Trahana’s Gobies and more (photo heavy)

[trahana]

Hi! I’m trahana, or KT, and this will be a thread that keeps track of what’s going on in my tanks. Feel free to ask questions or just make comments, I love talking about my fish.


Here’s my 40 gallon breeder, I’ve just rescaped it to have nice sand and I added more plants as well as the rocks and drift wood. During Christmas I splurged on this tank, buying a new light(aquaworx Orion), Co2 setup, fluval stratum and lots of plants. Originally the tank only housed anubias, Moss, algae and a red variant plant(maybe amazon sword) as a low tech low light tank. $700 dollars later and I’ve gone high tech for the first time.
I have ten white cloud minnows, six kuhlI loaches, two glow light tetras, two black skirt tetras, four hillstream loaches, five gobies, three shrimp and 1 black racer nerite.

My boss male Goby, I have a total of 5 white cheeked gobies each with their own personality. The boss male is the brightest and biggest. He also build nests the fastest, he built this one in just a couple hours. They are very photogenic, often looking at the camera too!

One of my Hillstream Loaches, I have three spotted ones and one with bars, what an interesting color variant. They zoom around on the leaves and tank walls, rarely swimming in open water.

The only three shrimp I have, quite social since I always find them together. Two males and a female.


My 5g, currently hosts a baby betta and nine golden neocardina shrimp. I’m hoping that growing up with shrimp keeps the betta from eating them when he is older.


My divided tank. Shimmer is a female betta with long fins, she’s the blue on the left. I bought her as a baby and at about a year old she suffered slight fin melt. After recovering her fins started to grow again, and have continued to do that slowly for the last three and a half years. What weird and wonderful thing, she’s the most beautiful betta ever.
Ruffles on the right side has ruffled fins, or otherwise called curled fins. I drew his alter ego as a gentleman vampire wearing ruffles.

I’ll introduce my other bettas later.

 

[jkkgron2]

Wow!! I especially love the frog decor in the baby betta tank! At first I thought it was a real frog Lol!

 

[trahana]

Wow!! I especially love the frog decor in the baby betta tank! At first I thought it was a real frog Lol!

Oh lol, that’s a post card pinned to my wall! Most of my tanks don’t have a back drop... lol

 

[trahana]

Some fine goby construction has taken place. After a little nudging my male goby has hollowed out under a piece of shale instead of under my drift wood wall. Here he is tempting his would be girl friend to go into his home and check it out.

On the opposite side of the tank a different goby has checked out the shale. He rejected it and started to dig between a rock and drift wood though.

 

[trahana]

This is Pluto, she is completely blind but still finds her food alright. She was in my sorority until I divided it. I had an outbreak of TB in a few of my tanks which killed three fish in quick succession.

This is Neptune, she was also in my sorority. Her eyes are starting to fail I think, she’s taking her time finding food now. I bought 5 female bettas from the same breeder so the three I have left I call sisters.

Jupiter is my biggest girl, or rather the widest. She’s a little submarine with fins, loves her food too. She was the boss fish in my sorority right next to Mars(Rest In Peace).


Mel is my handsome fin biting male. He trims his fin as needed, the little bugger is really pretty when his fin grows out though. He’s black with dark blue accents.

 

[trahana]

I’m struggling to get the stag horn algae under control in my 40g. It was there before I rescaped it, it’s on most of my anubias leaves. I have two crypts in my tank, WendtiI and another, but I’m going to start dosing excel and see if they resist or melt.

 

[trahana]

Sunday my fluval U3 filter died. Just three hours after I ordered a canister filter because I wanted a better filter. Nice timing, but I wished it waited two days for the new filter to arrive.
Tuesday night at 7pm my package arrived, just after I got back from the doctor. With fever and chills from influenza, I took two hours to unpack and set up my Fluval 307 canister filter. I missed an arrow pointing to where to install the rubber grommet, flooding my tank stand with some water. Good thing I was to tuckered out to leave the area so I shut off my house before to much poured out. Well I did get it setup and working thankfully, then promptly fell asleep.

On the other hand, my nymphaea loves the new lights and fertilizers, so much it’s shooting out new leaves daily. Who said stem plants grow the fastest? Cause these lily pads are fast.

