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.

The puffer fights

The puffers are fighting worse than ever. Puff has decided enough of being nice and now she and bug fight constantly. The little one just kind of stays in his corner the whole time(his old corner, I moved the plant back for him). The decorations seem to have become the things that they are fighting for, so maybe it would be better if there were only plants in there. I think I will have to have enough plants so that they don't have to see each other the whole time. But there is a slight chance that they are fighting because they feel like they have enough stuff to call their own. Its possible that they weren't fighting before because there was nothing to fight over. I might try taking the ship and rock arch out to see what happens and if they stay friendly. However, it is also possible that they just weren't used to the tank yet.

The new tank orientation

Bug has the whole area around and in between the ship and arch. Puff has the area straight back between the ship and arch (possibly a bit of the area behind the ship as well). The little guy that really needs a name has the back right corner going out left to the anacharis and coming out toward the camera to a bit past the grass.


New ruffle sword

Not terribly exciting now, although when it gets big it should look pretty cool and could defiantly be the center piece of the tank.


The puffs in a line



Swimming in a group



Still swimming in a group

Why can't they swim together like this all the time? They were swimming like this after I moved the tank into its current orientation. Sorry they are blurry, I couldn't use the flash and were swimming to fast. The good news is I got some new lights, and with them I can take pictures with a lot faster shutter speed so I might be able to get non-blurry pictures if they ever do this again.

The puffer puffed!

I was watching my puffers before bed, and they were all hanging out on one side of the tank. All of the sudden Bug got huge! She was like atleast twice her normal size! She couldn't really swim though and started to get pushed around by the current so she deflated. I don't think it was bad for her because she did it by choice not because she was afraid of getting eaten.

The territory issues are getting worse, it seems as though Bug has claimed all the space that is not the little one's. This morning I found Puff pushed up against the wall in a corner, and every time she tried to leave Bug would chase her back in. Its possible that bug has just moved her area because, when Puff went into the back left corner(which was Bug's) Bug didn't seem to mind.

Oops

So I have noticed that the heater only comes on during the morning, during the day it stays off. I figured that the tank was getting cold in the night and then the room was warmer than the heater was set during the day. I decided that I should turn the heater up to the temperature that the tank was during the day so that it wouldn't drop at night. So, last night I turned it up to 79 degrees from 73, one degree more than the tank is during the day but I figured the puffers might like it.

I checked on the tank after a few hours because my puffers where swimming around in a group of 3, usually they are alone or have one buddy. The temerature was 86 degrees! I was really worried for them and turned the heater down to 75 degrees, took the hood off so that air could move across the surface and cool it off, and took out some water so that the filter would create more oxygen(water can't hold as much oxygen at higher temperatures).

It took about 2 hrs but the temperature got back down to around 80 degrees. They should be ok at 86, but that large of a temperature change can be bad for them.

When I could I kept an eye on them the rest of the night but I things weren't looking to good. Puff(I have decided to name the big one Puff, well sort of me... and my girlfriend) loves to follow the other two around. She seems to think nothing is better than following the other two around, watching what they do, and enjoying their company. Well Bug wasn't looking good and was just kind of lazily floating in a small area of the tank with her tail curled(a bad sign). So Puff decided that the little guy would have to be the one she followed around.

The little guy was moving around ok, but was staying around the back right corner of the tank. His spots were fading in and out as I watched, I am not sure what this means but I doubt it means he is happy. He decided that the corner was his area and that no one else should be allowed in it. He would chase Puff out, she would sit in the middle for a second, come back and he would chase her out again. I felt really bad for her. After doing that for a very long time she eventually went inside the ship and I didn't see her the rest of the night so I think she slept in there.

In the morning everybody was pretty much the same, except that bug would swim normally when ever the little one cane out of his corner. I moved stuff around a little bit and the little one abandoned his corner and they all grouped up. They spent most of the rest of the day swimming around as a little puffer pack.

However, this evening the little one has gone back to his corner and Bug has decided that the back left corner is hers. Luckly she occasionally allows Puff in her corner but it only last awhile before Puff is alone again.

Rearranging the tank should make it so that they have a long time before they set up a territory again. But they are basing their territories off the location in the tank not off of how the tank is set up. They seem the be just the wrong smartness. Smart enough to figure out the area that they are in, but not smart enough to figure out that they don't need to be aggresive towards eachother. I guess it just makes them more interesting.

Someone suggested a rock in the corners to keep them out of it, so they might base their areas more on the plants and such in the tank. I might give it a try but I need to find two rocks for the job first. I could also try leaving those corners barren, might make my tank look funny but they would probably not claim those areas.

If worse comes to worse I will just have to accept their territories. But I hope for Puff's sake that I can find a way to keep them a group.

Cleaning

I cleaned the tank up a tad. I took the exoskeleton out, flattened some of the gravel and clipped a few of the anacharis tops off. The exoskeleton belonged to cinnamon, I could tell becuase of the missing bit of tail. However apperantly his tail is now grown back and I can't tell the diffrence between him and the one I haven't named.

When I was flattening the substrate and clipping the anacharis the dwarf puffers were all swimming around in a group together. I wish I had been able to get a picture of them. They often swim around with a buddy, but not all three together. Its funny because the littlest one is usually the one that leads when he is swimming with another one.

I placed the tops of the anacharis out further from the rest of them in hopes of making them feel more comfortable when they get near the front of the tank. Although they were a little braver today and swam through the ship a few times on the hunt for food.

Speaking of food, I saw a nematode so I guess they aren't quite all gone... yet. I want to try to teach them to eat blood worms. I tried once although they were pretty full. There are deffinatly still snails in there so it could be awhile before I get a chance to try feeding them myself.

Where'd my skeleton go?

One of my shrimps decided it was time to grow. It kind of looks like a dead shrimp, but luckily its not. I am not sure which one it was, but one of the big ones head looked kind of fuzzy, so I am guessing it was him.

The shrimp exoskeleton.


Its pretty hard to tell but his head looks kind of fuzzy

I have decided on some names. The small shrimp is shrimpy, the big shrimp is cinnamon(they have little brown spots on their sides), and the medium puffer is bug.

I could get a dwarf bristlenosed plecostomus. They are usually pretty expensive but I found some on craig's list for $4.

The puffers!

I got my puffers! I got three (to keep the readers happy :) little ones. I did my best to get one male and two females, we will see how I did as they get older. The littlest one is very stream lined, when he doesn't have a stomach full of food, which is usually an indication of a male. The other two are a little more round.

Because they are so small, I had to get some diffrent bloodworms, the ones I had would have been too large for them to eat. Also, my freezer wasn't cold enough before and I am not sure how much longer the old bloodworms will last.

Waiting in the bag as they acclimate.


They really wanted out, I thought it was because they wanted to hide...

When I finally let them out, I kind of poured them into a corner in the tank. Since the only other thing in the tank is shrimp, I wasn't worried about introducing any parasites or anything. I assumed that as soon I let them out they would go hide in the plants or the ship or something, however that was not the case. My girlfriend, who was describing what the middle sized "female" was doing said, "Oh he is looking at the snail OH MY GOD HE ATE IT!"

They then procceded to go around the tank eating all of the snails that we couldn't pull out, and all of the nematodes they found. They became very fat very quickly, and after they couldn't find anymore, then they decided to hide. So it seems that while they may have been scared in a new tank, eating food matters more than anything, even 10 seconds out of the bag.



In the tank

Watching me take pictures of them.

They got braver through out the night, and even seemed to enjoy watching me take pictures of them. In the picture above the one on the left is the little one I think is a male. I can't tell the diffrence between the two that I think are females unless they are next to eachother, although they are slightly diffrent sizes.


Nicely colored, nice dark spots. The one on the left is the little one.


One of the bigger ones, I think it might be the one that is not in the photo above.



Getting along

Shrimps and puffers, happy together.

The puffers and shrimp get along pretty well(much better than the snails and puffers). The puffers are kind of curious of the shrimps, but cautious of them too. I have even seen the shrimp chase the puffers when the puffers were watching them.


My tank, complete with sunken ship.

My girlfriend got me the ship as a present. I like it, but its a little too tall and holds the hood up. I raised the filter up some. That way I could raise the water level to look better with the ship, while keeping enough oxygen and carbon dioxide in the water(carbon dioxide for the plants).

The tempature is about 75 degrees right now, I will probably raise it to about 78 to keep the puffers happy.

I will need some more plants, but I think for now it is ok. I might get some smallish sword plants, or maybe crypts. I think it will look nicer when the anacharis gets taller, but I am cutting them up when they get tall so I can have more of them.


My dwarf clovers. And two shirmp.

This is the main group of dwarf clovers. They aren't doing that well, probably because the roots are so small for so many clovers. I am hoping that once a few more of the clovers die off they will start to do better. Some of the clumps of 3-4 clovers are looking much better.


In the middle back is the mystery plant, potamogeton gayi.

Its starting to do a little bit better, the leaves seem to have pretty much stopped dying so I might have to decide how much space to give it pretty soon. The puffers seem to like it ok, I think it might be a little dense for them. Maybe they will get used to it.


