The Evolution

[Yanagi]

I share a lot of horrid quality pictures on FB and then forget to share them on here too.. So I figured I'd share them here while I put off getting ready to go see the doctor (shudder).

Twas feeding time at the zoo and all the big fishies were very happy and gathered 'round to eat....

Here we have the Reflection D Discus, Big D and no name from the original pair.

No name again with the male pearl gourami getting right into things... literally. He swam all the way in, turned around and sat there eating until one of the Discus shoved him out.

Big D felt the need to get IN the net, though I missed him fully inside it. Red spot Eruption, Ernie behind him. No name from the original pair's fin in the TLH corner.

Then this idiot thought she was too big to get in the net. The Discus were laughing behind their backs.

And now I need to rush around like a maniac and get ready so I'll be back to spam you with more horrible quality pictures later. :D

[forever_and_a_day]

haha loving the pic and commentary. don't forget a full-tank shot ^_^

[Yanagi]

Sorry, closest thing I've got to a FTS is this;

lol...

The two fattest of the Apistos went into the display yesterday.

Doesn't show the red through him very well. As you can see, still a bit of a sucked up gut but he should fatten up quick smart in here. Behind him is lettuce banded onto a little medicine measuring thingy. No one was interested in that.. Pfft.

Here's Ernie the Eruption Discus, no name the red spotted turquoise and Pidgy the Pigeon blood. Also Big D down in the bottom right hand corner.

The original pair (no names) and Ghosty a week or two ago.

Ernie and Pidgy in quarantine. I love love love the intricate pattern on Ernie's head. Pidgy is an ugly (IMO), aggressive bugger.. He can be sold if anyone wants it...

Yesterday I added the 1000 l/ph internal filter I used during start up as I have had a LOT of sediment on everything and floating around the tank, and today the water is clearer than it has been in a very long time. I do think the tetra granules food is to blame for this as sometimes our discus tanks at work go the same, very sedimenty... Regardless, I'll continue feeding it to them. They can't get enough of it (literally, my bank account is crying lately). I've had to order another 2 bulk packs of bloodworm to keep the bloody fish happy. Not to mention the weekly feeds of blackworm. Here I thought buying them was the most expensive part.. Nope. It's feeding them. I could pour food into them all day.

When I've got a bit of free cash I intend on buying an eheim auto feeder to keep them on granules all the time (this one can do up to 4 feeds a day which is perfect IMO).

Already I'm getting the urge to change up the tank. I'd love to get two big branchy pieces of driftwood like these (Manzanita driftwood pref)

pic 1

pic 2

And do something similar to the angel tank pictured above, but more focused on the corners and still heavily planted (even more so than now, right now the driftwood I have in there is quite restricting and I've simply run out of planting space... Aside from the area where my zosterfolia grew out of control and then died off because it blocked out it's own light.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Yan

[Yanagi]

About time for another update.

Mid-week: Noticed my rasbora numbers dwindling.

Friday arvo: Came to the conclusion some are dying off from some bacterial thing that only seems to effect them, and the rest may have been eaten... So I bought 12 red phantom tetra.

Satuday night: Found my ghost knife fish in a terrible stinking mess floating at the top of my tank. Mucho disappointment but I suspect he had been snacking on the rasbora, or they're just dying off.. I dunno. So I bought 12 red phantom tetra for.. nothing basically. I could of gotten the rasbora maculata like I originally wanted. :/ Such is life.

Tonight: Removed the big boot shaped log that was the ghostys home. Planted the green maculata trimmings from work where the zosterfolia and the log were. Moved a green tiger lotus (because I pulled it when I pulled the log up, oops). Tank somehow looks narrower now. :/

now looks like:

This is my red spotted green Discus who is '2nd in command' in the hierarchy (Burnie, the one in my avatar is the boss fish), he was chasing around the other guy when I took the pic. Still trying to figure out camera settings... :P

Edited February 28, 2012 by Yan

[Matt_95]

Looks good Yanny Poo I really like LF corries do you mean Rotala macramanda "green"? I have never heard of maculata, if it is spelt maculata can you please point it out for me?

[Yanagi]

Ok so I spelled it wrong and I think you're getting confused.

Rasbora Maculata = dwarf rasbora.

Green Macrandra = rotala plant

[Sarah]

So it's not Macerena... gotta get that out of my head now...

[Yanagi]

Okay, here we go again...

It's time for a make over... And we're going NPT! Or rather, attempting.

For now though, I need a break so I'm trying to decide on what stays and what goes.

Discus: All staying except for Pidgy, the ugly thing that grabs EVERY non-fishy persons attention first. As opposed to, y'know, Burnie the awesome discus who is wiggling around in their face trying to get their attention. UGH. I actually aquired a new Discus from work, funny story that. He just turned up in our planted (sales) tank on a thursday night two, maybe three weeks ago now. No one knows where she came from. She's not one of ours because the pattern differs. Weird, no? She settled in without much fuss.

Angels: Altums. They're boring. The small breeding pair will be going off to Sarah when she's ready for them.

Gouramis: All of them. I want to start again with a trio of small pearl gouramis, and I don't really want the dwarf gouramis any more. No particular reason, they're just not really needed or wanted.

Now the hard part... The busy fish.

Current cories: Longfin Panda Corydora

Why they'll be going: They're cute... But getting that big, bulky ugly look to them and haven't bred for me. I've lost interest.

New cories: Undecided. Likely it will be between Sterbai, Julii or one of the dwarves ie Habrosus, Hastatus or Pygmaeus. Depends on pricing and availability.

