Going bigger

[Si4geckos]

Wow! I think you might be a little bit mad, but you only live once and they are gorgeous fish, so if it makes you happy and you can still afford to eat then it is a good kind of mad! How did the residents react to so many new zebras?

Oh yea, eating....

Ah well, I need to lose some lockdown weight anyway!

All seems fairly calm and quiet in zebra land this morning. Usual fish are in their individual caves, a couple in the new caves and a mass of bodies all wedged behind the sponge filter! Standard. No dramas from what I've seen but I'll be keeping a close eye on things this week. Turns out he gave me about 20 cardinal tetras too, so added to my 5 auction cardinals and 7 already in there, I now have a nice group of around 30ish. Looks really good in the dim lighting.

In the big tank, the 236's seem fine. One in a cave and the others have found little notches in wood, etc to hide in. I did also add all the new auction fish to the main tank at the same time too yesterday. That's 10 dwarf neon rainbow fish and x5 tiny congo tetras. The rainbows are schooling in a super tight ball, which is great to see. The small congos and rummy nose all shoal together too. Nice to see a bit more life back in the big tank. Still hoping for a swift recovery from the 'upstairs' fish so I can add more bigger congos and the adult boesmani rainbows too.

[Stephen]

Wow! Si

Zebra pleco land has expanded.

@Si4geckos
I'm up in the Wirral area on Monday(13th), Tuesday(14th), Wednesday(15th) September.
Is this a shop or individual that's closing down ?

Thanks

[Si4geckos]

Wow! Si

Zebra pleco land has expanded.

@Si4geckos
I'm up in the Wirral area on Monday(13th), Tuesday(14th), Wednesday(15th) September.
Is this a shop or individual that's closing down ?

Thanks

Individual with a fish room. He has a lot of baby jewel cichlids available. Also selling a very larger tank 55x 24x30 inches I belive. Steel frame, sump. 800L system. He had discus (think they've sold now) flower horns and a lot of other stuff, but not sure what he's selling other than the jewels and the big tank.

Got some of the excess zebs for sale if you fancy a detour my way

[Stephen]

Which way would the detour be ?

[Si4geckos]

Which way would the detour be ?

Oldham. Off to the East. About an hour from the Wirral.

[Si4geckos]

One of the L236s out and about last night. Picture quality isn't great as it was low light and super zoomed on my phone. I actually managed to see x4 of the 5 new plecs I added which is reassuring. Just one more of the super whites to find. Hope he's OK!

One of the smallest I added was one of the super whites and I was a bit worried about the larger L397s in there, but they were side by side last night and not bothering each other at all. Good to see a bit of harmony for the time being at least. Going to be any amazing array of plecs once they all grow up.

[Si4geckos]

Some of the gang at feeding time. I do appreciate those stick on tabs to help get a photo or two.

[PaulVerrall]

Colours are amazing mate!

[Si4geckos]

Merry (early) Fishmas!

X5 more L397s have arrived today (after I collected them) and are currently under the big tank in a quarantine tank. All look super healthy, about 3" long and just hopefully very close to maturity. They'll be going in the big tank ASAP.

In other news, after not seeing my L236s barely at all since adding them (I saw 2 out of 5 fairly regularly) I was convinced one of the super whites had died. Turns out he lives behind the fx6 intake strainer. All 5 are accounted for which I'm super happy about.

The preacox rainbows have grown well and showing chasing/ breeding bahavoiur in the mornings since I added some moss. All other fish are doing well. I tried to get some more swordtails babies by keeping the pregnant females in a very large net, but they didn't have any annoyingly. Think the fry just gett eaten in the loose community. Only seen 1 baby in months and he got scoffed too I imagine.

Work and life issues has meant the fish have been a bit neglected in recent weeks, so major water changes all round and lots of regular testing going forwards.

The new(est) Congo tetras are growing well too. The 2 albino males are getting real nice colours now. They've been chasing too so I may try and selectively spawn them in the new year.

That's about it for updates. Hoping 2022 will see me finally getting some plec babies. L397 or L046 would be excellent. Fingers crossed.

That's all. Happy New fish day!

[Si4geckos]

Simon's Christmas present to Simon this year was a new light for the big tank. The current one has been OK for a while, but plants dying back a bit and the fish were looking a bit grey and undestinguishable. I got essentially a slightly newer version of the light I have already. Not many options when your tank is 2 meters long.

Full spectrum LED, same as the original, but now I have one at the back of the tank for the plants and one at the front for the fish. Its gonna take me a while to work out the timing system that comes with it as the broken Chinese instructions make it a challenge. All the fish look nice and HD thought, the rainbows actually look blue rather than dull grey and all the fish colours are popping with a light dedicated to the front of the tank.

Never gonna be the best light, but for a 6ft, full spectrum LED, including timer and adjustments for less than £65 delivered I'm pretty pleased.

Merry Crimbo everyone.