jsalemi

Nothing to show yet -- just a progress report:

The tank is in place; we moved it to its home on Saturday. Spent Sunday rinsing gravel (and a layer of First Layer Pure Laterite) and putting it in the tank. Placed two of the decorations I bought and decided the third didn't fit, so ran off to Petsmart to exchange it and came home with a bunch of Tetra Water Wonder artificial plants that I've been placing around. Artificial plants look kinda sad when there's no water to support them.

Found out the Emperor 400 I got from DFS is too big for the tank, due to the center brace, so I ordered two Emperor 280s from them, which should be here Thursday. (I'll return the 400 in the box they come in. ) The two pieces of Mopani driftwood I got have been soaking for about a week, and the water is pretty clear now. I'll run some extra carbon in the filters when I get them going for a while to make sure any residual tannins are cleared up. I ordered some plants from LiveAquaria.com, which should also arrive on Thursday. I'm getting some Java Ferns for the driftwood (among others), so the timing will be right to put them on the wood and put them in the tank.

Got the power line run tonight, so there's power at the tank now. Once all the pieces fall into place, which hopefully will be Thursday, I'll be ready to fill it and start cycling. I'll be able to take some pictures then and post them, probably by the weekend.

COBettaCouple

sounds good, it's always fun setting up a new tank.

jsalemi

Progress report:

Well, we had a family emergency and had to go deal with it on Wednesday, so progress stalled until today. Came home to find the boxes with my two new Emperor 280 filters and all the plants I ordered from Liveaquaria.com sitting in the living room -- our neighbors (who obviously have a key ) received them and put them in the house for us.

So I got the filters going, and the plants were in excellent shape. So the tank is now planted, full of water, the filters are running, and I've seeding it with the filter pad from my 10g and 2 of the snails from there, and some fish food. I'll post some pictures tomorrow after the filters have a chance to clear the water.

COBettaCouple

sounds like they do a good job on shipping the plants.

jsalemi

Ok, here's the current state of the tank, after adding all the decorations, plants (live and artificial), and getting the filters going. Most of the plants on the left are live; on the right is mostly artificial.

Attached Images

joes_56g_1.jpg (464.6 KB, 76 views)

MagpieTear

Looks great! Are you transferring the fish from the smaller tank, or starting a whole new group?

jsalemi

Starting a whole new group -- the current bunch seems happy where they are, and my cockatiel likes talking to them. (His cage is next to the tank.)

COBettaCouple

looks great & can't wait to see your new fish in it.. always fun to get new fish.

jsalemi

New pictures! We have new pictures!

Current residents of the tank are: 7 Serpae Tetras, 3 blue hi-fin platys, and 6 panda corys. I managed to get pics of some of the tetras, and a blurry one of the platys and one of the corys -- they just won't sit still!

Attached Images

	joes_56g_dec1.jpg (211.5 KB, 35 views)
	joes_56g_dec2.jpg (325.8 KB, 22 views)
	joes_56g_dec3.jpg (190.7 KB, 25 views)
	joes_56g_dec5.jpg (255.5 KB, 22 views)

COBettaCouple

they seem to enjoy doing that when we're trying to take pics.

jsalemi

New residents tonight -- I was near one of the good LFS on my way home from my company's HQ (I normally work at the client site), so I stopped in to see what they had. Got 3 golden crescent platys to keep my blue hi-fins company.

And I looked in one tank, and they had about 50 of the cutest little black angels! The guy there said they get them from a local breeder, and that they just came out of quarantine and probably aren't more than a month old. They're barely larger than my Serpae Tetras. I of course had to get 2.

So all the newcomers are settling in -- I'll try to get pics by the weekend.

COBettaCouple

Sounds like a nice LFS! and great new fish for you!

jsalemi

There are two decent LFS around here -- Wally's Aquariums (where I went yesterday) and Annandale Super Pets (both are on the same road, about 2 miles apart). Wally's is just fish -- they specialize in marine and pond fish, but usually have a decent, though small, selection of freshwater. Super Pets is huge, with more than 1/2 the store taken up with fish stuff (the rest is birds and small animals, which they also sell, and dog/cat stuff). There are at least 4 full 50' isles of freshwater fish alone, with tanks stacked 3 high. I've recently been getting my fish at Super Pets, just because of the shear variety they have, but Wally's occasionally surprises.

COBettaCouple

sounds wonderful! I think we could spend hours in Super Pets and would visit both pretty regularly.

jsalemi

Unfortunately, I lost one of the small angels last night -- he drifted up in front of the output from one of the filters, and got caught in the turbulence. Got spun around an easy 1/2 dozen times, and then shot across the tank and slammed into the front glass and dropped like a stone to the bottom (I saw it happen). He swam under a plant and looked like he was ok, but stunned, but I found him dead about three hours later.

