5.5 gallons over 11 months and counting

This is my story of trying to get into a new hobby, of getting some things right and others very wrong, of trying to make due with what I have and then getting hooked and discovering MTS in a big way during sheltering at home. I tell my spouse that getting pandemic fish is more responsible than puppies because the fish won't mind when I have to go back to working onsite... But I'm not entirely sure that's true for some of the fish and I'm pretty sure I'll mind.

That single 5 gallon tank that I started last Christmas has now turned into 5 gallon plus a 10 plus 10 quarantine plus a 37 plus an temporarily empty 20 high that I'm going to be moving the current 5 gal inhabitants into very soon. And a random 1 gallon snail and algae holder. Did you follow all that? Don't worry if you didn't, there's no way even i could say it five times fast. Maybe sometime I'll make a thread on the other tasks since they're all somewhat inter related but I'm going to stick to my original baby here.

 

And so it begins. At this point, I'd done some reading on the nitrogen cycle and heard that live plants were good. So I prepared myself to stare at an empty tank for a few weeks and take a water sample to the store every week to find out if I could take a fishy home yet.

 

And 2 weeks in I got impatient and decided to get a snail to help jumpstart my cycle. I forgot just how small he started out!

 

And 2 weeks after getting the snail, I stillllllll didn't have any nitrates so the petstore employee talked me into getting a cheap feeder goldfish that I could return once the cycle started. Hello "Sunkist", named after the bright orange spot on him. Again, omg, he was so tiny back then! And orange, haha

 

Fast forward a month and by the beginning of February, I was at my target stocking with 4 white cloud mountain minnows (3f/1m), 3 cherry shrimp, and mystery snail plus a bonus goldfish that I was totally going to rehome soon... right, haha!

 

And then nothing much happened for a month fish-wise. I got a few more plants, traveled for work, we took a Valentine's trip, and the tank stayed just a novelty on my kitchen table. The fish got very used to the table being bumped and eventually accepted that even though my hubby is always hungry, he doesn't really go for raw fish much. The small tank was perfect, something I could drain halfway and then put it in a car and drive it over to stay with my parents for a few weeks the next time I went on a long trip for work or vacation.

And then March 2020 happened... And my little tank took on a lot bigger role in my day to day life.

 

In early April I decided I wanted to breed the cherry shrimp so I got a 1 gallon with light and filter and stuffed it with plants and driftwood to try go get them in the mood. It didn't work so in mid April I took the shrimp out and put the white clouds in for 2 days. I'd seen the male displaying and a few of the females were very gravid.

 

As Twain said, familiarity breeds contempt and children. I soon moved the white clouds back to the 5 gallon because the male was constantly harassing the females and there wasn't enough space for them to hide. But in those 2 days they laid a ton of tiny, hard to photograph eggs.

 

Nothing like a pandemic to bring about new hobbies or deeper interest in hobbies.

 

Nothing like a pandemic to bring about new hobbies or deeper interest in hobbies.

Right? IS that not most of us start? I'm in the same boat as OP. I went from 1 26g tank to 3 permanent tanks and 2 temp/quarantine tanks

 

Are you sure it’s a goldfish? It looks like a koi to me

 

Haha!
Back in 2017, my BIL’s dad passed. He left a house full of tanks and fish.
“Would anyone like a free aquarium and equipment?”
Sure. Is there a 29 g? That’s one of the size tanks I had in high school. “Yep”. Gets 29 g. Cool.
“So we gave some of the fish away on Craigslist; most of the live beaters. Do you want the rest?” Sure! Neglects to ask what “the rest” encompasses.
Yikes! Ended up with multiple sharks, rasboras, tiger barbs, a clown loach, and a cory cat. I also discovered that my well water is *not* good aquarium water. I only have two of those original fish but now have 6 tanks set up.

 

Read that to my husband and he laughed. I too had a 5 that turned into a 20 high that I returned for a 20 long that then turned into a 30 gallon seaclear acrylic and a 40 breeder.

The acrylic is so much nicer. So so so so

 

And I'm back on the internet to continue the saga after a food and family break. Happy Thanksgiving!

Are you sure it’s a goldfish? It looks like a koi to me

I so hope it's just a goldfish! He turned all white after about a month in my care. I know goldfish don't stay small but koi get even bigger. Here's a current picture of him, no longer in a 5 gallon, ha. He's 6 or 7 inches now. Please excuse the algae.

Haha!

Back in 2017, my BIL’s dad passed. He left a house full of tanks and fish.

“Would anyone like a free aquarium and equipment?”

Sure. Is there a 29 g? That’s one of the size tanks I had in high school. “Yep”. Gets 29 g. Cool.

“So we gave some of the fish away on Craigslist; most of the live beaters. Do you want the rest?” Sure! Neglects to ask what “the rest” encompasses.

