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I redid the angel tank, the 37-gallon, and removed all remnants of how it was when goldfish were in residence. That means no more bubble wand (!!), no more plastic plants, no more solid glass chunks, etc. I harvested some willow and oak branches and created an environment that seems to have made the fish more comfortable. This is more like the area where they came from in the Rio Negro, with floating plants, tall weeds and branches. It has certainly encouraged them to come out more and they appear more relaxed, less spooked and likely to hide. The pic is from my phone, so my apologies for the quality of the shot, but you get the idea.
The hornwort is melting since I reduced the lighting, so that will soon be gone, but the anacharis seems okay. I might get some more Anubias sp. to put in there as well, since I'm not exactly sticking to the biotope here, though I am making an effort.
Back again, and the Altolamps have established residence. It will be another month or so before I will have any frontosa, so last month I decided to take advantage of some very good prices at the LFS on some A. compressiceps and a trio of what are alleged to be A. calvus "inkfin." I am not sure about the compressiceps, though they ought to be gold heads, but at the small size it is very difficult to tell what you have when it comes to comps. I got three that I thought were small at 2", but then I got another pair of comps that are much smaller, and wonder if it was such a good idea. The three larger ones are out in the open, waiting for food, but the smaller ones hide and are chased into rock piles. I have one very nice calvus that stays out with the comps, so it would appear that I have 3 2" comps and one 1" calvus, though there are two more calvus in the rocks and two more comps in the rocks as well.
I simply adore these fish. They have to be, without question, my favorite genus of aquarium fish. I used to be partial to calvus, but the comps have their place in my heart as well. There is something bulldog-ish and pugnacious about their jaw and head shape that I think is great, and I could watch them endlessly.
My rationale was that if I had to wait so many months for the frontosa, which are almost guaranteed to be about 1.5-2" in size themselves when I get them, then that would give me time to grow out some Altolamps if I found some at a good price, which I did. Finding 3"+ adults is harder, and the price is high for them, typically, due to what has been a lot of food and care put into getting them to that size. I probably don't need to point out that this genus is veeeerrrry slow growing. Very. Startlingly. A fish a year old looks like fry of other types of fish. Therefore, I risk losing these fish if the frontosa grow up quickly and decide to make lunch out of the altolamps. I hope the rockwork I have in place is adequate.
Now, if you notice from prior posts, I have not mentioned the goldfish. I had three rather sizable fantail fellows, great chaps, full of energy and good humor, quite attractive, in fact, and three of the same sort but smaller versions. I had to remove the three larger ones, because they seemed quite interested in the comps and calvus, and I was worried they'd try to eat them. The goofy goldfish do not take the cues of these pint-sized cichlids (okay, fingernail sized....) and I felt they were being stressed. Plus, goldfish have completely wrong energy for this tank, but I kept them in place to feed bacteria until I got my fronts. I sold them back to the store, reluctantly, because I found them so attractive, but had nowhere for them to go. :(
Now I have the three small goldfish still in residence, but they do not belong there, sadly. I don't know if they are contributing the wrong thing to the tank, with their filthy goldfish-ness. I don't wish to detract from their appeal, because they are very nice specimens and have beautiful finnage and lively behavior, but they JUST DON'T GO with Altolamprologus. I am sure I'd be hauled away in chains if any cichlid snob happened by the house - you just don't do this kind of thing! However, for the time being I'm keeping them together, as incongruous as it appears. I don't think these three goldies provide the same bioload as 10 1-2" frontosa fry, but it sure helps.
I have tried to get some pictures of the new additions, but they dart into the rocks when I bring out the camera. I need to get them used to it. Another issue is that the tank is very dim, by design. Well, it is not so dim as to not be viewable, but it is dim for taking pictures. The ideal frontosa tank, to me, is dimmer than your average aquarium. What I will need to do is mount some sort of lamp inside on the glass divider to put extra light when I want to take photos. This will spook the fish, though....
As for lighting, there have been changes, and I've got mixed feelings. I had amazingly simple puck lighting in the hood, which consisted of a round "puck" comprised of 50-60 LED bulbs, connected with a detachable 12" cord, which was in turn connected to another puck, etc. I had about 6 of them dotted around the inside of the hood. They provided almost a spot-lit effect, pretty dim, but nifty looking. You could unscrew and remove any individual puck without putting out the rest of the string.
