20 Gallon Tank My first tank (tank name to come, eventually)

Wound up buying a tank off of my boss as he was getting out of the hobby and it turns out it's a 20 gallon tall/high (24x12x16" lwh). Tank came with a few accessories (six plastic plants of various sizes, a minI castle, an Emperor 200 HOB filter, stand, 100w heater, dark blue gravel, etc) and of course a stand...

Oh, and it came with some guppies, but I'm not entirely sold on them. MarineLand Penguin 200 filter was (imo) dead on arrival, as it would prime but then lose it within half an hour, so was replaced with a Fluval C2.



^This is how things looked on May 26th on initial setup. It was nice, and I did take a bunch of various pictures but it wasn't quite what I wanted in the end...



^May 29th was a fairly hectic day, with Corporate Challenge and dodgeball followed by emptying the tank of all the old decorations not to mention temporarily relocating the guppies. The most annoying part for me though was getting rid of all of that dark blue gravel, and replacing it with Fluorite Dark. Anubias Nana on the left, Java fern in the middle back, and some form of Anubias on the right (in all honesty, I totally forget which variant of Anubias it was). Old T8 bulb of unknown quality and origin was taken out and replaced with a brand new 18" FloraSun bulb - I'd prefer a nice LED setup, but a $19 CAD bulb is much cheaper than a $229 USD fixture Also swapped the plastic hood for a glass top.



^How things looked June 4th. Added in some Amano and ghost shrimp for some extra personality in the tank. Was nice to see the plants starting to spread their leaves out and all that, but the tank seemed somewhat empty...



^And how things look this morning (June 6th) after having added in a few cryptocoryne plants the day before. At the same time, two assassin snails were added in to help keep the pond snails in check (yup, several of them snuck in with the plants). This is how my tank currently looks, and the shrimp enjoy it a great deal more, some of the Amano's even zipping about all over the tank.

Still haven't decided as to exactly what will replace the guppies yet (something with more colour, and the love to move around), however I will admit I had multiple tank syndrome even before picking up this first tank (I want at least two, however the spouse likes the idea of three in total - a 55-75 gallon tank in the living room, a 45 bow in the bedroom, and later on turning this 20 gallon tank into a betta tank). ^_^

Current fish/inverts:
2x Assassin Snails
?? Pond Snails
3x Amano Shrimp
3x Ghost Shrimp
10x guppies

Current plants:
3x Cryptocoryne
1x Anubias Nana
1x Anubias (unknown variety)
1x Java Fern

Equipment:
MarineLand 20 gallon tall/high tank
Fluval C2 HOB filter
MarineLand CWB100 100w submersible heater
Marina non-floating algae magnet

 

Hello and to FishLore!

Thank you for posting your progress in pictures. Looks like you have a good grasp of what you want and how to achieve it. Nicely done!

 

Hello WhiteWulfe!!! Welcome to Fishlore!!!!

You have found the best place I know of to share fish stories, tank stories and get the most enjoyment from your fish and aquariums. I love that you changed from the blue rocks and fake plants to the live plants and dark flourite. The tank looks amazing!!!! I feel that live plants add so much more to a tank than fake plants can ever try to do. This is my opinion, of course, because some silk plants do look remarkable in aquariums.

I'm glad you've joined us and hope to see you posting regularly!

 

Hello and welcome.
If it's color you want, neons or cardinals come to mind immediately. So does a group of zebra danios. Maybe a neon blue dwarf gourami?

 

Hello and to FishLore!

Thank you for posting your progress in pictures. Looks like you have a good grasp of what you want and how to achieve it. Nicely done!

Many thanks! There are still a few more things to go with this tank, but they're the usual desires - upgrading to a canister filter, upgrading to a BuildMyLED's light fixture with programmable timer (can't decide between 7k and 10k, but that upgrade is several months away), an interI'm light timer (LFS has one on order for me), upgrading to a MarinLand majesty stand (low priority, but they have more internal storage than my current stand and the black ones match my living room's decor), and of course the desire to find the patience to wait for my plants to grow in (instead of caving into the desire for a thoroughly full tank now and adding in several more plants... I might pick up another java fern or anubias to put on the back of the driftwood on the left, but we'll see).

The fun part will naturally be watching things grow over time, as well as the antics of my shrimp - two of them just had their first molt yesterday, and are noticeably more active. It's hard to tell who enjoys playing in the current more, some of the colourful guppies or my amano shrimp!

