Yanagi

Hi, can I have your 250l community tank and it's inhabitants? I'll pay you with Bettas and feed the fish EVERY day!! In other words.. I love it! Clown loaches are one of my favourite fish. Gourami too!

Verry stylish! I love it. I guess I missed the final pics in the other thread, lol.

I lurk over there but somehow feel like I'm not 'pro' enough to post. Plants for sale seem to go extremely quickly, I've never even had a chance to post/PM the seller before it's all gone. Strand by strand, oh geez. I TRIED that.. it just kept floating up to the surface. Did you do it by hand or use tweezers? What sort of substrate do you have? Erm, lighting.. I've never really looked closely, actually. I just went looking for probably about the 3rd time for info and only just found them on the Aqua One website. Maybe I just fail at google searches. http://www.aquaone.co.uk/lighting_pr_reflectors.php Two T5 PL tubes, 18w. That would give me about 1.38wpg. Bulb I think says 7100k, I'd have to pull the light off the tank to be sure. I just realized I should probably replace the tubes. They're at least 3 years old (if you believe the previous owner).

Oh hey, I've seen this tank before on another forum! I just lurk over there though, mostly in the classifieds section. Pretty cool tank, can't wait to see how it turns out.

*lol* Bettarazzi. My other two Rams are/will be for sale. Hint hint, nudge nudge. One male, one female. Undecided if they are actually a pair or not. Waiting to see if they start trying to breed. The male has two very spunky looking black spots on his head above/between his eyes. Verrry cool looking. Anywaaayyss, I'm thinking I planted the pink ambulia too close together though, and that's what has killed it off. The HC is getting a bit yellow on some leaves, but that could also be the magnesium/potassium deficiency. I am impatiently waiting for my fertilizer to come in the mail. Due to the whole batch testing issue, I've been very much considering buying a pair or a group of wilds to do 'my part' to keep wilds in Australia. The only problem is the only ones I can seem to find that will tolerate the temps in this tank are already rather, I guess, plentiful than some of the other species. Imbellis, Smaragina, Mahachai, Bellica, Simorum. Possibly Pugnax and Foerschi. I'm not sure yet. Might have to make a new thread and see what sort of information pops up. I'm not even sure if any of these are actually suitable community tank fish. I'd also like a pair of something or rather that would be suitable to live with shrimp as I'm not willing to give up my future shrimp tank idea, haha. I have to look for something quite small. Possibly Falx. Like I said, I'll start a new thread. :P

Haha, it's my dad's camera because the one I got several years ago mysterious stopped turning on and he pulled it apart (good with electronics he is) and even he couldn't figure out why. It's 9 years old, 2.1 megapixels and takes the best photos out of any camera I've ever had. Ugh! He's now pulled this one apart and is taking a look inside. I think I'll save up and buy my own, that way if I drop it I don't have to admit it to anyone. I say the tank looks awful because you can't see all the dead leaves floating around, and the bits of dead pink ambulia. There's also areas with sparse planting because I've had to pull some of the ambulia out to try and let more light in. I might leave a few healthy stems in once I decide on (and get!) the replacement plants, but the rest is going in the goldfish pond or garbage! Depends on whether or not the goldfish eat it. Also with the tank looking nasty, I believe it's a potassium and magnesium deficiency causing holes and yellow leaves in my plants as well. I LOVE my Blue Rams... ... shh, don't tell anyone, but I think they're quickly becoming my favourite fish! ... Any time I'm doing anything in the tank they're right up in my business, nosing around and actually watching very carefully what I'm doing. A few times I've gone to do something on the bottom and they've gotten upset at me being too close to one of their 'nests' (ditches in the gravel, quite annoying actually!) and outright rammed my hand and bitten me. It's hilarious. I wish I could get them to do it to unsuspecting victims. I just need to find an excuse to get someone to put their hand in the tank. The 2nd pic is my favourite too, Gulp. He's just so adorable! Bigger pic here if you want a bit of a better look. --- Edit Oops, Divy posted while I was typing, haha. I do have some HC in there (got it for free, BOOYAH!) it's just sort of on a test run at the moment because I don't have co2 running ATM (I ran out of sugar, LOL) and don't have what I would consider to be high lighting. It's the mess of stuff in front of the 'cave' driftwood. Extremely hard to plant! I just did what the guy told me and dumped gravel on it and left it to grow roots it's self. If it takes off, I'll probably end up buying more. As for Japanese hairgrass and Glosso, I'm not sure where I'd find it? I haven't seen any for sale on my usual sites. Do you know anywhere? You can PM me if you like.

Ohh maaaan, I just dropped and broke the most reliable camera we have. The one I've been using to take pics with. Eek. Now not only do I want to kick myself, my dad probably will kick me. Er, well in other news, I believe the other blue rams have paired up now. I moved them into another tank to reduce stress and sell the others once I decide if they are actually a pair or not, haha. Anyone interested? What should I price a pair at? I took tank pics even though it looks awful right now.