Well, it was designed for under-cabinet use in the kitchen, and I suppose the humidity of an aquarium hood was too much. One by one each puck started going out. There was no scorched cord, no short that I could see, nothing visibly amiss, but obviously this was not going to work. I decided to rethink the prospect. I once again went online and began shopping for LED fixtures meant for the aquarium. Sticker shock! Really? Must I pay such prices for a light fixture? I suppose at some point they will become more popular and the price will go down, but honestly, I can't justify it. I'd sooner take one of my old fluoro fixtures and stick it up there.
Fortunately, or not, the Christmas Season is upon us, being a couple of days past Halloween at the time I was looking into things. The other fortunate thing, or not, is that LED Christmas lights are wildly popular now, and you are almost criminal for buying the regular old-fashioned kind these days. LED = Green, and, like Kermit says, it is not easy being green. Expensive, really. However, a string or two of LED lights, simple round balls, was not too much for me compared to the cost of a full LED aquarium fixture. For stringing around my tree and possibly (or not) throwing out with the tree, it is highway robbery. I digress.....
I spotted, at a very reasonable price, a ROPE LIGHT that had white LED bulbs inside. I have a rope light already, purchased several years ago with the intent of lively holiday decoration, but never used it. I plugged it in and it looks downright yellow for the aquarium application. The box of Christmas lights, all kinds of them, specify whether they are "warm white" or "bright white," so I chose bright, and installed the rope inside my hood. It came with the clips that hold the rope, so I had everything I needed. The light is perfect, though a bit on the dim side. How about two? Okay, better, but still...... I wound up with one of those net lights that you plop upon your unsuspecting azalea or boxwood, making your neighbors think (lol) that you individually strung your bushes with lights. I stapled one of those (LED, bright white) up inside the hood, and now we are, as they say, cooking with gas.
These lights, rope and net, all promise indoor as well as outdoor applications, meaning they ought to be able to handle some humidity, nay, pounds of snow and subsequent melt, or rainstorms, so they ought to work inside my hood, right? Let's hope. I am certain that they will last a few months, at least until the Christmas aisles are all vanished from the stores and the rain boots and fertilizer is on sale at Target, and then they'll give out. We shall see. I am determined not to pay several hundred dollars for an LED fixture for this aquarium, however.
Who isn't, right? Well, the tank is completely 100% ready to be stocked with frontosa, and it has been for a couple of weeks now. One day all parameters just magically slid right into place, and we are set. The pH is perfect (8.1) and I've got a hint of nitrate and zero ammonia and nitrite. Hardness is up there where I want it, and I am very pleased with the buffering properties of aragonite sand, and whatever calciferous rocks I have in there (not many - going for visual appeal and most calciferous rocks are too coarse and/or geometric for my taste).
I have now solved the problem of my background, and it worked out quite well in the end. One thing keeping me from taking the plunge (other than having enough money gathered together) and getting my Africans is that every time I walked by the tank I was bothered by the reflection of white sand on the back glass. You will recall that I simply had the plastic paper type of black background, taped to the back outside of the tank.
I kept kicking myself for not handling the background problem when the tank was empty, which is the rational and sensible time to do it. The idea of making a custom 3D background, all the rage on the aquarium forums, just gave me a headache to think about, and besides that I would always know it was not really rock, but faux rock. That, over time, would begin to bother me for sure.
I had the idea I was going to get sheets of Plexiglas and smear silicone on them, and then sprinkle black sand onto the silicone, and create a matte background that way. This could simply be cured and slipped into the tank as-is, without draining the tank and starting things all over.
I went to the hardware store and was alarmed at the cost of the Plexiglas. I saw next to the Plexiglas was some plastic board, which is hollow and made of styrene, I think. Very light and can be cut to fit with a hobby knife. I was pondering the idea of this material and its safety in an aquarium when the concept of slate crept back into my mind. I had been to the landscape supply yard several times this summer and did not find any flat rock that was thin enough (I thought) for this application. After debating about my silicone and sand concept for a while I abandoned this and decided to head back over there and go ahead and get some slate - I knew I could get pieces 24" x 12", and that meant I needed 4 pieces, leaving room for the outflow box (this hides my intakes) and giving me a couple of extra inches that was not critical. I could place them along the back of the tank without having to drain the tank and starting over. They could be propped along the back and give a sheer solid wall effect that would not be completely natural looking, since the slate pieces are rectangles and very obviously cut by hand, but I thought they would blend in and be unobtrusive. They would be made of actual rock, and I preferred this.
