rishel.org

Over my lunch break yesterday, I went by Aquarium Center, a fairly large fish store here in Owings Mills. I was interested in seeing if the had any CO2 regulators (they had 2 nice kits, but they appears a tad expensive from what I've seen online.) and I wanted to check out their selection of plants and shrimp (both were very nice.)

Then I saw this:

You can't really tell in this picture, but each of those fish is about 5-6 inches long, and covered in a diamond pattern. I'd never seen anything quite like it. it looked like a giant tetra covered in a very detailed pattern. The tag above the tank read that these were "Tatooed Tetras." I thought it was maybe a species I hadn't heard of, and did some googling.

No one's heard of it. What they have heard of are painted tetras and tatooed fish, both of which are very bad for the fish. The article above I linked to mentions that some places have started laser branding fish. that's the only thing I can think of that was done to these fish. I was on my lunch break, so i didn't get a chance to go back and ask if those were natural markings or not, but if they were tattooed or branded that's a shame.

My qquarium has been having a number of issues lately, I had a pretty nasty infestation of blue green algea (cyanobacteria) which I'm controlling with more frequent water changes, and feeding less. I tried to get a few bottom feeding corys (we got a number of swordtail livebearers at the same time) but none of them did very well in my tank, in fact I think I only have 1 or 2 of the swordtails left.

I think they would have done better if I had more plants and hiding spaces in the tank, because these angel fish are starting to get a bit agressive, but my plants have stopped growing as rapidly as they once did. Also, some of my broader leaf plants are starting to turn a bit yellow and my water pH has gone way up, near 8. The angel fish love it, but that's a little too basic for my purposes as a community tank.

Since CO2 injections will lower pH, promote plant growth, and discourage algae growth, I think that's what I need to do to get the aquarium I see in my head. (more…)

Many new pictures of my aquarium, and few of Pippin being sickenly cute as he watches the fish. It is very hard to take pictures of fish. The camera has a hard time deciding where to focus, the fish like to move (how dare they!) and the flash, while it makes the fish very shiny-looking, tends to cause quite a glare if you're not at a good angle for the light to not bounce directly back to the camera… click on the picture to see more of my mediocre photography skills