| Hey badman! I am now living in the mid east and I've attached
some pics and vids of my aquarium here. As you may imagine, the
selection and stock of fish available for aquarists here is very limited
so I had to do with a 30 gal aquarium with an air tube and an external
canister filter for filtration. I stocked it with 4 china hi fins,
4 red and white ryukin goldfish and 4 orandas (2 orange and 2 black).
I also placed some wide leafed plants which I tied to some small pieces
of bogwood. I am now using a tricolor fluorescent lamp (pink, blue
and green).
Previously, when I still lived in the Philippines I also had a goldfish
aquarium but it was a 75 gal one. I used small to medium sized
black pebbles and attached a planted scenery poster on the back
of the tank. For filtration I used an undergravel filter
which covered the whole floor of my tank and then I attached powerhead
filters to each of the uplift tubes of the undergravel filter.
These powerheads then drained the water to two overhead external box
filters using cotton and foam as filter media. These powerhead
also provide the much needed aeration for my aquarium. After
an hour of running this filter set up, my water really became crystal
clear. With the exception of course from the feces my gluttonous, plump
goldfishes produced. I focussed on orandas in this tank.
I've had a variety of colors form red/orange, white, black, chocolate
and blue. I fed them with Tetra goldfish pellets which I
soak in Sera Fishtamin (vitamins) and as a treat, I gave either freeze
dried or live tubifex worms. With this diet they grew up to almost
the size of tennis balls. I did not bother with any intricate
decorations since goldfish tend to dig into the sand are careless swimmers
who can easily injure themselves but I did put in large smooth
boulders on each side of the tank. Weekly partial water changes
was a must with the addition of some water conditioner and salt.
After I got fed up with goldfish I started a soft water aquarium.
Using the same tank, gravel, poster and filtration system I got fascinated
with blue rams. I bought 12 rams and mixed them with more than 50
neon tetras. I also added some black widow tetras, pristella tetras
and some glowlight tetras at times. I put some orange, silver
and black balloon mollies which I replaced with red platies if there
were no stocks of them in the store. Some honey gouramis and those
vibrantly colored dwarf gouramis (red and blue) were always a welcome
sight to this aquarium. I also put four of those angels which had
ruffled white skin and red eyes. The store told me that they were
a new breed then and they sure didn't look like any angels I've seen before
especially noting the skin they had not to mention the price tag on each
fish. For bottom feeders I bought around 8 clown loaches and 8 red
tailed botias. I also put some panda, julii, albino and the more
common bronze corydoras. For algae control I tried 4 of those Chinese
suckers which looked like miniature versions of stingrays. Naturally,
I stocked this tank with loads of assorted plants and a huge piece of
bogwood. But eventually I converted to artificial plants which accentuated
the color of the aquarium set up. But still, there's no comparison
when you see live plants flourishing and blossoming in your aquarium.
With this kind of set up and assortment of fish I religiously made weekly
partial water changes and monitored the pH of my aquarium. I used
Tetra pH test kit and some brand of pH minus formula to maintain my water
favorable for the fishes, especially for the rams. I fed them Sera
Vipan, Tetra Bits, Sera food tablets, freeze dried and live tubifex worms,
freeze dried daphnia and gave them vitamin tablets every week. Sometimes
I would even add blackwater extract to the tank to further enhance the
luminous bluish colors of the fish and also some aquarium plant liquid
fertilizer when I still used live plants. This tank was really overstocked
but with the efficiency of my filter set up, water changes and conditioning
and quality food I was able to maintain the health and beauty of
these fish.
And then I got interested in taking care of cichlids. I focussed
on the severums, specifically the golden ones. I love their temperament
as compared to the other members of the cichlid family and with proper
care you could notice the red markings on the face which slightly resembles
the markings you see on discus. I used the same tank, gravel, poster
and filtration system minus most of the plants and water chemistry considerations.
I had four golden severums, four choco temporalis, four frontosas, four
blue dolphin cichlids, four surinamensis, some red and "topi" (not sure
about the spelling) parrots and four peacock cichlids.
I maintained the clown loaches and red tailed botias from my previous
tank, added two china hi fins and a butterfly pleco. The bogwood
remained but I bought some of those decorations that are shaped like brownish/reddish
colored broken beer barrels with sizes ranging from small, medium and
large to accommodate the fishes. I also placed some small white
skulls to provide contrast to the dark colored barrels and bogwood and
used those small colorful plastic plants for the front of the tank and
some medium sized neon colored plants placed in the rather wide spaces
between the barrels. I fed the fish Tetra Bits, Cichlid sticks,
live or freeze dried tubifex worms and shrimps plus a weekly dose
of vitamin tablets. They grew up very fast but the Choco Temporalis
became aggressive when they started to pair up. Weekly partial water
changes and are always recommended. As with cichlid tanks it is
imperative to overstock to prevent aggression plus I have this craziness
with the balance of numbers like four of this, four of that... you know
what I mean right?
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