I went to the landscape supply and picked out 4 slabs, and brought them home. They were very cheap. I scrubbed and rinsed, scrubbed and rinsed for a while and then happily began to install them.
Whoops! I know my tank is 24" tall and because of the large canopy I did not have to worry about the slate sticking up out of the water just a bit, right? Wrong! I forgot about the thick glass center brace that covers about the middle third of the tank. This means the slate was too tall, except on each far side. Ugh. You can't imagine my frustration. I just wanted a simple fix and plopping these straight pieces in side by side was going to be perfect. Now what? I hauled them out and decided I'd use a small hand held sledge type hammer (no shortage of hammers around here, of all shapes and sizes) and chip off the tops of these pieces. I thought about using a saw with a diamond blade, but that would be a delay, and I am not having delays once I get something started!
Also, I thought a jagged edge on the top would be a nice effect if it would be visible. I started by placing one of the slabs (1" thick) on the bottom step of the porch and stood on it, then leaned over and began to strike the top edge with my hammer. Nothing. Harder and harder I struck, getting out not a small amount of frustration on this stone. Nothing. The pieces were too thick. I tried to find the heavy chisel (it is actually a splitting maul but has worked well for me on stone in the past) and called my husband in desperation in case he knew where it was. To his credit, he did not even ask me why I wanted it! He could hear the stress in my voice and decided to leave the subject be for the time being. He gave me some clues and I hunted it down. This produced no results, either.
Well, the last strike of my hammer did not chip off anything from the to
p, but the entire slab broke in half on the diagonal! This was not a good thing. I needed 4 pieces, and now I was down to 2. I can't stack a triangular piece with the large side on top to match up with the opposite piece, if you see what I mean, so I was quite bummed.
Well, previously I had attempted to split blue stone slabs with a chisel, and though it worked to some extent, the pieces never split perfectly in half due to the fissures and other defects in the stone, and I gave up on that type of stone. I decided I'd give this a try on the slate. Well, let me tell you, slate splits beautifully! I had a 24" x 12" x 1" slab and next thing you know I had TWO 24" x 12" x 0.5" slabs! It is a lot of fun if you are into that type of thing. I don't know why, but it is very satisfying.
Anyway, I split the remaining three slabs and I wound up with more slate than I needed, and thinner pieces, which was better. The other good thing is that once they were split to half-inch thickness I could chip off the tops just fine, and I was able to line them up across the back of the tank without any difficulty. Whew!! Sometimes I get lucky, let me tell you.
You can see in the pic above (still home for the goldfish, which are going to go to a tank in my office at work when I get my frontosa) the finished product, with the slate and the jagged edges on top. The far right piece is one that broke accidentally on the diagonal, but I don't mind it and it is where I will suction my powerhead that is to go on that side of the tank. I am very happy with how this turned out, and am also happy that I have been able to wait an entire month to allow the tank to settle in somewhat. Another month would not hurt, and with my schedule as it is right now it may, in fact, be another month before I exchange goldfish for frontosa, as well as a trio or two of compressiceps, I think.
Please do not forget to admire how I have painstakingly managed to hide equipment. The outflow box on the far left that houses my intakes and heater is completely hidden in shadow, and the outflow pipes are next to it, but you can't see those, either, due to careful placement of my puck lights. This is a huge accomplishment for someone who really hates to see any equipment at all, not to mention this being a bare tank without decor to hide things like I have always done in the past with ease. Driftwood and plants have always been key players, but I don't have those in this tank, so hiding equipment has been on my mind a lot in the planning of this tank. It still looks bare and unfinished, but I can picture the blue and black frontosa gliding about, and it is going to look great someday!
Still waiting. This is actually not so bad - the fish are happy and cavorting around, and I don't have to do hardly anything. No wringing of hands, no anxious examinations of potential signs of illness, nobody off their feed, no algae, no cloudy water, just status quo. When the Africans come in it will be a different story, and I will be Nervous Nellie once again, but for now we just test the water and wait.