 

[trahana]

I cut half the leaves off my nymphaea because my tank had to much shade. I also would like to note I now have giant duckweed, a single plant smuggled it’s way in with some crypts I bought, and now I have many. Three of my anubias have flowers and buds popping up.
I finally got a picture of my elusive barred patterned Hillstream Loach!

all my hillstream loaches are secretive and shy, they don’t like being looked at, and hate my iPhone. It’s kind of fun though to spot them and slowly move closer, they stop munching on algae to look at you then when you get to close they dart away.

I have three spotted ones, I can tell they three of them apart by their spots, one has many small spots and one has several big spots, the third is a mix of large and small spots. The one that’s dark with bars is the most secretive, the one with big spots is the bravest.

 

[trahana]

A post with just pictures of my gobies sitting on stuff. They are like aquatic lizards, they sit and pose, and even puff up their throat.

 

[trahana]

Changed the 15% of the water today. Nitrates were below 20ppm but I felt like changing water anyway.
I added 3 gold mollies for cleaning my brush algae and I think I might keep them as long as they don’t hassle the other fish. They went right to work eating my algae! They look really pretty and are the same gold as my neocardina shrimp.
I also added 7 more white cloud minnows making my school 17 strong. I fell in love with scarlet Badis Badis and bought two, one that was bold and bright and a second that was timid and pale with orange bars. My hope is they are a male and female pair so they will befriend each other.

 

[MissNoodle]

Lovely tanks and fish! The gobies are pretty awesome!

 

[trahana]

I traded in some plants for cherry shrimp at my LFS! I know have six red shrimp and a tiny baby shrimp that came with on the most. The baby is clearish white, do they get color later? My LFS sells many different neocardina, including crystal, black, blue and yellow! I’m excited to see what what I’ve got.

 

[Hugooo]

Another update, please!

 

[trahana]

I currently have an ugly white mesh box with a beautiful black and red betta in it. He’s waiting for his tank to be finished, I’m in the process of creating a paladrium from a 20g, it should house 5-7g of swimming space once I fill it up.
Since I’m out of work due to Covid the water in all my tanks is pristine. Like seriously, I’ve changed the water in my 40g three times this week. The stag horn algae that I’ve been fighting has taken a serious loss, and my rotala is pink and growing well due to the extra care. Perhaps having low nitrates is the key to higher amounts of red in plants.
I assume the shrimp I added are doing well, not that I see more then three at a time.
I dislike my fluval filter though, the intake has a media bag on it that I need to clean often otherwise it gets Clogged. I don’t think a filter intake should get clogged in just 1 week. I cut the tube 1 1/2 inches more so it would be up farther from the gravel which helped a little. It’s 90%stag horn algae that clogs it, so I’m hoping once I kill off more algae I’ll have less maintenance need for the filter.
I wish I could give away my pennywort but I’m not mailing anything until the shelter in place order is over. The pennywort is taking over, along with the pearlweed

 

[trahana]

i was planning on letting nature take its course when my molly gave birth but today... I woke up to see little pale yellow fish swimming along the surface and my maternal instincts kicked in. So now a have a second ugly white box hanging in my fish tank with ten molly fry.
One has a black eye, which quite by accident is now named Domino. I’m happy to see these fry are twice the size of platty fry: I used to keep and raise platy while in high school. Nothing makes a better late excuse then I was scooping up about 30 tiny fish babies.

 

[trahana]

I did a 25% change today. I trimmed lily pad leaves and my big green plant I can’t remember the name of. Trimmed lots of older leaves that had algae on them from all my plants. I uprooted and trimmed my pearlweed patch, I move a dwarf nymphaea from my betta tank over a while ago because it had died back. It has three tiny Leaves now, and should grow better now that the pearlweed isn’t blocking it. Turns out it was taking a rest because it had propagated while I wasn’t watching: I now have many little nymphaea in my betta tank.

The little nymphaea parent among my pearlweed

he is watching me type this out.

 

[trahana]

I came to feed today and only counted 8 molly fry. I found 1 of the missing fry in the main tank, so I have 9 molly fry. The 10th either passed away from a congenital issue or was eaten by a goby. The goby are the only predator in the tank that has a mouth big enough. The fry have more then doubled their size. Domino is looking like clear white, while other fry have a tinge of gold. I’m excited to see what every grows up to look like.

