Guppy trouble...

Hola, been a little while.

So current events in my tanks.
My platys, pleco, and gourami are crazy tough, and are currently living through my guppy issues.  The issues with my guppies are that they keep dying.  First Amberlyn died the day after I got her, she was going to give birth within a week I thought.  Then Damon disappeared, and I later find him in the filter intake (with an eyeball hanging out *gags*).  Then today Velvet, and Finn both disappeared! Guess where I found them... Finn was inside the intake, while Velvet was attached to the side.  After a water test I found really high nitrates, which I'll be bringing down with a big water change on Sunday.  That's probably why the males died, though the fact that they both ended up in the filter intake in the same place is weird.  The females may have died for the same reason, but with Velvet something else may have also happened.  Two weeks ago I thought she'd be giving birth any day (I've been right with all the others!) but she just kept getting bigger.  Today her stomach was literally starting to burst open, as if she held the fry too long, and they got too big.  So I''m not sure what's going on with my guppies! I hope the two today were the last two for a while...

Damien is doing very well in his new tank.  He has a few missing scales since I moved him, but on Sunday I'll do water changes in both tanks, hopefully fresh water will help him heal up faster.  He's also got algae on his beautiful sand... I'm thinking about some shrimp friends?

Other than that nothing going on in my tanks.  I did get two mice a little over a month ago, and one of the killed the other late last Tuesday night.  :( R.I.P. Ren...

Damien's upgrade! (LOTS OF PICTURES)

Hi there! 

Today I took a trip to the pet store to buy sand, and plants for Damien Shadowe's tank upgrade to the 6.6 gallon.  All the pictures have tons of bubbles because I took them right after I finished filling it up, and adding Damien!

I got a beautiful sand color.  It's more white than it looks in this picture.  Because of the pale color it goes really nicely with all the blue decorations! Like this archway.  The lighting also helps with that.

I've seen this statue a few times, and I've wanted to get it for a while.  It says "No Fishing", my favorite animals are sharks, and my favorite aquarium fish are Bettas (which is the reason behind my fish forums username Betta_Shark5678) so why not have them both in one tank?  Sort of anyway.  Also blue, I didn't notice the blue thing until I finished setting up the tank.  Damien is black, and blue though, so it's perfect!

These are my Cryptocornye Wendtii green plants, and a pile of polished blue stones.  Another thing in my blue theme.  I wanted red Wendtii, but the pet store only sells green.  It goes better anyways.

This is the other side of the tank.  Java fern is on the rock in the left corner, and the plants in the middle of the picture are Water Wisteria.

This is a piece of wood I originally was going to put in my big tank.  I have three pieces I'm going to put in a little tipi over the amazon swords, then one longer piece in the sand on one side, and on the rocks on the other.  This was an extra piece, and I didn't know what to do with it, so I decided to use it in Damien's tank.

Here's Damien when he first got in his tank.  He's swimming away from the picture... You can't see them, but there are rips in his fins, and under the (annoying) lighting in his old tank I couldn't see the rips until a few days ago! Luckily I got a gift card for a pet store for Christmas that I hadn't spent yet.







Anyways, maybe I'll enter the fish forum's Tank of the Month contest with this tank when the plants grow a little! :)

My new Gupplings

Hello there!

I haven't updated in a few months, but I'm very excited to say that my 55 Gallon tank is up and running, and now has fish in it!

My fishless cycle took about a month and a half, but I wasn't able to add fish until three weeks later.  One morning Rosalie started looking really sick, just all of a sudden, and Elena's stomach had become a weird shape.  I knew I had to get them into a bigger tank soon, but I hadn't done the big water change to get rid of extra Nitrates in the tank yet! That day I changed 75% or more of the water in my 55 Gallon tank, and it took a very long time.  This is the tank before I finished changing the water, and adding fish.  (I also added some rocks and a Java Fern that day.)

And here's the tank today a week and two days after adding fish, rocks, and Java fern.  You can sort of see some of my Guppies, and Zip on the mostly empty side of the tank.  Speaking of Guppies.