My husband had a suggestion, and it really demonstrated how much he has learned about a hobby in which he takes ZERO interest, and often seems to baffle him. He wants me to put a rock or two in the 150 from another tank, or run one of my many duplicate filters on the 150 for a little bit and try to jump-start the bacterial colonies. What brilliance! I have been avoiding doing this very thing (I have not cycled a tank the old-fashioned way in YEARS!) but I was actually wanting to see how it went, rocking it old school, so to speak. I just think it shows that some of this stuff is really sinking in with Rick, and I was very impressed that he came up with this (so was he).
Anyway, I decided to humor him and I put in two smallish rocks from the 40-gallon leopoldi tank and we will continue to test the water, and Rick can see for sure what affect this will have. I was a bit leery about moving these rocks, since this tank has quite a few Malaysian Trumpet Snails that I don't want in the 150, but I scraped everything off the rocks that I could see. Likely as not the 150 will become infested with MTS anyway - such is life with this particular snail species. I don't have any other large rocks that I am willing to move that might have less potential for transporting vermin. I mean snails.....
I could move the large glass chunks from the 37-gallon, but they do not have very much surface area in spite of their size, being completely nonporous and smooth, and also the leopoldi pair in that tank has just now started coming out into the open since being moved in there a few weeks ago, and if I go rummaging around and removing structures they will take to hiding again, and I hate to stress them. Wild caught fish have to be handled with kid gloves sometimes. I sincerely doubt I will get a spawn from them, but I needed to thin out the group in the 40-gallon and I have become so attached to these fish that I'm content to keep them in their own tank (I am positive it is a male and female, with one male and two females in the 40-gallon, plus the domestic of unknown sex).
So, we'll see what happens with the small rocks, and maybe I will move one of the extra canister filters from the 40-gallon to the 150 for a week or so and see what it does to the nitrite value, mainly so Rick can see that he was right, and validate this little chemistry/biology lesson. I think every science class in middle school ought to cycle a fish tank. Things like temperature and pH will influence the progress of the cycle, and you can get as geeky as you like with it depending on the age group. It would also drastically limit the Failed Fishkeepers of the Future. This group is vast, an epidemic, really, and though a reduction in membership would mean far, far fewer cheap tanks at yard sales and on Craig's List, more people would find success and we could raise the geek quotient. I'm just sayin.
I have not mentioned Otis the puffer in a while, but he's The. Best. Fish. Ever. He's fat and a good solid 2", probably his full size. He enjoys his brackish tank that is open on all sides to the room, and is wickedly overfiltered with an AquaClear 70. Yes, I said 70. As mentioned long ago I had great plans to transition Otis to a 20-tall setup, which is a huge space for a 2" fish, but after having him for at least 18 months now there is no question that more water is better for puffers. He is a voracious eater, and even has nipped me when he's hungry and I reach in to do maintenance. He is always hungry, by the way. He has nice bright blue eyes and an almost fluorescent green pattern to his Figure-8, so I know he's healthy. His tooth plates seem well maintained, with about 90% of his diet being snails, which I cultivate avidly. Ramshorn snails, specifically. Woefully, MTS are much too hard for him to manage, but if he could eat them I'd have plenty.
I have coral rock in the tank with a bit of java moss that is miserable, and one remaining sprig of java fern that is perhaps even more miserable than the moss. I don't know why I can't grow brackish-friendly plants in this tank, but I have a horrible time. The tank is lit by a 13w CF bulb, plus overhead fluoro lighting sometimes during the day, the temperature is good, etc., so I'm not sure of the problem, but I don't sweat it too much. The tank looks like a SW setup with the coral anyway, so plants don't look particularly correct, though the java fern has a marine algae-like appearance that works. I have made arches and caves in the middle, so he goes through them to get from one side to the other. This gives him something to do. I think it would be good to build up the central structure a bit higher for more architectural interest for him. As long as I rearrange the furniture from time to time he is kept content. I am enjoying this fish immensely, in case you can't tell! I worried about getting him at first, since I'd never kept brackish and I'd never kept a species with such particular needs before, but it is working out okay.
Nothing new to report - the tank is experiencing a nice nitrite spike, and in the presence of nitrate that means we won't have much of a wait. The goldfish are happy and look healthier than ever, with careful PWCs and a LOT of water for them.
Many, many people disagree with using fish to cycle a tank, and woe unto you if you dare discuss doing this on an aquarium forum!! (Go ahead.... I dare you! :)).
