40 gallon biotope build

[nanofish]

I need to give some serious thought into buying a camera. Until I get my hands on a good one here are a couple of bad pics

 

[absolutangel04]

AAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!
They are so cute! Yeah, your camera does suck. Lol. But, its ok. It gets the job done.
Only a couple of my corys use the pot caves. I have one big albino female who loves the caves though. I took out a few of the ones I had.
Are they in the water yet?

 

[nanofish]

They've been in for about 6 hours now and haven't hid at all. They just sit there at the front unless they're searching every side of the leaves and dw for food.
You should see the pics I tried to take them of them in the tank Talk about bad.

 

[absolutangel04]

Good to know they are doing well. They look so tiny! Are you going to name them?

 

[nanofish]

I never name my fish, mostly because they're often hard to tell apart. Do you name your's?
They are tiny. I measured one against the glass and it was 1.75 inches. My cory's are still young but even the dwarf the red lizards in everything but length. It's not even close.

 

[absolutangel04]

Yeah, I name pretty much all of mine. Any my shrimp and snails.
Wow, they are tiny little guys. It sounds like their behavior is really good. I think that sitting around and sometimes looking for food is pretty much what they are supposed to do. Can you tell what genders they are? I don't know if the color differences show up when they are young or not.

 

[nanofish]

How do you tell them apart? I can't differentiate that well lol.
You couldn't tell from those awesome, awesome pics? I can't really tell at the moment. One was a lot paler than the other two. Youth or stress I'm not sure. Of the other two one looks slightly redder. No idea if that's my imagination though. They match the colors of the leaves very well but they're not impossible to spot and so far have stayed in the same general area.

 

[absolutangel04]

Yeah, I am guessing they will color up a bit more in a few days because most fish do. There are not too many that I have had that presented their full colors when I first put them in the tank. Hopefully they color up well and then make babies. Honestly, since you have some other tanks sitting around, it would be a good idea to keep one on hand in case any of you fish ever do breed. Since you are dealing with some rarer fish, there could be some money in selling them. Not a lot because if how much all the equipment costs, but still some.
But, since you have so many tanks laying around, you can still set up a nano tank and keep another on on hand for any possible babies someday. Of course, you can also raise fry in breeder nets, especially since you don't have any large predators in your tank. I have to separate all my fry until they are big enough to not get eaten by the angels.

 

[nanofish]

Looking for red lizards or are you still hoping I get the oil cats and breed them? I'm thinking those would be the rarest of what I have. Kitty tetras maybe but they are inexpensive.
I've never sold any pets before. Wouldn't even know where to now. The two ten gallons I have are from desert dwarf hamsters I had. Paid forty dollars for two, they had babies and I separated them since momma beat up daddy. hat left me with no room for nine babies and I just gave them to the lfs. Breeding is something to try one day. I think you should always push your care taking skills and breeding is a good sign that you're accomplishing that.

 

[absolutangel04]

If somebody made me choose between red lizards and oil cats, I would pick the oil cats. But they are both really neat, and both seem to be on the rare side.
I sell my angel babies. You just have to go to an lfs and see if they want the species and then ask how big they need the fish to be and what they will give you for them.

 

[nanofish]

Oil cats did beat out the leopard frogs so I knew you liked them. There is not one lfs in my county. Not one. We have Petsmart. I'm not even sure where another is. Harrisburg maybe?

 

[absolutangel04]

Ug. That makes things harder. You could ship them. I have never shipped fish, so I don't really know how much work goes into it.
I guess its a moot point at the moment anyway since we don't even know if you have both genders of the lizards yet. But, it never hurts to think about.

 

[nanofish]

I think Severum Momma has a howto ship somewhere on here. Still no idea where you'd get things like heat pads.
I could always get more red lizards someday if they have them
The worst part about no LFS isn't what to do with babies I don't have. It's not being able to get frozen food for fish I want.

 

[absolutangel04]

True. Do your chains have frozen food? My PetCo has frozen bloodworms and a few other frozen things, but its still not the biggest assortment.

 

[nanofish]

Never saw any at the Petsmart here. There's a PetCo in Harrisburg but I hate going there lol. I can order from That Fish Place instead of going there...but it's a $25 flat shipping fee.

 

[absolutangel04]

Thats a pretty decent amount for shipping fish food.

 

[nanofish]

That's WAY too much for shipping so I'd have to figure something else out if I wanted to keep something that required frozen or live food.

Good thing I got the red lizards, besides their pure awesomeness. They changed the species name on the site from Sturisoma aureum to S. panamense. That's a two inch difference.

 

[absolutangel04]

I am not totally awake yet. So, yours are going to be 2 inches bigger than you originally thought, right?

 

[nanofish]

Nope. Mine will be the same size as I thought. The one I was originally going to get would have been 2 inches bigger. 8 instead of 6.

 

[absolutangel04]

Ok. Thats cool.
Are they still doing well?