A Fishy Spot
A Fishy Spot
Written by Thursday, 24 September 2009 00:00
There are – I think – in every house spots that seem to demand a particular piece of furniture, a picture, an armchair, a fancy lamp … hence why not a tank? As a matter of fact, this article should be named a “Tank Spot”.
The spot I refer to is in the kitchen, at the left side of the entrance, close to the door. Long time ago our first tank was placed there almost by chance. It soon became apparent to both Stephania and me that this spot was clearly a tank spot!
In the photo above the furniture and fridge are still the way they were at that time. A rough idea of what was going on inside that tank is reported here. But then again we went through a period that we needed more space (we had to move away from my mother's house and the last tank remained there). Eventually we reached the decision to make a new piece of furniture to be used as a storage space. This would double as a tank stand, so it had to be able to take a 330 lit tank on its top. This way we would be able to have more storage space as well as a new fridge (nice!). The work, eventually, begun:
After a while everything was ready and we begun filling and aquascaping the tank:
Eventually the tank (330 lit., once known as the “twin tank” before the divider was removed) was happily up and running. Please note the new piece of furniture under the tank: Stefania liked it (tank and stand), luckily. The photos below capture some of the action inside the twin tank: the fishes are juvenile Herichthys labrindes (F1 specimens), sons of those collected, years ago, in the Media Luna Channel, in Mexico.
But as you may know the story of a tank is (almost always) a never ending one; that was the case for this set up too: on a given (and bad) day the tank begun to leak from one of its front joints. A quick check (and a consideration of the overall age of the tank) drove us to the decision that it was best being replaced. And so it was: with a bit of down-sizing (about 10% of gross capacity) we decided to go for a Juwel Rio300 (tank only). I would normally make the new tank myself but since my son Leonardo has joined our family I have far less time for making my own tanks. As this unit was on offer with a considerable discount, we opted for it. The activity in the new tank has not changed that much as shown in the two photos below and our only concern has been to ensure that the fish and plants were not stressed during the move. Thankfully everything went fine and the result has been most rewarding:
But the story goes on and on … with the continuous growth of the Herichthys labrindes group (13 specimens) the new tank proved to be too small for them. Eventually I had to move the group to the “Big One” (my main, 750 lit. tank) which eventually got freed after the loss of my beloved Paratilapia small spot East coast trio. I decided to keep the new tank as a “Riverine Africa” biotope, reflecting the great rivers of the east coast flowing into the Atlantic ocean, for two main reasons:
- I have never kept fishes from this biotope previously and I am intrigued by them and
- it was really important to me not to change the decoration of the new tank. Above all, I wanted to keep the luscious vegetation consisting mainly of Anubias barteri and Vallisneria gigantea which have grown magnificently in time - with almost no effort at all.
The shopping list for the new fish was as follows:
- Phenacogrammus interruptus (a group of eight Congo Tetra). At present (August 2009) these are the only fishes actually living in the tank and it appears they are all female,
- Steatocranus casuarius (a.k.a: Buffalo Head cichlids). A pair, preferred to other species because they are less demanding as far as the water flow is concerned,
- Hemichromis sp. (a.k.a Jewel cichlids). A pair, any variety of the red ones will do)
- Polypterus sp. (a.k.a. Bichir). A pair if possible, otherwise two specimens. My preference is Polypterus ornatipinnis, a fish I find really intriguing.
As indicated the changes mainly concern the fishes, most of which are, still, on my “wish list” as, with the exception of the Hemichromis sp., the rest are not that easy to get in Italy.
So far, so good … but there is still more to come so stay tuned!
Photos by the author.
| Next > |
|---|