Today a friend of mine who is overrun with Guppies brought me six females, and two males! The females (Name - tail color - body color)

Velvet - Black - Half black

Yuki - Black - Half black

Amberlyn - Yellow with black spots - Tanish

Ruka - Gold - Gold

Alice - Yellow - Yellow/Transparent

Pearl - Black spots - Currently grey/Transparent, but she's a baby still! She's small enough that Zip could eat her if he wanted to.

The males

(Same as females)

Finn - Black and orange (double tail) - Half black

Niklaus (Klaus for short) - Red/Orange and black - Half red/orange.

Then there are Stefan, and Damon, which are both red.

So those are my new Gupplings :)

Fishless Cycle Day 3!

This is my third day of Fishless cycling my 55 Gallon tank! Today's stats so far are:
Ammonia - 4-8 ppm
NitrItes - 0 ppm
NitrAtes - 5-10 ppm (It's going up but there are no NitrItes?!)
pH - 7.4-7.6
I'll test again later and post those results too.

Off topic, for Halloween doing anything special?  Something to do with fish that is.  My special fish thing for Halloween was getting Damien! :)

My First Fishless Cycle

Last night I added 5 ppm of Ammonia into the 55 Gallon tank to start the cycle.  I added two small sponges, one from each of my other tanks.  This morning I tested the water and the stats were:
Ammonia - 1 ppm
NitrItes - 0 ppm
NitrAtes - more then 0 ppm, less than 5
pH - 6.6-7.0
These are really good stats for 13 hours after adding ammonia! I just added more Ammonia, and I'm testing the water again.  Right now the stats are:
Ammonia - Close to 8 ppm
NitrItes - 0 ppm
NitrAtes - same as before
pH - off the chart on both tests! (above 8!)

So that's how my first fishless cycle is going now! I'll post more tomorrow.

55 Filled!

  The 55 Gallon is officially full! Tonight I'm going to get ammonia and start the cycle.  This should be interesting.  I went to get some more plants today, I got El Nino fern, but apparently it's like Java fern and needs to be planted on a decoration, which I didn't want, so I gave it to my sister for a tank she's been wanting more plants for.  Hopefully the sand will settle soon, then I'll really be able to see how it looks! I keep imagining a big snakehead swimming by the front of the tank, through the murky water, and it would look amazing.  Someday...  Anyways, I completely forgot about my wood today, but I'll probably get it tomorrow.

  This morning I was in a panic because Zip was darting around the little tank, and swimming in tight little circles, then he stopped suddenly, and bubbles came out of his gills and mouth.  He's fine now, except the Platys keep nibbling on his top fin! I think they're starting to feel cramped, adding the Guppies last night did not help with that.  Soon they'll be in the tank though, I'm adding sponges from the 6.6 to the new filter, which will help the cycle.

  I'm thinking about trying "Quickstart" by Api, theoretically it won't hurt, and if it helps that would be good, but I'll skip that.  As soon as it's finished all of my little fishies (except Damien) will be going in the big tank, and I'll be getting my Female Guppies soon after that.  That's later though, I'm going to concentrate on the cycle, and my current fish first.

  Damien is doing well soon, he actually ate a little bit this morning when I fed him! Apparently it's rare for Bettas to eat the day after installed in the tank, but none of mine were like that.  He's such a gorgeous Betta fish, I'm still drooling over how beautiful he is.  I fell in love with him as soon as I saw him in the pet store, and I still feel like it's the first time I saw him every time I look at him! (<--- Sounds like a love song)

  More tomorrow :)

Damien Shadowe

Hello!

Today I got a new Betta! Damien Shadowe is a black, white, and blue "super-delta".  When I saw him at the pet store I picked him up, and I couldn't force myself to put him back.  I've been looking for a black Betta for over a year now! I've wanted to move my Guppies out of the Betta tank so they can get used to living with Zip, so this was perfect.  The fish in the 6.6 Gallon will only be in there for another few weeks anyways.  He seems a little thin, like he was underfed, but not like Jack was the day he died, which is good.