 

[trahana]

I took a baby pic during a water change, the molly fry look like golden tadpoles. These babies eat like their mother, total foodies! All of them are strong swimmers and they are hilarious to watch them ‘fight’ with each other. They back up tail first to push the other out of the way.

my rotala was growing over and this is what I trimmed. I could have trimmed more but I kinda like how pink it gets when it trails across the surface.

 

[trahana]

Two posts in one day!

This guy made me worry. My male goby disappear occasionally, and when this happens I assume they have seduced a female goby into spawning and have stayed guarding the den. So for Two Weeks I have schrodinger‘s goby: is he alive, dead, where is my fifth goby? Well I still have five gobies because he showed up before this mornings water change.



feeding time has everyone foraging for food, and photobombing.
I feed three different brands of pellet food, to which everyone loves and eats. The hillstream loach get algae wafers at lights out. Contrary to what some believe white cheeked goby will eat pellets and thrive. It’s a headache to get them to switch though!

 

[trahana]

Well today had unexpected excitement. I was taking pictures of my male goby posturing against each other and when the smaller male didn’t back down the boss attacked him! I got an action shot of this guy biting and almost swallowing his head!




He grabbed him and I waited a few seconds and then went and poked him! I’m not sure how long they would have grappled if I hadn’t.

 

[trahana]

the baby mollies are almost big enough to swim in the main tank! I still have nine and they are all happy to see me, these little guys knowwhere the food comes from.
The male gobies have no obvious injuries, and are still trying to occupy the same corner of the tank. I think the status quo changed when the baby mollies started living in that corner. Either the goby think it’s a great spot because the fry are food, or they think it’s a premium spawning ground because there is already baby fish there. I think it’s the latter. The mak goby will sit on the tank glass and watch the fry. The females don’t care. Maybe they think the mollies are their babies? Gobies are so weird and interesting fish.

 

[Pythia]

Could we have another update please? I really like you fish and your tanks!

 

[trahana]

I’ve been building a paladrium out of a 20g for the fabulous black and red betta I had in the 40g in a mesh box. Which means I forgot to prune my 40g.
It’s mostly rotala. It’s so overgrown I can’t see the cords and filter, or the backdrop. I’ll prune tomorrow.

here’s the mostly finished pic of my 20g paladrium
I made a separate thread for the building of it. I’ll post occasionally pics and updates of what grows since this is my first paladrium. I bought peacock moss and asparagus fern, the rest of the land moss I foraged for in the local canyon stream.
the aquatic plants are from my other aquariums. It holds 6.5 gallons of water, and has a small blue ceramic mushroom. It’s 90% filter. The back of the aquatic area is full of lava rocks which will house bacteria and the stream is gravel and sand siliconed down which will also house bacteria. I can’t wait to see if it’s cycles already, I did dump bacteria in a bottle in it.
Drake loves the cave, he’s often inside it when I walk up, I think this is a great betta design. It’s on display in my dining room and is very cheerful looking.

 

[trahana]

much pruning took place. I have released the nine baby mollies into the main tank. Hopefully my judgment was good on the size of them. If not momma molly is pregnant, like all adult female mollies are.

 

[AquaCaitlin]

Man, I’m finding so many good threads today! All your tanks looks beautiful!

 

[trahana]

I feed the tank and only counted 8 baby mollies so now I have 8 babies in an ugly mesh box again. Domino has a torn his tail fin, probably the minnows or another fish where curious and chased them. The gobies are definitely being predatory, all of them where sitting on higher perches, mostly because mollies swim near the surface.

Domino with some food in his mouth. This is the mesh box I had Drake the betta in. I like it better then the breeder net because it has better current and the poop circulates out or down. It grows algae but stays clean!

Frosty the betta says hi. He makes my plants look small.

 

[trahana]

I guess the switched up loafers because now I can’t seem to insert pictures!
well I was about to go to bed when I noticed a baby outside my mesh box. The little molly had wiggle out through a gape(now plugged). In my rush to capture the molly before someone ate him i put my glass lid in an unusual place. After catching the baby I returned him to the box and stepped right on the glass, breaking it. I only have a small cut, and now I have a funny review on a glass lids too.
my two male goby are still sparring occasionally, but no injuries. The smaller male is now more vivid and has become the boss male! It was interesting watch the larger fatter male swim away when the smaller male challenged him.

