my little eden

[Digsy]

The tank looks great Sherry, I really like what you've done with the hardscape! By the way, where are you buying fish on the eastside?

[bluestems]

Originally Posted by Digsy

The tank looks great Sherry, I really like what you've done with the hardscape! By the way, where are you buying fish on the eastside?

Thanks, Tara I haven't really found a good source for fish on the eastside yet. Blue Sierra in Issaquah closed and combined with the store in Renton. But, I haven't always been that impressed with the selection and the staff are limited on their knowledge. They've been good about checking their records for the specific variety of fish when I've asked, and are eager to help.


Most of my stock came from the road trip to Portland at the end of October. I've also visited the Fish Store in Seattle and thought they had a decent selection of plants. I wasn't looking for fish at the time, but did notice they had a decent variety of shrimp and nano-sized fish.


Fishaholics was a good source, but Tommy's closed shop... and I wasn't sure that was the main business to begin with.


Where do you like to go?

[Digsy]

I actually haven't purchased fish locally in well over a year. I used to frequent Fishaholics for equipment but was never very impressed with their fish selection, though they did have a decent variety of shrimp. Once I moved to the eastside, I haven't really found any store that I thought the fish looked particularly healthy so, I've been buying from sellers on TPT for the most part. I was hoping that maybe you had a secret fish shop that I hadn't checked out yet. A Place for Pets in Burien used to be a favorite but the drive is just too long so, I haven't been there in quite awhile either.

Thankfully I've never needed to buy plants anywhere other than in the SnS because I've always been able to find what I needed there!

[bluestems]

Tommy/Fishaholics was good about ordering what you needed and was really patient in talking me through details. That's where my tank and a lot of my equipment came from, and he was the one who led me to getting the spotted rasboras and pygmy cories.


He closed shop though before I was ready to plant. I agree with you, it's much easier and usually very good deals right here on SnS. The majority of my plants and some of my equipment are from SnS.


And, I'm glad my cories found a good home with you!

[bluestems]

Here's a picture of the pygmy cories in their new home, courtesy of Digsy:








Although I am already missing their playfulness and surfing the current, I think they'll be much happier in their new 105g home!


It's also interesting and not something I had considered before, that the shrimp and the danios are now out and cruising around the entire tank.

[Amandas tank]

Oh they are soo cute! Interesting that the other inhabitants are enjoying the tank more now that the cories are gone. Same thing happened in my tank when the Puntius Denisonii left. Kuhli loaches everywhere in plain sight! I'm glad your tank is calmer. I hope you will enjoy it more.

[bluestems]

I'll be happy when all the inhabitants are happy And maybe when the hc begins outgrowing the bga... Despite the bga though, the hc does seem to be filling in now, especially in two of the pockets on the stone. Yay for small victories~!


It probably wasn't the best decision to home the tank on my desk, where I can ponder what to do next way too often.

[Amandas tank]

HaHaHa...yes...maybe not a good idea to have it right where all you can think about is it.

A hooraw for small victories!!!! Glad things a growing even though it's slow going.

[Digsy]

Originally Posted by bluestems

Tommy/Fishaholics was good about ordering what you needed and was really patient in talking me through details. That's where my tank and a lot of my equipment came from, and he was the one who led me to getting the spotted rasboras and pygmy cories.

He closed shop though before I was ready to plant. I agree with you, it's much easier and usually very good deals right here on SnS. The majority of my plants and some of my equipment are from SnS.

And, I'm glad my cories found a good home with you!

I agree, Tommy was great to talk to and was very responsive with custom orders. I didn't realize that he had closed his business though, that's a shame. It still would be nice to find a decent local shop, I've had the worst luck getting rummynose tetras mailorder and could use a couple dozen more to fill out my school a little more.

Glad everything is settled down in your tank, hope to see some updated pics in the next week or so!

[bluestems]

Originally Posted by Digsy

I agree, Tommy was great to talk to and was very responsive with custom orders. I didn't realize that he had closed his business though, that's a shame. It still would be nice to find a decent local shop, I've had the worst luck getting rummynose tetras mailorder and could use a couple dozen more to fill out my school a little more.


Glad everything is settled down in your tank, hope to see some updated pics in the next week or so!

