proud owner of 12x new CPDs!

[OoglyBoogly]

Hello everyone!

I’ve kept fish on and off for many years but it’s been a very long time (about 20 years) since i’ve kept tropical fish and even then those weren’t really taken care of by me since I was a child at the time! I usually stick to goldfish since I have a small pond outside and i’m familiar with those types of egglayers. Recently I acquired a free 55g fish tank and I decided to take a crack at freshwater planted tanks. I pulled out the very old eheim 2000 series canister filter, picked up a few generic plants and after a few months I received my first batch of 12 Celestial Pearl Danios from franksaquarium.com . I had a friend pick them up from him so I didn’t have to pay for shipping or worry about very stressed CPDs.

Here is where my brand new CPDs now live:

October 12th 2010, rearranged a bunch of plants by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I have the following fauna,flora, and equipment in it:

Planted Aquarium

Fauna:
Red Cherry Shrimps
Cardinal Tetras
Endler Guppies
Otocinclus Dwarf Catfish
Malysian Trumpet Snails
Tadpole Snails
1x Red Wiggler Worm (for the lols)

hopefuls:
Celestial Pearl Danios
Blackworms
Golden Clam to filter the water column

Flora:
brazillian pennywort
Ceratophyllum demersum – coontail
Hemianthus callitrichoides – Dwarf Baby Tears
Micranthemum umbrosum – Baby Tears
Brazilian Elodea – Anachris
Anubias minima
Hydrocotyle leucocephala – Brazilian Pennywort
Bacopa monnieri – Water Hyssop
Ceratopteris thalictroides – Water Sprite, Indian Fern
Hygrophila difformis – Water Wisteria
Lemna minor – Lesser Duckweed
Vesicularia dubyana – Java Moss

Equipment:
Eheim 2204 Canister Filter
55g Aquarium Glass Tank
2x 40w T12 – 4 foot fluorescent bulbs in modified hood/ballast from Home Depot
submersible Heater (not sure how many watts bc it’s old)
Thinking about making a homemade CO2 generator using yeast and sugar combined with a makeshift reactor… not sure yet

Food:
Tetra red chunky dried food that i crush for the bc the brine shrimp haven’t yet hatched
Hikari Tropical fish micro pellets
Hikari wheat germ – medium pellet

Chemicals:
Seachem Fluorish – micronutrient liquid fertilizer (very little Nitrogen bc the fish poop/nitrifying bacteria provide that)

30 pounds of river rock underneath 25 pounds of cheap painted (quality wise ) black gravel

Here are some pics of CPDs:

CPDfemale by mikeytitan, on Flickr

DSC_0066 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

DSC_0080 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

2maleCPDs by mikeytitan, on Flickr

CPDmatingpair by mikeytitan, on Flickr

CPDmating by mikeytitan, on Flickr

Here are a few of their tankmates…

endlermale_and_CPDmale by mikeytitan, on Flickr

redcherryshrimp by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I hope they don’t eat any eggs that might get laid although I plan on setting up a 30 gallon breeding tank underneath the 55g tank and perhaps throwing some CPDs outside in these buckets I setup for growing vegetables using the fish waste from my goldfish.

I have a tiny pond that is around 100 gallons with 6x home depot 5 gallon buckets attached to it to grow vegetables using the fish waste. I plan on using atleast one of the buckets next year to grow duckweed and CPD fry if all pans out!

[OoglyBoogly]

I can post the pics of where I want to put CPDs outside come springtime if anyone wants. Just let me know. In the meantime here is a thread on my Aquaponics setup on backyardaquaponics.com BYAP for short.

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=7072

Here is the pond:

These are the buckets which are connected to the pond that I have filtering the pond water by growing veggies. I want to use 1 perhaps 2 buckets after the weather warms up in mid to late spring for CPDs

IMG_1960 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

aquaponics lifting the hatch by mikeytitan, on Flickr

roots in aquaponics by mikeytitan, on Flickr

haha temp ghetto hiding solution by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I figured that I could take either the first or last 2 buckets and put some duckweed on the top and a water sprite inside of them for added filtration/oxygenation/covereage. I have stainless steel scrubber pads on the bottom of the buckets which I use for the surface area for nitrifying bacteria to grow on. They are usually covered with mulm/fish poop the entire year so hopefully the CPDs don’t get hurt by it.

[BallAquatics]

That’s a very lovely tank! I’m sure your CPD’s will be very happy with all the cover. They are typically much bolder if they have plenty of hiding places to duck back into at the sign of danger.

Dennis

[AquaGirl]

Wow, your tank, and pictures are awesome. Love that outside pond and I am very jealous!

Thanks for giving us a peek at your setups.

[OoglyBoogly]

@AquaGirl wrote:

Wow, your tank, and pictures are awesome. Love that outside pond and I am very jealous!

Thanks for giving us a peek at your setups.

Thank you for the kind words!

Here is a video of some of the endlers and CPDs…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaFn3m-fdxQ[/youtube]

They are hanging around by the moss that covers the canister filter spray bar.

[AquaGirl]

@OoglyBoogly wrote:

@AquaGirl wrote:

Wow, your tank, and pictures are awesome. Love that outside pond and I am very jealous!

Thanks for giving us a peek at your setups.

Thank you for the kind words!

Here is a video of some of the endlers and CPDs…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaFn3m-fdxQ[/youtube]

They are hanging around by the moss that covers the canister filter spray bar.

Nice healthy looking fish! You have a ton of gravid Endlers, lol. I have tiger Endlers and just love them, they are the hungriest fish that I ever saw. :lol: Do you move your CPD to breed them?

Thanks for sharing the video, I enjoyed it!

[OoglyBoogly]

I haven’t moved them yet but I plan on setting up the bottom tank for breeding. So far it only has plants, 1 endler fry that got caught in moving duckweed from the top tank to the bottom tank, and tadpole snails.

I just modified the hood and replaced the stock 36″ ballast/light with a 36″ dual T5 fixture from home depot.

before_and_after_hood-mod by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I’m not sure though what kind of plants I’m going to put in there but I do plan on following the the techniques that I’ve come across here… One in particular which was to buy this plastic canvas and then attach flame moss to it and line the entire bottom of the tank with it. Dennis gave me the idea with his breeding cage but I want to modify it so that my Danios aren’t in the cage. Another one was from a thread I came across here where someone put 2 or 3 females with 5 males and fed them heavily for a week then removed them from the breeding tank.

I’m not too sure yet!

Oh and yes, the guppies are hogs! My CPDs are starting to get a little pushy with the fatties that try to eat all the food which is nice to see since they were a little timid the first day I received them.[/img]

[AquaGirl]

Nice lighting difference, I’m sure that the plants will appreciate the extra lighting.

I just got my CPD’s today. Accumulated the first group and within 10 minutes of them being released into the tank they colored up nicely and a pair were performing the dance of love. I guess they like their new home. :lol:

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