Almost a Year now....

Well, it has almost been a year since I set up my saltwater nano-reef. I am going out boxing week shopping today or tomorrow to get some extra spoils for it :) All tanks are doing good, and just thought I would do a quick update during the holiday season :)

New Tank!

As of a few weeks ago, I purchased a small 5.5 gallon tank. I decided that it would go under the bare wooden stand of my 50 gallon, with a simple table lamp to light it. I bought a beautiful, blood red Betta and put him into it. The tank has about an inch of gravel, a good-sized rock, and two plastic plants. Im keeping it simple :) The Betta is doing well, but the tank's water keeps evaporating, and I think it is starting to warp the bottom of the stand. I dont know, ill probably think of something. My SW tank is still battling hair algae. I am fighting it with constant water changes with RO water and pulling handfulls of it off the rocks. The nasty caulerpa is gone now, and surprisingly all the inhabitants are doing well. I purchased a Blood Shrimp for it a while ago (pricey at $40 CDN!!!) and he is doing well with my Percula Clownfish. Some of my platy babies survived! They are hybrids too! they are deep red with white heads and a black splotch on either sides of them. They are very interesting. I hope to get into more livebearer breeding with the hard-to-come-by, large, predatory livebearer speices Belonesox belizanus also known as the Pike Livebearer (Picture shown in top-left corner).

Circle of Life

Another one of my tuxedo platies died for no reason again, leaving just the 5 red wags and the one tuxedo. I think they were sick at the aquarium store where I bought them, which is odd since, although they don't give very good advice, have fairly healthy fish. I cleaned out the 50 gallon and the water perimeters are all good, so no real other problems. With the death of the platy, the platy babies are doing well, and I see about 25 babies swimming in the plants. One dies, 25 appear. I really hope at least one of them is a mix between tuxedo and red wag, because I haven't hybridized fish before. My reef is declining! The corals aren't doing great, and the rocks are overrun with hair algae and chaulerpa. Not good. Every time I clean the tank I take out everything and scrub it of algae, I think I really do have to switch to spring water, and do water changes every week. The mobile life is good though. I really hope I can upgrade soon, I shouldn't have sold all my other tanks......

Babies!

When I come home during the afternoon, I usually go down to the basement, log onto my computer, then look at my remaining to tanks positioned beside and behind the computer. Well, to my surprise, I looked into my 50 gallon to find about 100 baby fish swimming through the roots of my jungle of valisneria, and taking refuge among the plants near the driftwood AND the floating plants. I am sure they are platy babies, as they all look thinner than yesterday and none of my fish have laid eggs in the past little while. I am interested in what colour they will be, as I am sure some of them are a mix of Tuxedo and Red Wag. I am just going to leave them in there at let nature take it's course. Although, I do hope some of them survive.

Updates

Again, I haven't posted in a long while, so again, more updates. I picked up various corals for my nano reef. Purple Zooanthids, Branching Hammer, Various Ricordea, Montipora, Pocilipora, Capricornis, and a few others. I am having alot of problems with algae, especially hair algae. It seems to like to congregate around my GSP colony, along with various chaulpera growing around my brown zoos. Clownfish and hermit grab are doing good. I noticed some feather dusters and other tube worms on my rocks, pretty cool. I think I am going to have to switch to bottled spring water for my saltwater tank, just so I can keep the algae down. My freshwater tank is doing good. I picked up 5 Red Wag and 3 Tuxedo Platies a few weeks ago, and I already noticed that some of them were pregnant. One of the Tuxedo Platies died for no cause last week. Nonetheless, I am excited to get back into keeping livebearers again, and I hope to get some surviving fry and seeing what colour morph they turn into. Still, the stars of my tank are my Altum Angelfish "Tiger" and her two friends, Stripes and Blaze. Another attraction in my tank is my Clown Loach, who is as big and fat as ever, and my big Flying Fox and my two VERY old Cory cats. I am upgrading this tank to a 65 gallon along with my marine tank, which is also going up into a 65 gallon. I am going to use the 50 gallon to rather keep discus or some parrot cichlids and silver dollars. Well, thats it for today, and if anyone is reading this, Happy Fishkeeping!

Taking off

Well, its been a while since I have posted a new entry, but now I am ready to start up again. I recently had an outbreak of caulpera and hair algae in my 8 gallon reef tank. It was blocking out all the coral, and the corals weren't opening. So, I took out all the rocks, scrubbed them down, and put them back in. Another problem I had was with my peppermint shrimp eating all my mushroom corals. I managed to get him out when I had all the rocks out and I returned him to the store. While I was at the store, I picked up a Lawnmower Blenny to keep the remaining algae down, and just because he was neat and I wanted another fish to keep my Percula Clownfish and hermit company that was preferably a bottom dweller. He settled in overnight, and has picked out a nice little tunnel beneath my button polyps, and now calls it home. He has a great personality, and he is out grazing on algae most of the time. He eats in a somewhat violent lunging motion. Very neat. He always seems to know when you are looking at him. When you do look at him, he stops and swims to the front of the glass and stares at you. If you happen to move, he will dash for is hole and sit there with his head poking out so he can look at you with relative safety. Right now he and my perc are swimming together. They seem to like each others company. Occasionally my blue-legged hermit, who lives in an astrea snail shell, goes up to my blenny's hole and hides in there with him. At first my blenny didn't like it, but eventually the blenny welcomed him in. The rest of the time my hermit sleeps in a cave in the rockwork right next to my clownfish's hole. It is very interesting to watch all my critters and coral interact with each other. Now, onto freshwater. My Altum and Normal Angelfish have been spawning. Im not sure if this is hybridization in the fry, but the fry seem alot less hardy than plain Altum or just plain angelfish fry. I picked up a group of Red Wag Platies in hopes I could get them to breed. Other than that, nothing else is really going on since it is a relatively old tank.

Well, see you later!

First Entry

Well, this is my first entry. I will share some stuff about me in this post. Well, I love aquariums. I have many, and have kept many over the years. I have kept Freshwater and Saltwater, and my favorite fish is the Freshwater Angelfish (Pterophyllum Scalare). I have kept and bred Angelfish for a long time, including the Altum Angelfish. I live in Canada, and I enjoy playing video games, and I enjoy going on hikes. Thats just a bit about me, and I hope you enjoy my blog!