Hello WhiteWulfe!!! Welcome to Fishlore!!!!

You have found the best place I know of to share fish stories, tank stories and get the most enjoyment from your fish and aquariums. I love that you changed from the blue rocks and fake plants to the live plants and dark flourite. The tank looks amazing!!!! I feel that live plants add so much more to a tank than fake plants can ever try to do. This is my opinion, of course, because some silk plants do look remarkable in aquariums.

I'm glad you've joined us and hope to see you posting regularly!

I definitely have to admit I greatly prefer the dark fluorite over the previously blue gravel, and I'm pretty sure the plants prefer it as well! Even on the first day, I greatly preferred how the live plants looked, and I've even caught a few of the guppies taking naps or resting on the anubias leaves. Best part is that when I showed the pictures to my boss he thought I'd bought a second tank, not overhauled the one I purchased from him!

I'm slightly saddened that I wound up purchasing the fluorite over other options like ActivFlora, especially since I later found out that the store that is all of four blocks away from my home carries most of their types in regular stock, but I'll just keep that in mind for the next two tanks (their Lake Gems mixture look GORGEOUS, and also doesn't have the sharp edges problems the fluorite does).. But that's life, and I don't mind ^_^

I also totally forgot to mention I might wind up with four tanks total over the next year or so... 75 gallon in the living room (thinking centered around KuhlI and yoyo loaches, but also having a rainbow shark and denisonI barbs), 45 gallon bowed (or 40 breeder if I stay with a rectangular shape) in the bedroom (quite possibly some kind of tetra tank, or a guppy bachelor tank if I find reasonably priced guppies that are gorgeously colourful), and then another 20 or 25 gallon as a quarantine tank (which will be the only tank with plastic plants, for obvious reasons, but I'll get entirely new ones, more than likely a few of the MarineLand B and C silk plant packs)..

 

Hello and welcome.
If it's color you want, neons or cardinals come to mind immediately. So does a group of zebra danios. Maybe a neon blue dwarf gourami?

We'll be heading to the local fish store today to take a look at their stock. Cardinals are definitely on the list of breeds we're thinking about, and we're also going to see what other kinds of (fancy) guppies they have. Cardinal tetras are quite tempting though, because they are known for not only being gorgeous, but ever time I've seen them in a tank they're always so active!

 

If you were closer to me, I have some gorgeous rainbow boy guppies. They have red on the edges of their tails, cobra spots, yellow/white in the center and blue on the outer edge middle.

 

If you were closer to me, I have some gorgeous rainbow boy guppies. They have red on the edges of their tails, cobra spots, yellow/white in the center and blue on the outer edge middle.

That does sound rather gorgeous! Pity that Nova Scotia is just a few thousand kilometers from Alberta ^_^

I didn't make it to the LFS I was thinking about today (Aquarium Central) - wound up checking the local one that deals a good amount in custom tanks and leans more towards saltwater (Aquarium Illusions).

I won't lie, with guppies, the larger tailfins that the fancy guppies have makes them a lot more... interesting to watch (also, you can see more activity when looking at the tank from 12' away ^_^;;; ).

 

That does sound rather gorgeous! Pity that Nova Scotia is just a few thousand kilometers from Alberta ^_^


I won't lie, with guppies, the larger tailfins that the fancy guppies have makes them a lot more... interesting to watch (also, you can see more activity when looking at the tank from 12' away ^_^;;; ).

I love the "just". lol

Guppies were never my favorite, but my husband really wanted some so we got them. They have a 29 gallon tank to themselves and the loaches. They love it and they are quite lovely to watch.

 

For me, the guppies aren't exactly what I want at this time, but they behave with my shrimp and snails. They came free with the tank, so odds are I'll try and rehome them and replace them with fancy guppies since they're more colourful yet just as active. Eventually, this tank will be turned into a home for some sort of betta (potentially halfmoon, but I also really like crowntails), but that's not until I pick up a larger tank (thinking 29 gallon, or possibly a 40 breeder) to go in the bedroom. The biggest project (a 90 deep is what I'm calling it - 48x22x18 lwh) probably won't be started until next year as I only want to be starting up one tank at a time.

Out of sheer curiosity, what kind of loaches do you have in the 29 gallon tank?

