46 Gallon Bowfront

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#21
Sep 2, 2008
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DC
#21
Why do you think that? I thought that the "whiskers" should it was a male... and it does have them... Its still young so maybe it if grows more its a male?.. stays little its a female..

A lot of BN's at the store were the same size and didn't have bristles like this one did... But its my first one and I could be wrong.... Still naming it Albi, haha
 

Helena21

Helena21

Superstar Fish
#22
Oct 7, 2005
1,850
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32
Essex, England
#22
The males will have bristles all over its nose, but females either have no bristles or just a few round the edge. Maybe it is a male and still too young idk. But from that pic it looked like a decent age to be sexed as a female...maybe im wrong :\
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#23
Sep 2, 2008
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#23
I think he/she is about 2 inches so it very well could be a female.. thats cool though, thanks for the heads up... haha

Any ways my tank has been filled for about 18 hours and the fluorite sand has made it very cloudy and it still is. I don't have the filters running cause I don't want the sand to get all clogged up in it. I can tell some of it is settling on the rocks and plants but its taking awhile... Is there anyway to speed things up? I doubt it but I just am anxious to start cycling the filters.
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#27
Sep 2, 2008
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#27
Thats cool... Yeah today is the first day of classes at WVU.

Here's an update pic of the cloudiness... you can see the java fern and anubias in the front and the rest you can see from the sides besides the dwarf sag.

 

teevee

teevee

Medium Fish
#28
Aug 22, 2008
88
0
0
mesa, az
www.myspace.com
#28
wow, that is cloudy!!! i'm sure it'll clear up though. i tried planting real plants once and my tank got so filled with algae and the plants got mushy and weird so i went back to none... it was a bummer because they looked so nice before they got gross. LOL i don't have the time and know-how i guess.....
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#29
Sep 2, 2008
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#29
I have the time and the plants I got are all pretty easy to deal with... its been almost 2 days and it looks better than it did in the other pics but its taking awhile... Unfortunately when it does clear up and i brush the sand off the decor it will cloud it up a bit again... Atleast now I can see my driftwood in there!... that **** was expensive.
 

teevee

teevee

Medium Fish
#30
Aug 22, 2008
88
0
0
mesa, az
www.myspace.com
#30
I think your tank is going to be awesome once it's cleared up!! I was looking at the pics of the fish you posted and they look so cute too!!! My community tank looks stupid because I bought pairs in the beginning and they loved the tank so much it got way overpopluated so i had to take out everything the babies could hide in. SO SAD. So now it's just empty with all these weird looking bland fish swarming around. LOL My guppies, mollies and platys look pretty boriing in there with no color to stand out against. Ya know?
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#31
Sep 2, 2008
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#31
yeah I gotcha... My friends guppy fry/feeder tank just has a bunch or stones in the bottom but still looks decent, unfortunately the fry could hide for weeks in there.... for some reason I don't like live bearers so much... I'm afraid Ill end up with a lot and the only ones that I think look good are swordtails... sometimes...

I hope my tank works out good, just the waiting sucks. Ive been trying to sex my keyholes but they are so camera shy... but they do love algae wafers so I might try to bait them in for a pic.... actually my barbs like the wafers too, just as much as my BN
 

teevee

teevee

Medium Fish
#32
Aug 22, 2008
88
0
0
mesa, az
www.myspace.com
#32
I thought having baby fish was really cool....until my tank got out of hand! It's hard to even keep i clean, as you can imagine!! I would do things differently if I had it to do over, but it was my first tank and everyone said doing a nice community tank would be the way to go. My goldfish are a piece of cake to maintain and they're a lot of fun to watch. So, I'm thinking once the community tank has run its course... years from now.... I'll probably do another goldfish tank.

The waiting DOES suck!!! all my fish love those algae wafers so much so that the ones who are supposed to eat it rarely get a nibble! I love seeing everyone's tanks. It makes me jealous that I lack the knowledge right now to plant plants and all that! I can;'t wait to see your tank when you finally get it ready and have your fishies in there!
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#35
Sep 2, 2008
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#35
well considering it looks like my heater doesn't work... it probably wouldn't be the best idea... damn craigslist thats another 30bucks...... that canister filter better work! I just moved around the plants to make sure they are actually still planted and made sure there wasn't too much sand on the anubias and they are all still green...
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#37
Sep 2, 2008
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DC
#37
bought a new heater... kind of better than my stealth because it has a light showing that its on.... I turned the biowheel filter on before I left cause I don't think that its cloudy cause of sand anymore... Now it looks like the stealth heater works.... Ill be returning this baby tomorrow.
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#38
Sep 2, 2008
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#38
Okay.. got both my filters up and running and it is clearing up now pretty good... Both are seeded (canister with a filter bag from the small internal whisper and the bio wheel with just the screen from the same whisper that has been running for over 4 and a half months). The canister gave me a little scare cause it didn't work right away but it's perfect now. I tested to see how much ammonia was in the tank from when I added earlier, little treat to the plants and such and it was just about 2.0 so I added another cap full for the night. I'm hoping to get some nitrite/nitrate readings tomorrow. Also after I started up the biowheel the cloudiness started to clear up a bit more.... The biowheel has a filter bag in there with carbon that could help. The canister has foam sponge>carbon>seeded material with bio balls and ceramic balls>ceramic balls, in that order. Maybe I will have fish in there by Thursday.

Hopefully an update picture with clear water tomorrow.
 

unwritten law

unwritten law

Superstar Fish
#39
Sep 2, 2008
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DC
#39


Ammonia is still high(4+) as of this morning with very little nitrite... I'll test again tomorrow. I'm hoping the cloudiness is a bacterial bloom right now... but either way I just gotta wait it out.

I think that's my dwarf sag up front left... not so dwarf
Water sprite in back left
Java fern on wood
Italian Val in back right.

Im gonna move some stuff around later but its good for now... also I prob might need some more plants but I'm guessing these plants will grow like crazy once I get the levels stable and add C02.
 

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