Current Tetras/Rasbora: Red Phantom Tetra and Black Phantom Tetra are the main groups. I have like 3-4 Rasbora Espei and Rasbora Hengeli left (the Hengeli was a mistake - fish had just come in so were dull and someone got the espei and the hengeli switched).

Why they'll be going: I love the red phantom tetras but I find myself wanting something smaller, and less attention grabbing. I want the focus on the discus, not the busy fish. Also, they aren't uniform. Some have different markings on their dorsal fins (doesn't appear to be gender specific - it seems more like a different species!) and I don't like that. Rasbora Espei, I'm honestly bored of them. Rasbora Hengeli are gross and I didn't mean to buy those ones, lol.

New Tetras/Rasbora: ?? I can't decide. I like Rummynose but I fear they'll be too attention grabbing as well. I'm thinking a huge school of one of the tiny Rasboras. Like 30 odd of them. Probably Rasbora Maculata because they're fairly cheap in comparison to the rest. I'd LOVE boraras brigittae/ Red Chili Rasbora but from memory, they are hard to get a hold of and expensive. (My Discus have no history of snacking on little fishies).

Other assorted fish:

Apistogramma Viejita Red Neck 'GOLD'. I think I only have one left of these #@$!y fish. I think a few of you will remember the story... Horribly thin things that dropped dead one after the other. They suck, and that's why I'm getting rid of them.

Bristlenose: Possibly the big albino bristlenose.

Siamese Flying Fox: Big, ugly and useless.

New fish to be acquired:

Royal Whiptail x 2. I think mine died. I haven't seen it in months. They're very cute, and interesting looking.

Pearl Gourami x 3. Small.

Nannacara Anomala x 2 females. I have a single boy. He's very pretty and would like some company.

Peppermint Bristlenose x 3. Possibly. Depending on cost and availability. I'd only get the tiny babies though.

A trio or pair of some variety of Apistogramma. Possibly Viejita Red Necks (NOT! GOLDS!) but we'll see depending on price and availability.

More Dwarf Chain Loaches. I should have 4 or so now, but they're not doing their job. I can see snails starting to pop back up around the tank. I'll wait until these pop up cheap at the wholesaler, even on sale they're bloody expensive!

[Yanagi]

Ugh! So I wanted to start taking fish back to work today... Instead I got called IN to work, no one else avalibale. Boooooooo. :/ Luckily my clothes were halfway through a wash cycle and then had to go into the dryer so I had time to catch my big ol' Altums. They went back to work with me this morning. Tank already looks better without them. Tomorrow the rest goes back.

I've decided to axe the NPT method on this tank. It's just going to be too hard to cram my discus into big tubs for a couple of days while I do it all, especially because of school holidays I've gotten an extra day at work plus get called in randomly, lol.

I got some hygrophila pinnatifida cuttings this arvo too, going to attempt to grow it up the background of the tank. It's just an amazing plant, I love it. Looking for more cuttings/stems as well if anyone can source a fair few for me. It's a big tank...

Might take some pictures of it a bit later, the glass needs a clean and I need some dinner before I can do much more.

[forever_and_a_day]

good luck

photosphotosphotosphotosphotosphotosphotos (and don't forget a full tank shot )

[Yanagi]

[forever_and_a_day]

:drool: freaking amazing!is that a dumbo i spy in there?

do your discus ever school together? and what's the name of

the plant/bush in the middle? the one that's in the bg of

pics 1+2

[Yanagi]

Yep, that's my dumbo male.

No, they don't ever school. I'd probably need an 8ft tank for that, lol.

The plant is green macrandra.

[les]

Hey Yan

I realy like the look of the tank, you have done realy well with your design and this thread.

Cheers

Les

[Yanagi]

So I got the unwanted fish out today (minus Pidgy the Discus, I might hang onto him for a while longer) and did a rescape. The super large piece of driftwood is gone, making the tank look much larger (and emptier) giving me a heap more planting space. Majority of the plants were moved, too. I actually managed to cram most of it in one corner. I'm thinking my amazon sword will have to go, as well. As much as I cherish it (my first aquatic plant that survived!! That should tell you something about how long I've had it!) as it's just so big and taking up so much room. Plus the Angels are destroying it by cleaning it for egg laying. Speaking of egg laying, I have to leave a piece of driftwood I didn't want in there because there's currently Discus eggs on it. I also got another Angel spawn even after spending HOURS in the tank ripping everything up, chasing fish around with nets, etc etc... When you're horny, you're horny I guess.

Terrible pictures, I'm sorry.

More pics to come.. please bump.

[forever_and_a_day]

haha horny angels XD

[Yanagi]

Just a wee little guy.. and my red spotted green in front. I think I need to name the red spotted green. She is, after all, Burnie's girlfriend.

Tiger Turquoise pair hidden away, guarding their eggs.

[shadoh]

*BUMP*

[Yanagi]

That's all for the pics. :)

[Marchavdm@gmail.com]

Amaaazing tank! I'm quite jealous!

[Yanagi]

OMG FOOD

MOAR FOODZ

Just Chillin

Finally spotted one of my Whiptails, first time seeing it since the two of them went into the tank months ago. Other one remains unsighted.

So I still haven't gotten my busy fish... Going with Cherry Barbs (20 or so) and Odessa Barbs (probably 8). Might get them friday if we've got enough. I know we've got barely any Cherries but plenty of Odessas.