40 Gallon Community

[JamesFish]

If you have a small isolation / quarantine tank it can double as a fry holder if not in use. Its something every fish keeper should have as shop stock is not always up to the standard of trusting it (If you don't panic you can get one when convenient).

Cheaper / quicker solutions a floating fry trap with a little sand at the bottom may help him along or a tank divider is pretty cheap keep him separated till he's bigger. Both these options are fast and cheap to implement.

I'm sure other people are reading your thread if you want a little more light without bugging your more sensitive fish the cheap LEDS penetrate but not massively. Try the blue or look for the red ones if you think it would better for your fish and viewing.

Angel fish look great but temperament on them is something open to chance.

[.Plecomania.]

he's in the tank now

[.Plecomania.]

I got some new swords for my tank

I am looking to get some Diamond tetras instead of my neons because they have been slowly dropping off due to neon tetra disease and it seems unavoidable at this point. my one cardinal tetras has outlived all neon tetras in my tank. he is really colorful and strong. But i don't want to get more cardinals because they will all be wild caught. I am steering away from wild caught fish for this tank.

[JamesFish]

Hi Pleco,

Wild fish will generally be stressed by time they come in and enter different water. If you are very lucky you can prepare a tank for them and over the weeks migrate them to standard setup but it would take a long time and prove costly. If you are gong to get them a QT would prove a good idea as even after your fish die of disease it may stick around in your tank forcing you to risk more expense on live plants and unaffected fish being treated.

Attached is a picture of some little guys I picked up Rasbora's (Harlequin) common in the UK and should prove hardy and easy to keep. Sorry poor light on my QT tank and its a semi hexagon so a nightmare to get decent picture off at its size. They do shoal sometimes and seem comfy at all levels in this tank. Give it about 4 weeks and if all goes well will be adding to my main tank.

Link to the wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_rasbora

If your interested in them and how they develop as I'm pretty sure the ones I have are very young at the moment and only arrived in my tank yesterday so doubt they are showing at the best I can drop a picture or 2 back in a few weeks time.

I bought them to add more movement to my main tank as I have things at all 3 levels but movement in middle open space is limited and am hoping they will be happy filling it.

They belong to a different family so if it is a species specific disease you picked up they should be fine in theory. I personally wish I had looked at these before as I think they are much more suited to a community than most the tetra's I tried.

On the bright side your glass is allot cleaner than on my main tank my otto's and Ancistrus are being lazy buggers and only eating wafers.

[.Plecomania.]

Thanks for the tips. I'll see about the harlequin rasbora. if my store has either the diamonds or the harlequins i'll try to get some. but first i'll need to get $$

[JamesFish]

Hi pleco,

I wish you luck on the $$ mark and the fish keeping.

[.Plecomania.]

just some update pictures. first one is an update on the L260. you can find 3 in that picture
second is the cory who is growing.

[.Plecomania.]

I lost my male albino BN pleco today to bloat. treated him in quarantine for a week with no avail. i must have been too late to treat.

cory is still alive and well and is constantly schooling with my neons and cardinal tetra. all other fish are well. i will need to get a male albino plec from somewhere now along with some diamond tetras.

also found a random assassin snail as a hitchhiker in my tank. i hope there are more to help with my snail problem lol.

[.Plecomania.]

pictures

[.Plecomania.]

more pictures

[Kif]

Some nice photos, love the Corys one of my all time favourite fish.

[.Plecomania.]

thanks! I love corydoras too and would have a whole school of sterbai or pandas but i am afraid they would starve out my L260 plecos, so i decided not to get cories. i am only keeping this little pygmy cory because he isn't going to steal much food

[nvcichlids]

how sure are you that the neons were not dying from the Angelfish? Your tank is much smaller than my previous angelfish tank. I had 6 adult blue silver angels in a 120 with a school of neons. The angelfish were making short work of the school of them.

[.Plecomania.]

because my neons are huge, probably the jumbo variety (1.5"-2" in size) and the angel never chases them. before i lost a neon i'd always see sores on it's body and to my understanding it's neon tetra disease. nothing i did helped the neons. so far i have two neons that are holding on, and one smaller cardinal that is really an amazing looking fish.

I'll tell a little story. It's about my very bad experience with tetras.
Originally, maybe 2 years ago, I bought 12 wild caught cardinals because i was dumb. i saw them for cheap on AquaBid and went for it because i thought that a school would look nice. totally forgot they were wild caught and that my tap water is no where near ideal for soft water fish. long story short, cardinals started to drop quickly in the first week. maybe due to my angel, or maybe due to shipping and collecting stress in the wild. i was left with 6-7 cardinals and those seemed to hang on fine.

Then i bought 4 platys because my single male was looking lonely. well those platy fish brought in ich and i didn't even notice it because the platys were healthy but immediately after adding them my cardinals were covered in ich. all but one cardinal perished from ich. didnt have time to treat. wild fish are so sensitive...

Anyway now that one cardinal has been with me up until now. super vibrant super healthy, i love him. I decided to buy neons to let them all school. bought 6 neons. big neons too. by this time my angel has seen so many tetras that it had enough and wasn't dealing with them anymore. the neons were too big to eat anyway. well again disease struck and over the course of one year i lost many neons to neon tetra disease up until now.

All that remains is two neons (one has signs of disease but has somewhat recovered since i raised the temps to 83F) and that one cardinal. they school with the one pygmy cory i raised.

No more neons for me. no more cardinals since they are wild caught.
I was thinking about diamond tetras since those are likely hardy and captive bred. I want to get 5 diamonds when i have more money for fish

[nvcichlids]

Neon tetras do not do well in warmer water. Cardinal tetras are fine with the warmth, but neons aren't aslucky. i used to keep neons in a 20 gal L that was kept between 74-76 and the neons did fine. I then moved the tank to a high temp over 4 months time to accommodate some new fish I wanted to keep with them. I lost every neon after the temp was above 80. Now in my search for tetras for tanks above 80 (currently stocking a 125 with apistos and tetras and heated to 84-86), I hve been told to go with cardinal if I want one of the tetras from the "neon" group. I am currently quarantining 30 silvertip tetras, will be getting 10 emperor tetras, and eventually 60 Cardinals to finish the tank.

[.Plecomania.]

yea thats a shame. i cant really lower heat because of L260. its not the best environment for BN plecos either but they have been doing ok.
my remaining neons are doing well. we will see if the temps will affect their life span. they are active for now. the cardinal is fine too.

i am hoping diamond tetras can handle heat. online sources dont recommend 80F or more for them but i will attempt it. if it works they payoff will be great.

sounds like your tank will be epic looking! all those fish much be expensive to stock. i'd like to see a finished photo of your 125 when you fully stock it

[JamesFish]

Looking like a pleco home. Good to see you sticking with it.

[.Plecomania.]

update

[.Plecomania.]

For a small update, all fish are alive and well, the six L260 have grown a little bit. some are probably over 2". The Albino BN female has grown to 4"+
the pygmy cory is now and adult, and i ended up getting 6 Lemon Tetras a long time ago, and all of them are doing great at 82F. I didn't even know they were from the Tapajos River - same as the L260 plecos.

[.Plecomania.]

update pics for the L260
This is them on 11/13/2013

And them on 6/22/2014


They are slowly growing and might hopefully breed within the next year.

[.Plecomania.]