# The Chateau log



## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

So, since I've been lurking the forums for a couple of months now, and since things are progressing MUCH faster in my little fishy corner of the house than I expected, I figured it was high time I made a journal thread. Double duty - it'll help me keep track of all my tank plans, and it'll hopefully get me to socialize some more. 

So to start the thread out and get it up to speed, here's the lil kiddo that started it all - Krampus. We picked him up December 9th --










-- and set his tank up with entirely silk and plastic plants plus a floating betta log.










I added a marimo ball on December 22nd -- 










-- and that's pretty much how the tank sat until last night, when a trip to Petsmart with the wife to see what kinds of easy-care plants I could pick up ended up with, er... way more than plants coming home with us.










I _swear _it wasn't my fault! Not that anyone believes me...:roll:


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Not even a month after getting the first tank, the unthinkable happened - the wife, who I've been whining at about how it would be SOOO NEAT if I could get a tiny little tank to play with live planting, fell in love with a betta of her own!










I was futzing over the plants, and she kept going back to the betta display and cooing at the same cup over and over, and finally had to give up and admit she couldn't bear leaving him there for someone else to buy and not take proper care of. So, being a terrible enabler... er, good wife, I agreed to rescue him and bought the equipment to assemble him a last second home.










That's the product of "it's 10pm and I just want this betta out of this sad little cup" tank planning, lol. The next day I ended up transplanting Krampus's marimo into his cube to hopefully give his beneficial bacteria a jumpstart and tossed some java moss in. I haven't got anything to mount my java moss to at this point, so it's just kind of sadly floating in both tanks lol. It was also water change day for Krampus today so I took the opportunity to take out that big plastic plant from the center of his tank - I'm pretty sure it's what's responsible for a few fin rips - and replaced it with some more silk plants.


















Sorry about the pigeon spikes in some of those images - we have a very curious kitten who's taking a long time to learn where she's not allowed. At least with the birdcages the inhabitants get a chance to help the lesson along with a few well placed bites - fish don't get that luxury. :<

Both tanks are definitely going to be big projects. Right now the little one's just a 1.5 gallon, instead of the 2.5 I had originally been hoping to get for a mini tank. I'll be slowly adding more live plants to replace the silk plants in there now and, depending on how well that goes, may just upgrade him to a larger cube anyways. My original intent on getting a mini tank was to get it totally planted and lush so it could be a little betta jungle.

The 10 gallon is also going to get a lot more work done - I'd like to get it more planted and once that's established, get some shrimps, and once THEY'RE established, see about getting a small school of something tiny in with Krampus. He's proving to be pretty chill about everything, hardly even caring to flare at mirrors, so he should do pretty well with some little rasboras. If I can find any - neither Petsmart or the Fish Gallery in town had any for me to look at. Hopefully that'll change as I move further along in developing the tank though.


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## EvaJupiterSkies (Oct 25, 2013)

Lovely fish! Does your second betta have a name yet, or is he proving elusive to name?


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

He does have a name! I knew I forgot something, lol. He's Ienzo.

And he's in a new tank! The 1.5 ended up not working out so hot for him. The filter that came with it ended up not working so well since the suction cups kept detaching from the side of the tank and a couple times we came upstairs to find it making an awful noise and sitting lopsided. The final straw came when it sucked a piece of gravel up into the motor and ended up making a godawful noise in the MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT that sent both the wife and I shooting up out of bed and slamming into walls in our sleepy confused desperation to find the light switch and a cup to scoop the fish we expected to find on the floor, only to find that no tankshad been dumped over, the cats weren't even in the room, and it was just the dang filter. BLEAH. So, since he had been looking pretty cramped with his enormous butt in that tiny tank anyways, we made yet ANOTHER Petsmart run to find him a new tank. They were sold out of the 2.5 gallon cubes, so we ended up with a 3gal bowfront:










But oh, lord give me strength, I almost started crying in the middle of the store when we bought that, because I had been waging the most painful internal war over a gorgeous marbled blue and white plakat crowntail with a big injury on its back for an entire month... _and he was still there_. Here's how he looked back around when he had first arrived around Christmas, when we first got Krampus --










-- and, well, uh... look at him now.










