After cleaning and pruning my tank today, I had quite a few surprises.
Here in Buffalo, my school was closed today because of nasty weather (I had about ½” of ice on my car, and I scraped it off the night before, after the freezing rain had started.) I decided that I would clean out my 30-gallon freshwater-planted aquarium.
The tank had become overgrown, and many of the plants had become covered with this moss that hitchhiked on my driftwood from aquariumdriftwood.com I was never worried about it, as someone else had similar moss, and they said it just went away after a while. Mine didn’t.
It completely covered the driftwood, and then spread throughout the tank. I had thick pockets of it in both back corners, covering dwarf onion plants, and red ludwiga. It also was mixed in with my teardrop rotala, green hygro, and java fern. I removed the driftwood, and tossed it in a bucket. I tried scrubbing it off, but it was not a success. For now, it’s not going back in. I was able to pull if off most of the java fern, and I had enough green hygro to trim back and remove it. The teardrop was a total loss. I had 6 bunches that went in the garbage. Just about all the red ludwiga and most of the onion went as well. I tried my best at removing the moss, but I know it will come back (just like the duckweed I throw out every other week.) There was some good news with the massive cleaning and removal, however.
Because I had freed up a lot of swimming room, I think my fish will appreciate it. I also found some lost survivors. I had received some Amano shrimp from a friend who took down a newt tank. I also purchased 4 more from the fish place throughout the course of a couple weeks. After about a day of seeing them, they disappeared. I assumed that my angels or my swordtail ate them. I found 3 of them, one being huge (way too big to be eaten.) The other two were of fairly good size as well. I was quite surprised, and glad to see that my $2.00 shrimp had not all become fish food. There was also another surprise. I’m a father. J
I had started with a male/female pair of swordtails, but lost the male about 3 weeks after I purchased him. He swam funny, and eventually got caught up in some java moss, and perished. I never replaced him, even though my parents kept telling me that the female was lonely. While feeding my fish tonight, I saw a small orange fish I had never seen before. She (I think) was about 3/4ths the size of my neon tetras. I was shocked to learn that my female swordtail had been pregnant at least once. I don’t know if the swordtail I brought home is the father or not, but it doesn’t matter. Without trying, I was able to raise a baby fish. I just hope the new fish is smart enough to stay out of the open water until she’s big enough not to be eaten by my angel pail. I saw them chasing her around for a while.
Overall, it was quite a good, productive day. I just hope I didn’t throw out any other fish in my trashing of plants earlier J
Here's a quick, crappy picture of the baby swordtail. Congratulations if you made it this far!
Here in Buffalo, my school was closed today because of nasty weather (I had about ½” of ice on my car, and I scraped it off the night before, after the freezing rain had started.) I decided that I would clean out my 30-gallon freshwater-planted aquarium.
The tank had become overgrown, and many of the plants had become covered with this moss that hitchhiked on my driftwood from aquariumdriftwood.com I was never worried about it, as someone else had similar moss, and they said it just went away after a while. Mine didn’t.
It completely covered the driftwood, and then spread throughout the tank. I had thick pockets of it in both back corners, covering dwarf onion plants, and red ludwiga. It also was mixed in with my teardrop rotala, green hygro, and java fern. I removed the driftwood, and tossed it in a bucket. I tried scrubbing it off, but it was not a success. For now, it’s not going back in. I was able to pull if off most of the java fern, and I had enough green hygro to trim back and remove it. The teardrop was a total loss. I had 6 bunches that went in the garbage. Just about all the red ludwiga and most of the onion went as well. I tried my best at removing the moss, but I know it will come back (just like the duckweed I throw out every other week.) There was some good news with the massive cleaning and removal, however.
Because I had freed up a lot of swimming room, I think my fish will appreciate it. I also found some lost survivors. I had received some Amano shrimp from a friend who took down a newt tank. I also purchased 4 more from the fish place throughout the course of a couple weeks. After about a day of seeing them, they disappeared. I assumed that my angels or my swordtail ate them. I found 3 of them, one being huge (way too big to be eaten.) The other two were of fairly good size as well. I was quite surprised, and glad to see that my $2.00 shrimp had not all become fish food. There was also another surprise. I’m a father. J
I had started with a male/female pair of swordtails, but lost the male about 3 weeks after I purchased him. He swam funny, and eventually got caught up in some java moss, and perished. I never replaced him, even though my parents kept telling me that the female was lonely. While feeding my fish tonight, I saw a small orange fish I had never seen before. She (I think) was about 3/4ths the size of my neon tetras. I was shocked to learn that my female swordtail had been pregnant at least once. I don’t know if the swordtail I brought home is the father or not, but it doesn’t matter. Without trying, I was able to raise a baby fish. I just hope the new fish is smart enough to stay out of the open water until she’s big enough not to be eaten by my angel pail. I saw them chasing her around for a while.
Overall, it was quite a good, productive day. I just hope I didn’t throw out any other fish in my trashing of plants earlier J
Here's a quick, crappy picture of the baby swordtail. Congratulations if you made it this far!