Started filling up my 55 Gallon today.  I added all the sand, some of the rocks, and my Amazon Swords, and one Anubias plant.  Soon the clouding from the sand should go down, probably just in time for me to start filling it up again tomorrow...  I'm going to get my branches started getting ready tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to get the Ammonia to start my cycle.  Tomorrow maybe I'll start a page "journal" about my 55 Gallon.  I'll post pictures for sure, though it doesn't look very nice yet.

More tomorrow!

55 Gallon

Yesterday I got my 55 Gallon tank! Today I will be cleaning the tank, and all it's supplies.  Tomorrow I'll fill it up and start the cycle!  My sand is almost ready, and my rocks need a bit more rinsing, but after that I'll add those things.  Hopefully I'll be able to add those today, but if not tomorrow before I fill up the tank I'll start my aquascape! Tomorrow afternoon I'll be running to get plants, and ammonia for the cycle.  My  wood isn't ready yet, so I'll add that in after the cycle is finished, right before the fish!

My fish are all well, Elijah is normal sized again.  I'm going to be getting 6 female guppies as soon as my other fish go in the big tank, the female guppies will be in quarantine for a few days then I will add them to the big tank.  Then I'll get the platys, and the other Pleco, and after they're quarantine period is over my tank will be finished! :)

Elijah what's going on?!

My male Platy Elijah seems to be pregnant.  Yes, my male Platy looks pregnant! His belly is squaring off, just like a female before she gives birth.  The black line is where his belly normally is, and the green one is where it is now (His fins looked like part of his belly in this picture).  This wasn't the best picture I've taken of him, but I took the picture before I fed them, so they were going crazy.

Weird, huh?  That's what I thought! I've heard of females "turning into" males (being "late-bloomers" so it was hard to tell whether it was male or female), but never a male turning into a female! Well, I'm going to fast them tomorrow, since I somehow forgot today, and maybe that'll help.  I already fed them peas in case it was SBD.  

I should be getting more baby Platys soon! Java is gone again, but I'm going to try to find him again, we'll see how that goes.  Other than that all is well with my fish!

My plans are almost complete.

My 55 Gallon is coming soon! And my plans for it are pretty much done.

Cycling:

I'm going to do a Fishless cycle, adding filter media from my current filter to help get it started.  It'll be good experience for me!

Substrate, rocks, and wood:

I'm using play sand as a substrate, $5 per 50lbs! I have to rinse all 100lbs of sand I have so it doesn't cloud the water, it will when I first add it, but it will settle in a few hours, to a day.  

I'm using rocks I found outside around my house, and making them safe for my aquarium one at a time by pouring boiling water over them, testing the water for a few days and watching for major pH changes, then pouring a little bit of vinegar on each rock, if there are bubbles then there is chalk in the rocks, so they can't be used as they'll change the pH drastically, then after the "vinegar trick" I put them back in hot water to clean them. 

For wood I'm going to find some Oak branches.  To make them safe for my fish I'm going to debark them, let them dry, then pour boiling water over them, and leave them for a few days to leech the tannins out.

Plants:

I've decided to grow live plants in my new tank, I've never done this before, but buying enough fake plants for it sounds even worse than growing my own! I'm going to have green or purple Cabomba, Java Fern, Christmas Moss, some Anubius, and an Amazon Sword plant.  It'll look awesome if it's anything like what I'm picturing in my head! 

Fish:

My stocking list isn't very different, but I've lost three Platys, and I've change the other bottom dwelling fish I want.  

1 Golden Gourami.

8 Platys (I'm going to bring the number back up to 8 with 3 blue ones!)

6+ Guppies (I'm going to add 4-6 females for a male:female ratio of either 1:2, or 1:3, 1:3 is better, so I'll probably go with that.)

2 L444 Plecos (I already have one, but I'd like to get a female also, maybe I'll get lucky and get some eggs!)

I'm aquascaping the tank, and I want the design to be a surprise, so no more details! Well, that's it for now, my tanks are all running well, and my fish are all healthy!