Back from Holidays

Im relieved to say that all fishes are accounted for and everything looks well in both tanks.

Patch is in the Doghouse

Due to the severe bullying in the Tropical tank, Ive had to reinstall the breeders cage and now Patch has been penned in to give the rest of the tank some relief.

Another New tank coming!!!

wooohooo!!! im excited!!!

Ebay the motherland of bargain shopping! im about to pick up another tank. $200 bucks !

Steph Denounces Bristlenoses.

“Those suckers aren’t doing their job!” Steph declared grumpily. “Look the glass is still dirty! They aren’t cleaning the right spots” (The bristlenoses prefer cleaning around the powerheads)

Eva quite exasperated, because they are fish. And Eva no tell fish what to do, they do as they please.

Eva: Well then get out their contract and we will file a complaint with the Working Fish Council.

Steph: Harumph!

New critters

Because Patch is harassing Saddleback. Steph and I got new fish to distract Patch. So down at SLS, we picked up 4 little Silver sharks. Apparently they are all brothers.

here's a photo of them still in the bag. I figured that once I released them there would be a gnat's chance in snapping a photo of them again. But one can try...

30 photos later, probably the only decent photo I have. The rest are just blurs - They move too fast.

Patch instantly got on the job and started herding them into a corner

Rounding up the strays...

Info on Silver Sharks:

From the BFFB:
region: South East Asia
Habit: Peaceful and Active, will not chase smaller fishes
Water: Neutral
Temperature: 24 - 26*C
Size: They can grow quite big, but many books say that in a tank they will only grow to the tanks limitations
Food: Not fussy, likes boiled oatmeal.

Other links
Tropicaltank.co.uk
The Fish Tank

Photo Addict

Ever since I got a camera phone ive been snap happy

I took this one today. I particularly like the way the light filters down.

Two female congo tetras, one swimming into the "sunlight" (at 9pm) The other one just exiting stage right after an awesome rendition of "Where is had the food finger gone?"

Hot photo

This is a gorgeous photo of an angelfish. it looks like a normal one. Its doral fin is a bit chewed up but its beautiful all the same. :)

Latest Pics

I think I'm addicted to taking photos of the tank.


View from the right corner

Full frontal view
Patch has been
a very naughty boy
and poor Saddleback
has had his fins
Severely nipped.

Any suggestions?

My favourite view - the Right hand corner again!

New Mates - Bristle Nose Catfishes

With the algae problem we decided to get some new suckers.

These critters are bristlenose catfish. or Ancistrus Sp. Apparently there are thousands, with very little difference. There were 2 types of Bristlenoses in the BFFB which matched the little critters in my tank:

Bushy-Mouthed Catfish (Ancistrus Dolichopterus)
Region: NE South America
Habit: Peaceful
Water conditiona: Not fussy, prefers soft acidic
Size: Up to 13 cms!! (mine are only 4cms long.)
Food: Loves greens, munches on algae

Photo from Aquarian

Pearl Sucker (Ancistrus Hoplogenys)
Region: All over South America
Habit: Mainly a nocturnal fish.
Water: Not fussy as long as it isnt too salty
Size: under 12.5cm
Food: Eats anything

Photo from Aquarienclub sorry its german or swedish

Hey all those stats mean nothing if you cant identify the fish. So here are some pics I took after chasing them up against the glass with a bamboo stick. (Rummy Noses werent happy - their noses went pink)

Heres some photos of one in our tank
(the other was under the heater and wouldnt budge)

These guys hang on the glass up the back or on the power heads, you can see their feeding trail as they munch along eating the algae in their path.

oops! Drip Drip

We came home today and the water level had dropped by 5 cms... hrm!!! what happened?

It looks like the replanting of the tank had disturbed enough stuff to block the filter and had one nozzle was squirting very enthusiastically drenching the wall and the carpet behind the tank.

Emergency mode! First drain the tank by 60L then move the tank out, bring out the towels and dry the damp carpet. At the same time we decided to paint the back of the tank black.

A dark backdrop is ideal for Amazon tank and gives the little tetras a nice background to show off their colours.

We rejigged the filter so now the water flowed under the separator rather than over. Which will help when the squirter will happen again

New plants

We've updated the tank with new plants and more gravel. The tank looks much better, I got Steph to rip out the hydrophilia, which was looking rather tatty and we added wisteria (Steph called it Endives - looks like the salad leaf) and we also moved all the tall plants to the back and added more gravel in, giving it a bit more uniform look.

The rummy nose tetras are having fun ducking and weaving amongst the tall plants, occasionally they venture out into open water to freak out and dive back in.

The fat lady sang...

And I found her dead this evening after work.

we found one of the rosy barbs picking at her corpse. Tropical fish are much more cannibalistic than their goldfish counterparts.

Goodbye Swords

The came, they clashed and they left for the big big blue.

Goodbye, Lancelot, Marion and Silky.

Tank summary

My its been a busy period! Now almost 3 months old, I think I can say that the tank is fully operational.

The riccia is all gone, but the Amazon swords the elodia and hydrophilia have taken off. The lily grass get a regular mow by the flying foxes, so its growth has been slightly stunted.