I'm nervous about mail ordering fish too, but the Wet Spot does do shipments for $15 UPS overnight to parts of Washington. I thought about trying that in the future, as it costs roughly that to drive to Seattle's Fish Store and back for me, and it's not such a long distance to ship. But if I have the time, I don't mind the drive to Seattle to visit a good fish store. A Place for Pets in Burien is on my list.


There's not much change in my tank at the moment... will post pics again when the hc finally fills in. Do you have a journal of your existing tank? I would love to see your setup. The smaller planted tanks you had were just gorgeous.

[Digsy]

Looking forward to the update once your HC fills in! I haven't updated my journal for the 105 gallon since moving from Seattle and going low-tech and lost interest in keeping journals on here but I do enjoy looking at others! Thanks for the compliments on the smaller tanks, it was tough to give them up but I think keeping the one low-tech tank will be all I can handle for the next year.

[bluestems]

Originally Posted by Digsy

Looking forward to the update once your HC fills in! I haven't updated my journal for the 105 gallon since moving from Seattle and going low-tech and lost interest in keeping journals on here but I do enjoy looking at others! Thanks for the compliments on the smaller tanks, it was tough to give them up but I think keeping the one low-tech tank will be all I can handle for the next year.

I can relate... although my two girls are teens now.

[bluestems]

I finally caught the two bees out together tonight...





One of the amanos joined the party.



Please ignore the bga. Although it's hard to tell, it is getting under control. New growth has slowed, nearly stopped and I just need to find some time to do a manual removal and cleaning.



Update: since then, the rasboras all suddenly died, but one. Here's the last pictures I took of them mid-December surfing the water current.














































RIP little guys.

[bluestems]

A lot has happened in my little eden since the last update. But, first, a few pictures that my husband took... what a difference a quality camera makes!



fts with some danios darting in the back, and one of the khulis (nearly impossible to catch them sitting still these days). The khuli's have put on some weight in just the month that they've been in their new home.



one of the danio males



Jeff, the lone rasbora maculata survivor (more on that below)



the other danio male; plus a good shot of one of the new algaes that recently popped up in the tank.


So, the good news is that since the last update, all the bga is gone from the tank! I finally found the right balance of water circulation, light, co2 and nutrients that it just suddenly began to shrink on its own and literally melted away within a few days. (I manually removed the larger clumps).

All was great during most of December. Then, last week the local tap water had a super fishy smell, and at the same time, at least two or three new algae appeared in the tank: a brush algae on the rocks and a stringy algae plus what I think is a staghorn algae. All the water parameters were normal. I tried manually removing as much of the algae as possible every other day, and did kick up a bit of substrate in the process but changed ~30% of the water each time.

Then, I found four of my rasboras behind the tank, all in a small pile together. Since water parameters were still good, and the shrimp all looked fine (the amanos were still very clear, not cloudy nor molting, looking stressed, etc) I assumed that one of the rasboras must have accidentially launched out of the tank while surfing the current, and since they do so usually in a school, three others followed.

A couple days later however, and four more of my rasboras are missing. I found one dead at the bottom of the tank, the others I couldn't find. Now I'm worried. Water parameters are still good and the other fish, and shrimp seem unaffected. Meanwhile, the algae has really gotten out of control. I bumped up the co2, a bit too much, as one of the shrimps launched out of the tank a few hours later. I readjusted, put in an airstone, and got her back in. She's doing fine now. The next day though, I'm down to one lone rasbora.

I ruled out many possibilities of what could be wrong, and ended up deciding to do a couple 20% water changes over several days with RO water. So far, everyone is doing great, including the lone rassy. I'm not sure if the tap water had something in it that the rasboras were impacted by, that didn't impact the shrimp is surprising. But, so far all is well, even the algaes are looking like they're slowing growth quite a bit.

Here are some additional photos, with my crappy camera phone but they danios didn't seem to want to come out for my husband.





one of the bee shrimp on the new broadleaf pogostemon.



two danio males schooling with two of the females



Jeff, the lone rasbora has been adopted by the danios




a bit blurry, but a rare picture of all of the danios with jeff (the fifth danio is the dark shadow just under and to the back of the bee shrimp on the broadleaf stem plant.

[callisto9]

Thanks for the update! I love the pics. Those danios are so cute. Sorry to hear you lost some fish.

I want some kuhlis for my tank, but all I've seen are the boring black ones. I'm also worried about them on Eco Complete.

Looks great Sherry! Pics are super.