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HANdS 10G Molly Fry Containment Unit

5K views 33 replies 8 participants last post by  horsedude 
#1 · (Edited)
Pictures
Latest (24 Feb, 2013)


Specifications
10G Petsmart Special, De-Rimmed
Dimensions: ~ 20"x10"x11.5"
Substrate: Flourite Black Sand mixed with some CaribSea Super Naturals Tahitian Moon
Lighting: Finnex Fugeray 24"
CO2: None

Flora: Taxiphyllum Barbieri (Java Moss), Cryptocoryne Hudoroi, Limnophila Aromatica, Crinum Thainum, some sort of rotala stem, other stuff.
Fauna: 14x Dalmation Molly Fry, Snails

The "Set it up again" Story
The old scape was building up algae pretty good, so I finally gave in and tore it all down around Christmas. Then, my molly went and had a bunch more Fry (at least 14), so I de-rimmed it and then set it up again hastily (dragged a garbage-bag of old substrate from the side-yard and used that) and moved all the Fry into it.. "it's for the babies" worked well to convince my wife to let me set it up in the livingroom again. ;)

The Acquisition Story
I went to the Petsmart at McCarthy Ranch to avoid some really nasty traffic on the 237E/880NB interchange... complete impulse buy.

They had a really nice tank of plants, so I bought a bunch of them. Then, I shopped for some new fish for my 29G. Then, as I was sitting there, I thought it might be a good idea to get a 10G tank for quarantine/etc. Before I knew it, I had bought the tank, heater, internal filter, substrate, etc.

I decorated it with some leftover rocks and a little porcelain castle that my daughter likes to look at. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do with it. [STRIKE]Well, it turns out the plants I bought were housing some hitchhiker guppy fry[/STRIKE] Update: after they developed some color, it turns out they are Molly fry, probably birthed by my dalmation molly pair! I rescued 7 of them (a few more were munched down by my Gourami) and they're now helping the new tank cycle. So far they seem pretty happy in there.
 
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#2 ·
I found another guppy fry in the 29G today. That makes 8 total, plus I saw a few get devoured by my Gourami.

I'm starting to think that there's no way all of these fry were able to hitch-hike in on the plants I bought... so, off to read about sexing Guppies I go. Maybe I have a female in my school of 7?

I haven't started researching Ripariums yet, but I'm pretty sure that's what I want to do.
 
#3 ·
Male guppies are normally the brightly colored ones with long tails. Females generally have shorter tails and are typically a more bland grey color except for a small bit on the top fin and their tail. Males are normally colored all over. If you have a lone female amongst many males it may not end well for her as they can get aggressive but that may explain the fry that seemed to sneak their way in
 
#4 ·
female guppies lack a gonadopium
 
#5 ·
Thanks guys, so I'm pretty darn sure that all the guppies in that tank are male. These must have all been hitchhikers. One of my turquoise guppies has dark spots near the anal fin so I was suspect, but I'm pretty sure there's a gonopodium there... will post a picture in a little bit.
 
#13 ·
Haha, so I hear! I have yet to experience it first-hand though.

So far so good on these guys. I watched one trying to eat a little pellet food that got right in front of the filter intake. He was swimming hard, but was able to keep from being sucked up.

I added some Malaysian trumpet snails to all of my tanks yesterday. Hopefully they'll help with keeping some of the debris off the bottom :)
 
#15 ·
I moved the driftwood out of my fluval spec into this tank today. I also bought some slate tiling (5 pieces of 12"x12" tile for $4 at Lowes), and my daughter and I had a blast breaking it into pieces with hammers... (well, she had a plastic hammer, so it didn't really do much, but it was still fun!).

I should be getting some more plants in the next week or so to fill this tank out.



This anubias is soooo small. It's about the size of the tip of my thumb (the entire plant):

 
#16 ·
It wont be that small for long. My plant hit the moment where it would put out one new leaf a week. It grow so big that it started to grow out of the water.
 
#18 ·
I'm having high nitrite issues in this tank (_just_ got over this in my 29G tank). I used filter media from the 29G tank when setting this up, so now I'm thinking that there was a really large colony of Nitrosomonas in that tank with very little Nitrospira.

Doing 50% water changes daily until it settles in... lots of bucket-hauling, sigh.
 
