I was sitting across the room, watching some television, which I noticed a huge mass of cherry shrimp, all congregated in the front of my 75G aquarium. The 75G has been close to algae-free lately, so I have been feeding extra algae wafers for the plecos, but hadn’t really paid much attention after doing so. Apparently, the population of cherry shrimp was quite interested in the algae wafers, and called of their friends to join them in the feast.

Of course, with that many shrimp in one place, all of the rainbowfish in the tank wanted to see what was so interesting. They dove in and out of the population of shrimp, but didn’t seem to bother the shrimp any by doing so.

Finally, the Ancistrus sp. ‘L279’ bristle-nosed plecos realized that I dropped in algae wafers, and stormed into the middle of the shrimp. In some instances, they swam in fast enough to a send the shrimp flying out of the way.

All in all, it’s pretty entertaining to watch these critters interact with the rest of the tankmates. As you can tell, the cherry shrimp have had no problem breeding in my 75G aquarium!

The Capital Cichlid Association‘s January meeting kicked off the year with Kurt Johnston describing how he makes his own fish food. Kurt has been in the hobby for over 40 years and is currently the Public Relations Chair, BAP chair, and Swap Meet Chair of the Aquarium Club of Lancaster County. Having a diverse set of interests, he found that making his own food was far more economical, as well as, more nutritious for his fish than the commercial foods available.

He estimates that his recipe costs about 50% less per pound than the average commercial fish food, and even cheaper compared to the premium brands. In addition, there’s no filler ingredients or preservatives that just end up passing through the fish anyways.

To develop his recipe, Kurt spent a lot of time researching the nutritional needs of fish. In general, he found that fish need a highly digestible protein, consisting of roughly 25%-50% of their diet, depending on the species of fish. Their diet should be low-fat, contain 2-5% fiber, and incorporate the full range of vitamins A, B, C, D, E, K, Omega 3&6, and amino acids. In addition, he found that the essential amino acids and long-chain fatty acids are only found in aquatic meats, such as fish meal, not in terrestrial meats like beef. Also, fish can’t digest grains, so it was important to not include them in the recipe.

After knowing what things his food would have to provide, he began looking at ingredients. Kurt uses all natural products, including a variety of vegetables: peas, broccoli, carrots, garlic, etc… For protein, shrimp and a white fish provide that. He also adds protein through a number of freeze-dried powders, such as shrimp powder, krill powder, etc. Then, the whole mess is stabilized with agar, and frozen in sheets that he can break off and feed as needed.

Even though this is a highly nutritious food, Kurt also believes that fish benefit from a varied diet, so he does feed them some premium commercial foods, as well as, live foods in rotation with his own recipe. All in all, I found Kurt’s talk fascinating, and can definitely see the benefits of making your own food.

Update: Kurt was kind enough to allow me to post his full recipe online here: fish food recipe.

Hygrophila sp. ‘Guinea’ is a new plant to the hobby that I’m growing in my 75G aquarium. This particular species of Hygrophila is a larger sized plant, but the leaves are uniquely feathered, so I feel it can be used in spots where other similarly sized plants would be inappropriate. Thus, it should be a very nice plant  to soften and break up the common leaf patterns used in many aquascapes.

The plant remains a nice bright green color, even under high light and favorable dosing conditions. Hygrophila sp. ‘Guinea’ is a much slower grower than other plants in the Hygrophila genus, which is a good thing in my opinion. The stem is rather thick, and the leaves all appear to point upward from the stem toward the surface.

Hygrophila sp. ‘Guinea’ is still quite rare in the U.S., but it is available occasionally through the hobbyist community. If you can find it, it’s a new plant that’s worth trying.

It’s been about two months since I first setup the aquascape in my 50G aquarium. The plants are growing in very well, and after many hydrogen peroxide treatments, the algae I was experiencing is finally starting to wane. Unfortunately, the H2O2 also took a toll on many of the fish I had in this tank. Otherwise, I’ve removed a few more rocks from the right foreground to allow for more focus on the woodwork there. Ideally, I’d like the wood to look like a fallen tree.

The HC and hairgrass are both starting to take off, which I’ve been waiting awhile for. I’ll probably tweak a few more things, removing a couple plants from the scape, but more/less, I’m pretty pleased with how it’s progressing. As always, comments/critiques welcome!

Earlier in the week, one of our fellow GWAPA members, Dave Williams, invited a few people over to rescape his large 180G aquarium. With a tank this large, a little bit of help to plant can save a huge amount of time. By the time we arrived, Dave had done all of the prep work required, so we could start directly with the hardscape. He already had a vision in his head about the final aquascape, which was to bundle branches of wood together to form “trees,” and hopefully provide enough perspective with plants to have the effect of standing in the forest, with a mountain off in the background.

So, we got started by placing the trees in the tank, and then using several pieces of porous mossy rock to build up our mountain. After we did this, we realized that the mountain looked a little bit out of place, being the only rock in the tank.

So, we added a complementary mountain to the left of it. After several opinions were tossed around, we all decided that we didn’t like the separate mountain ranges, and would rather put a smaller peak in part of a larger mountain range. We were also trying to envision which pieces of the background would end up visible once the tank was planted. Ultimately, we ended up with what you see below.

Now, it was time to begin planting the tank. We added just enough water to allow for the plants to stick, and went to town. In the mountain itself, we wedged Cryptocoryne parva into any crack we could. The foreground consisted of hairgrass and a dwarf Lilaeopsis species. Anubias, Cryptocoryne crispatula var. ‘Balansae’, Cryptocoryne walkeri, Pogostemon helferi, among others made it into the tank.

Now it was time to fill the tank with water. As you can imagine, it takes quite awhile to fill a tank with 180 gallons of water slowly enough not to disturb the plants. Dave sent a picture of how the tank looks with the water in it.

As you can tell, plenty of growing needs to happen to really fill in a tank this size, but I’m very interested to see how this aquascape shapes up once it reaches maturity. I also recommend scaping with other people. It’s great to hear instant feedback on your original hardscape and plant selection ideas, so that you can make any minor adjustments before you finish.