Otos

I happy to report that I got two new otos and the three otos have discovered that the algae pellets are food and are now always fat and happy. I have made a lot of changes to the tank, turned the driftwood and rearranged/added a lot of plants. The tank is going to be moving twice soon and it will probably take a toll on the plants. I took pictures and I will post them when I get time (it takes awhile to sort through the pictures and then upload and organize them again).

Return of the Puffs

I know its been a long time since I have posted but I am going to try to get back into it. I am guessing most people want pictures of things so I will try to focus more on that.

Its looking like I have 3 females, none of my puffs have developed wrinkles or belly lines. Although its possible they are just growing slowly as only Puff is the length a full grown one should be.

I have made some changes to the tank. I got one new Amano shrimp which has been happy in there for quite awhile. I also have 4 Red Cherry shrimp which are doing well and have been in there for around a month. I was hoping that they might breed but alas, I have 4 females.

I also got two otos, one died of injuries that I cannot figure out the cause of (I do not believe the puffers could have caused the damage). I got another one and then the other one died a mysterious death. I am not sure what to do. I would like the one to have company but since I have no idea why they have died so I am nervous to get more.

Now I bring you lots of pictures!

Feed us! Feed us!






Bug slurping a blood worm.





The little guy before eating.






The (not so) little guy after eating.






Bug hunting for something to eat in the gravel. She had claimed that plant, but she seems to change her mind from time to time whether or not she wants it. I don't mind if she claims it, the other two still have plenty of space.






Two puffers and two otos hanging out.






This is the oto that last passed away. The most obvious reason for his death is starving, I usually check them from time to time to make sure they look like they are eating enough, but I hadn't checked him for a few days. If you look closely you can see the spines that are on him in place of scales. Otos are in the Loricariidae family - armored catfish - along with plecostomuses.






This is the Oto I currently have. I have been feeding him zucchini to see if maybe more food will help them.






The following are pictures of one of the Red Cherries who was asking for a photo shoot.


























I have begun work on a 65 gallon tank that will home Figure 8 puffers however it will not be ready until June. I may post updates on it from time to time or create its own blog.

The end of the shrimps

Jacque died last night. He molted, and I guess after molting he was just too weak. I didn't see any damage on him so I don't think the puffers had anything to do with it. My guess is that between the plant and the tank changes he just got too stressed, and shrimps don't seem do be able to recover once they start to turn white. The shrimp cave is just so lonely now without any shrimp. I am not planning on getting any more shrimps for the time being. I think if I had them I would want them in a shrimp only tank so that I could be super careful with it and not have to worry so much about them.

On an up note I got all of my puffers to eat bloodworms tonight. They finally seem to have figured out that the medicine dropper is not there to eat them but to bring them bloodworms. So now I don't have to worry nearly as much about them, at least I can feed them whenever I need to and don't have to count on snails or food they find.

Speaking of snails I got some more, my girl friend picked them up for me from the plant tank at Petco. They seem to be doing fine but I still can't seem to get them to breed. I think there are probably a few factors in this. First, they aren't getting enough food for them to feel like its safe to breed. I keep trying to feed them algae wafers but Zimmerman has decided that he deserves them more than the snails. Second, both Bubble and Zimmerman are possibly eating the eggs. I doubt Bubble is since he won't eat anything I feed him other than bloodworms, but I wouldn't be surprised if Zimmerman spends all day hunting snail eggs.

Back to the puffers they haven't been fighting as much. Bug still chases Puff and the little one from time to time, but she doesn't seem to think she has to defend her territory. They little one is getting a bit more brave and comes out toward the front of the tank every now and then. Its nice to seem him sometimes rather than having to search the big grassy plant for him. It has been recommended to me that I get some more puffers, and it will make them school/shoal rather than fight. I am thinking about it, but before I do that I need to get some more plants and possibly drift wood or rocks as well. However, I don't really like drift wood, can't find rocks, and the only fish store around me that I knew sold plants is closed until a new owner acquires it. I want to get a lot more plants but to make them do well I could really use CO2. It just seems silly to spend hundreds of dollars on CO2 for a 10 gallon tank, and I don't have the money for it.