I third the full masked with black fins as my favourites. :)

The pink ambulia HAS. TO. GO. It's rotting all over the place. Never had this problem with standard 'green' ambulia. I'm not sure what I will replace it with yet. I'm thinking I'll just go with a green stem plant though, no reds/pinks. Anyone have any thoughts/suggestions? I'd prefer a slower grower in that spot. At least slower than hygro. I'm trimming that at least once a week! Just been browsing around ebay and classifieds and I'm thinking I'll go with a mix of Hydrotriche hottoniiflora and various Ludwigia to replace the pink ambulia. I'm not sure yet. Off I go to stare at my tank deep in thought..

I love the first one, he is impressive!

Yay for photos. Yeah, all eaten unfortunately. They're still in breeding mode (despite being sick) anyway. Apparently it's quite normal for them to eat their eggs/fail at breeding the first few times around so I'm not worried. Get a breeder net / floating isolation tank and put the balloon mollie in it for when she gives birth, then you can remove her and grow the babies up a bit before letting them out with the other fish! Nope, don't see their bones. At least not until they're very bad/close to dead I'd imagine. On the post about the blue ram eggs you can see the mother guarding the nest. She has a big dip between her pelvic fins and her anal fin. I also can't show it from the pics but she did look just too slender. I'll be feeding the tank with wormer medicated food to see if that helps, although they're all looking plumper by the day because I'm feeding quite frequently, a lot of live food too. I ran out of live blackworm yesterday, haha. My Dragon is even looking a little fat, though I like my fighters that way, especially when they're as long in the body as he is. Balances it out a bit more. Oh, I also got my canister filter parts and it's going now. I've still got the internal in there at the moment but I literally just now had a 'DUH' moment and realized I could take the sponge out of the internal filter and just put it in the canister. No loss of good bacteria and I regain that corner and my tank looks nicer, plus a slower flow rate so my fishies will be happy about that. I think I'll go do that now... hehe

Rammy says 'My tank is looking scabby, Food Lady. Get off your bum and do some maintence.' Some plants got a trimming, some of the pink ambulia got pulled out and planted in another tank. It's look pretty lousy, probably planted them too closely and blocked out too much light. It's spread thinner now. A dying Sword Plant came out of another tank to recover in this one. First dose of ferts went in, just a bit of flourish comprehensive. I'm going to need some potassium I think. DIY co2 needs to go back in there as well. No tank pics because it still looks all messy, maybe tomorrow. Just fishy pics for now. Two Otos chilling out on the driftwood. My Gouramis are being difficult. They only seem to eat what ever gets left behind on the driftwood or on plants which isn't much and won't eat either pellets or flake off of the surface. I think I'll try hatching some BBS, maybe they'll eat that. I've been thinking about getting some sparkling gouramis too. Dunno yet.

Wow! Good luck! :D

No eggies, they got eaten by someone at some point during the day. *grumbles* I did get 4 Otos today though, heh. They are zooming around like they're on crack. When I first let them out the Blue Rams followed them around trying to figure out what on earth they were, it was hilarious. Even Mr Dragon aka Almighty Ruler of the Tank (he bosses the Rams around) looked puzzled when they all darted out! Also got a small amount of HC... We'll see how that goes. Up next I'm thinking I'll get the Habrosu, then the Pygmaeus.. Then I'll settle on whatever little fish catches my fancy at the time (when I have more spending money, hah).

Thanks for the info Goody. I have a exciting (to me!) update! My Blue Rams.. bred! The eggs are hard to see, but they're small (smaller than the substrate!) and clear. Hopefully you can see them, the camera wouldn't focus on the finer details and I guess it's hard to see if you don't know what you're looking for. 'Mama' Blue Rammy is looking very, very, skinny. Two of the Rams do and they didn't even have to lay eggs. I'll have to grab some live food and try to fatten them up. Everybody is getting along alright. Mr Dragon chases the Rams sometimes. The Rams seem to bite and ram at each other, but what can you do? I guess I'll sell the other two eventually. Gouramis wouldn't come out until I put the stupid spray bar back on the filter to kill off the flow. Now they mix it up, swimming around the tank or hanging in the plants. Usually together. Bad piccy of 'dad' Blue Ram coming in to check on the nest.. The mother proceeded to 'violently' chase him out.. I'm hoping that's normal, haha. He seems to be guarding the area further out around the uh, 'nest'. He is far more pink around the belly than she is. I caught most of the guppies and dumped them on my dad, heh. Still some in there hiding in the plants.. They have to come out to eat some time! I thought I saw a baby earlier too, grrr. I didn't think any in there looked (heavily) pregnant. I'm hoping to get the Cories and Otos in there soon. Still deciding on what I want in there. I think I'll go with Rasbora Maculata/Dwarf Rasbora because of their smaller size. Decisions, Decisions...