Yikes! Ended up with multiple sharks, rasboras, tiger barbs, a clown loach, and a cory cat. I also discovered that my well water is *not* good aquarium water. I only have two of those original fish but now have 6 tanks set up.

Hey, I kept a betta in basically a vase during high school. You live and learn. I'd like to think my current betta in a 10 gallon heavily planted fish paradise is hopefully offsetting some of my past fish-karma. I like this forum because it's fun to be able to share successes, find consolation after failures, and learn from the experience of others! I bet you've learned a ton since taking in "the rest."

Read that to my husband and he laughed. I too had a 5 that turned into a 20 high that I returned for a 20 long that then turned into a 30 gallon seaclear acrylic and a 40 breeder.

The acrylic is so much nicer. So so so so

I so relate to this! My husband is currently in the dog house for letting slip how many tanks I have to my family during Thanksgiving today, haha. They are local but haven't been in my place for 8 months and it looks pretty different these days!

 

So.... the tiny, hard to photograph eggs turned into equally tiny and possibly even harder to photograph white cloud fry. They stuck to the glass for about 2 days before becoming free swimming (and possibly harder still to get clear pictures of). Sometime during all of this, my first pest snails also hatched out. I am so lucky that I kept the java moss that the hitchhiking snail eggs were on in the 1 gallon breeder! I was spared from having any in the 5 gallon "main tank."



Slowly the dozens of tiny little guys turned into about 20 small guys. When they were small, I could really understand why they are sometimes nicknamed the "poor man's neon tetras." The lateral stripe on them was really eye-catching and much brighter than on the adults.

 

Meanwhile, the white cloud adults continued to display and occasionally spawn but none of the fry in the 5 gallon ever made it past a few days in age and very few ever hatched at all. If they had gotten big enough to catch in a net I would have moved them but they were few and very tiny. The mystery snail grew dainty antennas and the goldfish just GREW. The shrimp didn't do much except occasionally go for rides on the snail's back. (I had forgotten until going through these photos that I'd added 3 blue neocardina shrimp at some point. It is inadvisable to get attached to the blue shrimp at this point in the story. They were much more prone to hiding 24/7 than the red ones and less tolerant of newbie mistakes. I only ever found 1 dead one and had, at the time, suspected the goldfish of eating them. Now 7 months into shrimp keeping, I suspect they all died and the snail ate most of them before I could discover the bodies during water changes. I haven't *found* a dead shrimp in ages but had a couple I could distinguish from the group that I no longer see around. But I have a big, healthy snail that is surprisingly fast.)


I liked this stage of the tank but knew the goldfish couldn't stay in there much longer plus I needed to make room for the growing fry from the 1 gallon.

 

I found an amazing deal on 20 gallon high with lid, filter, and stand from someone moving so I cleaned and fixed it up (that might become it's own thread later) and moved in the rapidly growing goldfish with some of the sand and the pre-filter sponge from the 5 gallon to jumpstart the cycle.

Now I had all this space in the 5 gal. Time to move the babies in!


This was at the very end of May when the babies were about a month and a half old. I'd anyone knows how to upload MP4 videos, will you on me?



And I bought more shrimp. If anyone recognizes the pink plant (and this far) will you comment? It was growing in my no tech setup pretty well until I moved it into the bigger tank and the goldfish ate it in under a day. I'd like to get more of it.



I was a little worried about my stocking level so I added some pothos because I was a crazy plant person long before I became a crazy fish person. I like this shot because you can just make out the 1, 5, and 20 plus some of my "land plants."

 

And that's how the tank stayed for all of June and July. Well, maybe I address a few plants and decor. It was fun to watch the white clouds and little shrimp grow.



The white clouds would only eat from the surface for me. If the food was in the water column and floated right past their face, they'd ignore it. So I got a food hoop to keep it from sinking so fast...and learned just how food motivated my snail (aka Pete) is by watching him try to get at the food. The hoop has a pivot and half the time the snail would lose his grip and fall off but other times he would manage to get at the food. It was entertaining to watch and I think that started his love of "base jumping." Pete now regularly goes to the surface, sticks his 'snorkel' up into the air, does this sort of push-up motion where I think he pumps air into his shell, and then he lets go and glides/crashes to the bottom of the tank. I had to rearrange my tank after he started doing this to move all of the rocks at least one snails-width away from the sides so he doesn't land on anything hard and hurt himself. I never expected to be so entertained by a snail! And to think I only got Pete originally because I was too soft hearted to do a fish-in-cycle but also too impatient to stare at an empty tank for more than 2 weeks. I find him more entertaining than my 5 cherry barbs or my mess of white clouds!




Anyway, the baby white clouds grew into juveniles. Over the course of a week, the "dad" stopped eating, got really week, and died. I don't know what happened. My water was 0/0/20ppm when I first noticed him acting weird and I did a 50% change and then a few smaller changes in the following days. Once he was gone I really missed the courting behavior and got a little bored with the tank. I decided I wanted to change up my stocking and rehome the remaining 3 females and 11 fry. I was really happy that all but 1 of the fry that got big enough to move into the "big" 5 gal tank lived and the one that didn't make it has had a baby spine but lasted longer and did much better than I'd expected. On August 23, just barely 4 months after they were spawned, I gave all the white clouds to my local shrimp dealer who was setting up a cool water 125 gallon and wanted a swarm.



Talk about winning the fish lottery, going from a newbie's 5 gallon to an expert's 125! I would have been more sad to let the babies I'd raised go if they hadn't been going to such a good home and if I wasn't so excited to get a betta.....dundundun!

 

And then came the betta. I spent an hour in the store holding cups of bettas up to each other to try to find one who didn't flare. I didn't pick based on variety or color, only lack of obvious aggression and health. Yeah, the half dead one was too busy looking miserable to flare but there were plenty of beautiful, healthy ones that also wanted to kill Everything and Everyone Who Ever Lived! There were koi, plakat, butterfly, orchid, and other exotics but I ended up with a common blue veintale because he seemed the most docile. What a cute little con artist!

I normally quarantine fish for at least 2 weeks but this guy (originally named Shimmer, later called Smaug, often referred to by my high school betta's name of Cobalt), this guy was a DRAMA QUEEN. He sulked and looked miserable in my 3 gallon bucket with cycled sponge filter and fake plants. For reference, I've used this same setup at different times for a pair of gouramis, cherry barbs, and corydoras with no issues at all. He barely ate, didn't swim, and I now have "is betta depression real?" in my Google search history thanks to him. I decided to move him into my 5 gal early since there weren't any other fish in there for him to infect. But I also decided to keep him in a mesh breeder box in case he couldn't swim against to HOB filter's current and to reduce the height he had to swim to reach the surface for air and food.

He thrived in the breeder box. He 'hovered' instead of acting dead. He ate. A lot! He popped, also a lot. This was early September and the red cherry shrimp had produced at least 2 batches of babies by then and the tank was swarming and crawling with shrimp. The shrimp would crawl all over the breeder box and while Shimmer would watch them, he never lunged at them or flavored.



After a week in the Box Of Shake (the fish equivariant of the Cone Of Shame), I decided to let him explore the whole tank and his new home.

What a disaster! I had made sure he was well fed before I released him but Shimmer-> Smaug chased every shrimp and gulped down a large 'teenager' whole from behind. As if that weren't bad enough, then he sucked in almost an inch of my Pete the snail's antenna and bit down hard. That's when I started tapping the glass hard and frantically searching for a net to catch the rogue betta with. He was only loose for 2 minutes but this was clearly not the tank for him. Back into the Box Of Shame!



Sadly, I don't have many photos of this period because the betta either looked like he was going to drown himself or was in the very un-photogenic Box Of Shame. During his brief rampage I was busy shouting words I wouldn't want my mom to hear and reciting recipes for fried fish. So please accept this foiled escape attempt by Pete, the mystery snail, instead.

 

I soon got a 10 gallon and tried a disasterous dry start ground cover and complex aquascape. I thought I was a pro since it was my 3rd tank and I'd spent 30 hours on Fish Lore, Planted Tank, and watching how-tos on YouTube. I was not, but that is a topic for another day.

In mid September I finally got Shimmer/Smaug/The Betta relocated to a 10 gallon.



That has left just the mystery snail and am ever increasing number of cherry shrimp in the 5 gal. It's peaceful and surprisingly active. The shrimp are always darting about at all levels the snail is large enough that he's taken to rearranging the plants for me. I swear Pete thinks he's a spider monkey in the rainforest canopy, transversing great distances by moving from branch to branch without the touching the ground. Except for the occasional 'base jumping' episode. I've seen him drop down onto unsuspecting shrimp but so far I have not noticed any injuries to either party.



While I really enjoy watching this tank as-is, soon I plan to tear down this 5 gallon setup and divide my shrimp into really red ones and whitish-pink ones. The pink ones are going into to 10 with the betta and the red will go into a completely redone version of the 20 high, along with Pete. I don't plan to really cycle the 20 but rather top it's substrate with the sand from the 5 and run my old HOB filter with pre-sponge in the new tank for several weeks in addition to the new filter. Any advice on this plan is welcome, or tips on how to catch baby shrimp that I can only see when they're backlit!

Once the Pete and the red shrimp (and all my early Christmas present new plants) settle into the 20, I plan to add some pygmy corydoras and threadfin rainbows to finish it off.

It's been a fun year with this gateway drug of an aquarium! I hope this story can act as a cautionary tale to those just starting out (skip the 5 and start with a 20 long if you EVER want to keep anything besides a single betta) or as a funny commiseration for my fellow fish keepers who've also caught MTS.

Thanks for reading!