Complete Set

I called around today looking for stores that sold female Dwarf Gouramis, but no one carries them because they're "not as colorful" and don't sell well. All the research that I found pointed to Dwarf Gouramis becoming aggressive if you have multiple males with no females to court, so I changed up my plan a bit. I opted for an Angelfish to go along with the Dwarf Gourami for the "centerpiece" fish. Kim asked me if I told them that they had to stay in the center of the aquarium as I put them in the tank.

I can tell the Dwarf Gourami has a bit of an attitude already. He will go up to the Angelfish and stick out his bottom feelers as if he's touching it and saying - "Hey you - you lookin' at me?" He seems to leave all the other occupants alone, but here I caught him eyeing up a Ghost Shrimp.

So here's the tank fully stocked (although Kim keeps bugging me to get more African Dwarf Frogs). Elizabeth loves naming all the fish, and the new ones are Amy (the Angelfish) and Pretty Bucket (the Dwarf Gourami).

Corys

I keep testing the parameters in the tank and waiting for a ton of ammonia or nitrites to show up, but apparently I did a good job of cycling the tank because I don't see a speck of green in the ammonia test, and not a smidgen of purple in the nitrite test. I decided to go out and get the Corydoras that I wanted to put in the tank.

The pet store had these listed as the julii species, but after doing some research I found out they're more than likely the trilineatus species (commonly referred to as Leopard Corys). I liked their unique patterning of spots and stripes the best. They are really fun to watch as they go all over the tank. They tend to stick together and do all sorts of neat little "tricks". They'll rub their sides on the sand, go up for air, and even nose-dive into a stream of bubbles.

Only one more set of fish to go, and the tank will be complete. I'll be looking to put some Dwarf Gourami in there to complete the look of the tank. A couple of males will become the "centerpiece" fish (I am hoping they won't fight - I hear that they can, but I plan on putting enough females in there to help spread the aggression).

The Active Tank

Things are really starting to heat up in the tank. Lots of activity going on at any one moment. The Bristlenose Catfish has been out a lot lately, and the frogs are seeming to be back to their old selves with their shenanigans.

The Leopard Corys are really fun to watch. The first night they were in the tank, and the bubbles turned on, they kept trying to swim down the stream of bubbles. It was really funny.

I always try to find the Ghost Shrimp when I look in the tank. One is usually easy to spot. The other one can be difficult to see - he likes to hide out behind the pirate ship or in the plants.

The Haunted Aquarium

When we went to go get some fish for the first time, the tank with the Red Mickey Mouse Platy was a little less active and had less fish in it than the others. Alarm bells were going off in my head, but I chose to ignore them. I decided to only go with one from that tank, and when the clerk moved the rock that was in there to try and grab one, a dead fish floated up from underneath it. At that point, I should have stopped him but instead I let him continue to grab a fish from that tank and I took it home. It was dead the next day. Go with your gut. I did return it and picked up a Red Wag Moon Platy. I think it fits in well with the others. They really like to chase each other around the tank. I'm not sure if it's play, or something more sinister but they don't seem to be doing any damage to one another.

While I was there, I picked up two Ghost Shrimp. They were both really shy at first and hid out under my rock hoping there weren't any predators around. One of them got bold and decided to venture out and is now all over the tank. It's very cool to watch as they sift through the sand with all their tiny little arms and bring junk up to their mouths to see if there are any tasty morsels to chew on.

We also had a scare with the Bristlenose Catfish. Apparently he's pretty shy, or nocturnal. He was hiding out in the rock the whole day. He must have been in there pretty deep because even shining the flashlight in there we couldn't even see the slightest of fin. After we got the kids to bed and it started to get dark out, Kim wandered over to the tank and noticed him sucking away on the glass.

Sucker

I called around today to find a place that carrried Bristlenose Catfish. I intended to get it the same day as the Platy, but the store I bought the Platy from didn't have them. The Pet World in Fairport had some, so I took a ride up there after work. They had Albino, regular and long-finned. I liked the look of the long-finned the best so I bought one of those. He went to work right away after I acclimated him to the tank. I think he's Evan's favorite.

More pics of the fish

We ended up getting 2 Gold Mickey Mouse Platy, 1 Red Mickey Mouse Platy and 2 Sunburst Wag Moon Platy.

A shot of one of the Sunburst.

The frogs seemed to fit right in with the platy. Once I was able to catch them (I am notorious for letting them get away) they went in without a hitch. One of them even helped himself to one of the smaller snails in the tank (or possibly more).

We have fish!

Elizabeth and Evan had a lot of fun at the pet store looking at all the fish as they normally do. This time, we'd actually come home with some. They spent the whole time in the car discussing names for the fish. Elizabeth picked out Lovepeace and Finley, and Evan's are Optimus Prime and Gantor. That does leave one more unnamed fish that Mommy or Daddy get to name, but we never actually got to that point of picking one.

After I got home from work, I checked the levels one last time. I put in enough ammonia yesterday to bring the levels up to 4.0 PPM, and took note that the nitrites were down to 0.25 PPM. This morning the levels were still pretty high, but by the time I got home from work they were all down again to what they were the day before. I did a 95% water change and headed to the pet store to pick up the first set of fish - 5 Platy.

I transferred the plant that was in the Frog tank over to the 46 gallon tank, and dropped Speedy the snail in there too.

The platy seemed to fit right in to their new surroundings. I took some time to acclimate them into the new tank by floating them for a bit and gradually adding my tank water into the bag that they came home in. Once they were in there for about a half-hour or so and had most of my tank water in there, Kim had better luck than I did netting them and releasing them into the tank.