I SWEAR I'M DONE. NO MORE TANKS. Someone punch me if I even try to look at fish for sale, this multi tank syndrome is killing my wallet! :shock:


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## Betta Nut (Dec 3, 2013)

haha.. I think a large number of us have said those words!

Love the "before and after"... Here's a betta in a cup! Here he is out of a cup! How did that happen?!?!

I never knew I had hoarder tendencies til I got into bettas. I throw out anything I haven't touched in a year. But with these guys, all I can think about is what I am getting next. It's soooooo hard to "just look"

Enjoy your boys, they are fabulous


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Welcome to being a Betta Addict! My family has just started giving me "The Look" when I even mention my fish or getting something else for then. But how can we deny those fishy faces?! Your boys are adorable. I particularly like your most recent rescue. With an injury like that no one else would have probably adopted him so kudos for you! I look forward to seeing how your tanks and boys progress!


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## Lucillia (Apr 29, 2013)

Gorgeous tanks and fish so far!!!  I have to admit I started laughing at the evil filter sucking up a piece of gravel. Its amazing the tiny things that will annoy you too! Congrats on becoming a betta obsessed... ahem.. Enthusiast! You'll enjoy your stay.


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

@Betta Nut: RIGHT!? I mean, I've always kept a messy home, but at least I've always been proud of my ability to easily get rid of stuff I'm not using and every ONCE in a while I can get a really good, thorough house cleaning in. Now I'm looking at the fish corner and counting the number of live inhabitants in our apartment and going "oops." At least I clean everything up BEFORE I add new fish in!

@summersea: Thanks! Yeah, the fish associate at our local Petsmart is a really good guy, he had taken incredible care of this kid the whole time he was in the store. That back wound is all healed up, all that's left is to grow scales back over it unless it ends up staying a scar. No idea how it happened, but at least he was in good hands for the recovery. And the guy was SO happy when he saw me carting him around looking for a tank to put him in lol. We've talked before, so he knows how good I am with fish (I take care of the koi stream in the Children's Zoo. I think everyone's a fan of my fish lol) so he was super eager to help us get exactly the tank we wanted and get that little guy a happy home.

@Lucillia: Oh my gosh, it wasn't a tiny thing! We honestly thought the cat had knocked the tank off the bookshelf and that was the sound of everything crashing and the filter sucking air. It scared the pants off me lmao. How the heck could one teeny tiny pebble in a teeny tiny filter be so LOUD!? I've managed to fix it at least, but man do I hope it doesn't happen again. My head finally stopped hurting from where I faceplanted into a doorframe in the mad rush to rescue a totally not even bothered fishy, oops.

And time for another update! We did another run to the fancy fish store and grabbed some more plants. I also found a request booklet there for if you want a certain kind of fish that's not in stock, and saw somebody's already requested micro rasboras. Yesssss! Get my cherry rasboras in stock!!

So the current tank arrangements are:
Still unnamed new boy in his 1.5 on the bookshelf (I'm leaning toward naming him Paarthurnax). Totally planted with java moss, regular and windelov java fern, and water wisteria. He's a HUGE fan of the java moss, and keeps curling up in it and playing with it.


















Ienzo in his 3 gallon on the dresser, now with tons of live plants. I kept his favorite silk plant though, since he keeps building bubble nests off of it. He has a marimo, java moss, normal and windelov java fern, Bacopa caroliniana, and Amazon sword. Sorry about the bubbles, I took the photos right after finishing up planting and water changing.