The fish count is now:
13 Cardinal Tetras
7 Rummy Nose Tetras
3 Golden Rosy Barbs
2 Siamese Flying Foxes
2 Cory Catfish
2 Angelfish
3 Conga Tetras
1 Swordtail

Its amazing compared to the tank when I first started back in August.

All cleaned up

Steph has cleaned the code up to make the site behave normally again. Everything you click, and view, works again!

What would I do without him?

New Fish: Rummy Noses

Yesterday I bought 7 rummy nose tetras at the Edgecliff Pet Shop. These dudes are pretty groovy, their bodies are dull silver, but they have bright red noses and black and white tails.


They are also a great indicator of the water quality in the tank, as they lose their red noses when they are under stress. I took them all home (they didnt have any redness in their noses with the stress of travelling) When i set them free in the tank, they swam direclty to the bottom and mingled with the cardinals.


Then Patch came over to check them out. I’m not sure if Patch is a bully or just a doofus who wants to play with the little folks. And the little fish understandably - when something 5 times their size comes over, they swim for cover! But he does however forget about the wee ones when he sees that he has my attention, which makes me think he’s a bully to get attention.


It was a relief to see that their red noses glowing again after 20mins as they were feeding on the ground up fish food that i threw in.

Details on RummyNose Tetras from the BFFB page 330
Region: Lower Amazon Region
H: Peaceful and active
W: Established and well planted tank. WaterTemp: 26*C
S: 4 to 5 cm
F: Not fussy eaters

New Fish: Cardinal Tetras

We got new fish on sunday. These critters are called Cardinal Tetras. They are different from Neons in that the red stripe goes the whole way over their bodies - neons only have a half red stripe.


I got a dozen for $45 bucks and the are pretty cool, they school and tend to hide in the background or over the sandstone rock. but they dart out when theres food, but only around the bottom where they can zip back into the undergrowth.


The angels have taken to chasing them, in particular Patch, who has a habbit of getting into everything that doesnt concern him. But overall, the cardis look like they're settling in.

Some Detial about Cardinals from the BFFB (big fat fish book):
BFFB: page 506
Region: Upper Rio Negro and Columbian Waterways
H: peaceful and active shoalers (6+ is ideal)
W: Soft clean and slightly acidic Water Temp 21-24*C
F: not fussy but a mixture should be small to fit in their mouths

More Photos

I've finally found a great way to take photos of my fish! put the camera under the breeding cage, and put food in the cage. then as it sinks down the fish have to go under the cage to feed. and the corner will stop them from zipping past. They will have to stop to turn around and at that time Snap! pics of fish!


Here's are some pics of the golden barbs and in particular the egg bound girl fish.






The congos were very happy to be snapped :)


And the angels are always curious and poke there faces in for a squizz

New Book - BFFB

Im stoked!!! Ive bought my bestest fish book yet. And its huge! its about 10cm thick, tho its quite small about A5) Pocket size except for the thickness. I've nicknamed it BFFB (Big Fat Fish Book).

The author is a renown Speaker Dr Herbert R Axelrod and the book is called Aquarium Fishes of the World and its pretty compresensive, more than 870 species of fish, and a lot of fishes you wouldnt normally find info about in your normal run of the mill fish book. Each fish has a photo, stats and info where available.

I will write up the info the book has on each of the species of fish i have when i have some time.

Theres also a good comprehensive plant section. Sorted in what type of water climate (mega helpful!) and how to propogate.

Its only got freshwater fish in it, so if you want a marine tank this isnt the book for you. You can buy this book on Amazon's website theres even a few pages your can browse!

Ovipostor and rosy barbs

Today i read that if a female betta (siamese fighter) is ready to spawn their ovipositors protude. An ovipostor is the egg laying organ that is found near the anal fin. And it seems like a universal name for any animals that lay eggs.

Read more about rosy barbs

The Rosy Barb has one at the moment and its protuading. Im noty sure if that means shes ready to spawn or i just have a very fat fish on my hands.

But if it hasnt spawned, then i have to find her a male, as i figured if the others hadnt gotten her pregnant yet then there must be still time.

So how do i find a male rosy barb? no idea. to be honest. Ill be off to SS to have a chat with the fishy people.

Heavily Pregnant

One of the rosy barbs is very fat. We think shes preganant. Her search for food is very active and has a touch of desperation most times.

Only problem, we dont know which barb knocked her up... im thinking it might be the paler of the 2 smaller ones. after expending energy males seem to flag abit afterwards...

Fishy Games - updated

for those who love fish but cant be stuffed keeping a real tank... Sorry these are for Palm OS only




Insaniquarium Deluxe

Feeding Frenzy

Fish Tycoon




Updated: I had forgot to mention this game. I had no idea what it was called other than it was 'korean' and you have to 'catch healthy fish', avoid sick fish 'for the hotpot' But now you know it as....

Oden Todo Fish

Strange actions in the tank

The siamese flying foxes are doing something weird. They are nipping each other up and down their stripes on either side to the point that the black stripe dissappears! And they take turns!

Is it a mating dance? Or maybe they should be called fighting foxes!