There are many species of fish that cannot tolerate this process, but there are several that do. I have used ammonia to cycle a tank, the rotting shrimp method, fish food with no fish method, etc., and in a small tank frankly I would not use fish to cycle it unless they were extremely small ones (like Endler's or very small guppies) - it is close quarters and the effects of ammonia and nitrate are quite stressful to the hardiest of species. I have enough tanks running that I could start a decent sized tank with filthy filter media from my other tanks, but I don't have enough to get a 150-gallon started, and I have found, in this particularly large tank, that hardy fish tolerate the cycle.
So we will sit back and wait. This last part of the cycle can linger on and on for weeks, so patience is tested at this stage. Patience is not one of my strongest traits (!!) but there is no way I am going to put an expensive Tanganyikan in this tank until the water is very stable. They are extremely sensitive. When I was keeping calvus (one of my favorite tanks setups) even though I took care to keep the water change water as close as humanly possible to the tank water, with once weekly changes on a strict schedule, the fish would lie down on their sides on the sand every time I changed the water. Obviously there was some parameter that did not match, and the slightest thing sent them into dramatic exclamations. This did not seem to have any long-term deleterious effect on the fish, but I always felt horrible. I did not have this happen with N. brichardi/pulcher or with N. leleupi.
At any rate, the goldfish are showing no fin damage, no change in activity (can't get a decent still shot of them ever) and are eating like pigs so I'll soldier on. They look pretty cool in this tank, and I try to imagine what it would look like if they were much larger in this same tank (it would look COOL) but that is a tank for another time. This one is slated for Africans, specifically deep water Lake Tanganyika Africans, so I look forward to the day in the coming weeks when I can proudly post pics of my shiny new black and white with blue striped baby frontosa. Or Kodak box yellow leleupi. Or golden-headed compressiceps... spotted calvus... Ahhhhhh.....
Here are some goldfish in the new setup until I decide what to do about the Africans. The pH is very nice and steady at 8.1, compared to 7.4 out of the tap. This is completely the result of the aragonite sand. I'm going to leave the goldies in residence for a couple of weeks and then order my frontosa.
I'm reading more and more about them and it seems that the best bet is to have no tankmates - they can be either nippy and damage the trailing fins, stressing the fronts, or they will be too small and become meals for the fronts.
I think I might try a colony of N. leleupi, some of my favorite Lake Tang species, and see how it goes, especially while the fronts are small.
I redid the rocks, again. I think if I'm not soaked to the armpit and pruny then I just don't feel like it has been a good day.
I scared up a few much larger stones to complement my plethora of small ones. I spent several hours stacking, restacking, adjusting, adding, removing, and scratching my chin and squinting at the tank.
Now I am happier with how it looks, though a rock background would really make me happy. That, however, is for another day. I will let the tank run for a while, but possibly I'll add some black mollies to see how things go. I have cycled this large tank with fish before, since the ammonia and nitrite are so diluted that the fish do not seem to stress or suffer, it seems.
I do not want to spend $$$ to ship delicate species (seems like Lake Tang fish are much more sensitive than other cichlid species, and thereby are always more expensive) and have them all keel over after being added to the tank. I need to put some inexpensive fish in there to ease my mind that all is well. The problem is that I will then need to remove said "test" fish and that might be quite a trick. Maybe I'll use the goldfish in my 37g and be sure they do okay, and they are easy enough to net out as they come bobbling over to see what that net thing is all about. I'll sit tight for now.
Here is a pic of where the P. leopoldi now reside, though it is too small for them all and I'll need to split up the group in the near future. I like this tank, in spite of my previous comments about all my tanks being overplanted with no room for fish. This is a 40-gallon breeder and was the quarantine tank for these leopoldi when I got them.
Het rasboras and ember tetras are in residence as well as a balloon ram. I'm not proud to own such a fish (I'll admit I'm a snob and prefer my aquarium fish to be close to what is found in the wild - long-finned this, albino that do not appeal to me typically), but she was very pretty and I've never had luck keeping rams and hoped I could do it this time. I lost the male but she's been holding her own for quite a while now.
There is also one domestic silver/wild type in with the leopoldi and you can hardly tell him apart from them, except he has red eyes, leopoldi do not, and his nose has a bit of an upturn, whereas theirs is turned down a bit.
