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I am in Portland as well now.

 

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This is Blue Phoenix, he WAS my office Betta. I got permission to run a small tank in the office, anything under 10 gallons. So I setup an Evolve 4.

Long story short I had it for a year, had to go on a business trip for 2 weeks, had someone watching it but on the first weekend I was gone something went wrong and the tank was a total loss.

I have re-set it up at home. It now houses another betta who looks a lot like him. The plants were a total loss though which sucks because they were unique to that tank.

I currently have:

30gal -
Plants: Argentine Swords (I didn't think there was a difference but maybe there is to Amazon?), Bacopa Caroliniana, Bacopa Monnieri, Creeping/Golden Jenny (although not confirmed). Another plant I have not ID'ed.

Fish: 9 Scissortail Rasboras, 6 Guppies, 5 Cardnial Tetras, 2 Flying Fox, 1 False Julli Cory

Evolve 4
Plants: Water Wisteria (which I plan to move to the 30 gal and replace with something else) and another plant I have not ID'ed. I used to have the nams, I got them from a seller on here but I lost the names.

Fish: Male Double Tail Betta

Marineland 3gal:
Plants: Again, another plant I lost the ID for LOL

Fish: Male Marble Betta

10 Gallon:
I just started this one. I am slowly putting together a journal for it. I hope to have a journal for all my tanks soon.

 

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Well, I think he is technically a double tail as well, but I refer to him as a marble because that is the nickname types like this get due to the fact that he changes color LOL. Not like a chameleon but he used to be almost all white and now he is mostly a dark blue almost black.

What kind of 8 gallon?

When I started, I was warned about the addiction. I knew when I got my first Evolve 4 that I was prob going to bring my parents 30 gallon out of retirement.

Now here I am with 4 tanks LOL. And i might even start a 5th but IDK. we will see.

 

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I won't lie, I have been interested in keeping shrimp. I am just not sure I have the skills at this point.

And you are right, tanks under 20 gallons are tough in that matter. One little thing goes out of whack and it spreads destruction quickly. I lost my office tank that way. Everything was fine on a Friday, Betta even made a bubble nest. The following Monday he was belly up, and the tank fell apart quick. Never figured out what went wrong cause I never got a chance to test the water (long story).

But now the tank is at home. I find it difficult to scape anything under 5 gallons. I have pics/journals of all my tanks, but I need to get new pictures.

But yeah, I would be interested in keeping shrimp someday.

 

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You trying to grow some moss in there? I had some nice peacock moss but it all went to heck. What plants are in there?

I also had this mystery plant I could never identify that I used like moss. It came in a plant package I got but I dont think it was supposed to be there. It took over my entire tank and I had to get rid of it.

I have some wisteria I have in my Evolve 4 that was grown immersed and is making the transition to submersed. But I know it will get too big so I am going to transfer it to my 30 gallon. I just do not know where exactly yet. I have an idea but it is getting way packed in there.

I had some wisteria before, and it was great, grew like a weed. But then it all started to melt and I never really figured out why.

 

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i wrote a list of my plants further up in this thread .
if you ever want any wisteria i'll be happy to give you some. im always throwing an abundance of it away. its such a beautiful plant but i wish it would grow a littleee slower.

i have willow moss, its doing ok. the shrimp love it at least. it still hasn't grown into the wood but my anubias has started to. do you have any anubias?

Ah, you did indeed, I remember being impressed with so much packed into a nano.

And thanks for the offer but I think I am going to have too much on nh hands soon LOL. When I had wisteria before I was having to trim it back once or twice a week. It was the weirdest thing when it melted. No idea why. I thought maybeit can only be trimmed so much or something. Or maybe there was a trick to it I didn't pay attention to (not all plants can just be trimmed).

I do not have anubias, buti am also not a huge fan of it. I do like it just wouldn't really fit with any of my current setups although I have been thinking of using it or some java fern.

