Trial and Error with New 36 Gallon Tank

As soon as I moved in to my new place I went and bought the Aqueon 36 gallon bowfront tank and stand that I had been drooling over.  Getting it home and up to my new 3rd floor apartment was an adventure by itself.  Since the tank is made out of glass it is very heavy, almost more than I could lift.  I managed to get it about halfway between the 2nd and 3rd floors before a passing maintenance guy saw me struggling and ran up the stairs to take it the rest of the way for me.  The stand was also very heavy, surprising because it's particle board but I guess it's very dense in order to hold the over 400 pounds it's rated for, but at least I could take that up a few pieces at a time.  Once I assembled the stand and lifted the ridiculously heavy tank onto it, I proceeded to add substrate and water.  Since it's a planted tank I decided to layer the substrate with about 20 pounds of reddish flourite on the bottom and 40 pounds of black sand over it.  After rinsing and carefully layering the substrate I began to add water very slowly, scooping it from a bucket with a red solo cup and pouring it carefully onto a small plate I'd laid in the tank to avoid disturbing and mixing the substrate.  After 30 minutes or so I had added about 3 gallons and noticed a little problem - the tank was leaning forward away from the wall.  It turns out that the shape of the tank and stand makes it heavier in the front and since it was sitting on carpet, the front of the stand was driven deeper into the carpet than the back.  I immediately siphoned out as much water as I could from the tank and moved my dining room table directly in front of the stand - just in case.  There it remained for a month or so while I concentrated on moving the rest of my stuff and figuring out how to level the tank.  Then on the advice of an experienced aquarist I bought some door shims from Lowes and got a friend from work to help me place them under the front of the stand.  There is now a very slight lean toward the wall, only detectable with a level, but it seems to be perfectly level across the front so the tank isn't being twisted.

Now came the fun part: adding plants, decor, and fish.  I started by installing a bubble wall on the back wall, then added various plants, making sure the roots reached all the way down through the flourite level.  I don't know what the names of all the plants are, but they include coconut, amazon sword, anubias, java fern, corkscrew val, and mondo grass.  For decor I added a lava rock, a piece of driftwood, a large balinese lantern from Petsmart, and a fake rock arch with a bubble wall behind it.  I attached an anubias plant to the driftwood with a rubber band, hopefully the plant will attach itself to the wood in time and I can remove the rubber band.

When I first added water and decor last night, the water was fairly clear, but now it looks cloudy, I'm not sure why.  It could be that I stirred up sand particles when I added more plants this morning, or it could be because I cut a piece out of a filter cartridge from my 10 gallon tank and popped it in the filter for the new tank.  I added some water clarifier so hopefully this will help.  I tried turning off the bubblers, but that didn;t seem to help much.  I may need to use a weaker pump though since the one I got seems quite strong - it's for up to a 40 gallon tank.  The only other things I've added to the water is water conditioner, Aqueon aquarium plant food, and Tetra Start Zyme, which is supposed to add bacteria to the water so you can immediately add fish.

Now comes the best part of all: adding the fishies!  It may be a bit early, but with the combination of plants, Start Zyme, and the old filter media I think it'll be ok.  I installed the heater and thermometers and made sure the temperature was correct, and tested the water to make sure it was conditioned properly.  Everything checked out so I went and bought 3 beautiful cherry barbs from Petsmart and added them to the tank.  They pretty much alternate swimming around exploring and hiding in the plants right now.  I also transferred one of the assassin snails from the 10 gallon tank, just in case they got any ideas about procreating.  Here are the cherry barbs:

They are such little fish, it'll be interesting to see how long it takes for the ammonia spike to hit in such a large tank.

