H2Ogal's Photo Thread

[H2Ogal]

Thanks, Rich!

I've been trying like crazy to get some decent shots of my fish ... My camera has all sorts of settings but NO manual focus. It's particularly hard to photograph the insanely active M. kubotai, which never slow, never sleep and never school.:nilly:





At least you can see their extraordinary neon green color!



A few MTS didn't survive the move to the new tank.



But a great many more did. My tank overrunneth.



Have I mentioned how much I love my Amanos?



Well, I do.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Nice! I recently ordered some plants from Crispino, myself. He hooked me up with a some freebies (including Ambulia), too.

 

[H2Ogal]

Fair warning, Slappy: The ambulia goes behind the other stem plants! Seriously, it leaps upward a segment a day and seems to be sending out runners. I'm starting to see why Cris likes to send some out with every order. It's probably the only way to keep it from over-running his tanks.

(A fantastically lovely plant. My kvetching is all in good fun.)

That's not the only plant that's growing like mad. A mix of Mgamer's root tabs and API Leaf Zone seems to have sent the whole tank into high gear. Not at all sure that I need both, but I had them so I thought I'd experiment. I'd say it's workin'.

 

[mel_20_20]

Really pretty, H20gal.

 

[H2Ogal]

Thanks, Mel. Sorry not to reply sooner ... Somehow I missed your post!

What are those teeny-tiny fish in your avatar? Boraras maybe? As you can guess, I like nano fish.
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Edited: Doh! Chili rasboras, of course. Helps to read tank descriptions in signatures, lol.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Make sure you keep the updates coming as this tank grows out. It's been a week, I know those plants are growing! My Ambulia has doubled...lol. Gotta love it.

 

[ZomZom]

hi, H2Ogal, do you still recommend the Red Flint sand? I've had CaribSea's white (Moonlight) Super Natural for a few months now and it is really hard to keep clean and want to change. Was considering CaribSea's Tahitian Moon but I read how much you like the Red Flint and am now considering that.

 

[spencerguy1]

it looks amazing! i wish i could get my plants to coopereate like that!


sadly, im probly gonna put all my live plants outside and keep the terperary terrestrials and get some fake ones. i need them to grow so when i get my new light fixture theyll be huge!


what light doyou use? i might have missed it somewhere earlier in the thread, srry if i did.



it looks amazing! just wait until it completely grows in!

 

[H2Ogal]

Update ... slight rescape and new fish!

I've rescaped the tank a bit after what I lovingly call the ambulia disaster. That plant, limnophila sessiliflora, overruns tanks just like it overruns waterways. Choked the living crap out of everything in the tank, sucked up all the nutrients and then, just when I was thinking I'd have to break down the tank to eliminate it, it all collapsed and died. Halleluiah. I moved the wood around, standing it up actually, replanted with new rotala and crypts, and they and the lilies are going altogether crazy. See the long shoots of the lily pads? They're not completely open and laying flat on the surface yet, but they will.

The kubotai school kept reducing one fish at a time — due, I believe, to aggression by the largest of the bunch who basically beat up the smallest fish in the school, and then the next smallest, etc. — until there were only five. Can't say I'd ever get them again. The only time they ever school is in the morning, when they happily run with the harlies along the front glass until I turn on the light and feed everyone. The rest of the time, kubotai are just constantly picking on each other. (And the big bully goes after every fish in the tank, including the much larger adult harlequins.)

Increased my harlies school to 9 recently. Can't really see of them here, but the newbies are about 1/4 the size of the oldies. And their color just gets stronger and stronger as they age. Fantastic fish. (A couple of the new ones have been spawning, or practice-spawning, but then they just eat whatever eggs they produce. Sigh.)



The blue airline is because I'm drip-acclimating these guys.



Five of James0816's beautiful domestically bred Otocinclus vittatus! (I wish it could have been twice that many ... but it is only a 29g.) They're very young, quite small and appear healthy and active. I'm thrilled.

Once the otos go into the tank, I'll turn off the light for the day and let them settle in. Will try to get pics of them later.

 

[Slappy*McFish]

Nice!