I am not sure that I am going to get otocinculus. I am worried that it might be too much for the tank and take some attention away from the puffers. I could get a rubber pleco, he would mostly be out at night and there would only be one of him, but I am worried about the well being of my plants. If I get otos I would have to get atleast 2, and 3 to 4 wouldn't be bad. They are happier if the have friends to play with. I guess I will have to start a poll on this, but no promises about me following through on it.

Sorry for such a long post, I just had so much to say. My camera deciding to work was nice, but it also ment I had some catching up to do. I will try to keep them a little shorter from now on.

The mystery plant

Well, after that last post I figured out what kind of plant it is. It is a potamogeton gayi which apparently has a rough time changing tanks but once it gets going it will do really well. I am glad to know that it will do better, but am worried about what I am going to do when it gets acclimated. I might let it have a corner or part of a wall of the tank. I guess I will just have to wait and see what the puffers think of it. The shimps seem to like it ok, but I think the small leaves are a little bit hard for them to hold onto. They love sitting on the anacharis that is infront of the filter.

Update

The shrimp still seem happy. They are a lot of fun to watch, sometimes they run/swim around the tank and sometimes they crawl on the decorations or bottom looking for food. They don't seem to really like to hide, except when I feed them then they all grab a little piece of the algae pellet and try to get as far from the other shrimp as possible. I am going to be sad when the puffers come and the shrimp hide a lot, but I think it will be worth it.

I have been slowly watching as nematodes, cyclopses(copepods), and bugs grow in the tank. Its amazing how many of the cyclopses there are, they are all over the gravel. I was worried about them being in there although I read that they are harmless and are a good sign, apparently they can't take very much nitrate at all so them being in there means that the nitrate is good. I don't so much like the nematodes although it is kind of cool having all the different critters, but I doubt they will last long when the puffers come. I think as soon as they get picked up off the bottom by the water current(which seems to happen fairly often) they will get eaten. The bugs are little bugs that sit on top of the water, sometimes at night they fly around but they can't get very far. I like them but they are multiplying very quickly and I don't want to many of them. The filter seems to be a big threat to them as usually when they get close they get pushed under it and underwater, I don't think they usually survive the experience.

I started another snail tank, same size tank as the first one. I am going to put the pond snails in this one, they don't seem to be as tolerant of the water condition as the pond snails and there are less of them so they will hopefully do a little better alone.

My big grassy plant seems like it might not be happy, but I don't really know what it needs. It would be really helpful if I could figure out what kind of plant it was. It probably needs new lights, and I had denizens order 20 watt lights (twice the wattage of the ones I have and cheaper) but I don't know how long it will take them to get them in.

Still no pictures but I found out that its a short circuit in my camera and that I might be able to get it replaced.

Amanos

So the prime stuff will detoxify ammonia and nitrite! I used it and got some amano shirmp! They had a long ride here but made it fine. When I put them in the tank, after acclimating them, they were running and swimming all over the place. I was worried that it was because of either the nitrite or the prime being in the water, however I think it was just them being scared because they were in new water and a new tank. They settled down after about a half hour and seem pretty content now. One is still running around some, but its not so frenzied as before. As long as they live I should be able to get my puffers! Also bubble is doing well, he picked at a piece of hard food for a little today but never ate it.

Darn Nitrites

My nitrites haven't changed one ppm in an entire week, I got some new rocks as well as a little bottle of some stuff that "detoxifies" nitrite. I am hoping I can use this stuff to make the ammonia harmless so I could get my puffers but still be there so that the bacteria might keep growing. Also I returned the plants to Pet smart, got a fake plant for my snails and put the grass from my snails in my tank.

Aquatic plants

I got two new plants, these ones should be able to actually live underwater! My camera is acting up so I can't get pictures of them right now. One is a Dwarf Four Leaf Clover which I am hoping will do well, if it does it will carpet the bottom of the tank. The other one is a tall bushy plant, it has a lot of leaves that loot like grass, however I can't remember the name of it so I can't find a picture online. It kind of looks like the plant in this picture, but it isn't that plant. Rest assured Paul, I got them at Denizens.

Thank you Pet smart

I have learned why all pet smart plants come with the "snail free" guarantee, which I thought seemed like it would be incredibly hard for them to be able to do. It is because the aquarium plants they sell were grown above water. Why were these aquarium plants grown above water? Because they are regular house plants not underwater plants! So with the exception of my anarchis(the tall stuff in the back that I got from Petco) all of my plants will die in a week to a few months.

Pet smart is lucky they have dwarf puffers cause I would work hard to avoid them if they didn't. Apperantly they do sell one truely aquatic plant, however I have yet to see one of them healthy.

