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.