October 2010
1 post
10/22 - UPDATE
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...
September 2010
5 posts
Monstro residents
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...
Monstro Updates
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...
Shrimp tank pics
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...
Plants: Day 1
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...
Playing catch-up
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...
August 2010
2 posts
Flora + Fauna lists
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...
Introductions
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...