I feel that 3 puffers in a 10 gallon tank just isn't enough, its ok but I would like to have something else in there. So maybe I will get some otos or kuhli loaches.

If I got otos they would certainly be happy, the brown diatom algae is back in my puffer tank and there is a lot more this time. Most of the gravel is covered in it, the fake grass has a lot of it the swords are getting covered in it and my cardinal is starting to grow some long green algae. The good thing is that it is just starting to grow on the glass, so maybe I can keep it off. Its too bad, I had probably made a pretty good dent in getting rid of the silica in my last tank(the brown diatom algae eats silica) but, now I have to start over again.

Broken tank

Sorry its been so long since I last posted, things have been busy related to the fish and other things.

I was trying to slide my tank a bit when all of the sudden I heard a pop. I thought I had broken the molding on the top of the tank but then realized that it was the glass. The glass had broken all the way down the right side of the tank! I grabbed the bowl I had gotten my betta in, scooped up some water from his tank and put him in. Then I transferred the shrimp into Bubble's tank, and finally the puffers. Luckily the leak was slow and no major damage was done. I took out most of the water, but after I got around 60% of it out there wasn't enough pressure on the glass to open the crack for any more leaking. I threw all the plants into the other tank along with the heater. Next, I transferred the filter and some of the top layer of rocks from the puffer tank. That way I could keep the bacteria alive and make sure there were enough bacteria in the tank.

I didn't really have a choice but to leave Zimmerman in the tank. I was worried about him but he made it fine. If the puffers had been more established they might have noticed him, but I think he is to fast for them anyways.

The next day I went out and bought a new tank, luckily 10 gallon tanks are cheap. I go the tank from Pet Smart although it is the exact same as the one that came in the kit from Walmart.

When I was putting stuff back in I decided to leave out the decorations, the puffers seem to fight over those and share the plants. I redid the tank quite a bit and added a shrimp cave.

I used the little plastic pots that a lot of the plants come in. I cleared out the gravel from the bottom where I wanted it, put it down and then filled it half way with gravel. Next I level out the gravel around it and sloped the gravel on the side of it so that it went over the top of the pots. I made sure that the bottom of the pots were pushed up against the glass, so that I could see through the cave to see if anything was in it.

I added the plastic grass that I have enough though it doesn't look that good. I didn't have anything else that I thought could sit in front of the filter outflow and it does an ok job of blocking some of the line of site in there.

After I had all the decorations right I added the shrimps and the puffers back into the tank. The shrimps went right to the shrimp cave and seem to enjoy it alot. The puffers did not recognize their new home and stayed in a group for quite a while. The bad news is that after they got comfortable they started to fight a lot. I had added the little guy and Puff first in hopes of them not getting picked on so much by Bug. However, it ended up with Bug and Puff fighting more viciously that they ever had before. I was really worried that they were going to get hurt, but eventually Puff decided to stop fighting.

Sadly Shrimpy who was very weakened after the bad plant, did not make it through the night. I have decided to name the last shrimp Jacque, he is doing ok, but I am worried that its too late for him and he is going to die in not too long. Since Shrimpy died Jacque doesn't swim hardly at all, doesn't spend much time in the shrimp cave and sits around cleaning himself alot.

The puffers are doing much better than the shrimps luckily. Bug and Puff swim around together a lot(at least until Bug gets grumpy with Puff). Its possible that Puff is a boy, it looks like he is growing a belly line. I was expecting the belly line to slowly darken not start small and grow longer, so maybe its just part of her coloration. Bug has claimed the middle of the tank, the little one has claimed the big grassy plant and Puff gets whichever side she gets chased to when Bug gets grumpy. I got Puff and Bug to eat some blood worms, they are still just sucking them out of their shells though. I couldn't get the little one to eat any, however I still see all of them with nice round stomachs at least once a day, so they are still finding food in the tank to eat.

