yoyo loaches

bassbonediva

Superstar Fish
Oct 15, 2009
2,010
0
0
Northern Arizona
#4
Just googled the bichir...that's one cool-looking fish!

I love my otos! I'm down to four now (from seven...had one die the night I got him home, found another of the newbies floating this morning before cleaning my 46gal and one that is completely MIA, even after a 50% WC and complete scrub-down of the 46gal), but the ones I have are hardy little buggers. One of the females is even missing an eye and she's queen of the tank. Still don't know how she lost that stinkin' eye, though!
 

bassbonediva

Superstar Fish
Oct 15, 2009
2,010
0
0
Northern Arizona
#6
You have NO idea! lol I have my son with me this weekend and he wanted to help very badly...but he's only five and even though he's tall for his age, the tank is just too tall and deep for him to do anything with. So, he got to babysit the fish (I have to take out the female bettas because they have a tendancy to bite...and I took out the otos so I could get a count of how many I have left...and took out the upside down cat to make sure he was alright :p). It took the better part of four hours from removing everything for scrubbing to rearranging and refilling it. Needless to say, other than a quick trip to town to get some supplies for the CT breeding tank (and an impulse dawn platy buy), I got absolutely NOTHING else accomplished today. :/ The tank looks great, though! :D
 

Feb 27, 2009
4,395
0
36
#7
You have NO idea! lol I have my son with me this weekend and he wanted to help very badly...but he's only five and even though he's tall for his age, the tank is just too tall and deep for him to do anything with. So, he got to babysit the fish (I have to take out the female bettas because they have a tendancy to bite...and I took out the otos so I could get a count of how many I have left...and took out the upside down cat to make sure he was alright :p). It took the better part of four hours from removing everything for scrubbing to rearranging and refilling it. Needless to say, other than a quick trip to town to get some supplies for the CT breeding tank (and an impulse dawn platy buy), I got absolutely NOTHING else accomplished today. :/ The tank looks great, though! :D
Curious...why would you scrub down a tank like that?
 

bassbonediva

Superstar Fish
Oct 15, 2009
2,010
0
0
Northern Arizona
#8
Because it was covered in algae. I let it get ahead of me with the holidays and finals at school, and it ended up getting out of hand. After the bacteria bloom I had last month, the algae decided to invade. The otos tried to keep up with it, but it got to be too much for them without my help. I take complete responsibility for it since I only half-heartedly tried to scrub at the algae once a week. Finals seriously kicked my butt this semester (with five classes at once, four of which were English classes, it was bound to happen), but now that school is out until almost February, I'm going to get a routine down and stick to it. I will admit it was dumb of me to upgrade the tank when I really didn't have the time to maintain it as well as I should. But, it'll be better now. :)
 

Nov 19, 2008
702
0
0
Des Moines, Iowa
#10
bassbonediva: that sucks. yeah ive let my brown algae get out of hand here lately also but i dont have any fish that eat it so this is why i need some oto's. the oto's that i found at the lfs were like 1/2"-3/4" big and at that size my bichir would eat them so ive just decided rex is gonna go as cool as he is and im just going to add oto's and smaller fish so i can have a more schooling tank and peaceful tank. my tank has always been quite aggressive. there are a lot of peaceful fish that i want but cannot get because of rex. plus oto's and danios maybe a molly or 2 with all my fish minus the bichir will be a nice setting and ecspecially when it gets fully planted. the only thing that sucks is in 4 months im moving out of our lease so it is gonna suck breaking all down and reseting back up ecspecially the 125lbs. of gravel (thats also mixed with 30lbs of plant substrate) and moving that. i think though im gonna change around the setting and the rocks when i move. i think i want more of a natural rock and i want to take out the huge cylindar on the left side of my tank to give more open swimming area. i dont know so much i want to do its mind boggling
 

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bassbonediva

Superstar Fish
Oct 15, 2009
2,010
0
0
Northern Arizona
#12
Yeah, we're not even going to go into the issues I'm having. The tank is fine...problems with the girls though that aren't related to the tank really (well, I guess they kind of are, but yeah)...anyway, if I didn't have my son's platies to think about, I would seriously consider just tearing down the 46gal until I have the time and money to work out all the kinks. Getting very frusterated with myself because of that stupid tank.
 

Newman

Elite Fish
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
0
0
Northern NJ
#13
the tank isnt stupid. you just need to set aside more time to work on it like you said. be sure to reasearh a bit more on proper tank maintenance. dont let your ego get in the way there. i trust you know how to take care of and clean the tank, but ther are a lot of informative guides on the net that might help you even more. reading reall helps in this hobby :) I try to read more stuff on fishkeeping every day ;)