’ve never actually sat down and watched them eat them.. they were just always gone when I came back. Today I put one in and sat down to actually WATCH what was going on.  As soon as I put the wafer in the tank, Snitch (the golden apple snail) came flying to the front of the tank and scared off the little oto that was eating on it! (You can see the poor little guy to the left.. waiting for his turn, lol!) Snitch took the whole thing and wrapped it up in his little foot and proceeded to eat from it without letting anyone else eat it.  I thought originally that he was a bully.. but finally just decided he’s a fat hungry snail that will do what it takes to stay full, lol (heaven forbid he should ever feel not bloated!)

Here’s the little oto (probably the smallest of the 6 I got) trying to get the wafer from a different side.. Snitch’s thoughts: nom nom nom

So surprise, the baby plant I lost a couple weeks ago showed up again! I was moving a couple of the didiplis diandra around and this little guy came flying out in the current.. it’s covered in a little hair algae, probably from being in the dark for so long, but hopefully being back in the front of the tank will help it out :) + (oto still waiting for the dinner he found first..)

This is one last shot of Snitch before I scooted him to the back of the tank with a chip of the wafer to keep him busy while the otos finished off what was left (which was still plenty)

Ahh.. there we go, everyone gets a portion for dinner

Happy otos

Thought I’d add Shenzi to this post as she’s been a very busy little snail this past week.  Remember that pic I took of Banzai and Shenzi together? Well Shenzi has been laying eggs all week! (o.O) You can see a few little white dots on the driftwood to the right.. those are the eggs. Funny thing is that the very first ones she laid are now resting on Snitch’s shell! Poor guy.. he’s become a walking nursery for them. She has also, so far, laid eggs on the anubias nana, and this piece of driftwood.  Supposedly this type of snail needs water near levels of an actual saltwater environment in order for the eggs to hatch.. so I was relieved at first to know that I wouldn’t have a snail infestation, but now that I think of it, I don’t think I’d mind having little Shenzi’s and Banzai’s running around the tank (would probably sell them off anyways..) so either way I’m fine with it.. although Snitch probably wasn’t too thrilled :P

All the pics for now.  Everything is going great so far.  As you may or (more likely) may not have noticed.. I mentioned earlier I had SIX otos.. this is because the lady I bought them from was kind enough to give me extras!! Unfortuantely I’m not sure if my tank can support 6 hungry little otos.. so I may try to find another home for some of them (dad’s tank, pet store.. who knows).  Speaking of supporting otos, I’m not sure most aquarists would consider this a legitimate worry, but I’m actually worried that there isn’t any algae growing in my tank.. like ANY, no little green spots or anything.  I’m thinking I might nto have enough light in the tank (1.5wpg currently) sooo I’m gonna run over to Petland later this week and replace the actinic bulb with another Corallife to increase light output..

Next residents will HOPEFULLY be the habrosus cories. Although it seems that there has been restrictions put on moving these guys for the past few months, so no one seems to have them AT ALL.  I’ve heard rumors that the restrictions may be lifted soon.  So my dilemma is whether to wait for the restrictions to be lifted, or go ahead and buy and dwarf cory called the Pygmaeus cory:

Looks similar to the Habrosus, which is fine with me, except these cories tend to school in the middle levels of the tank, while the Habrosus stay more towards the bottom.. and the middle/upper levels of my tank will already be full (w/ cardinals and swordtails).  So I could either wait for Habrosus, go ahead and get the Pygmaeus, or scrap the dwarf cory idea in general..  I could have had 6-8 dwarf cories in the tank, where regular sized ones I could probably only have 3-4 (and larger schools = happier cories). Sooo I will be pondering over this for a couple weeks and see if anything changes in the market..

All for now!

9/22 - Here are some pics of Monstro in is current form, the last couple pics I took after I added the fontanus fissidens in, which will hopefully grow in to look like little bushes on the side of my “sand river” .. at least that’s the look I was going for, hopefully this will end up looking even remotely close to that, lol.

