FAMILY

This is a dawnray watchdog goby (Stonogobiops nematodes) and its friend, a Randall’s pistol shrimp (Alpheus randalli). They form a tiny family in a hole in the mud. Of course they can’t have children together. Then again that’s a good thing ’cuz their children would look like weird shrimp-goby-monsters with huge claws that make sonic booms.

Dawnray watchdog gobies live in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, in places like Seychelles, Bali, and the Philippines. And you know what? SO DO THE SHRIMP. I wonder why?

It's called a pistol shrimp because, when threatened, it blows a bubble and then pops it with its claw, creating a deafening sound that can be heard from up to six miles away! YAY!

Why is it called a watchdog goby?

Pistol shrimp are almost blind (like me!!!). So they live with the watchdog goby. If the goby senses danger, it warns the shrimp to retreat to their house, which is a tunnel in the mud (there's no accounting for taste, i mean some people live in houses shaped like toilets)

The shrimp builds the tunnel while the goby guards it so the shrimp doesn’t get eaten. I wish my friends were like that

The goby grows to 2.4 inches in length, while the shrimp grows to half that size, 1.2. (IM SO GOOD AT MATH)

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)

“!”

This is the extremely beautiful and colorful exclamatory Dawkins’ barb (Dawkinsia exclamatio), also known as the exclamation point Dawkins’ barb and the false arulius barb.

It is quite similar in looks, finnage, size, and distribution to common arulius barb (D. arulius), which has longer fins and looks like this:

Exclamatory Dawkins’  barbs are found in sandy or pebbly regions of the Kallada River, which is in Kerala, India. They eat small invertebrates and algae.

Fish Tank Rant Time! :3

Today I went to the Maritime Aquarium in Connecticut. And what do you think they were selling? A 1.5 quart USB mini-aquarium that you have to plug into your computer to work, or something like that.

Look at this thing. So tiny. So horrible. Would YOU like to be stuck in a tiny walk in closet for the rest of your life?

It was also $40.00—a relatively decent price to lure you in.

On the box it says, “Perfect for bettas, goldfish, and other tropical fish!

Take a look at this:

There’s not only a goldfish (Carassius auratus) in this one, which by the way needs at least 15 gallons of water, there’s also a wimple banded sharkminnow (Myxocyprinus asiaticus), which grows up to four feet five inches long!!

Guppy (Girardinus guppy) and “balloon-type” short-finned mollies (Poecilia sphenops).

This is just sad. THREE southern platyfish (Xiphophorus maculatus)?

Now this has two lampeye moenkhausias (Moenkhausia sanctaefilomenae), it also has several tiny danios.

In this tank there are at least six fish. And it’s 1.5 quarts!

Two goldfish

Three goldfish :(

What I think…1.5 quarts: perfect for shrimp and snails, but death trap for poor fish. :(

$40.00 is kind of a good deal if you want a cheap shrimp/snail tank. Buy it off Amazon for even less: $33.80.

How Much is that Bargibant's Seahorse in the Window?

Look closely. See the little head? There’s a red circle around it. :)

The Bargibant’s seahorse (Hippocampus bargibanti) is an extremely cute little syngnathid, reaching only .79 inches (2 cm) in length and living primarily fixed to sea fans (Gorgonacea) with their li’l tails. Because of the extreme camouflage, Bargibant’s seahorses weren’t discovered until scientists were studying the sea fans they were attached to in a lab.

There are many other different tiny seahorses like this, such as the Denise’s seahorse (H. denise), the Satomi’s seahorse (H. satomiae, the smallest seahorse in the world at just 1.4 cm), Japanese seahorse (discovered, but has not been given a binomial name. I call it “H. japonensis”) Severn’s seahorse (Hippocampus severnsi), Pontoh’s seahorse (H. pontoh), and the Walea soft coral pygmy seahorse (H. waleananus), which has a name that’s longer than the fish itself.

Bargibant’s seahorses live primarily on reefs (sea fans, duh) in the western central Pacific Ocean and live primarily on small copepods (Copepoda).

PS: FIFTIETH post. ALREADY?

O_o

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!!

Low-Quality Video of Planted 20-Gallon

PS: One of my cardinal tetras (Paracheirodon axelrod) died already :(

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!

Garçon! A French Angelfish, Sil Vous Plaît!

Meet the French angelfish (Pomacanthus paru), last seen in my article on bearded fireworms (Hermodice carunculata)! These range from around the St. Paul Rocks, Ascension Island, the Gulf of Mexico, the Carribean, Brazil, the Antilles, Roatan, and Florida. Go Atlantic fish!

These live in highly populated reefs and are often seen alone or (aww) in pairs! The length is pretty big—about 17 inches—and it feeds on bryozoans, sponges, zoanthids, gorgonians, tunicates, and algae. The juveniles, on the other hand, set up cleaning stations for morays, grunts, groupers, snappers, jacks, surgeonfish, and wrasses.

Here’s what the babies look like:

Thanks for reading :3