I spy with my little eye.. something beginning with 'B' and the second word 'R'... .... Can you find it? ... No? Let me help you And a pair of Gouramis as well! Also, my driftwood has started to sink! On one end anyway, the other is still pretty light, hence why it sticks up like.. a stupid stick. Hehe.. Sooo anyway. I found an Aquarium opening sale advertised online, went and found the store (thanks for getting us lost, GPS!) and I got a few things super cheap! 4 Blue Rams for $4 each, Seachem Prime 250ml for $14.99 (? $14 something). The Dwarf gouramis weren't for sale but I got them anyway since they were there.. taunting me.. I just got a pair. Two of my Rams have paired up already. The Gouramis seem to have paired off as well, they're usually together. They all seem to be loving their new home. The Gouramis wouldn't come out of the forest of plants at first but now they're starting to explore a bit more. The Blue Rams..? LOVE. They're just awesome. Enough said. Little on the skinny side though. I'm a pro at fixing that up... Oh yeah, and I offloaded all the guppies into this tank for the time being. I'll probably just catch up what I can and take them to an Aquarium as feeders and buy my Corydoras next.

I wonder what would happen if you took the Gourami out and put a reluctant-to-bubblenest Betta male in there. Would he tend the nest? Destroy it? Breed and place eggs in it? Either way, wow! Mr Gourami has a lot of time on his.. fins? :D

I got bored waiting, plus I was taking pics of the betta babies for someone who was interested in one, so I thought 'what the heck'. I still need some taller plants to step down from the jungle of BG stem plants to the midground though. It's too 'harsh' of a step right now. Hence why I'm after hairgrass.

Keep in mind you'll only get about a third of the sale price, but since they're guppies, and mutts, even less than that.

:) Thanks Fishfin, can't wait to see your journal! I got around to trimming down those plants and scrubbing the driftwood and banding the hybrid onto and then finding out it FLOATS. grr. I moved a lot of the plants. I think I moved almost all of them actually, except the variegated hygro in the left rear corner, and the hairgrass. Pretty much everything got a trim, too. Now the tank is murky and yucky so I won't be taking a pic until it settles down.. and preferably after the new bit of driftwood sinks. I think I'm pretty happy with this design. Going to be on the hunt for more plants, too. Flame moss for sure, that'll be grown on the new piece of driftwood. I'm thinking blyxa japonica, more hairgrass, lilaeopsis, anything else that happens to catch my fancy. I'm after short-ish and very short foreground plants though. I think I have back and midground plants covered. ;P

If I can do it, anyone can! Trust me on that one, heh. re: The heater, geez! Why didn't I think of that!? Odd. I tested the pH today and it's a soft, pretty blue colour. It shouldn't be. That says it's somewhere between 7.2 and 7.6. The florabase substrate is supposed to lower the pH, and at first, it was. The pH was going from 7.6+ (fresh out the tap) to 7.2, 7.0 and worked it's way down to 6.6 before I added the guppies. Then I got lazy about testing when family trouble hit and started playing more with the plants. Only just checked the pH now and it's back up to, I'm guessing 7.4 or so. What the? The DIY co2 and the substrate should be lowering it a lot more than that. So should the driftwood and supposedly the IAL. All the fish I've chosen out will do fine with the 6.6 - 6.8 pH range I want. I can't figure out what's bringing it back up. Ideas? (Obviously there's no rocks or shells or coral and in there..) I'm trying to convince myself to lose the ridiculously big and fluffy winter jacket I have on and then pull plants up and do some trimming and rearranging and scrub that new driftwood piece.. It is COLD and raining today! I don't want to! But I do want to, so my tank will look even nicer.. I'm conflicted.

Orange Black Dragon skipped QT after I inspected him (pinhole finrot, should be an easy fix), the heater is playing games with me. 26c apparently means 22 and 28c apparently means 31! So, first real inhabitant went in after a triple check for velvet.. Now he won't sit still long enough for me to get pics of him. Grrr. At least he's having the time of his life. I've also 'misplaced' my little hand mirror which isn't helping. Got some new plants.. A lot of new plants. A lot of it will need to be trimmed down as the amount is just outrageous now LOL I'm after some flame moss, will post in the classifieds tomorrow or later on. Got another piece of driftwood for the anubias hybrid but it's disgustingly dirty. I picked it up out of the bucket and it's like.. flaky?! crumbly.. Something along those lines. Gonna need to scrub it when I have the energy. In the mean time.. PICCYS. Mr Newbie's pics from the QT tank. Following my Betta naming theme, I think he'll be the Egyptian Sun God, Ra.