Water is a bit cloudy and it’s hard to distinguish the cave sitting behind the tree..

Someone stole my baby plant! But seriously.. while I was last weekend I think one of the snails uprooted my baby plant.. it was too big to go through the filter intake, so I know it’s hiding somewhere in the tank.. lol, although me and my roommates have been looking and it is hiding WELL. :/

These next two pics compare the hydrocotyle I placed on the right side of the tank (1st pic) vs the ones I put on the left side of the tank (2nd pic).. for some reason they are dong infinitely better on the right side than the left… ? I can’t figure it out yet :/ Oh well

Here is a closer view of the cave..

Tree shot

Shot of didiplis diandra and my anubias nana

It turns out Shenzi and Banzai actually were female and male o.O And I named them correctly according to gender, lol.  I’ve been told that their eggs need severely brackish water in order to survive though.. so I still don’t think I’ll be seeing little coronas scooting around in the tank..

Here was my first attempt at growing fontanus fissidens, I’ve been told that I need to attach the plant fronds to the outside of the structure in order for them to grow properly.. so I’ll be adjusting that this weeekend..

Different view of tank

Last pic, lol. My little zebra snail decided he wanted to be in the pic, although he still hasn’t really moved much for the past week.. I’m afraid he’s still not going to pull through…

That’s all for pics. Currently I am awaiting the following shipments: Planting tweezers (should have gotten these FOREVER ago), star moss, marimo moss balls (for the shrimp tank), an order containing 12 red cherry shrimp and 1 yellow apple snail, and an order containing 5 otocinclus.  The last 2 should be here by Friday..

Concerns for the current condition of the tank.. brown hair algae is starting to spread through my peacock moss and it looks like its killing the moss off where is spreads.. SO I hope my shrimp get here fast enough to help contain that.. because the peacock moss is so pretty!  Also I sort of wish I had more plants to work with, the tank is not as “full” as I would like it to be (plantwise).. so I guess I’ll have to be patient waiting for things to grow in? *sigh*

All for now! Will update once my new members arrive.

9/20 - Still have to get pics of the main tank, but for now, here are some from the smaller shrimp tank I’m trying to get going (2.5g - woo).

Here’s a pic of the tank, the goal is to get all the java moss that lines the back to grow in really thick to give all my shrimp babies some good plants to eat and pick at (eventually.. lol)

Zoomed out shot of the tank.  There’s a desk lamp in the top left corner, buuut my phone camera decided it was bright enough to just white out.  I think the tree looks good so far.. subwassertang is still holding around it nicely and hasn’t started floating off.

I didn’t really have a clue how to properly plant the banana plant.. so I sort of just plopped it in the substrate.. it hasn’t floated off yet?  It’s sitting right under the filter.. so hopefully when it’s leaves start growing, they won’t turn into para sails in the current that uproot the whole plant.

Pic of the tree.. I’ve stuck java moss and suberwassertang on the base of it, hopefully that will grow in and cover up the fishing line that’s holding the branches together.. eventually I want to plant Creeping Charlie at the base of it and let it grow out over the sides of the tank.

Different view of the floor of the tank.

Here’s a pic of the Azoo palm filter I have and the mini heating pad behind it.. they both seem to be doing their jobs well, hmm should have cleaned up the filter pad before i took this pic.. it was originally white, so you can tell how much debris it’s cleaned out from the water. In the back corner at the bottom you can sort of make out the zebra snail I put in there earlier today.  He wasn’t doing very well in the large tank, he sat still for almost 5 days and wouldn’t move, so I tried putting him in here, although he’s still doing the same thing and won’t eat, so I may not have Mr. Zebra for very much longer..

Will update with pics of Monstro soon. Thanks for looking!!

