120 GALLON
| My baby. I know, it's a tad overplanted. I have three people I've promised plants to, and it's been too cold to ship them so I've held off major pruning as long as I can. Watch this space for "after" pictures. The didiplis is flowering, stuff like that always makes me feel good. That green ribbon across the surface of the water is the upper end of a four foot crinum tortifolia leaf. 330 pc watts, Eheim 2028, AC 500, pressurized CO2, YG-N, YG-K, Flourish Nitrogen and Flourish Phosphorous. Fish: Max and Erma and a dozen of their prettiest angelfish children (I'm going to thin them out, I swear), bleeding heart tetras, six young SAEs, ottos, eight adolfo cories and two beautiful male kribs. These guys need a woman BAD, I've gone nuts trying to find some females. |
55 GALLON
| I'd love to redo this tank but the fish won't let me, and my husband won't let me take out the enormous piece of driftwood. Hubby and the fish like it just fine the way it is, so I just let it be. I wouldn't upset him OR the fish, I have enough other tanks to play with. And to tell you the truth, it's my favorite tank. If I'd ever get around to figuring out how to use the dodge and burn tools maybe I could get a decent picture of it. 110 pc, pressurized CO2, Eheim 2215, AC 500, YG, YG-K, Flourish Tabs. Fish: my favorite angel pair, Samson and Delilah; eight bronze cories (2 of which are albinos), platies, lemon tetras, ottos, two SAEs, my wonderful clown loaches, Eeyore the bristlenose, Sherman the redtailed shark (PITA but I've had him too long and am way too attached to him to get rid of him, and he's mellowed a lot since the clowns came on board a couple of years ago, they actually seem to like each other), and Ralph the betta. |
| (This links to an older page; as you can see, the tank's changed very little in a year--actually in 3 years. It's just about time for a complete redo, I'm finally getting tired of it.) The hygro on the left and the rotala in the right background have just been severely pruned, the limnophila aquatica hasn't been pruned yet, and the java fern needs thinning out, so it doesn't look quite the way it's supposed to at the moment. I also made the mistake of taking this picture late in the evening, and the aquatica had already begun to close up its whorls, so they don't look as fat as they should. Hmmm...I wonder why I didn't just wait and put up a better picture? On the other hand, the angels (Spot, George and Gracie) look pretty good. Other occupants: Roger the betta, Bubba the bristlenose, C. melini (false bandit cories), rasbora heteramorpha (harlequins), a couple of platies I can't catch amd four submarine size SAEs |
20 LONG
| Brichardi tank; Lake Tanganyika conditions, dual NO strip, no CO2, YG. Given the chance, it's clear java fern would do really well in the lake. The bunch at right is new and kind of disorganized, but it will settle in. I've tried a variety of plants in these conditions, but the java fern does so well I decided to go with the flow; anubias barteri did fine also but got too large for this shallow tank, and I didn't have anything smaller to replace it with. The hygro is hanging on, but just barely. The hornwort is actually ceratophyllum submersum, a rather rare variety--much prettier and more delicate than demersum, and it does a good job of controlling algae in a tank you just can't balance for the plants' benefit or recruit algae eaters to help you. I'm fine with some green algae on the rocks, but I don't want anything hairy or brown or stuff all over the sand! I made the mistake of taking this right after a water change, so the hornwort is all discombobulated, it's really much prettier than it looks here. Occupants: eight young brichardis. This tank used to be a cory species tank; you can see it here. I really regret losing the mermaid weed (proserpinaca pectinata); I think I killed it when I moved the cories and raised the temperature to 82 to grow out some angel babies. It did beautifully at 76 degrees before that, and then faded away in pretty short order and I didn't make the connection until long after the fact. I'll have to try it again sometime in a cooler tank. |
20 HIGH
| The orphan tank. The guppies (originally a load of babies inadvertently shipped with a bunch of tankbred ottos I got from a buddy, in 20 years of fishkeeping these are the first guppies I've ever had) got stuck in here, and the two cherry barbs I rescued from an Aqua Babies tank (trust me, those two are the happiest fish you'll ever see). And every stray crypt that I pruned out but didn't want to get rid of. Somehow all the stuff I stuck in here arranged itself in a very restful sort of way--I love to watch the tiny fish swimming in the crypt forest. 55 pc, AC 200, no CO2, YG-N, YG-K, Flourish Tabs every 3 months. I never meant to wind up with a bebojillion guppies, I have to move the adults to the big tanks so they can feed the angelfish regularly. I've discovered that it's okay for them to have babies in the big tanks that become angelfish food because I never see them, but I no longer seem to have it in me to net out little bitty defenseless fry and serve them for dinner in another tank. I'm getting very mushy in my old age. You can see what this tank used to look like here. I'm sorry to report that Doofus has gone to the big aquarium in the sky--if you follow the link you'll know what I'm talking about. |
