It all started with a feeder fish my kids won at a carnival game.
I new nothing of fish care, so we kept this poor thing on a glass bowl with glass decorator beads, a single plastic plant, fed him 2 pellets and a micro pinch of flakes twice a day, changed his water on e a week using distilled h2o 100% change very time.
After a year of this I thought it would be nice to get a small tank and maybe some friends for him.
The 5 gallon Fluval Chi was the only tank my wife liked and would fit under the cabinet on the counter in the kitchen.
Bought the tank and started researching... How my poor fish survived the radical chemical shifts with 100% changes every week in less than 1 gallon of water I do not know.
To make a long story short(er), I now have a well cycled tank with a 3 inch Goldfish ( he really grew), 3 Otocinclus, 4 Loaches (3 clown and 1 Khuli).
Plants: one micro sword that I will shortly split due to growth, 1 one medium flame sword, a long stalked red sword, and the common viney stuff.
Scenery: Two pieces of drift wood and two pieces of fossil rock rest on top of a sand and gravel mixture.
As one might imagine I had some cycling problems until I used live bacteria (shipped direct with refrigeration). This really helped! I modified the top fountain to retain water so I could place plenty of biomedia on top, hidden by the zenish rocks.
3 months in and I have ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, pH from 6.7 to 7.0, Nitrate at 40 or less. I have been using mostly distilled H2O with some treated tap water when my pH is lower.
I made a decorative guard rail as I initially had some leaping loaches ( lost 2 Khulis). Originally used glass decorator beads for gravel, but lost 2 small loaches due to them getting stuck. No unmechanical deaths.
Thinking of adding a all school of neon Tetras for color. The Goldfish has not been eating anyone, but tetras are smaller than the other denizens.
I new nothing of fish care, so we kept this poor thing on a glass bowl with glass decorator beads, a single plastic plant, fed him 2 pellets and a micro pinch of flakes twice a day, changed his water on e a week using distilled h2o 100% change very time.
After a year of this I thought it would be nice to get a small tank and maybe some friends for him.
The 5 gallon Fluval Chi was the only tank my wife liked and would fit under the cabinet on the counter in the kitchen.
Bought the tank and started researching... How my poor fish survived the radical chemical shifts with 100% changes every week in less than 1 gallon of water I do not know.
To make a long story short(er), I now have a well cycled tank with a 3 inch Goldfish ( he really grew), 3 Otocinclus, 4 Loaches (3 clown and 1 Khuli).
Plants: one micro sword that I will shortly split due to growth, 1 one medium flame sword, a long stalked red sword, and the common viney stuff.
Scenery: Two pieces of drift wood and two pieces of fossil rock rest on top of a sand and gravel mixture.
As one might imagine I had some cycling problems until I used live bacteria (shipped direct with refrigeration). This really helped! I modified the top fountain to retain water so I could place plenty of biomedia on top, hidden by the zenish rocks.
3 months in and I have ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, pH from 6.7 to 7.0, Nitrate at 40 or less. I have been using mostly distilled H2O with some treated tap water when my pH is lower.
I made a decorative guard rail as I initially had some leaping loaches ( lost 2 Khulis). Originally used glass decorator beads for gravel, but lost 2 small loaches due to them getting stuck. No unmechanical deaths.
Thinking of adding a all school of neon Tetras for color. The Goldfish has not been eating anyone, but tetras are smaller than the other denizens.
