Hi, I've been meaning to join for about a year, hoping to reconnect with people who might remember me from another fish forum, and make new hobbyist friends!
I'm relatively new to the hobby, only set up my own first tank in 2019 after taking over caring for my dad's tank when he couldn't manage it anymore. Right now I'm juggling tanks and stocking again, upgrading tank sizes, and also adopted some fish yesterday, so QT tank is full!
My main tanks are a breeding colony of Corydoras pygmaeus, living with a group of seven otocinclus and at the moment, four pseudomugli luminatus that I traded some pygmies for, swapping with a local hobbyist. Love them, hoping to set them up in my harder water tank later and, fingers crossed, breed them!
Larger tank is a 36g that houses my cory gang - bronzes, 2 albino aeneus, six sterbai, and three juvenile black Venezuelan cories. There are also two L181 peppermint plecos, still not full size but growing, two platies, two elderly male guppies, and five elderly tetra of different species, the last remaining members of their schools from the tank I inherited. So it's a bit of a jumble, but it's moving closer towards the set ups I'd like them to be, slowly but surely! I decided the 36g was too small for the 15 cories plus the plecos I had, so I bought a 63g that's 120 by 40cm and the three Venezuelans... oops). Just cleaning it up now and repainting the back so I can get them transferred over.
Then there's the quarantine - I've been trying to sell off old tanks I don't use anymore, and spotted an ad from someone trying to sell their tank with fish, and the photo of the little cory broke my heart. Long story short, I didn't buy the tank but the stock is now in my 22g QT tank - three cories (possibly two C.leucomelas , one larger one not sure of species yet, hoping to get help IDing them!) one lonely otocinclus, a blue gourami and a six inch rainbow shark...
Before adopting them I checked that my LFS would be willing to take in the rainbow shark - I have too many small bottom dwellers to risk it. Now I'm not sure whether the blue gourami might be okay in my tank since I don't have many top dwellers, or if I'll need to take her to the store too. I *think* it's a female, but not experienced with gourami. Going to be a bit of a headache sorting them out, but I'm still glad I got them. The water they arrived in was yellow, and when I tested the nitrates the tube instantly went a deep red. Fish have coloured up a lot now they're in the QT tank and in clean water.
If anyone can ID or sex the fish in the photos, I'd really appreciate it!
I used a pen to measure, the shark is an easy six inches! I don't know whether male or female though.
C.leucomelas? A stressed and pale one, have more of an orange colour now, this photo was taken while acclimating so they were all pretty stressed out;
The one in the centre is a fair bit larger than the other two, I thought maybe a chunky female while the others were male, but a friend thought perhaps another species, suggested C. 102, and looking at the photos, the head shape does look different from the more snub-nosed smaller ones.
The blue gourami in the examination/acclimation tank so still pale, but dorsal looks short and rounded to me, any thoughts on M/F?
Sorry for photo quality, I was focusing on acclimating and settling them and I've never been much of a photographer! Hoping to get some clearer photos of them settled in the QT and looking happier!
I'm relatively new to the hobby, only set up my own first tank in 2019 after taking over caring for my dad's tank when he couldn't manage it anymore. Right now I'm juggling tanks and stocking again, upgrading tank sizes, and also adopted some fish yesterday, so QT tank is full!
My main tanks are a breeding colony of Corydoras pygmaeus, living with a group of seven otocinclus and at the moment, four pseudomugli luminatus that I traded some pygmies for, swapping with a local hobbyist. Love them, hoping to set them up in my harder water tank later and, fingers crossed, breed them!
Larger tank is a 36g that houses my cory gang - bronzes, 2 albino aeneus, six sterbai, and three juvenile black Venezuelan cories. There are also two L181 peppermint plecos, still not full size but growing, two platies, two elderly male guppies, and five elderly tetra of different species, the last remaining members of their schools from the tank I inherited. So it's a bit of a jumble, but it's moving closer towards the set ups I'd like them to be, slowly but surely! I decided the 36g was too small for the 15 cories plus the plecos I had, so I bought a 63g that's 120 by 40cm and the three Venezuelans... oops). Just cleaning it up now and repainting the back so I can get them transferred over.
Then there's the quarantine - I've been trying to sell off old tanks I don't use anymore, and spotted an ad from someone trying to sell their tank with fish, and the photo of the little cory broke my heart. Long story short, I didn't buy the tank but the stock is now in my 22g QT tank - three cories (possibly two C.leucomelas , one larger one not sure of species yet, hoping to get help IDing them!) one lonely otocinclus, a blue gourami and a six inch rainbow shark...
Before adopting them I checked that my LFS would be willing to take in the rainbow shark - I have too many small bottom dwellers to risk it. Now I'm not sure whether the blue gourami might be okay in my tank since I don't have many top dwellers, or if I'll need to take her to the store too. I *think* it's a female, but not experienced with gourami. Going to be a bit of a headache sorting them out, but I'm still glad I got them. The water they arrived in was yellow, and when I tested the nitrates the tube instantly went a deep red. Fish have coloured up a lot now they're in the QT tank and in clean water.
If anyone can ID or sex the fish in the photos, I'd really appreciate it!
I used a pen to measure, the shark is an easy six inches! I don't know whether male or female though.
C.leucomelas? A stressed and pale one, have more of an orange colour now, this photo was taken while acclimating so they were all pretty stressed out;
The one in the centre is a fair bit larger than the other two, I thought maybe a chunky female while the others were male, but a friend thought perhaps another species, suggested C. 102, and looking at the photos, the head shape does look different from the more snub-nosed smaller ones.
The blue gourami in the examination/acclimation tank so still pale, but dorsal looks short and rounded to me, any thoughts on M/F?
Sorry for photo quality, I was focusing on acclimating and settling them and I've never been much of a photographer! Hoping to get some clearer photos of them settled in the QT and looking happier!