9/13: Received first 2 shipments of plants today which included: an Anubias nana, taiwan/peacock moss, java moss, dwarf sag, hydrocotyle verticillata, subwasertang, and some surprise stems of pearl grass/ baby tears. Here are pictures of the plants put in place:

^^ I think I may move the Anubias nana a little further back, but otherwise everything looks okay (so far)

Here is a baby hitchhiker that I found in my hydrocotyle.. I stuck it in the front.. can’t wait to see what it turns out to be!

Another pic of baby plant..

1st tank members— Here is the zebra nerite I ordered. I stuck him and the 2 coronas on the anubias and placed part of an algae wafer at the bottom of the tank to give them something to nibble on until the algae starts up.. eventually I will be moving the zebra into the shrimp tank.

One of the coronas.. they are a lot smaller than I thought they would be.. which is making me like them even more! I think eventually I’ll get a third one .. I like things in grps of 3 a lot.

Here are both coronas chilling on the anubias.. too cute!

That’s all I have to post about for now. Next sunday I will hopefully be adding 5 ottos to the tank as I found a petstore that is currently selling them (teeny babies atm). I’m a little concerned about the hydrocotyle. It looks more like a different hydrocotyle species than the verticillata (lighter green and has split leaves instead of solid pads).. but I guess I’ll leave it in for now and see how it turns out..

I hope my Dr.Foster&Smith shipment arrives soon so I can start feeding everyone!!

This blog so far is turning into an epic fail.  Between my last post and this one, I have done the following:

Gathered or at least purchased (currently being shipped to me) all tank equipment/ supplies needed to start this thing up. This includes water treatments, fertilizers, a DIY CO2 system (Hagen Natural Plant Grow System.. or something to that effect).  I have also layed out the hardscape how I currently want it (hopefully that wont change.. it seems like the more I move stuff around the worse it gets).  So without further ado, here are some pics of the basics to begin with:

Tank w/ gravel

Construction site: You will find here such things as sandpaper, hand saws, steel wool, tubing, rocks and driftwood, substrate (flourite, sand, and pea gravel), filter padding, lighting equipment, filter, and heater

Can’t forget to get pics of Monstro one all the decor was placed in!

Sorry, had to add my side project: The shrimp factory! err.. shrimp puddle is more like it, starting this little guy up same time as Monstro. Will start with red cherry shrimp and work my way up to red crystal shrimp.

Monstro has been filled with water, filter is up and running! Cloudiness subsided after a day or so of having the filter run

Overall I’m happy with how it’s turning out so far.. main conern at the moment is the “cave” .. I thought the wood surface was porous and scratched up enough to hotglue the two halves together.. and it’s holding up well enough so far, although I’m sure glad I decided to go against adding a pleco to the tank or my hopes of keeping it together would have been completely dashed. Hoepfully it will hold up strong enough though since nothing will really be jostling it around.  Also concerned about the tree, it isn’t sitting very secure in the substrate, and every little bump with my hand brings it a fraction of an inch closer to re-surfacing from the substrate (I have it attached to a bulkier piece of driftwood that’s been buried in the substrate.. well it was, the top portion of it has emerged again from bumping it after medling with the cave) Oh well. I think I’ll give it one last go to try to make things “perfect,” then I’ll leave it alone in case it gets worse and worse with each “fix” … . . Not sure if any of this is making sense, although I also feel like no one is ever going to actually see this blog anyways, lol. So to carry on to the exciting stuff..

I’ve ordered about 92% of the plants I wanted! Sources are as follows:

A lovely pair from aquariacentral that I’ve been comunicating with is selling me Anubias nana, didiplis diandra, peacock/taiwan moss, java moss, echinodorius tennellus micro, subwasertang (extra plant they offered as a treat!) and an extra “surprise” plant they mentioned they threw in.. couldn’t have had a better first experience buying plants online! Shipment went out this morning, so it should be here within a couple days ^_^ $17 investment

Bought the CO2 system plus some watersprite from another woman on aquariacentral, which ships out Monday $22 investment

From aquariumplants.com I got the following: Green Camboba, Cardamine lyrata, 2 pots of dwarf baby tears, Limnophila hippuroides (not part of the original plant group I was gonig to go with but for $1.82 I thought I’d give it a shot), and a banana plant (Nymphoides aquatica).. totally a last minute purchase, lol. I think I’ll try putting the banana plant in the shrimp tank $31.something investment

Also buying from a vendor on aquariacentral ($20 investment): hydrocotyle verticillata, a zebra nerite, and 2 clithion corona! (I know I said I didn’t want snails.. but these guys were too cute to pass up!,) my plan is for the zebra to end up in the shrimp tank, but the 2 coronas will stay in Monstro.. if they breed, meh, I’ll live. Still looking out for a Golden mystery snail too.

There are 3 plants left I’m looking for: Star moss, Fontanus fissidens, and Creeping Charlie (for the shrimp tank)  I’ve found bids on ebay for the first 2.. will have to figure out a way to get a hold of the third plant tho. Will update whether or not I win the ebay bids on those plants in a few days.

At this point I’m expecting at least 7 packages from various places for equipment and what not, so as stuff comes in I’ll try to get pics receiving the items and the installment of them in the tank.

For the snails I’m thinking names are going to be Shenzi, Banzai, and Ed.. the 3 hyenas from Lion King. 1 zebra snail and 2 coronas, guess which one is getting named Ed :P

Oh here are pics of the zebra nerites and horned nerites (coronas) respectively:

Thanks for dropping in!

So I meant to post sooner but school has just started back up and I just completed my first (and hopefully last) med school interview at Mercer… so this is the first chance I’ve gotten to sit down and collect my thoughts about the list of species I would like to keep in Monstro.

First, here is a drawing of my overall goal for how I want the tank to look:

I hope I’ve drawn it out well enough so you can see the depth of the picture.. if that makes sense, and there are random initials written all over the picture to help me keep track of what species I want where.  Hopefully the cave and tree can be distinguished at least in the pic.. since they will make up the focal pt for the tank. The white part coming out of the cave will be bare sand on top of flourite/gravel substrate with some rock decor, mimicking a stream of some sort perhaps? Like I said, I was drawing this from the two tanks I posted from my last entry..

Here’s my current list of plant species I want for the tank:

Foreground: Anubias nana petite, Dwarf Baby Tears, Peacock Moss, Fontanus fissidens

Middle ground: Star moss, Hydrocotyle verticillata, Anubias nana, Echinodorus tenellus, Didiplis diandra

Background: Rotala Rotundifolia, Dwarf Ambulia, Cardamine lyrata, Microsorum pteropus

List of fauna I currently want for the tank:

3-4 Otocinclus vittatus; 4-5 Habrosus corydoras; 1 trio (1m+2f) of showa swordtails; 10 Cardinal tetras; 1 large golden brigg snail (aka apple snail); and a population of red cherry shrimp

Once I start cycling my tank, I think I will add the animals in the following order: Red cherry shrimp, ottos, Apple snail, Habrosus, Cardinal tetras, then finally showa swordtails since they seem to be the hardest to find.  Also debating getting some Malaysian trumpet snails since some sites I’ve been on recommend them for sand substrate to keep anaerobic bacteria colonies from developing, I’m not sure if my sand substrate will be deep enough though yet for this to be an issue.. so we’ll see.  They are all adorable and I can’t wait until my tank is suitable to start housing all of them!

Because I’m a nerd I’m uploading pics of each of the type of fish so you can see what each looks like (pics in order respectively of list of fauna):

Well, I suppose it’s about time I started up a blog of some sort for my lovely fish tank I hope to have set up (eventually).  I’m dedicating this blog to documenting my processes, thoughts, and struggles to getting a small freshwater tank up and running, just in time to break it down and take it home at the end of the school year.. but I’m not terribly concerned about that at the moment.  I’m already behind, as I’ve already cleaned and moved the tank from when I originally bought it.. but starting late is better starting never. If you’re reading this.. I would say I’ll try to keep you entertained.. but to be perfectly honest I’m not good at that cheeky humor stuff, and quite frankly this blog is about me starting up an aquarium.. not much to it. So bravo if you even make it 3 posts into this thing.. :/ lol

