Talk about Disproportionate

My cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrodi) is not the brightest. ;)

For a list of fish and plants in the tank and dimensions and décor, go to this link. NOW. (Please? :3)

ROOM TOUR #1: Meet dem Pets

So, today I shall do a tour of the plants and fish in my room; it’s the first in a series of room tours I’ve decided to do! This marks the third little miniseries on this blog, the other two being Favorite Creatures (a list I post at the beginning of every month of my favorite animals I wrote about last month) and KoC Facts (short articles with a snappy title, such as KoC Fact: Stings to the Brain Really Calm Bugs Down! and KoC Fact: Grunions are Piggies in Fish Form!).

So anyway, I have three tanks—my sister’s 10 gallon hexagonal tank (dimensions: 7 inches on the sides by 16 inches tall), a 20 gallon high tank (dimensions: 12 inches wide, 24 inches long, 16 inches tall) and my sister’s 2½ gallon bowfront-style tank (dimensions: 8 inches long by 12 inches tall by 4 inches wide). Yep, I keep all my sister’s fish in my room. :)

First, the bowfront-style: it has blue gravel, two rocks (including a Hakkai seki rock from Japan), and a few artificial plants. Here’s the shy Siamese fightingfish (Micracanthus splendens) who calls the tank its home:

He’s extremely shy and his name is Tracks.

Onward to the 10 gallon! It’s got some silver sand at the bottom and is kind of overstocked; our mistake! :) It’s decorated with a fake Amazon swordplant, a fake “GloPod™” plant that glows in the dark, a large fake shell, some fake bamboo, and a ceramic sign that reads, “No Fishing!” Yep, everything’s fake. Sorry.

Here’s my rainbow shark minnow (Epalzeorhynchos frenatum), who I keep in the 10-gallon because he’s much too aggressive for my 20-gallon community—wait, two of the fish in the 10-gallon are mine, like the southern platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus).

Here are the two skunk loaches (Syncrossus morlet) squabbling over something, maybe some food—who knows? They’re skunk loaches. A green GloFish tetra (a genetically modified blackamoor tetra, Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) looks on.

What, you may ask, do I feed my fish? Simple question to answer; all my fish (except the Mastacembelus circumcinctus) eat these:

Left to right (prices are from Amazon.com): TetraMin® Tropical Flakes ($13.59), Wardley® Shrimp Pellets ($3.49), Wardley® Cichlid Crumbles ($5.36)

Stocking in the 10-gallon (seven fish in all)…
2 GloFish™ tetras, one orange and one green
2 skunk loaches
1 rainbow sharkminnow
1 southern platyfish
1 goldfish (Carassius auratus)

And on to the 20-gallon!

My 20 gallon is PLANTED! It has 10 different rocks on the right side of the tank, and a large piece of driftwood spanning the entire length of the tank.

Here is my freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare), Seraph:

He’s a beautiful animal and is full of personality. Also, I have a bronze cory (Corydoras aeneus) and a spinecheek loach (Pangio kuhli), which you can both see in the next picture, hiding under the driftwood…

Look closely in the back of the cory, and you might see that striped head—that’s the loach!

Here are some aquascaping materials I decided to photograph:

In case you didn’t know, aquascaping is like underwater landscaping. It’s cool.

Here’s my larger Java fern (Microsorum pteropus), with the two of the three rummynose tetras (Hemigrammus bleheri) in the background:

Look by the doorknobs, and you can see the tetras. I apologize that my door is in the way and you can kind of see the reflection of my hands holding the camera…sorry about that, folks!

Here’s my “rock garden,” home to the famous ten rocks mentioned before in this article, and some schooling fish—the rummynose tetras, a lonely cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrod), and my mated pair of cherry barbs (Pungti titteya):

To close is a picture of my golden creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’):

Stocking list for 20 gallon:

1 Mastacembelus circumcinctus
1 common freshwater angelfish
3 rummynose tetras
1 cardinal tetra
2 cherry barbs
1 spinecheek loach
1 bronze cory
1 orange finned loach (Yasuhikotakia modestus)
5 stalks of lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana)
1 Amazon swordplant (Echinodorus amazonicus)
1 golden creeping Jenny
1 guppy grass (Najas marina), plus countless guppy grass clippings
2 Java ferns

Thanks for reading!

My Fish Tank Tour :)

Hi everybody! Today I’m going to give a photographic tour of my 20 gallon planted fish tank, but first, a few details:

FISH:
Bronze cory (Corydoras aeneus) x 1
Common freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare) x 1
Cherry barb (Pungti titteya) x 2
Cardinal tetra (Paracheirodon axelrod) x 1 (getting four more!)
Half-banded spinyeel (Mastacembelus circumcinctus) x 1
Orange-fin loach (Yasuhikotakia modestus) x 1
Rummynose tetra (Hemigrammus bleheri) x 3
Spinecheeked loach (Pangio kuhli) x 1 (getting another!)

PLANTS:
Amazon swordplant (Echinodorus amazonicus) x 1
Golden creeping jenny (Lysimachia nummularia “Aurea”) x 2
Guppy grass (Najas marina) x 4
Java fern (Microsorum pteropus) x 2
Lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana) x 5

Now for a quick tour! Here’s the tank:

It’s awesome; the water’s extremely clear and the fish are very happy. Sadly two cardinal tetras have died but I’m getting four more to keep the current one (“Swimmy”) happy. :)

The main centerpiece of the tank is a piece of lovely mopani driftwood, with eye-catching black gravel, creating a pleasing effect:

As you can see, the rummynose tetras are crowding around the driftwood, making it look prettier. :) The two Java fern plants surround the driftwood, which I did skillfully and masterfully and—

Biased? ME? Psssh.