I am kind of a self loathing artist type when it comes to my tanks. I see what others get going out there an think mine are junk. But I am slowly getting there.

I find as soon as I get one going and in a direction I like, I am ready to start another LoL. How about you? Got the multi tank syndrome yet?

 

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I have the multi-tank syndrome. but i also suffer from low-money syndrome. haha
i'm not sure yet but i think i'm going to try a 5 or 6 gallon next
which I'm also going to jam-pack full of plants

When people come over and see my tank they don't think anything is in it because it's so densely planted. I love it!

Nothing wrong with that.I like a good jungle. There are bad jungles too but I like a good one. I think I am slowly getting to that point in my 30 gallon.

And yeah aquarium keeping, at least when doing it right, is not cheap. The great thing is though you don't have to spend top $$$ on everything to get top results.

I only wish there was more interest in the hobby around Maine and more LFS. It seems all the decent LFS here are a majority salt water. Heck, there is even a place in Auburn that is half a convenience store and half a reef shop LOL.

Easy Aquariums has potential though, depending on how much they expand their freshwater. But it seems like the money is in the salt water. Need some shops around here to show what can be done in fresh water with plants.

 

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Hopefully mine falls under the good jungle category ...
it really sucks no one really is into fw tanks here. i mean we're the only ones actively posting on this thread
where are the other maine people?

I think there are plenty others, otherwise the stores would be out of business. I just think most of them do not go to forums or maybe just are not interested in plants.

 

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Just saw this. I lived in Maine for 20 years and am planning on moving back soon. Any new fish stores over there?

Hi and welcome, where you moving back to and from?

I would imagine all would be new to you LOL. Besides the chains stores (PetLife, Pet Quarters, Petco, and PetSmart) there are a few local shops here and there.

I have a list of them in this section.

 

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I would just guess that most of them just aren't obsessed with the hobby
but i think it's a healthy obsession.

hi joanstone!

Agreed!

And yes I would says yours is looking like a good jungle

A lot of Maine hobbies suffer compared to other places. There is only one real massive Hobby Shop left (Internet has killed off most shops) Most paintball places are hours in between.

Southern Maine isn't so bad because you got larger cities closer together and NH and MA not far away.

I couldn't imagine trying to run an aquarium store in Maine. Prob why most deal with a majority of their store being marine.

At least 99% of the Walmarts here dont deal with live fish anymore. I am not one of those people who wont shop at chain stores by no means LOL. But I do try to spread out my money.

 

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I lived in Topsham for 20 years, but have lived in Vermont for the last 5 years. I spend a good part of the summer in Jefferson and will eventually be moving back there. When I left Maine, I was doing saltwater. I've been back to freshwater exclusively for a couple of years now. There are a couple of good shops 1 to 2 hours from me over here, so I've gotten used to having stuff available. Does anyone know about a new shop in Westbrook?

Shoot the selection in VT must be even less LOL. I used to go to Vermont a lot, to visit... You couldn't pay me enough to live there.

And Jefferson is really nice. I used to go there once a year or more. Moody's Diner or something like that is right near there right?

 

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I have family that lives south of Burlington. I spent a summer landscaping there 7 or 8 years ago. All anyone did after work was drink, drugs, and fish/hunt. I was like "yeah there has to be more to life than this" LOL.

Beautiful area though. Last time I went for a visit I drove my motorcycle. It was hard on my ass but the ride was beautiful.

 

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That sucks about the Guppies LOL. I have some in my 30 gal that will be moving to my 10 gal once it is done cycling. But I hear they are easy to breed, so I guess that would make them ideal as a feeder fish LOL.

It has been my experience that just like fish, there are certain size tank restrictions for plants. I have had huge success growing my Argentine Swords in my 30 gallon, but in my nano tanks they did not work.

If you look in my tank journal for my 30 gallon, the swords on the right were only three inches total when I started them. Then they exploded. They will grow as large as they are able to. And they love root tabs, which I actually need to start doing again.