#19 ·
Did a 90% water change today because my 5ml vial turned purple instantaneously when I added the Nitrite-check solution. I hadn't seen that yet, usually it takes a few minutes.

I also doubled the dose of Prime I normally use.

I took the opportunity to add this huge Anubias I picked up from Petsmart and my Java Moss which was sitting in the abandoned Fluval Spec.

Behold, the Anubias Tree:
 
#20 ·
I rescaped a bit today, moved some Egeria Densa from the 29G tank into this one as well as the little foreground plant, which I'm not sure what it is yet. I also tied my java moss down to the driftwood and arranged it a little bit differently. Overall, I think the tank looks much nicer now =)

Also, after scaping, I saw my anubias pearling! Really tiny bubbles coming off it, but consistent and regular for about 20 minutes straight :)

I have a 6500K13w CFL and a 5000K in the hood. I'm going to try and pick up another 6500K bulb to replace the 5000K sometime soon. It has to be micro/mini CFL, regular CFL bulbs just don't fit nicely.



What is this?


Here it is with the rest of my desk now:
 
#23 · (Edited)
I received some really nice Hemianthus Callitrichoides and Hygrophila Corymbosa "Kompakt" from a RAOK today, and I wasn't sure I wanted them in my 29G, so they went into the 10G.



My MTS seem to have started reproducing too:



This one was so excited about it, he started doing pull-ups on the filter bottom:


The fry are pretty satisfied with the new plants:



My technique for planting the HC pretty much amounted to "see what sticks when I push on it"... it's not pretty or organized, but I think it looks cool still :)
 
#24 ·
Turns out those fry are dalmation Mollys, not guppies! They're starting to develop their "spots".

So, instead of all of these fry hiding out in plants I bought from petsmart, the more likely story is that I just was so inexperienced I didn't notice that my female Molly was pregnant when I bought her, and she birthed the fry at the same time as I was planting...

In any case, they're doing pretty well. Here's a picture of one starting to show his spots:


In other news - I ripped out all the Egeria Densa that was in this tank - I just can't keep that stuff alive. A number of the stems were disintegrating and it took a LOT of time to clean up the mess, so I just removed the rest of it.

Some of the healthier-looking ones are floating in my 29G for now, but I don't know if I'm going to keep any of it at this point.
 
#26 ·
Moved 9 more week-old Molly fry from the 29G tank into this tank, for a total of 17 fish in there right now, haha. Thankfully, someone is taking the original 8 off my hands next weekend :)

There's a massive amount of hair algae taking over my Java moss in there, but I haven't had time to deal with it. It'll probably have to stay until after the holidays.
 
#27 ·
Oh yea, I also found A SHRIMP in this tank. Strange, because I have never intentionally introduced any shrimp to the tank. My only guess is that one of the shrimp (which I thought passed away) was actually stowed away in the Java Moss that I transferred from my Betta tank like 6 weeks ago... it's pretty impressive if that's the case, because I had that moss out of the tank, rinsed it and removed some clado by hand, then spent time tying the moss to driftwood outside of the tank too.
 
#29 ·
So, I broke this tank down and put it away in the garage for a few weeks. Then, my molly had 11 more fry, so I set it back up again ;)

I de-rimmed it so it looks a little nicer, and I'm going to build a stand for it to go in my livingroom. I'll update with pictures next weekend.
 
#30 · (Edited)
Make that 14 more fry...

I ended up getting an OK-ish stand (it looks nice, but it's almost worse than Ikea-quality) on clearance from Petsmart for $40:



Took these photos quickly with my iPhone since it is late at night. At the moment I haven't scaped it or really done anything except toss some extra plants I had in there. I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do with this tank yet...

I don't plan on keeping the molly fry, so maybe I'll find an interesting fish or two...

It'll definitely be low-tech. I have a Finnex Fugeray light on it at the moment, giving me 25-45 PAR throughout the tank.


 
#31 ·
Quick update

I put a Marineland S10 HOB "slim" filter on this instead of the internal filter. Frees up a little room in the corner of the tank, plus I feel like it is providing better water circulation.

I stuck a bunch of plants that had been floating for days into the soil in random places... still not entirely sure what I want to do with this tank... hoping that the sfbaaps meetup this weekend gives me some inspiration (we're going to look at some rock quarries)

I tied a bunch of Java moss around the big wooden "arch".
 
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