The whole tank is comprised of two different aquascapes. On the left is a bamboo forest…

…and on the right is a “rock garden” (I just call it that ’cuz of rocks and plants. :3):

If you look behind one of the bamboo stalks, you’ll see a Hakkai-seki stone. It’s a type of Japanese aquascaping stone used in many of Takashi Amano’s aquariums. :)

Here’s the spinyeel peeking out from under a rock. See him?

“See meh?”

You can just see his head.

I hope you like my fish tank. BYE!!

The Fish Tank is all Set up!

Guess what guess what guess what! My new 20-gallon aquarium hath been set up! It’s. BEAUTIFUL! I put in black sand, three rummy-nose tetras (Hemigrammus bleheri), three cardinal tetras (Paracheirodon axelrod), a common freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum scalare), and the other fish I was going to add.

I’M SO PSYCHED!

Some New Updates: MAGICAL GLOWING PLANT!

Okay, so before we start, I just want to say…

the 10-gallon filter BROKE! I mean, what?? Then again, I’ve had it for, like, three years. But still: talk about shirking your responsibilities. Hear that, filter? Tsk, tsk, tsk.

So I put the filter from the new 20-gallon in its place. It’s a bit strong, but whaddya expect. It’s a power filter.

Well, anyway, I started aquascaping the 20-gallon and I put a bit of sand at the bottom from the 10-gallon for cycling. I’m going to use black “Flourite” planted tank sand ’cause it looks pretty. I also almost wrote “snad.” Snad? What’s snad?

Here’s how it looks so far, with the LED lights turned on:

Here are the LED lights themselves. They work really well:

Just to appease my orange-finned loach (Yasuhikotakia modestus), I put a little glow-in-the-dark plant thingy into the 10-gallon. Mr. Loach is very scared right now, as yesterday my dad and I moved the (extremely heavy) 10-gallon fish tank to my little desk. It’s got a cute li’l onion plant next to it that I grew myself. :) And a few note cards I use for school work.

In the last picture, my goldfish (Carassius auratus) is just staring, like, “HI!!”

Lastly, here’s a widdle picture of my skunk loaches (Syncrossus morleti), which I love. I had to take those big stones out because the poor things kept getting wedged under them while they were trying to hide. :(

Happy Advent!

How to Keep Fish

How, you may ask, do you keep fish? Simple. First you’ll need a bowl. NOT a big one. Fish live in tiny puddles in the wild, so they have to have small tanks. I recommend a 1/4 to 1/2-gallon fish bowl maximum. Next, put about 2 lbs. of sharp gravel at the bottom and fill it with decorations. Add all the decorations you like. Minimize as much swimming space as possible because fish just need water to survive. Try not to let any oxygen into the fish bowl, as it will kill your fish! Feed about ten times each day, adding about 1/2 tbspn. of food per fish. The bowl will make a great home for about three to seven goldfish.

“November Fools’!” Hopefully you guys didn’t believe it. o_O

WHY FISH SHOULDN’T BE KEPT IN BOWLS!

Contrary to popular belief, fish bowls are TERRIBLE habitats for any fish, even if it’s a tiny fish like a mosquito rasbora (Boraras brigittae) or even a Paedocypris progenetica. Why? The two latter fish like being kept in schools—BIG schools.

Okay, first of all, would YOU like to live in a tiny little closet for your whole life?! That’s how a fish feels if you keep him in a bowl. ): He will most likely not be pleased by his house. Also, fish don’t have two-second memories. If anything has, it’s a jellyfish. WHICH ISN’T A FISH!

Yeah, bowls are only good for plants, snails, baby fry, and shrimp. So think about it the next time you see your friends new goldfish (Carassius auratus), cooped up in a tiny little bowl, and tell them to get a bigger tank. 15 gallons per goldfish is perfect. A 30-gallon tank would be bare-minimum for two goldfish.

My Fish Tank

You may notice, I’m mildly obsessed with fish.

Fine, not mildly.

Behold my 10-gallon hexagon-shaped fish tank that, I admit, is outrageously overstocked. The sand at the bottom is silica sand, and I have a huge piece of mopani driftwood in it and a few different rocks. In the back are some dead leaves, and in the front you can see a seashell that I took out because it was making the pH and dH go crazy and it killed my sensitive Leopold’s freshwater angelfish (Pterophyllum leopold), depressingly. :(

Of course, half the fact my angelfish died was because of my EVIL rainbow sharkminnow, but I moved the minnow to a separate tank and he lived there for about a year. Then I moved him back and he became a precious little angel. Cutie.

The plants include lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana), Amazonian swordplant (Echinodorus cordifolius), golden creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia “aurea”), Najas marina, and Java fern (Microsorum pteropus).

Following is a (LONG) list of fish.

Cherry barbs (Pungti titteya) x 2

“GloFish”® blackamoor tetras (Gymnocorymbus ternetzi) x 2 (going to move)

Half-banded loach (Pangio semicincta) x 1

Bronze cory (Corydoras aeneus) x 1

Skunk loach (Syncrossus morleti) x 2 (going to move to a 2.5-gallon tank of their own :)

Orange-finned loach (Yasuhikotakia modesta) x 1

Rainbow sharkminnow (Epalzeorhynchos frenatum) x 1 (going to move)

Goldfish (Carassius auratus) x 1 (SORRY!!! Definitely going to move)

Southern platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus) x 1 (going to move)

Ghost shrimp (Palaemontes paludosus) x 3

Hippocampus spinyeel (Mastacembelus circumcinctus) x 1

I’m going to upgrade my tank to a 20-gallon and give my sister the 10.

:) I is good brother.