I think I have learned some more about my heater. I think my original assumption was correct and that it is only heating when the room gets cold. However now I think the temperature it is set to might be accurate as well. I think my problem before might have been that if you turn the temperature up too much at once it locks on. I have slowly increased the temperature to about 79 degrees and it seems to be holding the tank at that temperature. Its good to know that it works, now I can spend my money on more plants rather than a new heater.

Sponges

I forgot to mention in the last post that I got sponges for Bubble's tank. One is on the inlet so that he can't get pulled up against it to risk damaging his fins and the other is covering the outflow so that there is not a large current infront of the filter. The sponge on the intake is a little bit over kill, but atleast I know for next time.

Bad day to be a shrimp

I got two new plants today. I believe one is the small version of cardinal, I like it a lot. The other one I am not sure what type it is, but it smells really badly. I put those two plants in my puffer tank and put the ship in Bubble's tank.

I got a danio named Zimmerman from my girlfriend because he was beating up her Betta. Bubble spent the first 5min. that Zimmerman was in his tank chasing him, but eventually gave up and they are now just ignoring each other. I would kind of like to get some tetras for the tank, but I am worried Zimmerman will beat them up. I might have to get a small school of danios before I can get any tetras.

Bubble's new tank with ship and lots of anacharis that he likes to swim through


Zimmerman the fast moving danio

Now for the bad news. As soon as I got done planting the new plants I noticed that cinnamon was looking white. I was very worried and not sure what to do, but just left it alone. A few hours later he was dead...

We gave him a nice funeral and buried him in a new pond outside the dorm that hasn't been filled with water yet.

I did a 60%-70% water change and took the bad smelling plant out in hopes of saving the other two shrimps. However, its not looking good. Shrimpy is white and the other one appears to be turning white. The good news is that puffers don't seem to be affected by this.

I am guessing that whatever is causing the plant to smell bad killed my shrimps, I probably shouldn't have put that plant in my tank. I think that the plant might be a non-aquatic plant anyways so it will probably to back to the store. Too bad, it was a really nice looking plant.


The new tank look, notice the large empty space in the center of the tank?

Bubbles new tank

So I got bubble a new tank. I wanted to get him a nice 2-5 gallon tank, one that had a filter so his water would be nice. However, when I went to get him a tank I found that the 10 gallon was the same price as one 5 gallon tank and cheaper than the other one... so he now has a private 10 gallon tank. Mostly private, I put all of the snails in there in hopes of them not dieing because the water quality was so bad(like it was in their tiny tanks). I am hoping the snails will breed although Bubble doesn't seem to like the snails so I don't know if he will let them. He can't seem to hurt the big ones, but he picks up the little ones and spits them back out, and if he really wanted them to not breed he could eat the eggs.

Bubble's new 10g tank.

He really likes the space, he is constantly swimming around. He loves the barrels and swims through them a lot, I think he would really enjoy the ship, so I might put that in there for him. This tank is a bit taller, so it would fit better. I swapped the filters, the new one on the puffer tank and the old one on this tank, but they are both too powerful. Bubble is a pretty bad swimmer(like most bettas) so even a small current can be too much. I put the less powerful puffer filter in his tank but it was still too much so I put a bit of rag around the intake and its just right now. The new filter is too powerful for the puffer tank so I had to do the same to it, but its too weak now. I think I will swap them back and then just put a little more cloth on the new filter.


Bubble's bubble nest.

Can you tell the difference between a dwarf puffer and a female betta? Well, it doesn't seem Bubble can. He gets really excited whenever he can see the puffers and has decided that he should start building a bubble nest. Before I put him in the new tank his nest had grown quite a bit. The puffers were excited by him at first but after figuring out that they couldn't get to him they lost interest.