I used to have the fish on my likes page but I found that they took up a lot of space. So I decided that I should create a new page just for my fish and fish keeping. I very much enjoy having an aquarium. I do, however, have lots of help from my S.O. He's the one who keeps track of the chemical balances of my tank and helps me with the heavy pails of water. I'll update this page as the situation and population in my tank changes.

I have a 25 gallon tank. We were going to get a larger tank but anything larger wouldn't fit in the space we had available. So we got a kit, sand, and all the other things necessary to set up an aquarium and brought it home.

We made a discovery that day. Never put a bubble wall underneath sand. The bubbles will kick up sand galore and plug one's filter. That isn't a good thing. The next day we went out and got some gravel to seat the bubble wall into.

After we had the tank mostly set up with plants etc. and things were arranged the way I wanted them, he drained off about 5 gallons of his tank's water to start me off with some of the natural nitrite/nitrate eating bacteria necessary for a healthy tank. He also gave me about 1 to 1 1/2 cup of his gravel for the same reason. That way, instead of taking a couple of weeks to build up an adequate amount of bacteria, my tank's chemestry wouldn't take more than a week or so to become properly balanced.

Before we purchased the tank I had a general idea of the kinds of fishes I wanted in my tank. I did a fair bit of research. I wanted smallish, non-aggressive fish. I wanted Corydoras panda [a kind of small catfish]. So I scanned our fish books (of which we have plenty because my S.O. and sun are avid about their fish and knowing about lots of others) and picked out varieties of fish that would be suitable to my preferences. What I settled on were panda corys, honey dwarf gouramis, and pygmy corydoras. That was enough to start.

My S.O. got a family membership at the local Aquarium Society. It has become quite handy as a place to get locally bred fish at reasonable prices. For example, instead of paying $6.00 each for the metae cats, he paid $18.00 for five. The plants are also far more reasonably priced. The only thing you can't avoid with buying plants is the passengers that come with them, snails. You can't avoid it whether you buy from your club or from a store.

Since that first set up I've learned a lot. I've learned how much to feed my fish so that the tank isn't a breeding ground for fungus (had a couple of bouts with it and lost a few fish :( There's a commercial treatment of it called "Melafix". It may not cure the fish that have already contracted the fungus, but it will help prevent the other fish from becoming infected and will treat the entire tank.

A couple of my gouramis died shortly after I got them. I don't know why they did. They may have been old when they got to the store, or they may have been too traumatized by being shipped to the store, then to my place too quickly to be able to adequately adjust. They showed no outward symptoms of any disease and the other gouramis remained healthy.

This is my tank not long after the December/2001 auction. The plants have matured some since then offering my fish lots of protective cover and clippings that I plan on selling. The orange spots are three of my gouramis.

I had, what appears to be, a breeding pair of gouramis. The small male coloured up rather tattily with black appearing on his abdominal fin and some black pock marking on his face (he rather looks like he's got mould and for a while had me worried until I realized that was his mating colouration). One of the other gouramis was his mate, though the other three looked too identical for me to pick her out when with the other two. The large female has died since, and all the gouramis in my tank, except Bruce, are the offspring.

This is the little male. He's distinctly smaller than the other three gouramis. You can't see the colour he got in his cheeks in these pictures but you can see that the fin on his abdomen has a dark patch on it.

Honey Dwarf Gouramis (Colisa chuna). These lovely fish only grow to a max of about 2". They are beautiful,graceful and also, like the Corydoras, enjoy swimming in the bubble wall. The one on the right is having a snack in some java moss.

This is the little male with the first bubble nest we had. Sadly, through inexperience (mine) the nest was lost because I turned the filter down thinking it would be helpful. The plants separated from the decreased flow of water and destroyed the nest. Happily, as I type the little male is now guarding a new clutch of eggs. Cross your toes.

This wonderful sight is the second and successful bubble nest. I left the tank alone except to pick out snails and feed the fish. On Monday, February 4th, my S.O. saw the first gourami larva swimming just below the plants. The male would diligently swim about gathering up the tiny young and spit them out again into the weeds. On Thursday, February 6th we put a breeding net under the nest and gathered up all the young we could find that fell out before the net was tied into place. The little male maintained his guardianship of the young by staying under the net for a couple of days. Then he pretty much abandoned them.

