Showing posts with label Quarantine Tank. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quarantine Tank. Show all posts

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Something about Platys...

Something a lot of people don't realize about platys, livebearers in general, is that they will eat their own babies, and the tankmates will often eat the fry.  So what is thought to have happened to Kathrine's babies is that she gave birth at her old home, and they ate most of the babies.  All but one as far as I know.  So now I have to wait for Tara, and Lexi to give birth, I'm really excited about having baby fish, even though I won't be able to keep them.

Tank update:
Getting the 55 Gallon tank tonight, and setting it up tomorrow! Tomorrow I will be picking up Java fern, and temporarily putting it all in the big tank until all of my fish are out of the Quarantine tank, and Betta tank, then I'm going to upgrade both to sand, and live plants.  Aquascaping the big tank should be interesting! I've found five pictures of aquascapes on Google that I really like, so I'm going to try and put them all together into one really awesome aquascape! I'm going for a moderately planted, with wood, and rocks look.  After this post I have to find some rocks :)

Fish update:
I will have had my new fish for a week tomorrow! :) I cleaned out from under Muddy's rock this morning, and had to kick him out.  He was spazzing everywhere until I finished and put his cave back together! My platys don't enjoy water changes either.  Lexi has some kind of fungus, or Ich! I'm not completely sure, but it should be easy enough to get rid of.  Elijah still won't eat! He'll be back with his girls on the 15th, at latest.  I'll probably put him back with the girls after moving Kathrine, and Tara out.  So the 12th.  The guppies are the most playful fish I've ever had! I love them, a lot ;p I'm going to pay for 5-6 female guppies tonight, then pick them up in a week or so.  I'm really excited about all of this!

Monday, July 2, 2012

Future 55 Gallon tank

The only reason I got my 12 new fish is because pretty soon I'm getting a 55 Gallon tank, and I'm putting them all into the big tank! This is my plan for it.  I'm hoping to get it this week.

Substrate: Play Sand

Plants: Java Fern, Amazon Swords, Green Cabomba, Wendtii Red/Brown, Sunset Hygrophila, and Anubias petite nana.


Fish: 1 Golden Gourami, 8 Platys (7:1 female:male ratio is what I have!), 9 Guppies (2:1 female:male ratio), 2 Striped Rubbernose Plecos (have 1 already, and I think I'd like another), and 6-8 Kuhli Loaches.


First, I'm going to add the sand, decorations, and plants.  It depends on how the plants need to be planted.  Ones that need to go in the sand are planted before decorations go in.  Others go in after.  After I add sand I add some water, before anything else.  Then I fill it with water, and add the first fish.

I plan to add in the fish a few at a time so the filter can handle the waste load.  The order:
1. Gourami will go in as soon as I get the tank set up, he comes with the tank.
2. A week later I'll put the two biggest platys in, the next day I'll put the next two, the next day the same, then the smallest, and the male the next day!
3. A week after the first platys go in the male guppies go in, then a few days later the females.
4. The Kuhli Loaches are next, I'll probably add them in all at once.
5. The Plecos are last! I might end up getting some snails too, but I don't know yet, I'll decide that later.

For the 6.6 Gallon tank I'm going to get sand, and live plants, but leave it empty as a quarantine tank.

The 3.5 Gallon is going to be a lot of fun.  It's going to be a Halloween themed Betta tank! I'm going to get black, and orange gravel (I'm going to put it over a layer of sand to put plants in), live plants (only colored plants that match the gravel!), and Halloween themed decorations.  I have plastic pumpkins that I'm going to cut up so my future Betta can swim through it, maybe I'll get a Skull decoration, and a shark.  I'm not sure of the specific decor yet, but by Christmas I'll have a Halloween themed Betta tank I hope :)  Then I'm going to see if I can find either I black and orange, black and red, red, black (maybe with dark blue), or purple Betta to go in it!  If I can find a full Halfmoon in one of the colors I just listed it would be even better.

That's my tank plan!

Fish update:
Muddy the Pleco has been holding onto the bottom of the rock in the cave I gave him, and then falling off, freaking me out, and moving just as I start to really panic.  I believe that Muddy is in fact a he.  Kathrine still has not given birth.  Tara is getting close to giving birth too! Lexi is still pretty far behind.  Elijah continues his sulking, and refuses to eat.  Stefan, and Damon are still friends and got really excited when I turned the filter on this morning.  I fed Emmett a pea, so if he did have a swim bladder problem hopefully I managed to clear it up.  If not, well, he ate something for the first time I saw.  Toph is still tiny, and loves swimming up, and down next to the wall of the tank.  It's a little weird... Elena, Rosalie, and Scarlet play together, I'd never seen fish play until I got guppies, and platys, my female Bettas used to play in the filter bubbles for two seconds until they saw the other females, then went into attack mode.  When Zoey was the only Betta in the tank she hated the filter.

Well, that's enough for now.