Corydoris video

A little video of one of the corydoris looking for food. Taken with an old webcam, as our digital camera broke recently, so there might not be many pictures in the near future...

The cycle

Did some chemical tests yesterday, and ammonia was between 0.0 and 0.1, so thats good, and nitrite was about 2-3 ppm (a little high), the first time that test has ever shown anything other than 0! lol This means the nitrogen cycle is establishing, and the tank should be ready for the not-so-tough expensive fish soon! I got a $100 voucher for Jem Aquatics today for christmas, so hopefully I'll put that to good use in the new year... :D

Settling in

A few pics from the first few days:

You can see that the right side is shaded, its closest to a window. I just used a folded A4 piece of paper. I may move it to over the cave later, for the nocturnal BGK.


New red leaves in the middle, and new green ones around the outside of the ozelot.

The tetras shoaling, the day they were introduced. After the first day, they spread out, and don't shoal much anymore.

The day after they were introduced, I noticed the glowlights weren't shoaling at all. They had split into 2 or 3 groups, and were spawning! After a sufficient amount of hassling from the males, a pair would go off 'amongst the bushes', under a sword or the water cabbage and they'd do a barrel roll, and while they were upside down, the eggs would be released. The females released 10-20 eggs each time, which were promptly eaten by both corys and glowlights. They did this about 5 times, and and a few times the next day (yesterday), and at least once today. I think they've run out of eggs now!


Squishy the bristlenose on the water cabbage.


Closeup of the bristlenose.


Corys, and a shrimp pellet. They don't seem very interested...


Corys swimming up and down the side of the tank. I think they want to explore the living room too!

One of the two pearl grasses didn't seem to be doing as well as the other . The bases of each 'stem' seemed to be melting away, but roots were still growing from further up the stems.


I had previously buried one of the stems that had come off under the sand, and it seemed to be doing well. So I ended up just planting all the stems of the melting plant, and taking the pot out.

First fish

And back to the tank! I ended up getting 6 Three Line corys (sold as julii), a very small bristlenose, and 10 glowlight tetras.

Absolutely NOTHING cuter than a pack of 5-6 corys swimming around the tank.

Squishy the baby bristlenose.

Damn tetras moving all the time...

And most of the tetras, and 2 of the corys, around dinner time!

To feed the tetras, I have to crush up the flake, and release it under water, as they won't eat it off the surface. The corys sometimes nibble on a shrimp pellet, but don't seem too interested in that food... I think they like the flake more!

Jem Aquatics

So, after some minor Ph adjustments and stuff like that, we went to Jem Aquatics to get the first fish to cycle the tank! Before I get to that though:

One of the most crazy-lookin fish I've ever come across, the BGK (Black Ghost Knife). Just so fun to watch swim around, upside down, backwards, sideways, and all for fun as far as I can tell!

Hmm, $290... Stunning though. One day I'll have a discus tank...

So pretty, but I don't know how well Rams will go with Angels...

That shop is better than going to the aquarium.

Setting up

I started setting up the tank about 2 weeks ago, doing basic landscaping with corse gravel and a bit of old silver sand (or yellow sand after the years of previous use). Then water was added, and most of the plants. I planted a few bunches of Corkscrew Vallisneria, an Ozelot Amazon Sword (Echinodorus x.), a Water Cabbage (Samolus parviflorus), and 2 pots of Pearl Grass (Hemianthus micranthemoides).

Then after the water settled down nicely, I decided it needed more silver sand, so that went in, after most of the planting was done and the water was in the tank... Clever... lol After dusting off the plants, the slate cave was put in (sleepyfish hotel), and also the small piece of bogwood that we got from breaking down the huge piece we had in our previous tank. I also planted another sword, a Ruffled Amazon Sword (Echinodorus martii), to offset the short red one.

Then after a week, the fish were added...

Hi fish!

Hi fish! *waves at tank*

Hopefully this will be a place to post pics, log new arrivals, keep track of ph/dh/°C, post more pics, and just generally comment on the tank I'm in the process of getting underway. Keep checking back for lots and lots of pictures of my corydoris, and occasional pics of other fish too... *rolls eyes*