Print

[Popsikle]

Most of you don't know but I am crazy about fish and tanks and everything about it.  To the point I think in the fall I am going to start working towards a degree in Fishery. Rutgers has this program thats a year long that gets you a Certificate that you can build on using thier Marine Biology section.

Yea anywhoo, so I got a new tank and stand (my 5th overall tank; not all in use) for xmas, its a nice 25gal "high" tank. I think it was 25 but it measured closer to 30 however.   I decided since I live in a small place now I had to consolidate the tanks and try and get rid of some of the stuff (aka storage).  My goal was two tanks, one for my tropicals and one for my betas.

I just finished cycling it (I used algae from my old tank to speed up the process from 6 weeks to 1.5 ;p ) a few days ago I moved 3 of my fish in.  I moved my badassed fish in.  The middle aged fish that I have seen take a beating and are still breathing.  You use these fish (the "hardy ones") because the levels of nitrate/nitrite and ammonia are going to fluctuate in the starting weeks of a tank. 

Ive been measuring the levels and such every 10 hours or so and watched it peak and settled down now to almost normals (the ammonia is low and the conversion of nitrate/nitrite has started quite nicely) so I decided tonight was a good time to move the rest of the tropicals to the new, bigger tank.  I added some more plants (I had 2 in there from the start of the cycle) and moved the rest of my fish in.

Ive attached the pictures so you cant take a look.  One is with the flash and one is natural tank light (which I might add I need to upgrade).   I haven't decided on a back drop yet I am kinda waiting until I fill my tank more. I'm going to use only plants in this tank (except the piece of wood that the albino shark needs to live in) so Im not sure on what backdrop would look the best with all the green/red plants going in.  Anyway its a bit empty right now because its still new and I am moving from a smaller tank.

The "grass" you see in the back is Vallisneria nana  I am going to use that to line the back of the tank but I need to get more substrate (the gravel/sand mixture on the bottom) and maybe a CO2 system first.  The two front plants you see are Echinodorus quadricostatus they are going to be my center plants with their sister plant Echinodorus 'Rubin'.  Then along the front and on the sides of those three I am going to put some assorted ferns ( Pogostemon stellata , Rotala wallichii ) and maybe some Ludwigia glandulosa along the outside. 

I think thats most of the plants im going to put in, when i am done there should be about 15 fish and 25-30 plants of 15 or so breeds.  You cant just add everything at once as it will really throw off the ecosystem of the tank so as I make updates to the tank, Il post pics here

Anywhoo thanks for reading my post ;p

[Popsikle]

I finished looking at those pics and they really don't make the tank look that clean/bright/whatever.  I'm going to have to read up on picture tanking of tanks the water and reflectiveness makes it odd but I managed to get a slightly better pic by turning every light off in the house, lol.

Oh and in this picture check out the bottom of the front right plant... see those eyes?  Thats the front half of my "common pleco" or algae eater... hes somewhere between big and huge lol.

[NightStalkerKiji]

Nice.