So wheee, tomorrow is fancy guppy shopping, as well as picking up another Anubias Nana (going on the front of the right side driftwood) and one of the larger Anubias varieties to go on my larger piece of driftwood on the left). Sure, there are plenty of plants in there already, but the Anubias and Anubias Nana would add just a tad more to things, and then my OCD should hopefully be abated at least for a few weeks, giving the current plants time to grow in ^_^;; (Part of it I think is that I like seeing my shrimp hide in what might as well be plain sight, at least to the viewer. It's nice to see them out more often!)

 

Well, found a new home for the female guppies (as well as, sadly, one of the gorgeous yellow coloured males) and picked up five Yellow Tuxedo fancy guppies.



^You can sort of see some of the new guppies in this picture...

^But this short video I took shows them off (as well as some of the five male guppies that were left from initial checking out the floating bag) while they were acclimating to the tank. Completely forgot to take another video once they were released in to the tank (sadly, at this time I have no quarantine tank), but I'm thinking about doing such tomorrow. Apologies for the noisy hum in the video, it's from the box fans running in the background (we run them to improve air circulation in our apartment).

EDIT: I say unfortunately for the one original/smaller non-fancy yellow guppy because he became quite aggressive towards the larger tailed ones, and wound up being relocated as well as the females.

 

It's been a week since my last update, and a few things have changed. Due to aggression issues and the fact they were fairly inbred, the five remaining small guppies were rehomed, and up until yesterday the five yellow tuxedo fancy guppies were by themselves in the tank.

You see, I've been thinking about getting a betta for a while, but all of the ones that had caught my eye so far were either far too territorial/psychotic (a gorgeous briiiight blood red crowntail that had the very tips of his fins midnight black) or I felt the tank was too new (some halfmoons I found at Big Al's literally the day I had set up the tank). Well, while I had originally gone into my closest (and now definitely favourite!) LFS to pick up a few more guppies (they have some GORGEOUS blue cobras there, plus more of the yellow tuxedos) I wound up deciding I wasn't going to take any more of them because not only had Aquarium Central's betta order come in and cleared quarantine, they also had quite a few that were in their community tanks and playing well with the various other fish in there!

It took a while to decide on which one, as right off the bat a gorgeous gold, bronze, and silver halfmoon caught my eye, then two midnight blue crowntails, followed by a few more halfmoons (you get the idea, I fell in love with like a dozen of them). After what could have easily been half an hour of trying to decide (and picking up two more plants that I've totally forgotten the name of (something spiralis?), as well as some liquid fertilizers and a new, not yet put on tank background) I finally decided on...




^This guy. I haven't figured out a name for him yet, but I absolutely love his colours and personality! I had to include the second photo there, because his expression is all "awwww, c'mon, PLEAAASE let me out of this bag?"





^Well, at first he clearly was a tad camera shy, but almost as if in a playful manner. He'd let me get the shot set up, and then right before I took my finger off the touch screen of my Galaxy S3 he'd move!








^Thankfully it didn't take him long to start exploring the tank. Great thing is with my Fluval C2 set on it's lowest setting he's able to prowl most of the tank provided he avoids the first four or five inches of depth where the filter's outflow is, and he's taken to swimming against the light current along the the front of the tank (favourite spot so far seems to be right in front of the Anubias Nana for this).



^The new full tank shot

I might look into adding a second anubias nana on the drifwood that's on the right to help reduce the current further, but for now I'm going to wait a few weeks and just let the tank (and of course my fish, and especially the betta) settle in.

Current stock:
3x Amano shrimp (my they're getting big!)
3x Ghost shrimp (they're getting fairly big too!)
2x Assassin snails
5x Yellow Tuxedo Fancy Guppies
1x Halfmoon Betta

Plants:
3x cryptocoryne
1x dwarf cryptocoryne (uncertain about what this one actually is, it's the tiny one in the front middle of the tank)
1x Java Fern
1x Anubias (unknown variety)
1x Anubias Nana
2x uncertain spiraly plant (totally forgot the name, but it was "spiralis" at the end if I remember correctly)


Also, while I have thought about adding in a canister filter as well as better lighting, for now I'll wait a few months and see how things go, simply because I wound up having to spend spare money on other things, and because I can't really decide which lighting to go with (the various Finnex ones do seem nice, but I'm not going to lie - I want a nice and sexy BuildMyLEDs light strip, doubly so because they're readily dimmable) and with the canisters I'm debating between an AquaTop AT200 or an Eheim 2211/2213 (or maybe one of the Pro 3 250's (Ultra G Series 65 or 90 at Drs FosterSmith I'm guessing?)) so I'll spend more time doing research before pulling those pins out.