But I can distract them with food and the black stripe returns! I have no idea! The water temperature is 27 degrees celcius and Nitrite is 0mg/l, ammonia is 0mg/l and and pH is 7.

Fishtake! How many fishes have you got?

Someone posted a msg, asking how many fishes I had in the tank.

Well I have:
2 female swordtails
2 cory cat fish
2 Siamese flying foxes
2 medium sized Angelfishes
3 congo Tetras
3 golden rosy barbs

All up 14 fishes. Most of them quite small, with the angels, the biggest, but their bodies aren’t much bigger than a fifty cent Australian coin.

I want to move the tank environment into a soft acidic water environment however the swordtails are stopping that from happening. That means that there are 2 options, either I wait it out for the swordtails to die or i get desperate and splurge out on another tank and set up a hard water tropical tank.

New Fish! Barbs and Corys

I like Pets Warehouse (or Eukabana as we prefer to call them) They are always open, cheap and the sniffy dogs are always about looking for a free pat. But they arent fish specalists.

I needed some otto cats to help with the algae bloom, but while we were there we saw some gorgeous orange fish. I ask the girl what they were (ive never seen them in my fish books) she said they were goldfish... which i know is totally wrong! (for starters the tank was tropical) But they were pretty and we got a few of them.

They are pale orange in colour and they have golden scales so when they move - they glitter and they have a little black eye at the base of their tail. I think they are golden rosy barbs, they are not pink.

I think the catfish i got are Corydoras aeneus and they are very cute, and happy to swim up and down the tank.

Overall the tank is rather busy now. I dont think ill be adding anymore fish for some time.

Cost (3 golden rosy barbs, 2 corydoras catfish)
$21.75
Running total
? too scared to add up :P

Tankcam is on!

Steph wrote the code and stuck the tankcam on my blog.

looks hot eh? :)

What are you doing there?!?!

No doubt the Angels have been very curious about Swish peeking at him behind the foilage, tapping the cage, only to shy away when Swish flares up. But much to Steph and my amusement they took it a step further...

They manage to get stuck between the glass of the aquarium and the wall of the breeders cage!
First time i was wonder where Patch had gone as i walked past the tank to the kitchen. Then i see Swish's agitated movements and Patch is there wedged unable to move! I quickly move the cage and Patch zips out and back into the undergrowth.

Later on Steph walked up to the bedroom with a bemused look on his face. "I just freed one of the angelfishes from behind the Swish's cage!" He annouced.
"Which one? " I asked.
"Saddleback, he escaped as soon as I opened the lid"
"Yeah i found Patch stuck there too, those angelfishes are nuts..."

They keep us amused

Swish meets Tankhood

Its the long weekend and I didn't have time to clean Swish's tank at work so he had to come home with me.

Capturing him in a click tight jar, I carried him home in my green bag. walking carefully, not running or jumping up the stairs. But in the lift I brought him out to have a look... ooh he was not a happy camper! But he's in the tank now, I've put him in the breeders cage, as he's never been in a tank with other fish. At first he was a bit listless... then Patch came over to check him out.

It was quite funny! With hesitant strokes he swam towards the tank. Then 2 fin strokes away he paused.

Decided that a subtle spying strategy was better of a direct confrontation and promptly swam to the left behind some hydrophilia (which is not very concealing).

Swish flared up and the angel figured that his hiding spot wasn't that good and moved deeper in the hydro, only to bump into Saddleback who was also on her spying expedition.

Algae Problem

Hrm... the flying foxes have found a better food source and have ignored the algae, now i have brown stuff growing everywhere. :9

but not to worry! more catfish!!! :)

My angels...

Patch posing for the Camera

and this is SaddleBack zooming past the camera

TankCam is at stage one

who hoo!!! its working!

Today we got a groovy webcam with light sensors and auto light beam. $35 bucks, its now sitting on the goldfish tank watching the troptank. Still have to figure out how to host the camera on this site but stephs is onto that :)

if you dont want to wait, msn steph and we can hook you up to live TankCam

Patch and Saddle Back

2 new tank mates! 2 silver angelfish. one is called patch. Patch is mottled on one side with a black patch over his eye, on the other side hes totally white. Saddleback is totally silver with a black 'saddle' between his dorsal and tail fin.

Both have settled well in the tank and aren't bothered by Marion who is currently the top fish in Tankhood.

Cost (2 medium angels)
$18.00

Another one to float

Sigh. another stroke of bad luck. With the elevated temperature, the male swordfish was okay at first but seemed to loose it over the week and finally today was found dead at the bottom of the tank.

The females, and the congos are thriving. I swear the congos have grown since ive had them 3 weeks ago! :) i hope i get them as big as the ones in the store (about 10cm long)

Rest in Peace...

My first casulties. The red phantoms have died of white spot.

May you rest in big big blue :(

Underwater Webcams!

How cool is this!!! Live streaming of your very own fish on the web! Let the fish enterain you at work!

And this genius goes one step further and makes a underwater web cam!

I think its a great idea! A web cam pointed at the fish so you can watch them for relaxation as well as monitoring their condition.

The computer fair is on next weekend... ShoppingList: 2 web cams (just in case one stuffs up)