Lost another one

Today I found the mostly consumed remains of one of my albino cory cats.  I'm not sure what killed him, there was no ammonia reading in the tank, though I forgot to check the other levels before I did a water change.  In any event, the baby snails in the tank are starting to become a real problem - they're getting big enough to clearly see what color their shells are, especially the ones that were feeding off the dead fish before I removed him from the tank.  Perhaps it is the competition for food that lost me a cory cat?  I ordered a couple of assassin snails online today, assuming they arrive ok, I shall put one in the tank and see if it takes care of the over-population

Sumo's New Tank

Yesterday I set up a new tank for Sumo the betta.  It's a 5.5 gallon kit from Petsmart with a power filter and incandescent light in the hood.  I added Super Naturals sand substrate, bamboo, marimo moss balls, the Balinese lantern "house" from his original tank, and a Buddha statue.  One of the bamboo curls was from his original tank, and I also used some of his water to set up the tank.  Once it was all set up, I popped an old filter cartridge from the other betta's tank behind the new filter and put in a small 10 watt heater that I had.  It's supposedly too small for a 5 gallon tank but the tank still reached 80 degrees overnight and went up to 82 today once I had the light on for awhile.  Today I removed the old filter as the water had become a bit cloudy and added some water clarifier.  A few hours later I used a floating magnet tank cleaner to sweep off sand particles from the front of the glass.  Then I turned off the heater and added Sumo to the tank, carefully floating him in a bag for a while to get used to the warmer temperature.  I've never seen a betta swim so much!  Whether it's the warmer temp, the more room, or just a new space to explore, he seems to really like his new home.  I will definitely be getting a 5.5 gallon tank for Indy as well when I move.

The Downside of Apple Snails

Last night I found the two apple snails in Indy's tank stuck together as in the picture above.  According to similar pictures and descriptions I found online, it seems the snails decided to be fruitful and multiply.  This is a real problem in a 2.5 gallon tank because there's just not enough room for tons of snail babies.  I separated them and put the smaller one, I guess it's a female, in Sumo's 3 gallon tank.  I will just have to watch carefully for egg clusters and hope I can catch and remove any before they hatch.

Unfortunately when I had two snails in my 10 gallon, I did not know the snails decided to reproduce until one day (surprise!) I found 10-20 little white dots, about the size of tapioca, that turned out to be baby snails.  The amount of salt in the tank now has proved insufficient to kill them, and the cory cats don't seem to eat them.  I think it's time to get an assassin snail and see if that will solve the problem before they overrun the tank.

Is a puzzlement

Sumo is still not eating much.  The petsmart lady told me last week that he may need to get used having the exercise space and being fed more often, but its seems odd that after almost 2 weeks in the tank he's still only eating 1 or 2 betta bits or blood worms at a time.  He acts like he's hungry but it's almost like he can't see the food, or just loses interest or isn't sure what it is.  I think he needs to be in a bigger tank with more horizontal room and overhead lighting that will warm the water as well - his tank is only 76 degrees.  Tomorrow I'm going to get him a 5.5 gallon and start getting it set up, perhaps that will help.  He seems happy still at least, keeping up with his bubble nest and swimming quickly around looking at me whenever I get near the tank.

I got two new albino corydoras catfish today to join the one already in the tank.  According to what I've read, they prefer to be in groups, so I decided not to wait on my move to get a couple of buddies for the first one.  Below is a video of my 10 gallon tank with 5 glowlight tetras, 1 red platy, and 3 albino cory cats.  I know the quality is rather poor, I'm using a Cannon PowerShot A550, and if there's a way to get better video footage from it, I don't know it.

Edit: Now that I've seen the posted video, I'm pretty sure the quality was degraded even more when it was uploaded.  If anyone knows a way to get around this comments are welcome.

Victims of Establishing a Tropical Aquarium

My first try at keeping tropical fish was rather disastrous.  I had an Aquaview 360 3 gallon tank given to me by a friend and tried to keep 2 male guppies and 1 ghost shrimp in it.  The guppies were dead within a couple of weeks.  The ghost shrimp lived a while longer, but eventually he too kicked the bucket.

After a while I decided to try again.  This time I did a little reading and decided on a 10 gallon starter tank with black sand substrate, a few fake plants, and a small volcano bubbler (naturally dubbed Mount Wannahockaloogie).  I started out with an apple snail and glowlight tetras until I had the minimum recommended school of five, then added a ghost shrimp and 2 male guppies.  One day one of the guppies simply vanished from the tank, I never did figure out what happened to it.