 

[trahana]

I was going to attach a picture of Drake and the paladrium but I'm using my new tablet, which apparently doesn't attach files from my pictures app. Weird.
The paladrium is doing well, I just tested the water and I have 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and about 4 nitrate! Nothing like a good filter and a bottle of bacteria to cycle a tank in just two weeks.

 

[trahana]

My preferred uploader is back!

I have spotted shrimplets in my tank! This little one is number three of my confirmed baby shrimp. I’ve been seeing what looks like speeding grainsof sand for two weeks and now I know they are shrimp! I’m glad that my shrimp are reproducing and the shrimplets are surviving.



my scarlet Badis is out hunting. I bet he loves eating all the little bugs and shrimp he finds. I still haven’t seen him eat pellets, but his of good weight so he’s eating something.

 

[trahana]

Mama molly has given birth to round 2. I forget if I’ve mentioned this before but my fish live in my bedroom(40g headboard). So after I took a shower I came ove to feed my babies and low and behold I see tiny fry in with my baby mollies! The little ones wiggles through the mesh to school with their big siblings. So after shedding my robe I caught 8 little ones and put thin in the breeders net(the traditional net). Only hard core fish hobbyists stand elbows deep in water with not a stitch on. At 8 babies I don’t see any more so I look at mama fish in time to see a baby fry almost explode from her! It was ridiculous to see her give birth with the fry swimming forth like a rocket, talk about a jump start in life!
I put momma in the breeders net and turned off all the lights at let her be for about two hours. I think I have about 15 babies for this round.

 

[trahana]

my lovely babies. Domino has some yellow lipstick. Each one has a bit different shading going on, there is only one that’s really yellow and the rest are piebald and shaded yellow.

we are now on 20+ babies for the new generation, this morning before work I netted three, and after work four more. I fed them powdered fish food and they are happily nibbling.

 

[trahana]

Aaaaaasah! I caught my hillstream loach on the ground! He was eating bug bites, the food I feed my fish. This is the Best photos I’ve ever gotten of my hillstream loaches. They are just so shy, I think he went back to the glass the moment he noticed me.

he did it again, and I got a great close up

 

[kattiq]

I honestly love the look and diversity of your aquarium! Literally something I'd dream of having someday.
I also have thought about possibly getting a badis for my aquarium but I'd love to get my plants a little more crazy and overgrown first.

 

[trahana]

Tough news: I euthanized Drake today, my betta in the paladrium. He had culmanarius, it had spread over half his body and eaten his ventral fin to the body. I had not seen drake in about a day and a half, he had hidden in his cave so When I found him today it was to late to threat him and more humane to euthanize. I hate euthanizing my fish, I wish I had bothered him to get him out of his cave.
I tested the water and it’s 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 5-7 nitrates. My test kit expiration date is 10/2020, but I think I’m going to buy a new test kit and throw this one out early just in case.
Baby molly pictures to follow soon

 

[trahana]

One has two black eyes, there are a few with a singe black eye, and they are all the left eye. Domino has a dark right eye.

 

[trahana]

My barred hillstream loach has taken to eating pellets! He is calmer and doesn’t mind me watching as much. It’s so very entertaining to watch him search for food on the glasss and try to shovel it into his mouth.

I also bought a miniature orchid, harela odorata, for the paludarium. I will be adding red Rili shrimp to the paludarium in a week or more when I feel the water parameters are stable. I’ve decided to let the tank sit free from fish for a few months, even though I dosed it with furan to clean it. I’m not going to buy a betta for it until I’m certain it’s clean, and the mailing system is on time. I don’t want my fish to wait in the mail because of the pandemic.

 

[trahana]

The first molly babies are swimming freely now. There are big and fast enough to avoid the gobies. There is still a female goby that will lunge at them, but the rest don’t care anymore. I’m thinking of selling about half of them from this generation, maybe 1$ a molly with proof of good aquatic setup. There is no way I can keep 30 adult mollies in my 40g setup, and it will be easy to sell them slowly now then to try to sell them all when my tank gets overstocked.

 

[Pythia]

The first molly babies are swimming freely now. There are big and fast enough to avoid the gobies. There is still a female goby that will lunge at them, but the rest don’t care anymore. I’m thinking of selling about half of them from this generation, maybe 1$ a molly with proof of good aquatic setup. There is no way I can keep 30 adult mollies in my 40g setup, and it will be easy to sell them slowly now then to try to sell them all when my tank gets overstocked.

Aww...so cute!

