3 Tanks One Room

[twotone12valve]

Well I'm starting this as a visual record as well as to help me keep track of dates on breeding and plant growth in various water conditions.

I'm sure most everyone knows I have two tanks my 125gal and a 55gal, but I've just set up a 20 long for my trio of A. Agaissii witch are a double red, there tank will not be a 100% bio type.

I will have pictures and notes up soon.

[twotone12valve]

This will be open to any opinions, helpful advise, what ever you've got to say. I'm always open to advice. As soon as I can figure out what's going on with my photo bucket I'll get pictures up.

[ScottFish]

Thanks for starting this journal! I've always wanted to raise and breed Apistos. Now I can live out the dream thru you!

[lou zello]

hey 12valve,sounds as if things are going good.as you know this is THE place to ask questions.i'm back up to 4tanks myself.added a 1gal for a PURE white male betta to my girls room and a 10gal to my sons room for the 100 baby BLUE lobsters his NEW blue lobster had after his 4 1/2 yr old male died a few weeks ago that was 8inch long.i changed water in the babies tank yesterday and it loks like there may only be 12-15 of the 100 left,guess they have been eating each other,not much i can do about it as i can't put them in their own containers to grow up,i just don't have the room,will just have to see how many make it in the 10gal.good luck with your new tank and keep us posted as well as the photos when you can.

[twotone12valve]

1/9/13 today in the 125Gal the Angel fish pair have breed and are garding 100+ eggs this is there first attempt and I am going to leave the eggs in place.

Also I have purchased another 6 neons as well as 2 more ghost cat fish, so I'll have a total of 13 neons and 5 ghost cats as soon as they all past there" health exam", I'm also test a new quarantine tank/ recovery tank.

Quarantine tank is a 2.5 gal with a double sponge filter for 20+ Gal (according to the package) it is driven by a 50+ gal air pump with two feed lines.

[twotone12valve]

This is the 20long, the picture was taken 1/5/13 two days after set up, this will be home to my trio of A. Aggrasii.

An update on the 125gal, the Angel fish eggs hatched last night but must have been quickly eaten up by tank mates.
Also the new arrivals are doing great, hopefully the two ghost cats will pick up on eating with the other three quickly they took to flake food while in quarantine, so I don't think there will be any issues. Also I've let my group of wild guppies out my refugium and allowed them to try life with the big boys in the 125gal.

[twotone12valve]

Update: the 20 long seems to be fully cycled, the last tests came up ammonia -.25ppm, nitrate 0ppm, nitrite 0ppm, so I think everything is falling into place. I through a shrimp in it to add some life as well as combat some algae. I'll be adding a few Otto's soon for algae control. If they do well witch I'm sure they will, I'll add the Apisto's to the tank.

[C. Andrew Nelson]

I agree with Scott. Glad you started this journal. I will be following it closely.

[ScottFish]

Remember: you're looking for the Amm. to be zero and the Nitrates to briefly spike, and stablize below 20.

[Crazygar]

That looks like a wonderful start for a breeding tank for those Apistos. Loads of natural caves, and since these are Cave Spawners, you have already catered to that aspect. Good work.

Gary

[twotone12valve]

This is a more resent shot of the 125GAL, its starting to come together.I think its doing quite well for not having a proper substrate or adequate lighting, at only about 75 watts. I've added some more anubis, we will see how it does.

[twotone12valve]

Thanks Gary, I do be leave it will work great for them as well as look much better than a bare bottom plain breeder. I'm sure it won't yield as many fry but I'm not trying to make a living off them. I'm just having fun, and injoying the hobby. I'm hoping to move them soon, so they can do there own thing with out the fear of the Angels attacking them. I have noticed that even though the Apisto's are approximately half the size of the Kribs now they have no fear of them, and I often catch the male Apisto chasing the male Krib.

Thanks Scott, thats good info I hadn't thought about the cycle pattern, I'm still waiting on it to get stable. I like to use the sign of green algae and all those little creatures that seem to show up out of no were as a good sign of good water.

[Crazygar]

What a wonderful tank, if you are not totally serious about high fry yield, recreate their current environment, they'll thank you for it by producing viable young. Keep us posted on the goings on. Still think you scored big time with those Apistos.

Gary

[twotone12valve]

Well I'm going to do my best to keep the water parameters the same as the 125Gal, I'm not looking forward to moving the Apisto's to there new home. I still have quite a while before I'll even be thinking about adding them to the 20Gal but I'm thinking about doing a 90% water change on the 20Gal using water from my 125Gal. What are your guy's thoughts on that, as to keeping the water the same for the switch?

I'm just now starting to see plant growth in the 20Gal so as soon as it really gets going and the tank has fully cycled, I then will add them.

I also think I will be getting some RCS this week I'll be adding them to my refug on the 125Gal, which i know will be good for breeding those little guys. I keeping reading about how well they do as algae controllers and I love watching my ghost shrimp run around the big tank so why not get some that will yield fry and become a new food source as well.

I realized I haven't talked about my 55Gal at all well it seems to be just running like normal I stuffed the HOB filter full of pillow stuffing a while back to provide more bio filtration because its only running a Aquian 55 or what ever the tank came with. It is still home to my two Tin Foil Barbs, Red Tail Shark, two Chinese Algae eaters and a pleco, also my male Betta he escaped his netting and seems very pleased with his tank mates.

[Crazygar]

Rather than dumping the water when you do a water change on the 125, use that water for the 20GAL. Use as much as decor as you can from that tank as well. Seed the filter sponges (from the 20) in the 125 as well. Technically, you can jump start the tank rather quickly. This is how I do it.

Gary