Staffylovers multiple tank thread

[Martinspuddle]

Loving the whiptail. I wish I had the room for one or a pair.

He's slowly crossing to the darkside @Staffylover ...I feel a larger aquarium coming in 2024!

[Staffylover]

So another tank has appeared in my kitchen!
It was my Christmas present to myself The fish for it had been in the spare 20l, just a bare tank for about 6 weeks as they are so tiny I wanted to be able to see them clearly, fish in question are the Pygmy Sunfish or Elassoma Evergladei,

The tank got set up over Christmas as I had a few days off, it is an Aquaone Aqualume 25L, there are lots of tanks about this size but I liked this one because the inbuilt LED lights are 2 clip on strips that also act as support for the glass lid, there are also the normal plastic clips, this means no extra height is needed and it could go below some built in units in the kitchen, it also looks well made.

I was lucky to be able to use credit for some fish I took in from another tank to buy a nice piece of wood and the substrate, the bits of slate and pebbles I found in my fishy allsorts box, I would like it to have a natural maybe overgrown kind of look as they are shy fish, here it is on initial set up

[Staffylover]

These are pictures from a week ago, I have glued some carpeting plant to the wood plus added some small red plants at the front and some floating plant these are all just experiments not sure if they will work but worth a go.

[Staffylover]

The wood got covered in a huge amount of the normal white slime, I have a couple of Amano shrimp in there but wonder if I should add my whiptail just for a couple of weeks to clear things up,
Back to the fish, they are difficult to spot as they go pale if they are out the front but darken up in the plants, a couple of them can go jet black I assume these are males

Firstly Mr Amano



In this picture you can see the difference in colour pale at the front dark behind




This is one of the darker ones showing it's blue spangles

[Staffylover]

They are quite difficult to photograph so I took a short video of some interaction I will try to get a better one eventually, but can't say I found this any easier than pictures!
It's very difficult to feed them a small enough amount I try to get them live food although they will eat frozen, copepods seem to work best although these are marine I understand so hope this will be ok long term
It's been a really rewarding project and I always look for them now when I go into the kitchen,

[Martinspuddle]

@Staffylover, just how many aquariums do you have got running now? ...I'm thinking that's a hell of a lot of waterchanges!

[Staffylover]

@Martinspuddle Currently 8 tanks plus 1 QT but I never count that somehow, they are all listed on my sig,
It's only 1 water change per week just takes me longer than most people at 1.5 - 2hrs, cleaning internal filters is often the most time consuming so having easy clean ones is high priority, and most tanks are on externals which I don't clean often, only the 60/40 and now 25L have internals,
Anyway I seen these fish rooms people have in converted sheds with maybe 50 odd tanks, when I see this it makes me feel better! I've run out of room now for any more which is just as well I think

[Martinspuddle]

Anyway I seen these fish rooms people have in converted sheds with maybe 50 odd tanks, when I see this it makes me feel better! I've run out of room now for any more which is just as well I think

Many of these fishrooms have automatic waterchange systems fitted.

Personally, with a fishroom I couldn't imagine doing any other way.

[Staffylover]

The 25l tank got a new filter this week, the internal it comes with is pretty good as in it creates enough flow but the sponge is tiny, enough for the small bioload, but it was not coping with the normal amount of dead plant matter and general detritus, this meant I had to use an unguarded syphon hose to get it out with such tiny fish this is fraught with difficulty,
I did look for an internal but most had bigger housing and pumps but not much improvement in the media area so in the end I found this tiny external made by Oase for tanks up to 50l, it's up and running on the tank and doing a good job, it's in the pic but not so easy to see especially as I forgot to clean the glass! I cleaned it out today for the first time, a bit awkward but only because the suckers that hold the pipes are really huge and tricky to unstick but pretty pleased overall, it even comes with little rubber feet for the base

[Staffylover]

The 40L is still ticking along, it gets some BBA in the front half but the back half is completely clear, some hair algae I leave as cover for the smallest fry it's easy enough to remove when there is getting to be too much,
I have a colony of black belly limia, there is only 1 adult female left but about 12 sub adults so that's good, there is also 4 assassin snails but I don't think they will be enough to deal with about a million MTS that are in there! In the summer I think I will strip it down and replace the substrate that should get the MTS population down to a more reasonable level for my overworked assassins