To start off, on July 3, 2010, my family and I traveled back up from Cocoa Beach, Fl, where we take our annual family vacation each summer.  Towards the end of the trip, we met up with a lady, Ms. Solona, who I had previously talked with after seeing a craigslist post she had made.  Solona was selling 3 nanocube tanks for $150: two 12-gal tanks and a 24-gal tank.  Since normally one of the 12-gal was $100 new in the store.. I quickly worked out the arrangement to meet up with her to buy them. Anyways, back to the first part of the story, I met up with her, trunk loaded down already with all of our vacation bags.. and somehow we managed to squeeze 3 tanks, a tank stand, and a box of saltwater supplies in the back 2 rows of the car (granted my sister and I had to hold a few things in our laps.. but at this point there was only 1.5 hrs of the car ride left).  I’m still not sure why Solona sold me the tanks so cheap.. or why she offered to wait 3 days to hold them for me, as I’m sure people were crawling all over that deal.. although her craigslist post led me to believe she was a teacher of some sort, and perhaps these were just her classroom projects she had just outgrown, who knows.

Here is a model of the tank I’m planning on keeping:

http://www.amazon.com/JBJ-Transworld-Aquatics-NANO-DELUXE/dp/B000RFPR5Q

Excellent deal I got, right?

So do I really need 3 nanocube tanks? Of course not.  My plan is to sell off the 2 smaller tanks on craigslist (I haven’t posted yet because someone just posted a 12g for sale at a better deal than I’m selling mine for.. so I’m going to wait a few weeks for his offer to sell, then I’ll post mine when there’s no competition ;-) and make my money back.. yay for free fish aquariums!

I spent the past month..ish cleaning the 24g tank. I should mention that as I start this blog, I have decided to call the tank Monstro, and henceforth this is what I shall refer to it as.  So I’ve been cleaning Monstro for a few weeks now.  When I first received him, the walls were covered in algae/coral deposits, as I believe it had been an established salt water tank when it was under Solona’s possession.  Monstro’s sides are made of acrylic, and thus scratch very easily, so I was not able to scratch the residue off in the traditional manner.  I ended up having to soak it in a 30-40% white vinegar solution for a few days before the residue softened up enough for me to rub it off with a washcloth (victory!)

As of now, the tank has been rinsed and cleaned out, I’ve collected many pieces of driftwood I like from various places I’ve found myself, such as St.Simons/ Jekyll Island, clippings from an interesting bush outside the Business building on the other side of my college campus (it was dying anyways.. grounds crew will probably come by any day and replace it with something else), and off pathways when I take walks (rarely.. but it happens).

As of now, here are some tanks I am pulling inspiration from, as I am still in the process of laying out an official plan for how I want it to look:

Yea I know they look different.. But I like the tree and cave from the second pic, and am trying to figure out a way to put it in an environment similar to the 1st tank without making Monstro weigh a bajillion pounds (as the tank will have to be moved eventually… looking forward to that day o.O )

Goals: 1) Finally lay down a set design/layout for Monstro; 2) Have completed list of flora/fauna species to be included; 3) find last few pieces of driftwood I want (currently looking cave/arched shape wood pieces

Concerns: 1) Making myself set enough time aside to DO this, afraid that with Wedding plans, med-school interviews, school, and a few other things I’ve gotten myself into, that I will push this thing to the back of my to-do list :/ ; 2) Setting higher expectations for myself than I can achieve; and 3) where to get my fish.. shipping these things AND getting them still alive looks like it’s going to be freakin expensive -_-

Current websites I am stalking: aquabid.com (wishful thinking..); aquariacentral.com

Well that’s all I got for my first post. Will hopefully start updating this thing regularly, and hopefully someone out there is mildly excited enough to watch the process of this tank establish itself ^_^