After getting back from my trip to California for the AGA conference, my tanks are in turn for a little bit of change. The first tank on my list is the 75G, where the glosso and ranunculus had run their course of planting, trimming, trimming, trimming, until finally it was too overgrown to really trim. In some places, the mat of glosso on the right side of my tank was over 2″ thick! So, I decided to rip it all up and replant it, hence, starting the next cycle. Below is what’s leftover after replanting the 75G. It’s amazing how you can rip up well over 2 liters of plant material, and replant the exact same area with about a baseball’s worth of plant material.

 

At the last GWAPA meeting, I decided to buy another plant I had somewhere hadn’t managed to keep, even though it’s been in the hobby for a few years — blyxa aubertii. I’ve always had incredibly good luck keeping blyxa japonica, so I decided to give it’s slightly more difficult cousin as try.

When I got home from the meeting, I didn’t have time to properly plant the blyxa in my 40G, so I just threw it in the tank, letting it float around. Well, I guess you can say that I forgot about it for 4-5 days. Yesterday morning, I open the tank’s lid to feed the fish, and to my surprise, the blyxa aubertii had two flower stalks coming up and out of the floating plant! The plant I got was a very mature, healthy plant, so I guess all it needed was a little bit of light, close to the surface. In any case, it was a nice surprise!

I obtained a breeding pair of apistogramma panduro from another apistogramma aficionado in the Capital Cichlid Association, a local cichlid club. These beautiful fish have a 40G breeder tank to themselves, with a few rummynose tetra as dither fish. Shortly after introducing them to the tank, they colored up, and started protecting eggs.

After the eggs hatched, and the fry became free swimming, I fed the fry infusoria, and had plenty of java moss for them to hide from the tetra.

Inevitably, a few of the fry were picked off, but I have a decent number of them left, as adults, now. I’ve kept a few different types of apistos, and I think this particular species is one of the most beautiful ones available. The pictures don’t do this fish justice, but the deep purple body, and iridescent orange fins are incredible. The females look pretty much like most female apistos, except them have the same red border on their tail fin.

They seem to be a relatively peaceful apistogramma species, expressing far less aggression than other apistogrmma to the dither fish, even when spawning. Actually, they seem to spook fairly easily, hiding when I first approach the tank.

Melanotaenia splendida australis is a beautiful, but fairly common, rainbowfish. I think this was the cheapest rainbowfish that I have in my 54G, rainbowfish, tank. I believe I paid $1.99 for the juenvenille, drab-looking, fish. Despite it’s youthful appearance, as an adult, I think it might be the most prolific fish, both in spirit and color, that I own. I’d recommend to anyone who wants to try rainbowfish.

I was fortunate to catch it displaying to another male rainbowfish in the tank (below). These fish truly are a marvel to watch, especially in the morning, when they’re especially spirited.

A few weekends ago, I emptied everything out of this tank, except for the SeaChem Oynx sand substrate. Previously, I also had a “wall of wood” with anubias and java fern plants attached to them. Unfortunately, I had that scape in place for about 2 years, and most of the plants had overgrown themselves into places that were no longer aesthetically pleasing. So, I basically wanted to keep a similar scape, with just a few adjustments that would open up more free space for the rainbowfish, who had grown quite large since I introduced them to the tank.

(54G Tank – 10/18/2006)

The foreground itself is quite bare right now. I have a few varieties of crypts planted there that, in time, should fill out the foreground quite nicely. I want to remind you that this is the tank that I don’t do anything to except for bi-weekly water changes. I have phyllanthus fluitans floating on the surface to soak up any extra nitrates. I rarely dose the tank, and I don’t supplement any CO2. I have a JBJ Formosa fixture on top that sports 2x65W PC lights and some NOISY fans. All in all, so long as the powerhead and filter keep a fairly high amount of circulation going in this tank, I have zero problems. I’d welcome any low-light recommendations for the foreground.