Friday, June 22, 2012

A Little Bit New

Welcome back everyone! 

I have a few updates for you.  Over the past week I've added 7 Neon Tetras, 1 Assassin Snail, and I am quarentining 10 Kuhli Loaches!

When I went to get the Neons I went in to get 6.  The store actually owed me one for free so I ended up leaving with 7.  Unfortunately on the first day I lost one Neon to stress, and the next day I lost another.  I actually had to euthanize the first one.  That wasn't a fun experience. 

After some research I concluded that the quickest way would be to boil some water, and plop the poor guy into it.  He was gone immediately. 

I brought my snail home on the same trip, and he is doing well. 

Yesterday I went to pick up my beautiful Kuhli Loaches!!!  The guy that waited on us gave us extra fish, "Just in case some die".  That didn't really sound too promising, but we were happy to take them seeing as they do better in bigger groups. 

I'm pretty sure we made it home with 13.  (Those guys are EXTRA hard to count)  I had 3 die from stress, 2 of which I'm positive were dead before they even left the bag.  Today the remaining 10, (my original desired number) are doing well in the quarantine tank.  



Here you see my loaches in the acclimation bucket.  The one in the very middle of the bucket was one of the 3 that died.  He hung on until about 2 hours into the QT.   

A close up of my guys.


This is the QT all set up and waiting for the Loaches.  Room the Betta is hanging in his small tank for now.


This is my Assassin Snail.  He is doing his job well I might add.


Here is my little buddy Akio.  He actually eats from my hand now.


And a bad picture of some of the neons.  They are now a school of 24.



Thanks for reading!

Monday, June 18, 2012

Tank Edit

Hi guys!  I'm going to start out with a few pictures.  Here ya go!





There we go.  If you have been following my blog you will notice a few differences.  The bottom of the tank is now covered in black river rocks, and there are quite a few more plants. 

I'm really loving this look!  I need one more bag of rocks for sure, and the substrate will be done.  I may or may not add more plants.  It really depends on how much the current plants grow, and how fast. 

As of now there is a total of 20 fish in the tank.  I bought 20 neons, but I only made it home with 19.  That's alright though.  They are REALLY hard to count so I'm sure the girl at the store didn't do that on purpose.

Hopefully this week I'll have 6 more neurons and an Assassin Snail.  If I'm REALLY lucky I'll be able to bring home some Kuhli Loaches to put into QT.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Greetings!  I know I just wrote an update yesterday, but today also calls for an update. 

My little family and I made a trip to our main pet store today (MochaPet, Hillard, Ohio).  Here is a list of the loot we brought home!

1 Turkey Baster (For minor maintenance in the QT)
1 Pack of Biomax (Brings me to two)
          For those of you that don't know Biomax is a substance that goes into your filter, and provides extra
          space for good bacteria to grow on. 
1 Foam cooler (for fish transport)
1 Pack of frozen blood worms (for the fish to eat)
1 Battery powered air stone
         We got this airstone because it is portable, and will make it much easier to use during acclimation than
         having to take the one from the QT all the time.  If you noticed in my earlier post when I acclimated
         my Dwarf Gourami (Akio- Japanese for 'bright boy') I did not use an air stone.  I was kindly reminded
         on the forum that I am linked to that this is baaad.  The fish could have died from lack of O2. 
Annnnnd the big purchase of the day was...............................................................
......................................
.........................................
....................................
20 NEON TETRAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes I love these little boogers.  After seeing how small these guys actually are I now know that 20 is just a too insignificant number for my 55g tank.  One step at a time though. 

The tetras and Akio are getting along just fine as of now.  I gave them one full cube of blood worms earlier and they feasted.  It was funny watching the little tetras swimming around with half a worm sticking out of their mouths. 

As far as my research goes on these guys they were said to be quite shy.  So far the only thing that bothers them are rather quick movements when you approach the tank.  Other than that they are swimming right out in the open.  Of course this may very well be due to the fact that I have 20 of them.  The more you have the safer they feel. 

Another thing, as I was observing the fish earlier I noticed a small snail crawling up the side of the glass....  SOOOO it looks like I AM going to have to buy an Assassin Snail after all (it will kill the others).  I'd rather have one snail than millions.  The only thing I can figure is that they were brought in on the plants I bought, and were just too small to be seen until now.  Those of you who want no snails at all I strongly advise washing your plants before you put them into your tank. 

While I was at the pet store I received a compliment from the fish manager (who really does seem to know her stuff).  I had been talking to her for about a half hour, and I apologized for taking up her time.  She said to this, "Oh that's okay.  It's nice to talk to someone who actually knows something about fish."  Made me feel special!

Monday, June 11, 2012

All Is Well

Hi everyone!  Things are going 'swimmingly' with the new tank and its inhabitant. 

I actually got to take out one of the bricks holding down a piece of wood.  It looks much better without it of course.  I absolutely cannot wait to get the other brick out of there. 

Here is an updated pic. 


There we go.  Coming along quite nicely if you ask me.  I thought I was done planting, but I'm pretty sure the future fish will appreciate some more cover.  I'll probably cover most of the back wall with the long stringy grass that is on the left. 

I've also recently found out that one of the fish species that I will be stocking requires a smooth substrate.  So I am considering buying some of the black sand (I think it's sand) and just putting it over top of what is already in the tank.  The substrate that is in there really isn't that thick anyway so it will be an improvement overall. 

Okay that's it for now.  I'll leave you with a short video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh_XV11DTbU&feature=youtu.be

Friday, June 8, 2012

The First Fish!

Hi everyone! Today is the day!  After waiting for four weeks I have finally added my first fish. 

Here are a few pics.

This was him just getting home.  I know I didn't get his face, but I was trying to hurry so he wouldn't be as stressed out. 


Here he is in the acclimation bucket.  I used the drip method.  It came highly recommended. 

Then here we have a video of me putting him into the tank. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bYrNMJZYHw&feature=plcp

And one more pic of him swimming around. 


What we have here is a male Dwarf Gourami.  His age is estimated at around 6 months or so.  That is if I can rely on the info I got from the pet store.  He is currently swimming around getting used to his new home.  Love it!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

The New QT

I finally have my quarantine tank set up!  We went to PetLand today and picked up the 10g, and then over to Bert's to pick up some PraziPro. 

For those of you who don't know, PraziPro is a deworming medicine.  I'll be using this on all of my new fish while they are in a 2 week quarantine. 

The only fish that will not have to stay in the QT is the first batch. 

Thanks to a friend of mine, Miss Jordan Crow, I have a filter for the QT tank on my cycling display tank.  In a few weeks the filter media inside will also be cycled, and ready to go onto the QT. 

For now the tank is up and running with my little Betta, Roo. 


The bubbles on the side are kind of messing with the view, but they will go away in a few hours. 

For anyone who is interested, a QT is VERY important when you are adding fish.  Fish you get from the pet store are rarely ever completely healthy.  For instance if you get a fish that has Ich, and put it into your community tank without treatment every single fish you have will die. 

Here is how the quarantine works. 

Day 1
Remove Betta, and add new fish to be quarantined. 
At this time I will dose the tank with PraziPro at full strength. 

Day 4
50% water change, and dose PraziPro at 1/4 strength. 

Day 7
50% W/C

Day 10
50% W/C

Day 13
50% W/C, and add carbon to the filter to suck up all the meds. 

Day 14
If the fish check out, add them to the display tank. 

Not very complicated, but very necessary all the same.  I'm so close to having my display tank cycled that I'm getting antsy.  Lol.  Not that I haven't been the whole time. 

Thanks for reading everyone!