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