These are two of the babies that have been hatched in my tank. For easier viewing I inverted these images, the little fish were actually swimming upside-down when they were photographed. The ones inside the breeding net range in size from this (about 2 mm) to about 5 mm. We suspect that there was more than one nest. One that we captured in the net and a later one which these "larva" belong to. The male is coloured up again and acting all "nesty" again, so we think that there's another nest on the go.

These are two of Bruce's babies. The baby on the left is about 3/4" long and is the largest of the 6 babies. It was one of five reared in the breeding net. The baby on the right was "wild" as in made it to 1/2" in the picture outside the breeding net. So far as we were able to determine, it's the only one that managed to avoid becoming another fish's lunch. The first week of April, 2002, was when we caught and released the babies out of the breeding net and put them into the tank. After the initial shock of not having the security of the net they've all settled in and seem to be quite happy, or as happy as fish get I suppose. When the release happened Bruce had another nest on the go with babies, and though the older ones were more than able to prey on the teeny larva, he didn't seem to be bothered by the juveniles at all.

I have three varieties of Coyrdoras. Every tank needs bottom feeders. Catfish are good bottom feeders. The important thing is to make sure that you pick a variety of catfish that will fit in your tank. A lot of the Corydoras remain under 3 inches. Corydoras come in a variety of patterns, colours and sizes. The varieties I chose tend toward the shy side. When I walk near the tank they freeze, if I get too close they hide in the folliage. They will come out if I sit still in front of the tank for a while. Their propensity to hiding has certainly made it difficult to keep count of them.

Want to know more about these wonderful little fishes? Go to I Love Corydoras

Corydoras metae
The left picture shows what I think is a male. The right is, I think, a female. Note on the left picture the dark dorsal fin. This is what I use to differentiate them from Corydoras adolfoi when I see them zoom out of sight behind plants and ground cover.

This lovely fish is a Corydoras panda. Notice the spot at the tail and dark dorsal fin. This fish is now shoaling in my S.O.'s tank with five other pandas

This lovely little fish is a Corydoras adolfoi. It's markings are very similar to the Corydoras metae. However, the adolfoi has a coral/orange colouration on its back just behind the eye band and a light coloured dorsal fin.

Three Corydoras in a row.

My inherited Corydoras trilineatus. Corydoras are social beasts and when the next to last died in my S.O.'s tank this lonely one was put in mine. Not long after this photo was taken we noticed that the barbels were gone. The trilineatus lived for a few more months and then disappeared. I assume that it died and was eaten by the other Corys.

These are two of my S.O.'s pygmy cats (Corydoras pygmeus). I have two but they like to hide in the plants at mid-tank level and can be difficult to find sometimes. One of mine is blind. Whether through genetic fault or accident it has no eyes. Because of other sense organs it manages quite well.

The left picture is of a Corydoras metae egg stuck to the very tip of a strand of java moss. It swayed in the current for a couple of days and then disappeared. The right is two metae eggs stuck (and I do mean stuck) onto the side of the tank. They too disappeared after a couple of days.

Surprise! It wasn't until we released the baby gouramis from the fry net that we saw the teeny catfish scooting about on the bottom. Though it's hard to tell from this picture, they look pretty much like the adults do, except on a much smaller scale. However, you get a general idea of the small size of this baby from the size of the gravel near it. Look up at the picture of the panda and you will see the general size of the gravel, then come back and take a boo at the size of it with the baby. Small, huh? It was a joyous surprise to see them. I have a rather prolific tank for someone who knows absolutely about breeding fish (other than leaving them alone).

In November of 2002 I needed to clean my tank out of dead folliage and clean off a couple of the decorations, then add new plants purchased. I had gotten a brown algae that killed much of my plants and the remaining plants were either half dead or else spindly as all get out. When I moved one of the decorations for my S.O. to tie some java fern to, I discovered that from the small population of about 11 Corys of two types, I had over 20. They were so adept at hiding away I never had a true idea of how many there were. That day we transferred 6 or so of them into my S.O.'s tank to alleviate the overpopulation in my tank.