The Aquarium Sagas::Four Tanks for now

It's been a bit since I posted about the fish tanks. Since I posted last, I got the 15 gallon column tank back up and running (and fully cycled. Yahoo!) If you remember, the the 15g column is the one I started with.

We started with themed tanks.

This is the 20 gallon Fairy Tale tank.

It houses: 

2 powder blue dwarf gouramis

4 guppies

4 peppered cories

1 (juvenile size) bristlenose pleco

3 snails - 2 nerite & 1 gold inca

And 1 unidentified baby - I think it is a guppy.

 This is the 15 gallon Sponge Bob tank.

It houses: 

3 adult female platies & 

2 baby girl platies (born in this tank)

3 albino cory catfish

3 zebra danios

6 snails - 

1 nerite,

1 gold inca,

4 horned nerites.

3 amano shrimp

The shrimp are new since yesterday. 

Here is one peeking out from The Crabby Patty. 

This is the 29 gallon tank. It houses:

1 angelfish

3 mollies

5 sterbai cory catfish

1 bristlenose pleco

1 bolivian ram. 

And last, but not least, the 15 gallon column tank.

I got this one for my birthday, and it is where it all started.

I put it away for a while, but now it's back.

It houses:

5 guppies

3 neons (1 died today after being moved - I will get 2 more)

4 julii cory catfish (1 is a tiny little guy)

5 snails -

1 nerite

4 horned nerites. 

I have really loved this hobby a lot. It has been fun to be partners in crime with Josh. Our outings consist mainly of going to the fish store together, and it's great!

♥ Melody

Macro Fish Pics

It's been a long time since I've played with my macro lens. Tonight, I got it out and took pics of the fish.🙂It took a few tries, but I got a few in-focus pics. 

Pleco Dude - he lives in the Sponge Bob tank right now, but his home is in the 29 gallon tank eventually.

The peppered cories are some of my original fish from the original tank. 

The sunburst platy & two bar platy posed. I turned this pic into a cartoon -
Ashton commented that it already looks like a cartoon. 🙂

The sunburst platy really likes her pic taken, apparently. 🙂

My silver molly is so pretty. ♥

My golden inca snail is my fav! 

And a close up.

My dalmation molly lost her friend a couple of days ago. She hasn't quite been herself.

The two-bar platy was frozen by fear, I think. Meanwhile, the starburst platy is back in the pic.

This is my creamsicle molly. She is much prettier in person.

And, there are many more that wouldn't hold still. I guess they are for another day. 🙂

♥ Melody

The Aquarium Sagas::Inventory

As of today, I have:

3 fishtanks (14 gallons; 20 gallons; 29 gallons)
33 fish
6 snails

♥ Melody

Update on the aquarium - March 12th

We have gotten past the point in the biological filtering where ammonia in the water is high. Now, we have higher nitrites and nitrates are starting to kick in too, and the ammonia is nil.

The other day, I asked Steve to stop and get 2 more neon tetras and 1 more zebra danio. The neons are just beautiful, but oh so little; I wanted to add a couple more to their school. And the zebras were having issues with aggression - I believe we had 1 boy and 1 girl; the boy always wanted to be hanging out with the girl, and she tried to get away from him all the time. I had Steve get a zebra that was more curvy & round in hopes it'd be a girl. I think that's what we got.

The neons that he got were little, like teenage-sized. Their color is beautiful, though, and they easily blended and got along with the other neons.

As soon as I put the zebra danio in the tank, I thought I'd made a horrible mistake. She started zipping around the tank, and the male starting zipping behind her. I had wanted to make the tank calmer not more anxious. The next day, everything settled out. The girls calmly swam together and apart and, the boy didn't harass them and mostly stayed away from them.

As I was looking through past blog posts, I see that I have left a lot out.

When the nitrites came into being back on Feb 24th, the ammonia had spiked. It caused all of the mollies to die: both creamsicle mollies and gold dust, who I thought was a platy, but was really a molly. Bumblebee platy died, and the two baby mollies did too. 

That left us with our two-bar platy, 2 zebra danios, 3 neon tetras, and the 4 cory catfish. Two bars was so upset - he had stayed with all of the other fish until they died, and he seemed traumatized; he paced - swimming top to bottom of the aquarium over and over - and wouldn't settle down. That day is when I asked Steve to go get 2 female platys to be his friends (boys fight.)

So now, we have:

2 platys: one two-bar platy (Two bars), one sunset fire platy (the other sunset fire platy died yesterday)

3 zebra danios

4 cory catfish

5 neon tetras.

The sunset fire platy that died was named Damsel; she was pale and looked fragile, thus the name. She lived here for a week or so, but night before last she got a red spot on her side; she was dead on the bottom of the aquarium floor the next morning.

Everything seems to be going well. We still have high nitrites and the nitrates are growing, but still low in number. I am doing 1/3 tank water changes about every other day to keep the nitrites down. There is the brown algae in the tank along with hair algae - the platys fight over the hair algae!

Also, I put back in the medium sized castle decoration that I'd taken out - the catfish like to hide behind things and wouldn't come to the front of the tank; the tank floor was divided between cleaned gravel (in the back) and uncleaned gravel (in the front.) The catfish like to hide behind the castles now and will come forward more.

I also added a bio stone last week. I'm hoping that it helps stabilize the bio-filter.

♥ Melody

The fish and the cats

I took a pic of the aquarium after I cleaned it.

And here is Patch and Tilly; I'm pretty sure I've never had a cat that sleeps on its back before.

♥ Melody

Update on the aquarium.

Today, the aquarium that Steve and I set up on my birthday is now in a new stage of life: it now has nitrites.

Up to now, it has only had ammonia.

Here is the life cycle of the aquarium:

Whew. Moving & progressing right along. :)

And here is the latest picture of our aquarium:

I need to take another pic soon, because this week algae started growing! That is a step in the right direction. Then, we got a magnetic algae cleaner, and the water spots on the front of the glass are now gone! The glass has never looked cleaner.

Two of the molly babies that were born in January are still alive. The third one must have died last week; I haven't seen it since then.

So, we have 3 platies: bumblebee, two bars, and gold dust.

2 creamsicle mollies; and 2 molly babies.

3 neon tetras.

2 zebra danios

and 4 cory catfish.

All seem happy and healthy.

♥ Melody

These are a few of my favorite things...

♥ Melody

The Aquarium

For my birthday, I wanted fish. I was going to buy a cheap fish bowl/tank, maybe 5 gallons, and get a few fish.

Steve told me to get exactly what I wanted and quit worrying about the money. So, my perfect aquarium was a 15 gallon column tank. It sits perfectly on top of the entertainment center. It is like a slice of a big aquarium, and I love it.

Then, we got (fake) plants and the gravel, as well as the necessities: bubbler, heater, & filter. We came home and set it up and let it sit for three days.

Today, we went back and got some more decorations (castle/fairy tale theme: a treasure chest bubbler with a dragon to guard it, 2 castles, a tower and a dragon to sit on top, and then, for Michael, Sponge Bob.)

We also got 7 fish. Four mollies (2 creamsicles, 1 marble, 1 gold-dust) and three platies (bumblebee, panda, gold twin-bar).

We all LOVE the aquarium! Michael thought the treasure chest bubbler was hilarious! And Steve has loved watching the fish. I love watching the two of them in addition to the aquarium itself.

It is perfect ♥

♥ Melody