 

First and foremost, after a few days Hunter wasn't working in the 20g, so he's now in his own 10 gallon tank (no pics right now). Apparently he decided after a few days of getting used to things that the left half of the tank was his, and anyone crossing over an invisible (and constantly moving!) line was subject to being chased for several seconds. Even two days later, my Amano shrimp are skittery, but they seem to finally be relaxing once again... Oh, right - new tank background!

I just couldn't resist when I found a few pieces of driftwood in the tanks at Big Al's and that they're willing to sell their pre-soaked driftwood at the regular rate for driftwood (woohoo!).. Two new (large) pieces of driftwood, plus half an hour of rescaping things came up with this:




Shrimp sure seem happy about there being significantly more hidey spots! As for the guppies, they seem to be spending more time darting in and out of the leaves, which is good too in my eyes ^_^

 

One month later, and I've done a few minor tweaks, not to mention learned a few things. First and foremost, boy was I overfeeding the tank! Seems there are two different types of snails in the tank now instead of just one, quite possibly because I didn't notice there were still a bunch of small snails hiding in concealed locations... And then proceeded to get a few snails from the local shop as additional food for my assassins. Let's just say I'm up to four assassins now, and we're crushing (as well as removing) upwards of a dozen snails every day. As they say, learning experiences!

For a few weeks, I had the filter on it's lowest setting, thinking that either the guppies or the shrimp wouldn't like it higher, and it turns out I couldn't have been any further off the mark. The Amanos started hiding in the driftwood that's under the Anubias, and after a while I figured out why - turns out when the Fluval C2 is on low, the current aims pretty much right into the log, so they didn't have to come out to get any food! With the filter now on high, the water is potentially just slightly clearer (it looks night and day in the pictures, but I don't recall that much of a difference in person), and I've regularly found the Amanos on top of the Anubias leaves cleaning away, or even dancing about in the current, although the dancing in current in more of the Ghost's behaviour.

Sadly, I did have three losses total - both valisnerI spiralis melted and just couldn't come back, even after repeated water changes to try and remove whatever was left of the API CO2 Booster. In the end, it was a learning experience, and I didn't necessarily like the look of them either (moved them four times trying to find somewhere for them to "fit in"). Also, my plants seemed to have been growing better when I was putting in the CO2 Booster. Once it runs out, I'll switch over to Seachem's Exel. The third and final loss was one ghost shrimp, who I'm assuming suffered injuries from a rough handed caretaker when changing the water. In other words, I suspect him being in my gravel vacuum and pinned against the plastic guard thingy at the top for probably a few minutes did him in, as about a week after that water change he turned cloudy, and then two days after that went milky then died. A second ghost might also have been a casualty as only one is ever out now, but I don't want to lift up the driftwood and look around to see if that is truly the case, since if he did die I might not even find traces of him.

I did split the short cryptocoryne into four smaller bunches along the front, but it's still too early to tell if they'll grow out for a bit of coverage along the front. Either way, with this tank I've realized patience is key, but I must be doing something right since every week my Anubias has several new leaves coming out, not to mention that my Anubias Nana is growing out even more.



^How things look now. There is also a Fluval Edge pre-filter on the intake, I just hadn't added it when this picture was taken.

Current plans for August:
- one or two more pieces of malaysian driftwood
- add another three Amano shrimp, for a total of six

Plans for September/October
- upgrade to Fluval C3 or C4, in preparation for additional stock
- Eheim Jäger 100 watt heater
- Additional plants: one more java fern to add more depth to the background, one Anubias BarterI on the left near the back (this will depend on how the second Java Fern as well as driftwood goes), and maybe one more Anubias Nana.


EDIT (July 27, 2014 18:26 MST): Editing the post because I'm writing this so I don't forget Turns out I added in more guppies. and therefore I suspect I'll be upgrading the filter sooner than later...
5x Japanese Galaxy guppies
5x Neon Teal guppies

I also found an absolutely GORGEOUS piece of rooted driftwood that I'm going to soak for a few weeks, then add into the tank ^_^