That’s right, I have reached my goal! Though I must inform you, the goal has been changed. What i changed it to was to have an aquarium that I am happy with, that I can use to keep various species, a mini display. What I now have is a very sleek, modern-looking 9 gallon Aqua One AR-380 aquarium! Don’t dispare. While it may be small, that does not in any way mean that it has to be boring. Besides, I still have my 18 gallon and I will soon be getting a 20+ gallon for Cpt. Gills. Perhaps one day I will gather up the time, money and knowlage needed for a 50g marine tank? Anyhoo, here is some info on the exciting new addition:
- Acrylic glass, meaning it has seemless curved corners
- A base with built-in stabalising styrophoam
- It’s silver
- The hood is neat and tidy and shows no cords. It houses the light with a protevtive plastic splash cover, a fantastic (and very quiet!) wet/dry filter and the non-submergable top or the heater. It has a switch for the light on the topwith a plastic casing and a very handy swivel lid along the front, very convenient
- As I have just said, the filter runs very quietly and effectively
- The dimentions (including hood) are (approximately) 37cm long, 46cm tall and 25cm from front to back
I have natural coloured gravel in the bottom. I have live plants in there, including one small smazon sword and a clump of dwarf hairgrass. I did have cabomba in there, but it died (I have never been able to keep cabomba for very long). The sword and hairgrass don’t seem to be doing to well either, I suspect it is the lighting. I will experiment a little more with my current lighting, then upgrade if needed. It may also be that I have not added enough gravel. I do have half a bag spare and will be adding some more soon. At the moment I am attempting to cycle it with my last remaining male guppy and three male juvinile guppies. I have my driftwood in there. I have bought a new 50w heater and a smaller gravel vacuume. I have been trying to tiptoe around the ammonia spikes to avoid any major health issues with the fish, however my adult blue moscow has come down with tail rot. I do have aquarium salt on hand, however no medication. i have done a 40-50% water change via vaccuming the gravel, so the tank is very clean. If it does not clear up within a few days, or if it gets much worse by tomorrow, I will drop into the pet shop and get some medication. I’m not in too much of a rush as this particular male has come down with fin rot in the past (a few months ago) and it seemingly cleared up after doing a major water change every day for 4-6 days. Let’s see what happens before rushing into anything.
All the guppy fry seem to be maturing very necely. The three males in my new aquarium were seemingly trying to harass the females, which is why they were put in the new tank. They are all mainly red in the tail with some yellow and a few black dots. Their body is developing a dark blue colouring. Looking down on them from above they all seem to have a vibrant, almost flourescant violet patch along the top of their bodies, linking from their dorsal fin down to the base of their tail fin. Very beautiful, especially for a crossbred batch.
My golden apple snails have been relocated to the 9g and seem to be very happy in there! They have had no effect on my live plants and their antennae have fully grown back. I balieve it is only the youngest guppies that tend to nip at them.
To everyone with a heater in their tank, I want to share my recent experience with you. yesterday i was performing weekly water changes on my 18g tank. I vaccumed the gravel. I was changing my regular amount of 5 gallons (25% of the water) and without realising, the heater had come out of the water. I went to empty out the second bucket and when i came back I heard a sizzling noise and realised what I had done. With no thought at all of the consequences, I slid the heater down into the water and It practically exploded. huge bubbles came flying up and the glass cover shattered. I immediately unplugged the device and checked what damage I had done, still unawear of what had happened. Thank goodness I unplugged it in time, the water was creeping up the inside of the remaining top half of the heater. Dangerously, the VitaPet heaters I use have no transformers, making them risky to use. Thank goodness, all my fish and I are perfectly fine. It jsut serves as a reminder of how carefull you need to be when working with electrics. I replaced the heater, this time with a smaller 100w (my old one was 150w), that better suits my tank.
AQUARiUM 