It’s amazing how fast things can turn south. We had to leave town for a few days due to a family emergency, and of course, this is the time it always happens — the CO2 tank ran out. Now mind you, it could be a coincidense, but really it’s just a crewl joke, that not one, but two, CO2 tanks ran out this past weekend. So, while my aquariums are not unsalvagable, they most definitely now range from algae scapes, to minor eye sores on the glass.

Here, is my gallery of shame. On the top left: green spot algae on the glass, with perhaps some late stages of green dust algae. To the right, a nice mat of cladaphora. Note, there’s not a good cure for this algae. Finally, below, notice the free flowing pad of staghorn algae.

Well, I finally got fed up with lots of not-so-dwarf hairgrass, full of brush algae, that ended up not staying rooted in the substrate. So, I pretty much yanked everything out of the tank. I had neglected this tank for about 2 months, allowing a lotus plant to nearly cover the entire surface. I had hoped that if I let it go long enough, I would finally got a beautiful lotus flower. It figures that the day I pull out that lotus, I see its first flower stalk shooting up. Of course, I only realized this after I ripped out the foot long root system, uprooting the entire left side of the tank. So much for patience — I’ll try that next time.

So, anyways, I’m working with a very limited set of slate rock that’s leftover from redoing my 75G. One of these days, I need to get back down to an excellent slate collection site by the side of the road in northern Virginia. Below is what I’ve come up with thus far for the hardscape. I want lots of caves, as this tank houses several apistogramma panduro. Please ignore the horrible derth of flora right now. I need to make a serious visit to my LFS (and a few GWAPA member’s tank) to find some new and interesting plants to throw in here. I’m open to any plant suggestions, particularly for the foreground.

In less than 2 weeks, GWAPA will be judging the aquascapes of our member’s 2.5 gallon tanks. Earlier this spring/summer, GWAPA announced a club aquascaping contest. Any club members, who wanted to participate, would be given a 2.5G tank, complete with 3M ColorQuartz Sand, a 2x13W PC light with legs, and a set of Seachem fertilizers.

We soon found out that the ColorQuartz sand was nothing near the substrate we were used to dealing with. To put it lightly, growth was terrible! After adding a few root tabs, and fertilizing heavily, the glosso finally started taking off. Below is a picture of my tank, two weeks out from it’s final trim before judgement.

Below are some pictures of one the male bolivian rams, microgeophagus altispinosa, that I have in my 75G tank. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any female rams to try breeding this fish. The local fish stores, generally only carry males because their coloration is much more profound than their female counterparts.

Rams are very nice additions to your tank, even in community tanks. Unlike some of their more aggressive cichlid cousins, these dwarf cichlids from South America are quite docile. I have found that when multiple males are put in the same tank, a hierarchy is definitely established, where the dominant male is the largest and most colorful.

I have kept both rams and apistogramma in the same tank without problem. They will not interbreed, and so long as the tank is large enough, the two will not bother each other. The obvious exception is when either is spawning. Recently, my apistogramma cacatuoides began rearing fry, and seem to purposefully pick out the bolivian rams to chase away from their “nest”. They tend to leave various other rasaboras and tetras much more leeway than they do their dwarf-cichlid-counterparts.

I decided to snap a few updated pictures of my 75G tank today. I’m still figuring out all of this photography stuff, so bear with me as I try to get better and better pictures of my tanks.

(Front/Angled view)

(View from right side)

(Left – Apisto. cacatuoides, hovering over some anubias barteri, where his fry are swimming between the roots.)

(Right – Two Nerite Snails cling to one another. I don’t want to know what they’re doing!)

As you can see, the glosso is growing in quite nicely. The Rams have taken a particular liking to swimming in the open “glosso field.” That is, of course, when the female apisto. cacatuoides is not chasing them away from her fry.