My 55 Gallon Office Tank, Part One

As long as I'm on the subject of the pearling plants in the 55 in my office, I figured I'd might as well describe it a little for you. In this post I'll attempt to detail the fish and then I'll do another post on the plants.

To start, it's a typical 55 gallon tank in standard dimensional configuration. I think that is 48" x 12" x 18" high or somewhere thereabouts. I used a very small gravel substrate with a mixture of laterite in the bottom layer. Laterite is a clay that is used in planted tanks because it absorbs iron and will release it to the plants (iron is a common deficiency in planted tanks). The gravel is a dark, natural color. Multicolored is probably a better answer - it's supposed to be similar to a natural stream bed, this is darker than most of what is labeled as natural. It doesn't appear to be tumbled as the individual stones appear to be chips rather than pebbles and all range around 2 to 4 mm in size. I've got a rock structure on the left end built from flagstone from Lowe's (I'm way too cheap to buy rock from an aquarium supplier). Flagstone is kind of a generic term that doesn't denote what the actual makeup of the stone is. In this case it's clearly sandstone, time tested and proven to be safe in aquariums. I bought a couple of big slab-like pieces and busted them up with a mason's chisel and small sledgehammer. I have them stacked to form a kind of wall with numerous openings for the fish to hide in as use as their territory. On the right end of the tank there is another small cave of sandstone with a beautiful peice of bloodstone in front of it. In the center there is a pile of tumbled river rocks ranging from 2 to 4 inches long and about an inch or so thick. There are also additional river rocks scattered here and there and a couple on top of the rock wall.

As mentioned in my last post, the tank is pretty heavily planted and has CO2 injected under 180 watts of light. More on the flora later.

As far as fauna goes, I'm not quite done with this tank. This is the tank that I'm dying to put a school of rummynose tetras in but haven't come up with any healthy ones yet. I really, really, really want a school of something in there and I keep getting tempted to buy another species of schooling fish, but for a long time I've wanted rummys so I'm trying to hold out.

Beyond that, I've got a combination of angelfish, loaches, and peaceful cichlids. There also is a pair of male red wag platys that ended up in there via strange coincidence. They are beautiful fish but oft overlooked in favor of the more exotic specimens.

Loaches are bottom-dwelling fish that are oblong in shape. There are many, many species from many different countries. Mine are all of the botia species, originally indicating they were from India though I'm not 100% sure all of mine are. I've got a single botia dario and a single botia histronica. They are kind of like opposites of each other - the dario is predominantly dark with narrow yellowish stripes and the histronica is primarily yellowish with narrower dark stripes, though not as narrow as the dario's stripes. Both are very active, though neither was at first. Originally I had just the dario and he hid most of the time but came out occasionally. Loaches prefer to be in groups and are more active that way, so I got more to reduce the stress on dario and get him more active. (Stress in fish is a very bad thing and be caused by many, many things, social setting being one.) The histronica was extremely shy for the first few weeks in spite of the other loach population. Some loaches only prefer to be with their own species while others will hang out in interspecies groups. Finally histronica has gotten brave and now is seen regularly all over the tank.

The other three loaches are all botia kubotai and are each amazing specimens. I got them from my friend Nikolay locally and he picked out his favorites to send to a local home. For that matter, all of the loaches are from Nikolay. Originally I got just one when I got the dario and he also was shy, but not as bad as the histronica has been. Kubotais are very particular about being in groups, so I got two more. One of them is HUGE, almost four inches long - Stephanie calls him Sigmund the Seamonster. The other two are nearly as big and equally beautiful. They are commonly seen in stores marked as botia angelicus, which is incorrect, or named angelicus loaches or polka dot loaches. All of the loaches play together and often play with other fish, racing around the aquarium chasing each other and playing leap frog. The kubotais are so big that they wreaked a little havoc when my plants were first planted. In general, loaches and plants aren't the greatest match in aquariums but I couldn't resist the beautiful kubotais. Hopefully now that the plants are rooted they'll go a little easier.

Loaches are kind of like catfish in that they eat off of the bottom, but they are more picky then some catfish. I don't think I'd call them scavengers, but also don't doubt that they'd snarf down a dead fish if they found one. Mostly they swim around and grab flakes out of mid-water during feeding time, clean up flakes that fall to the bottom, snack on my plants (ugh), and enjoy the wafers I drop in every few days. I feed them a combination of algae wafers, catfish wafers, and Hikari carnivore pellets.

Next up is my calico bristlenose plecostomus, ancistrus sp. var. "
calico", likely ancistrus temminicki but not 100% sure. It's definitely some kind of ancistrus, though, because all BNPs are. I bought him from a breeder that used to be in the DFW area but has since moved to Colorado. She offered them for sale on our local forum and a bunch of us did a "group buy", meaning we all bought a couple and shared the shipping costs. I bought two, only one survived past the first week or so. We call this guy Spot and he's a handy guy to have around - he eats lots and lots of algae. BNPs are one of the favorite fish in the hobby for tank clean up. Like all plecostomi, he is a "suckermouth" type of catfish, meaning he has a downward facing mouth that is designed to cling via suction to whatever he chooses. Usually he's found cleaning the glass or the river rocks because that's where most of the algae is. I'm sure he snacks on the wafers I drop in as well. Hopefully I'll have the algae under control soon, but that won't put him out of work. There's always something for an ancistrus catfish to eat.

I already mentioned the two red wag platys - xiphophorus maculatus. They are beautiful fish, a bright red, velvety color with a black tail. Their eyes are kind of gold colored, too, which sets off nicely against the red. Mine are both males and I still haven't decided if that's good or bad. They are livebearers, which means they are very easy to breed, but also means that they breed CONSTANTLY, flooding your tank with fry (babies). In this tank the fry would all get eaten by the angelfish, ram, and kribs. Part of me enjoys the breeding part and wishes one were female, but the bigger part of me says I've got more fish than my tanks can hold. Then the first part of me reminds me that, once raised up a little, they can be traded into the LFS (local fish store) for more fish. Both are males so the point is moot. I have no intention of adding a female any time soon, but if I was going to breed more livebearers these guys might be it.

That's probably enough for this post. Stay tuned for details on a wild-caught blue ram, a pair of Nigerian red kirbensis, and the angels.