Lucky I still have the containers for the fern and grass so I should be able to return those. However, I don't know what I will do about the Umbrella(peace lily) plants.

The nitrite

So the ammonia is pretty much good but I guess I don't have enough of the bacteria removing the nitrite so now I have to wait for that. I am concerned that the nitrite bacteria on the rocks of the established tank might be dead if there wasn't enough nitrite for them when I put them in my tank. So it could be awhile. And I was so excited for my little puffs...

Ammoina

Took another ammonia reading today ~.1ppm so maybe tomorrow depending on the nitrite.

Yay!

All the bacteria are alive! I did a water test today and we got some good results. There aren't enough bacteria yet, but all the types of bacteria are in my tank. I put some rocks from an established tank in over the weekend, so that probably helped.

Ammonia: 1.5ppm
Nitrite: 5ppm
Nitrate: 5ppm
pH: 7.4

Aren't they exciting?

New Bowl

My girlfriend had an extra betta bowl, its a little boring at the moment I will have to get some plants for it. Bubble seems to enjoy the extra space but most of the time that I am around he sits in the front watching to see if anything exciting is happening(like if the medicine droper he gets fed with is moving).



I put the little green stones from the small bowl in after I took the picture.

More plants

I got more plants, I should have almost enough now. The only problem is that they are small and need to grow, the top half of my tank seems kind of boring right now.

New sword and grass


New fern plant


New tank arrangment


I put two little snails in with bubble to see how he would react to them. He attacks the larger one's shell every now and then, but for the most part he ignores them. He did eat some blood worms last night, so apperantly he is just a picky eater.

Bad news

The plants weren't doing anything, ammonia just hadn't been created yet. So it looks like it will be awhile until I will be getting them still :(

Ammonia: 2ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrate: 0ppm
pH: 7.4>

Bubble

The betta's name is officialy Bubble.

I am still worried because he is not eating though.

The plants?

So I read that plants use ammonia and nitrite or nitrate(can't remember which). This would explain why there wasn't any thing in the reading from Tuesday. If nothing is detected in the next reading then I will have to start thinking about getting my puffs. I still need some more plants though, and seeing how small my plants are another small decoration might be a good idea too.

I have started transferring snails back to the snail farm, its a slow process but I just net them out when I seem them climbing on the front glass. I tried to take some more photos of the snail eggs to show how they were developing, but they didn't turn out. They are getting a little bit bigger and are going from clear to slightly brown. They still can't be recognized as snails though. Also, I have noticed some small snails, around the size of the letter "O". I don't know where they have come from. They are only in the large tank, they seem to be too old to have hatched already, but too young to have been pulled out of the tank at Pet Smart.

The betta

The reason I say the betta is because I still haven't named him. I am working on it, I am thinking about bubble because some times he opens his mouth to breath and a bubble comes out. Any suggestions? Nothing new in the big tank, just a lot of snails.

Rearranging

I got a new little decoration and some swords. It still needs some more plants to help break the line of sight, I might get some of the ribbon plants from pet smart. I also got some fertilizer for the plants.

The big coral piece that was in the corner of the tank is out now, it is just too worn and doesn't look good. I bought another 5 lbs. of gravel and am slowly adding it, but I don't want to bury the snails.



My new piece




I took the snail farm out, there are a few snails still in it and lots of eggs. I figure it will save some time when the tank is ready because I won't be chaising a buch of tiny snails around.



Eggs

Betta!

So they were handing out bettas, figured I might as well get one. He is on and off with flirting around nervously and just hanging out. I think he has had a rough day, hope fully he will settle down soon.

First reading

I did the first water test today and here were the results :
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
pH: 7.5

:( Not what I was looking for, unless my tank cycled in four days, my ammonia sources aren't doing too much good. Solution? Filter from my girlfriends tank and literally putting the snail farm I have going in the tank.

My uncycled tank


They're escaping!


One of the herd


I am a little worried that there will be too many snails in the tank when the puffs come and they will eat too many and get sick, however I will worry about that when it gets closer to putting them in.

I need to get new lights for the tank the first ones I got won't work and I don't want to use the incandescent lights that came with it.

The beginning

I got my tank last Saturday, got a great deal on craigslist. It came with a lot of the stuff I needed like filter, few decorations, heater, net. I was worried that the big sharp gravel that came with the tank would cut the puffers so I picked up some small black gravel on the way home at Pet co. As soon as I got back my girlfriend and I went to setting it up, rinsing everything and putting it together. After it was all set up I put some food in there to help the anarchis and 3 snails get the cycle started.