On the plus side, I got two yo-you loaches today -- was near another PetSmart and they had a bunch. One's about an inch or so, the other about 2 inches. So they're hiding in the bottom of the tank now, and will hopefully get started on my snail overpopulation soon.

COBettaCouple

poor little guy, that really stinks. i'm sorry that you lost him.

I'm jealous - why doesn't our petsmarts carry yoyos? well one of them does, but only once did i see just 1 little yoyo in a tank. we're going to start checking out the local shops more when things get less crazy here.

jsalemi

This one had at least a dozen. I got one with solid stripes, and one with the tops of the 'Y' split, so it's easy to tell them apart. I'll have to get pictures this weekend.

COBettaCouple

Yea, i look forward to seeing the new yoyos.

jsalemi

I have fry! I thought one of my blue platys was looking a little fat, and I noticed she looked normal today. Then after doing a water change I was re-adjusting some plants and a little platy fry swam out. I've only seen two, so I don't know how many she gave birth to or how many have survived this far. I'm thinking she gave birth last evening, because I noticed her kinda hanging out in a cave under the driftwood for most of the evening. I guess she was using the cover of the plants around it. I also guess she was pregnant when I got her, so who knows what color the fry will be if they survive, since the blues were in a mixed platy tank at the lfs.

I'm not planning on doing anything special for the fry -- if any survive, I have more platys. If not, I'm sure the buggers will have more. Let nature take its course.

Speaking of the yo-yos, they were busy last night. I immediately noticed this morning that there's about 1/2 the snail population in my tank that there was yesterday. And they've taken to hanging out with the panda corys -- I had a cory and loach ballet going tonight as they chased each other up and down the front of the tank.

COBettaCouple

lol, sounds like you got them hungry!

jsalemi

Got some pictures this morning -- have to process them, so they'll be up later today.

The yoyos are a riot -- one of them has taken to swimming up to almost the top of the aquarium, and then resting on the veggie clip I have up there for a bit before swimming back down. Guess it's a lot of work swimming up that high.

ETA: Ok, first picture of the 'state of the tank' -- the plants are doing nicely, we put a decorated background on it instead of the plain black one, and the fish are doing fine. You can see some of the plays and serpaes, plus one of the corys on his way up the front.

Attached Images

56g_121607.jpg (433.8 KB, 19 views)

jsalemi

Ok, more pictures. First up are the platys; 2 of the blue, and one of the gold crescent. (And the pic of the crescent tells me I need to clean the glass .)

Next are the loaches -- one is the one with the split-y coloring (slightly blurry), and the other is the solid-y.

Attached Images

	blue_platy_1.jpg (290.3 KB, 8 views)
	gold_platy_1.jpg (234.4 KB, 7 views)
	loach_s1.jpg (369.4 KB, 10 views)
	loach_2.jpg (243.3 KB, 9 views)

jsalemi

Next up - panda corys! Panda corys! Panda corys! And some neat pictures of one of the pandas hanging out with one of the loaches.

Attached Images

	pandas_1.jpg (226.0 KB, 3 views)
	pandas_2.jpg (238.8 KB, 4 views)
	panda_loach_1.jpg (381.6 KB, 7 views)
	panda_loach_2.jpg (388.5 KB, 5 views)

jsalemi

And finally, a picture of the serpaes, and a neat picture of a platy and a panda near the top of the tank. There's only one of each, but the reflection in the glass came out super-clear.

Attached Images

	serpae_1.jpg (407.6 KB, 6 views)
	reflection_1.jpg (330.4 KB, 7 views)

COBettaCouple

beautiful pics of beautiful fish. The Yoyos look great!

jsalemi

Added what are probably the last new residents for a while today -- 3 more Serpae tetras and a dwarf gourami. The platys are working hard on keeping their population growing -- one is pregnant, and it looks like 3 fry survived from the last batch that was born about 2 weeks or so ago.

I had an interesting conversation with the fish guy who was helping me at the LFS (Annandale Super Pets). I asked if they had any angels, since I didn't see them, and he said they stopped carrying them for a while. The last couple of batches they got were sick on arrival, and barely survived at the store, let alone in the customers' tanks. I told him what happened with the two I got at Wally's (right down the street) and he said 'Yea, they get them from the same place we do." So it looks like it wasn't anything I could do to save them -- they just weren't going to make it anyway. They had just gotten in some nice dwarf gourami males, so I decided to get one instead -- he can be the 'big fish in the tank' now.

jsalemi

Just added a video of my corys and some of the other tank residents to the Freshwater Videos forum. One of the loaches, the gourami, some tetras and one of the platy fry snuck into the act.