And finally Krampus in his 10 gallon is getting some live plants built in! We've been waging a war with a piece of driftwood we bought that STILL won't sink, but hopefully some day it will actually manage to go in his tank for a centerpiece and we'll start getting to add some other inhabitants to the tank. The wife boiled it for at least two hours yesterday and it's still letting out a solid stream of bubbles. We'll get there eventually, but I'm impatient! Right now though he's just got a line of Bacopa caroliniana in the back and some spare windelov java fern that we didn't expect to get. Always a great day when you ask the guy in the fish store for two and you get four! It still wasn't enough to cover Krampus's whole tank, however, so he's still got a lot of silk plants in there too.


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Oh, and a new development - Krampus does NOT enjoy having neighbors!

"Wait... did something just move over there? What was that?"










"OMG MOMMMMMMM I DIDN'T SAY I WANTED A BROTHER PUT THAT THING BACK WHERE IT CAME FROM"










Needless to say, there are now visual barriers between Krampus's and Ienzo's tanks. :roll:


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

I am so glad to hear your LFS takes good care of their bettas! I haven't had the same luck and have actually had to send in complaints about my local PetsMart. At least your new boy is well on the mend! Your tanks are beautiful as well! I am going to be integrating some live plants into my own tanks soon so I like seeing how others do the same. 

Edit: And I love the pics of Krampus flaring! It took my boys a little while to settle into their split 10g. Now they ignore each other and spend more time flaring at their own reflections. Silly boys ;-)


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Yeah, I've had really good luck with Petsmarts around town. At the last one I went to, I mostly paid attention to the bird section and they had a staff member that was actually going out of her way to get some really good socialization in on their green cheek conure so that he was already trained to step up on hand and be super friendly for whenever he went home with someone. And now at my current one, the fish section is in great shape. The guy there does a great job keeping everybody healthy and I've heard him on more than one occasion very gently steer people in the right direction on safe tank stocking. When we bought the little guy, he was in the middle of explaining why bala sharks weren't going to be very friendly tank mates for someone's goldfish. Eek! The store manager even let them adopt one of the bettas that for some reason nobody was buying and let them set up a tank right there in the aisle to show how happy they can be out of the cup. They have a little sticker on it that says "Hello! My name is Barnaby!" It's super cute. I've definitely heard the horror stories though and I'm glad I've gotten to avoid them. Hopefully your store steps up to the bat and gets their act together!

And Krampus has been hilarious to watch! He's so stuck up, it's almost like he refused to admit that it was Ienzo that was bothering him and kept flaring in the opposite direction of Ienzo's tank. He kept swimming over, staring at Ienzo, then swimming away to the middle of the tank and flaring at nothing. Meanwhile, Ienzo flared maybe once at him and called it good. Since then he just flares at his food. Dorks, the both of them.

And thanks! I'm definitely still super new at planting, but it's so much more fun than I expected it would be. And hey, I haven't killed any of the plants yet! That's a first for me! :lol:


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Wow! Your PetsMart sounds amazing! None of my stores (chain or local variety) are anywhere near that! Won't lie - I'm jealous! ;-)

It is so funny the little personalities these guys have. Gives me endless amounts of entertainment to watch them and think what they would be saying. Each of mine has their own "accent" - such as my very laid back CT who always sounds like a surfer dude lol 

Awesome on not killing any plants! I do pretty well with terrestrial plants but my one attempt with aquatic didn't go so good. Goin to try setting up my first NPT (natural planted tank) here soon - hoping I have your kind of luck and won't kill all my plants!


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Oooh, good luck! NPTs look absolutely incredible, but I decided I'd rather try my luck with just some plant basics before I went all out and tried one of those. I'm definitely the opposite of you right now - I've killed almost every terrestrial plant I've had in my care. Cactus? Overwatered it. "Unkillable" bonsai? Dead in a month. Herb garden on the apartment balcony? Brown in the blink of an eye. Even the great stalwart asparagus fern that not even my brown-thumb mother could kill met an untimely end with me - I put it in a hanging basket and it crashed from our second floor balcony to the parking lot below. You should have SEEN the look on my wife's face as she hears a bang and looks out to see me standing bare-handed and dumbstruck in the window yelling "HONEY I OOPSED"

*does a good juju dance for your tanks* GROW PLANTS GROW! GROW PLANTS GROW!