 

[trahana]

I sliced and diced the plants back since I haven’t done that for two weeks(that’s my bad). Lots of stress going on out of the water. My chicken flock lost a member, she had a bacteria infection that had became pneumonia. Despite vet care it was to late, and just two weeks ago I noticed another hen feeling unwell. I bought antibiotics and just finished treatment for the rest of the flock except one hen who still feels unwell. So four of my birds are fine now, only one is inside the house in a dog crate with food, water, and heating pad. No signs of pneumonia, so I expect everything will turn out all right.

baby mollies nibbling a chunk of algae wafer

a hillstream loaches trying to find where the smell of algae is coming from.

two spotted hillstream loaches watching the barred hillstream loach eat. They don’t know how to swim down to where he is.

he smells it, but maybe he doesn’t knowhow to sit on gravel?



the snail got to this algae chunk first. Out competed by a snail...

mama and some of her swarm.

 

[trahana]

I placed four baby mollies and three cherry shrimp in the paludarium. They are still small and didn’t know what to do with all the space. So cute!
two juvenile shrimp and one adult.

 

[trahana]

The babies look like tiny platinum specks from across the room. They swim around excited about everything!


Finally found a moss that likes the terrarium area! Look at that nice bushy growth.

 

[trahana]

A new member has joined the paludarium: welcome the Lined Day gecko! I love geckos, this little guy will be active during the day so I will be able to watch his antics. No name yet, but I’m excited to have another wall gecko!

The adult shrimp in the paludarium is berried! That means little shrimp will arrive soon, and I expect them to thrive since there is no fish to hunt them.

my Badiswas out hunting in the 40g. I saw a little shrimp hiding in the grass too. Despite the predators my shrimp population is in the rise

 

[Pythia]

A new member has joined the paludarium: welcome the Lined Day gecko! I love geckos, this little guy will be active during the day so I will be able to watch his antics. No name yet, but I’m excited to have another wall gecko!

Aww...he's so cute!

 

[trahana]

Mama molly gave birth to a single baby about 36 hours ago, but still looks pregnant. Maybe the little one was premature? I’m hopeful that is what’s going on, since otherwise mama is going through birth complications which would probably kill her.

the little blur is about half the size of the other babies.

these babies love their food!

Mama molly is still swimming fine and eating. Hopefully she delivers fine.

 

[trahana]

I’m leaving on a week long vacation tomorrow. I’ve cleaned two 10g tanks, Frosty the betta 5g, Mel in his 2.5g, and the paludarium. It’s 10pm at night and I have just finished cleaning the chinchillas cage.
I also packed my bags and finished building a new chicken coup for my flock. I will sleep well.
Sorry for no pics.

 

[trahana]

Here’s pics of some of the tanks before I left! I label them and their diet so my mom feeds them correct portions.

 

[trahana]

I took these Thursday when I came home, but jet lag kept me from posting in a timely manner.

so here’s what changed in 8 days. My rotala and water sprite took over my 40g.

 

[Gamer]

I love them all but the 40 is simply amazing! That’s a tank that’ll inspire other fish keepers.

 

[trahana]

I’ve been evacuated from my house. I caught 7 cloud minnows and five mollies and 1 loach.
I have all my bettafish, and I took with the 5 gallon tank, the 2g hexagon, the paludarium, and a plastic tub with the fish.
My non fish friends have all made it out, 11 pigeons are at the Spca, 2 chinchillas are at a rescue, and the 3 chickens, 2 leopard geckos are in the horse trailer with the fish: praying for even weather, hoping the heat lamps keep the trailer warm enough for my bettas.
Day gecko and tokay gecko are inside.
salinas River Fire, praying my house is still there.

 

[AquaCaitlin]

I’ve been evacuated from my house. I caught 7 cloud minnows and five mollies and 1 loach.
I have all my bettafish, and I took with the 5 gallon tank, the 2g hexagon, the paludarium, and a plastic tub with the fish.
My non fish friends have all made it out, 11 pigeons are at the Spca, 2 chinchillas are at a rescue, and the 3 chickens, 2 leopard geckos are in the horse trailer with the fish: praying for even weather, hoping the heat lamps keep the trailer warm enough for my bettas.
Day gecko and tokay gecko are inside.
salinas River Fire, praying my house is still there.

I’ll be praying for your house’s wellbeing, your safety, and all of your pets...