Macro lens

We rented a 105mm f/2.8 macro lens for the weekend and shot a lot of closeup pictures. In no particular order...




This little guy was in our first batch of discus. He's stunted, but we like him anyway.


Bosemani Rainbow.


Anonymous cichlid. Either an apisto, or a simlarly tempered small african - we failed to label him when we brought them home so again, information would be appreciated.


Juvenile Firemouth Cichlid. We have a pair of these that are looking for a new home. They are absolutely gorgeous specimens, and one is just beginning to show some red in the throat.




These guys were identified as Blue Barbs when we got them, but no scientific name was provided. Maximum size was listed as 4-6" and they bear a strong resemblance to cherry barbs, but with only a band of red, and a striking blue metallic coloration from the rest


Blue Tetras



Hemianthus Callitrichoides ( sometimes sold as 'Dwarf Baby Tears' )
This particular batch is growing emmersed in the bog area behind the 240.


Espei Rasbora ( Trigonostigma espei )


Congo Tetra ( Phenacogrammus Interruptus )

Bolivian Rams ( Mikrogeophagus Altispinosus )



Blue Ram ( Mikrogeophagus Ramierezi )

Discus with a spelunking fetish

School o' Clown Loaches ( Chromobotia Macracanthus )















Gold Ram ( Ramirezi varietal )



Apistogramma Cacatuoides - he was labelled a double red. Is there an orange Cactuoides varietal now? These guys have given us a small batch of fry in a split 15 gallon. Cant wait to get them into a normal sized tank by them selves.

Amano Shrimp - Caradinia Japonica ( have now been reclassified, but I dont have the new name handy. )

Caridina Serrata varietal.

A bright orange varietal of the freshwater bee shrimp. These were one of the early shrimp available to the hobby, though this is the first time I have ever seen them in person.

Endler's Livebearer Fry ( Poecilia Wingei )

Garden variety nuisance snail on glass... gotta love macro lenses

Pearling Ricca Fluitans

Three weeks of growth

Three weeks growth on the bog plants






The potted plants placed around the driftwood centerpiece got the blue-green algae to back off a little. We resorted to planting as much as possible in the tank, regardless of arrangement in order to get ahead of the algae growth.


A short of the 150g tank. It's slow going, but it looks good so far.


Angels in the 60g tank. We have a nice pile of Riccia growing in the top-left. This is the only tank we've successfully grown ground-cover plants in so far.


These are a new addition to our 72g South American Cichlid tank... they're a blue rosy barb or something like that. There is a firemouth cichlid on the right. Better pictures to come..

Pictures pictures pictures!

The bog after planting some new plants we got from a terrarium/vivarium supply place online.




We added potted Valisneria in an effort to out-compete the algae.


Espei Rasboras as dither fish


Our Discus are much more sociable since we added a few more. The ones with vertical stripes are supposedly wild-caught, but are the most sociable of the bunch.




Clown Loaches are fun to watch. They like to lounge around... some people worry when they see them laying on a leaf or the bottom of the tank, but that's normal behavior!


One of our Discus has taken up residence under the rock pile, he will actually turn his whole body to slide in and out!

Interesting aquarium display

Octopus Studios has created the Silverfish Aquarium, an interesting, though probably inefficient arrangement. They do provide a good filtration setup, but access to the lower bowls appears to be only possible via separation of the top bowls so you better hope you don't want to modify your layout once it is setup! It is also "priceless" despite a page explaining how you can order it and noting that the stand is optional. It's usually never a good sign when products are marketed without any mention of price.

Breeding

In what is perhaps an excuse to have more tanks, but was justified as a way to recoup some of the costs by breeding and propagating plants, we setup some tanks for the purpose. In the past we have had great success breeding Butterfly Goodeids, and hope to repeat the success with other fish.


Cherry shrimp are relatively new to the hobby or at least newly popular. We got some from a fellow hobbyist and put them in one of our plant grow tanks. They were excellent at cleaning up algae on the plants, and before long, we noticed tiny shrimp swimming around. You can see here if you click to view the image larger, shrimp of various sizes. In a neighboring tank, we hope to breed Amano Shrimp, but that is more complicated as the hatch-lings need saltwater to survive, but then they return to freshwater.


This tank was meant to be a hospital tank, to be used for treating any fish that got sick without exposing our other fish to the chemicals or spending a fortune treating large volumes of water. To keep the tank cycled, we picked up a few White cloud minnows to live in the tank, and were surprised to find fry in it not long after adding them. Here you can see an adult and a similarly colored sliver that is a baby.