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Yikes, definitely doesn't sound like you have the best of luck with terrestrial plants at all though I did enjoy the story haha ;-)

I appreciate the good juju as I will likely need it. Everyone makes it out to sound like NPTs are really easy but still makes me nervous. And I have to wait to ship plants until the weather isn't so frigid so that only allows me worry more. It is a vicious cycle! lol


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

No photo update today, since I'm super tired from work and can hardly be bothered to muster the energy to drag the laptop out and am just posting from my phone. I'll try to post some tomorrow though - it's been the Land of Bubble Nests on the dresser this week. 

I'm lying in bed now and I can see Krampus across the room zooming maniacally back and forth across his tank just flaring like a loony. He built himself a bubble nest RIGHT next to his feeding log, so every time he gets excited about food he gets distracted by the nest and goes OH! FOOD! NO WAIT NEST! GRR IM MENACING! OH WAIT NO FOOD! NO WAIT FLARE! He actually bit the wife the other day while she was swirling his pellets around. She couldn't stop laughing about it. Yes, yes, you're a scary nest defender, we know. 

Ienzo is also nesting, but he's way more laid back about his nesting duties. He much prefers to just sit underneath it for hours at a time and only every so often come out to flare at passersby. And then meanwhile, Paarthurnax (looks like that's becoming the official name!) hasn't even bothered to try to nest - he just sleeps in his clump of java moss all day and only comes out to viciously attack his food. You can honestly hear his biting and chewing sounds from outside the tank. What a crazy little dragon.

I should probably get moving on Zo's and Paar's water changes, oop. I've been napping on and off for about four hours now, it's time to quit whining about my tired feet and get back to work!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Time for the photos I promised!

Krampus and his latest bubble nest










Ienzo and his bubble nest - you can see the hand towel I've been using as a hide to try to minimize flaring between the two tanks on the left


















And still no bubble nests from Paarthurnax, but look at that pretty purple coming in on the edges of his fins!


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Those are some impressive bubble nests! Only one of my boys gives me a bubble nest anymore - and it is no where as nice as those! Yay bubbles! ;-)


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## Lucillia (Apr 29, 2013)

emka said:


> And still no bubble nests from Paarthurnax, but look at that pretty purple coming in on the edges of his fins!


The shape of the body and the short ventrils make me really want to say that is a female betta... o.o I can't see if there are ovaries or not though.


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Yeah, I really need to get some clear, good photos of Paar posted to try and get him sexed. He was sold as a male, and he does flare when he has a mirror in front of him, but he hasn't bubblenested once despite our other two boys having made about a billion nests each, and I'm pretty hopeless with trying to ID fish by anatomy still. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be female! Maybe that'll be one of my fish projects on my weekend starting tomorrow - get that driftwood planted and get that kiddo sexed.

Appreciate the comment though! Glad to see I'm not totally crazy for thinking the Petsmart cup was wrong lol.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Lucillia (Apr 29, 2013)

No I think you were right!! Females can flare as well, my girl does to any betta related fish. Ignores the rest. Its very very possible. XD I find mis-labled fish all the time at Petco, so I really think its possible at Petsmart. We're almost the same company. >.< 

One thing you can try is cupping him and putting him in with another male (in the cup still please!) females will 'bar' up when there's a male around them.. Kind of looks like tiger stripes going vertical on their bodies. It takes a few minutes for it to happen sometimes though. But I would wait for a better opinion before doing this.


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## BettaLover1313 (Apr 15, 2013)

Love the pictures of your bettas and their names!


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

We interrupt your regular scheduled betta updates with...

WINTER?!?!?! OH GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING I LIVE IN HOUSTON THIS IS NOT NORMAL WEATHER SOMEONE SAVE ME AAAAAAHHHHHHHH


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Okay, not REALLY an interruption lol, it's still Tuesday and that still means it's animal care day at the apartment. Since it's below 30 degrees outside, all the cats and birds are getting their care routines delayed until tomorrow because there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I'm going outside in that to take the trash out lmfao. The fishtanks don't require any outside activity however so they still got done today. At least I had a very helpful supervisor for the job.










And it's been what, a week since I last drastically rescaped something? I wasn't kidding when I said that big tank was a serious work in progress. Time to change everything AGAIN! :lol:

Today's big project? The driftwood has finally sunk, so in it goes!










Ta-daaa! It's starting to look like a much more habitable environment for things other than one single betta, right? Shrimp are definitely getting closer and closer to a possibility and I can't wait.


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Yay rescaping! I suspect I will be doing that a lot with my own tanks! ;-)

I love your "supervisor" and the sunken driftwood! I am planning on getting shrimp too! The little guys have grown on me more and more as I have researched then for my NPT


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Well, good news and bad news on the plant front. The bad news is that the Bacopa caroliniana isn't doing so hot in either of the tanks it went into. And I honestly can't even begin to guess the cause - do I need better lighting? Do I need to start fertilizing? Or do I need to just not buy plants from my LFS? Hopefully it's just the third lmao. I had been hoping to get away with super easy plants that didn't need anything fancier than the kit lighting that came with my tanks, that's why I've picked out the species I've got. The Bacopa was only available at the LFS though, not Petsmart, so it's quite possible it's just had a rough life so far and the transfer from the store tanks to my tanks did it it. 

Orrrrrrr it's just my brown thumb coming for revenge, of course. I think I'm gonna try to hit the LFS back up again next weekend and grab some Flourish to start feeding the plants just in case. I'd also like to buy some new lightbulbs for Krampus anyway because his tank is so _yellow _with those kit lights, bleagh.

Anyways..... the good plant news?










Those are new leaves on the very first java ferns I bought! Yaaaaay I'm not killing everything!! And some of it's even GROWING yaaaaaaaaaay!!!


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## Betta Nut (Dec 3, 2013)

If you just take off the brown/yellowing leaves on the bacopa, there is a good chance it'll come back. A lot of plants do the "melt" thing when they get put in a new tank. I think as long as the stem looks healthy, it has a fighting chance 

And YAAAYYYY about the rest, lol. 
Your journal is so fun to read


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

@Betta Nut: ohhhh that's actually pretty reassuring! The tops of the Bacopa look really good, as do the stems, it's just that all the leaves below the top thirds of each plant look crummy and are disintegrating and falling off. I think I'll still grab some Flourish at some point though; reading up, it sounds like that plant does better with a fert anyway. And thanks! I'm glad my rambling is entertaining lol.

And man, I need to take more photos. Krampus and Ienzo are getting in a Who's The Manlier Fish contest and keep building bubble nests right next to the other's tank and in the same back corner as each other. Krampus is getting some good spread on his, but it's so thin that it keeps breaking up, and meanwhile Ienzo has so many bubbles piled on bubbles that, I kid you not, his nest is like a centimeter and a half tall in parts. What is WITH these fish.


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Hahaha! Love it Emka! These boys can be so territorial it is hilarious! I recently added a Nerite snail to Nero's tank and, while he leaves it alone, he eyes it suspiciously and made me a huge bubble nest this week. Silly boys!


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

They are such goofballs! I can't believe how much nesting they do. Before I actually brought a betta home, I had just guessed bubble nesting was some rare thing that only happened every once in a while when you were taking spectacular care of your fish and giving them some world class treatment. Now everywhere I turn I'm surrounded by bubbles! I swear, I keep expecting Paarthurnax, who I'm now 90% sure is a girl, to start one up just to compete with the boys.

And oh man - somebody slap me. I'm at work in one of the few rare moments where I get to just sit down in front of a computer all day, and I started browsing Aquabid and Craigslist just for fun and ended up finding a 30 gallon tank with stand, filter, decorations, EVERYTHING an hour away from me completely for free. FOR FREE. I'm vibrating out of my seat I want it so bad!! I even know exactly where I want to put it, but gaahhhh!!! Noooooooo!!!!!!


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Sadly I cannot be your voice of reason...that 30g would make an AWESOME NPT ...and be great for a sorority if Paarthurnax is a little girl...just saying ;-)


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Aaaaaaugh don't you dare say that s-word around me, noooo!!

I texted the wife about it and she hasn't responded at all lmfao. I'm almost scared that if I DID go get it tomorrow, she'd make me stock it with whatever fish _she_ wanted as punishment. You know how marriage is supposed to be one of those things where you learn everything about a person? Somehow she never mentioned her lifelong dream to have a pet lobster until just recently. HMMMM. :lol:

But ohhhh mannnnnn it would look SO GOOD in that little useless nook in the living room, and there's that useless "wet bar" sink right behind it that'd make water changes SO easy, and aaahhhhhhhh someone save meeeeeee.......


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

There is no hope. You have been hit by Betta Fever. The only cure is to run out of space for more tanks (like I have lol). And since you just mentioned you have that awesomely perfect space available I must say you are most likely doomed lol ;-)


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

I dunno, there's a chance I might get a big loud "no" when I get home in an hour. My mom JUST gave my wife a lecture when we were over at my parents' house the other night to say hi to my visiting sister. "You have THREE fish tanks now?! What are you doing?! It's your job to say no! You know she'll just get eight million pets if you don't put your foot down!" She threw her hands in the air and gave up when Jen had to sheepishly admit the second fish was straight-up her fault. :lol:

Not to mention my one coworker that's the most fish-knowledgeable said she wouldn't start doing fish interventions until I hit three tanks and WELP...

But ohhh goddddd now I'm playing with AqAdvisor and the fish I could put in there... I'm gonna start crying at this rate. Free! FREE! As in, no money now, but SO much more effort later lmfao... but oh man do I not care! :shock:


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Oh. OH. THIS is a new development. I got home to the announcement that the cats are grounded and that we need to go to Petsmart to buy a new tank. Ienzo's tank is a bit more flimsy than we had wanted, but we hadn't really been concerned about it. Apparently one of the girls got up on the dresser and knocked the lid down into the tank. Nothing is damaged, Ienzo is fine, but his beautiful enormous bubble nest is wrecked and we definitely don't want to risk it happening again.

If we make Ienzo the centerpiece fish and turn that 30 gallon into a mixed community... I won't be exceeding my three tank limit :twisted:
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Hahaha! There you go - justify getting the 30g. I like it!! lol ;-)


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Well, it sounds like no dice on the free setup. I texted yesterday and this morning and there's been no answer, and the post made it sound like they'd be trashing the whole deal if nobody responded that day. Total disappointment. Back to the drawing board! Ienzo's still gonna need that new tank, and now I'm super tempted to make his tank be the big mixed community and just get ghost shrimp for Krampus in his 10g. Now for more fun planning!


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Okay.

That escalated quickly.



















It's 25 gallons and it's AMAZING. We're buying 10 neon tetras tomorrow and possibly 10 cherry shrimp as well. Once they're in and settled and their quarantine session ends Ienzo will get moved in with them and I'll be emptying his tank and putting it into storage for hospital emergencies/future quarantines.

Oh. My. God.


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## summersea (Jul 26, 2013)

Haha! I love it!! Gorgeous tank and yay for a community tank! You should definitely get the red cherry shrimp! I just got 6 for my NPT (pic on my journal if you wanna see them) and they are so active and interesting to watch! Woohoo!


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

Nyoom!


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## emka (Oct 6, 2013)

And a few more photos of the other kids, just as an update!

Ienzo started flaring the instant I walked up to his tank this afternoon:


















Krampus is being lazy as usual -- "eh, I COULD bubble nest to compete with that other dude, but my log is so COMFY..."










And Paarthurnax is being a spaz as usual and zooming in and out of her moss; look how tall the water wisteria is in her tank! I swear it was maybe only two inches tall when I first planted it:


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