75G – Meet the Inhabitants

I decided to take a few snapshots of the fauna in my 75G. As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, all of fish in this tanks were obtained in the auction from Aquafest. I haven’t had any losses, and all seem to be quite happy settling into their new surroundings.

There are 18 Corydoras paleatus in the tank that are constantly scurrying around the tan. They’re very social creatures zigging and zagging throughout the plants with at least one other companion in tow. Some lucky (or unlucky) plump females draw a crowd of male suitors up and down the glass. No eggs that I’ve seen yet.

The pair of Nannochromis nudiceps have taken up residence underneath two rocks on the right side of the tank. I’m a little bothered by their persistent efforts to dig up powersand from the bottle of the tank, and litter the large ugly white pumice stone across the top of the prettier aquasoil, but if they end up spawning I’ll forgive them.

Lately, they’ve decided to start covering the top of the rocks with aquasoil too. I hope their little “underground lair” doesn’t collapse on top of them!

And of course, there’s a huge population of cherry shrimp in the tank. I dumped in about 200 from the pond before the weather turned cold. I’m sure a few made a nice snack for the cichlids, but there’s still a ton. I did a quick trim of some plants, and I had to chuckle as 5-6 shrimp abandoned ship after I trimmed a single stem that they were occupying, and it began floating upward.

Hopefully, the shrimp will clear up the bit of algae that still remains on the rocks and wood. The only other inhabitants are some nerite snails, and 5-6 dwarf Ancistrus sp. L279 “Huaco Mayo.” I’ll try to profile those on their own at a later time.