Okay, so I work in a group home, and a couple of the women who live there have fish tanks. Being the only staff who's experienced with fishkeeping, I am in charge of maintaining the tanks.
There's good and bad to that.
On the positive side, I like working with aquariums (was probably my favourite part of working in the pet store industry), and in the one gal's tank, which is a 10 gallon, I have free reign (she's pretty indifferent to her fish tank, so it's become my project, which I pay to stock, and she pays for filter media, etc.). When I started at the house, her tank had awful gaudy decorations and multi-colored gravel and was housing three bleeding hearts with some serious fin rot. I tried to save them through meds, but they were too far gone. After that, I continued the meds on the empty tank for a couple weeks to kill anything left, then restocked with a trio of white clouds, an otto, and a betta. Slowly, all but one white cloud and the betta succumbed to fin rot and overfeeding (I only work weekends, and the other staff, who aren't knowledgeable about fish, overfeed during the week) - the betta also developed fin rot. About two months ago, I decided to remove the gravel (go barebottom), bleach everything, and start the tank over, with the remaining two fish. I'm soooo happy to say it's been successful. Tank is cycled, betta and remaining white cloud are doing well, the betta's fins are growing back, no more sign of disease. The barebottom makes keeping the tank clean easier, and helps stop other staff from overfeeding. Last weekend I added a bronze cory, to help get what does wind up on the bottom.
Anyway, what else should I add to the tank? This is a 10 gallon, barebottom tank with a few (cheap and ugly but oh well) decorations/fake plants. It's heated to about 75. pH is 7.0. Current tank residents are a betta, a white cloud, and a bronze cory.
I'm thinking two more bronze cory, and two or three more white clouds? To be honest, I don't really care for white clouds, but, since one lived, and they're schooling fish, it makes the most sense to give him/her some buddies...
Now for my rant: the other tank I take care of It's a 2 gallon acrylic tank, with a dinky little fluval submersible filter. The woman who owns it is very high functioning and has full control over what goes in her tank. Which would be great, except she's a pack rat, wants what she wants, and doesn't care about the welfare of the fish. So, in this tiny little tank we have four danios, and an albino cory. Oh, and the **** thing is stuffed so full with decorations that there's hardly any water and the fish can barely swim. Seriously, in this tiny tank there's a bunch of plastic marbles (from her old gumball tank) which sit on top of the gravel, and the plastic pirate ship background thingy that came in the tank, and two plastic plants, and a seahorse ornament, and a mickey mouse scuba diver attached to the air pump, and the submersible filter. There was also a second airstone, but I managed to convince her to let that go. She's been requesting buying more fish lately, but I've been able to be firm on not allowing it, as there's no room. GAH! :wall:
There's good and bad to that.
On the positive side, I like working with aquariums (was probably my favourite part of working in the pet store industry), and in the one gal's tank, which is a 10 gallon, I have free reign (she's pretty indifferent to her fish tank, so it's become my project, which I pay to stock, and she pays for filter media, etc.). When I started at the house, her tank had awful gaudy decorations and multi-colored gravel and was housing three bleeding hearts with some serious fin rot. I tried to save them through meds, but they were too far gone. After that, I continued the meds on the empty tank for a couple weeks to kill anything left, then restocked with a trio of white clouds, an otto, and a betta. Slowly, all but one white cloud and the betta succumbed to fin rot and overfeeding (I only work weekends, and the other staff, who aren't knowledgeable about fish, overfeed during the week) - the betta also developed fin rot. About two months ago, I decided to remove the gravel (go barebottom), bleach everything, and start the tank over, with the remaining two fish. I'm soooo happy to say it's been successful. Tank is cycled, betta and remaining white cloud are doing well, the betta's fins are growing back, no more sign of disease. The barebottom makes keeping the tank clean easier, and helps stop other staff from overfeeding. Last weekend I added a bronze cory, to help get what does wind up on the bottom.
Anyway, what else should I add to the tank? This is a 10 gallon, barebottom tank with a few (cheap and ugly but oh well) decorations/fake plants. It's heated to about 75. pH is 7.0. Current tank residents are a betta, a white cloud, and a bronze cory.
I'm thinking two more bronze cory, and two or three more white clouds? To be honest, I don't really care for white clouds, but, since one lived, and they're schooling fish, it makes the most sense to give him/her some buddies...
Now for my rant: the other tank I take care of It's a 2 gallon acrylic tank, with a dinky little fluval submersible filter. The woman who owns it is very high functioning and has full control over what goes in her tank. Which would be great, except she's a pack rat, wants what she wants, and doesn't care about the welfare of the fish. So, in this tiny little tank we have four danios, and an albino cory. Oh, and the **** thing is stuffed so full with decorations that there's hardly any water and the fish can barely swim. Seriously, in this tiny tank there's a bunch of plastic marbles (from her old gumball tank) which sit on top of the gravel, and the plastic pirate ship background thingy that came in the tank, and two plastic plants, and a seahorse ornament, and a mickey mouse scuba diver attached to the air pump, and the submersible filter. There was also a second airstone, but I managed to convince her to let that go. She's been requesting buying more fish lately, but I've been able to be firm on not allowing it, as there's no room. GAH! :wall: