L777
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I just checked a bit ago, and aquariumfish.net amended their placement of CPDs under the danios as CPDs rather than under the rasboras (they might have gotten a tip from a CPD.com forum member :wink: ).
Here’s the new link:
http://www.aquariumfish.net/catalog_pages/cyprinids/barbs.htm#daniosFor a good combination of beauty and “good neighbor” community fish:
– Marble hatchets for the top — they “fly” in formation and never bother those dwelling in the lower regions.
– More cardinals when you can get them — the more the better!
– Dwarf (praecox) rainbows — larger rainbows can be somewhat, well, not truly aggressive, but at least a little obnoxious at they crash back and forth in the tank. The dwarfs are silver-sided, and the males have bright red/pink fins, while the females have bright yellow fins.
– if you have a fairly passive tank with enough vegetation for them to hide in when they feel threatened, I really like honey dwarf gouramis (Colisa chuna). Beautiful peaceful little splotches of yellow that poke around in the tank. Also, these little gouramis won’t out-compete your bottom dwellers for food like the larger ones can.
– a lone angel or black knife fish adds interest to the tank, but when they get larger, the cardinals will begin to disappear!
– Rummy-nose tetras: keeps the Amazon / South American theme going, make nice counterpoint to the cardinals.
– Ram (one of ste1200’s of course) — also maintains the south(/central) american theme.
– I’m also partial to loaches — sidthimunkis are my favorite, but some of the fast water hillstreams are very interesting too, as long as the water stays remarkably clear: Schistura cf. balteata and Sewellia lineolata are fun ones! (But just like kuhlis, the Schistura will try to spend some of their time up inside your waterfall filter!)Have fun, and post some px when you get a chance.
Even established tanks can show ammonia if there is a relatively sudden spike in production (several new fish or pile of uneaten food or dead fish), while the bacteria colony grows to accommodate the load, but I’d agree with looking to the tap water first. Depending on the type of water conditioner you use, you may be generating ammonia if your tap has chloramines, and if your conditioner only breaks apart the chlorine from the ammonia, rather than sequestering them. Also not as uncommon as we’d like for tap water to have trace amounts of ammonia in it.
edit: btw, my city tap water comes out at somewhere between 0 and 0.25ppm ammonia (I suspect chloramines).
On the same note: last week my wife declared me “crazy” when she found me in our darkened living room at midnight, running the flash on my camera to simulate lightning (we keep having cold fronts roll through, so if the plecos breed, probably not because of me)! :lol: :lol:
Here’s that site with java moss as a living backdrop:
http://www.aquatic-eden.com/2006/10/vesicularia-montagnei-christmas-moss.htmlApparently, a similar article appeared in Tropical Fish Hobbyist’s “Planted Tank” series in March 2006.
Haven’t done it yet myself, but looks like a splendid idea!
Atlantis,
this won’t help much for an already-wet tank, but another thing you could do is to use some silicone to put in plastic “brackets” (think cheap — strips of your roofing material? a thin slice of a square milk jug?) at the front and back where you want the divider. Once the silicone dries and the tank is full, you can just slide the divider down into those guides when you want it in. The downside, of course, is that the position is sort of a permanent choice.I think your plastic mesh idea is fantastic for allowing water to flow through, but not fishies. I once saw an idea on the web for using mesh like that to grow a “living wall” of java moss on the back of the tank. I’ll see if I can find the link.
Baby brine shrimp are a classic staple and pretty simple to hatch (so long as you don’t let the bubbles stop for more than several minutes — they’re nasty stinkers when they run out of oxygen!), especially when augmented with variety.
Once you get the BBS going, they may get your CPDs in the mood, too! :wink:
So here’s what I’ve been calling praecox in my tank:
(First time linking photobucket px — let’s see if it works…).
To my knowledge (unfortunately limited to local lfs labeling!), the red-finned larger one is male, and the smaller yellow-finned one is female.
Keep in mind a flash was used, so the steel blue opaque color of the sides is greatly enhanced relative to more ‘natural’ lighting, which makes their bodies look somewhat more translucent, and white to silver. I normally only see the blue when they flash sideways just right under the overhead fluorescent tube light.What do the more knowledgeable rainbow folk among us think for ID?
mummymonkey,
thanks for the experience. How long does it take for the fry to darken? Mine are nearly transparent still (less than a week old).Yup to baby brine shrimp (nauplii), although I like your version too! The ponies eat like 2000 of the little orange swimmers a day *each* once they come out. That’s lots of 2L plastic bottles bubbling away!
http://www.saseahorse.com/stable.htm#Raising%20Fry
The ‘horses hard external shells are really cool, but the price they take in trade is a really short digestive tract that doesn’t expand — basically means food has to move through constantly, especially while growing. I don’t envy you the feedings, but am excited to watch your ponies grow! Best fishes!
I see a South America / SE Asia theme (soft water constraints?) running through these posts!
Here’s my aquatic friends:
29 gallon (from the top): 5 marbled hatchets, 1M/1F praecox rainbow, 9 (5/4?) cardinal tetras, sidthimunki loach (I forget the genus – reorganized recently?), 2 “sumo” loaches (Schistura cf. balteata), gold nugget pleco (L85/L177?), 1M/2F L401 plecos, 4 king tigerish (L66/L333?) plecos. Much java fern.20 gallon: bazillion mongrel yellow guppies, bazillion bushynose plecos, 2 Sterbai corys, 2 kuhli loaches. Much java moss, hollow grapevine log that papa bushynose keeps himself confined to except the 2 days a month when he tosses out the next batch of wigglers.
10 gallon: 5 baby bushynose plecos, hundreds of Malaysian live-bearing snails, and… 6M/3F breeding CPDs (with approx 35 fry)!!!
10 gallon: 15 baby bushynose plecos, 1 subadult long-finned albino bushynose… 40 CPD fry!!!
6 gallon: 3 baby bushynose plecos (see a theme here?), 4-8 mystery fry of unknown origin — appeared a day after adding java fern from the 29g community tank above to this otherwise unpopulated tank. Only time will tell… so long as the blasted hydra keep their tendrils off the fry.