About this time I also decided to re-setup the 3 gallon tank.  Since I really liked the low maintenance of Super Naturals sand substrate, I removed the filter plate that came with the tank and super glued the riser tube to the bottom of the tank centered on the LED light under the tank.  The seal is not perfect, but good enough that very little sand gets in to interfere with the light.  I set up the tank with white sand, and some mostly pink decorations - not exactly a natural theme.  I put a red platy in it but he didn't seem happy, spent most of his time hiding, so after a couple of days I added him to the 10 gallon tank, where he immediately began swimming around with the remaining guppy.  I tried keeping glofish and ghost shrimp in the 3 gallon tank, but none stayed alive very long, so I replaced the fake plants and decorations with real plants and a balinese lantern decoration and made it a betta tank.

Eventually the second guppy in the 10 gallon tank died as well, and I replaced him with a dwarf gourami which I named Whiskers.  Whiskers was a beautiful fish and my favorite in the tank, but sadly, he died today.  I'm not sure why, the tank seems to have been stable for several weeks now.  I added an albino cory catfish a few days ago to (hopefully) eat the baby apple snails that had appeared in the tank, but all the water parameters were still fine.  This morning I found Whiskers lying on his side in the tank.  Every so often he would try to swim around, but he'd always end up listing.  I did a 25% water change, even though the water checked out fine, and went to Petsmart to see if they could suggest anything since Google wasn't much help.  The thing they suggested was aquarium salt (often used as an all-purpose tonic) since I didn't see anything on the fins or scales that could be diagnosed, but when I came back, he was dead.  I removed the snails from the tank, one of which was also dead, and added only half of the recommended dose of aquarium salt, just in case the other fish might need it.  I don't think so low a dose will harm any of the fish, though perhaps it might kill off the little baby snails.

I don't usually get attached to fish, except perhaps bettas, but I am rather sad that Whiskers died.  It's just so baffling since I can't find any reason for it, but doubtless there are many fish ailments I've never heard of.  I read that dwarf gouramis are rather sensitive though, so I will be waiting to get more until I have moved and gotten the 36 gallon tank I plan to get setup and cycled.

The Partly Sad History of Abbie's Betta Fish

I first became interested in keeping fish a couple of years ago while living in Salinas, CA.  I started, as many uninformed people do, with a single male betta fish in a fairly small "tank."  It was only 1/2 gallon and unfiltered, and I did full water changes on it when it seemed to need it.  Naturally such a small tank got dirty and smelly quite often, but I didn't realize at the time that betta fish needed a larger space, indeed, I had heard that they prefer small spaces.  When I left California I had to give my betta away as I had no idea how to transport a fish all the way to Georgia.

After a few months in Georgia, I bought a 2.5 gallon Aqueon Betta Bow filtered tank with a divider in the middle with the thought of putting two betta fish in it.  Wouldn't you know, the very next day a beautiful blue betta fish was found abandoned on a desk at work in a filthy vase.  Upon hearing someone suggest that the fish was about to make "the journey" I volunteered to take him home and decided Journey was a good name for him.  I put Journey in one side of the tank and a dragonscale betta from pet smart in the other side.  The dragonscale I named Sengsungnim, which roughly means Honorable (Dead) Fish (the kind you eat), figuring my cat, Lilu, would approve of the name since she seemed so interested when she discovered the tank.  Sadly, Journey only lived for a couple of weeks before he died and made "the journey," possibly because of the conditions he had lived in before.  Sengsungnim lived for several months until he got some sort of a tumor, and died a month or so after that.

About this time I figured it might be a good idea to stop giving my fish prophetic names.  I bought a new blue betta fish and this one I simply named Indy - short for Indigo.  He currently resides in the 2.5 gallon tank with 2 apple snails and natural plants.  One thing about Indy, he really doesn't like ghost shrimp, or perhaps he likes them too much.  In any event, any ghost shrimp deposited in his tank soon becomes snail food, which can be quite handy if I'm trying to get rid of ghost shrimp.

I also have now a male half-moon double tail plakat betta named Sumo which I got a couple of weeks ago for my repurposed Aquaview 360 3 gallon planted and filtered tank.  He shares his tank with one apple snail.  He is a very unusual color, kind of a dark green, and seems quite happy with his tank so far, as long as I keep the bubbler off.  He doesn't eat too much yet, perhaps still acclimating to all the extra swimming room, but he made the largest bubble nest I've seen yet.