Hi Everyone,
My fiancee and I recently settled down in Terrace after years of bouncing around for school and practicums. With things looking more permanent (stable jobs/new house) we were finally able to make a start in the hobby!
She has kept fish for years as a teenager, in fact her parents still have her 20 gal tank with a pleco and pictus from over 10 years ago. That's pretty long for a pictus isn't it?
Myself, I've really only had a couple bettas that lived about 2-3 years each in a bowl (not at the same time!) and briefly a 10 gal with Neon Tetras as a kid. Turns out I have a lot to learn.
Anyway, back to our new tank. We purchased a Fluval 45Bow kit in late October, so were about 6 weeks in. We're currently keeping 3 Green Terrors (one male, two female) as well as 6 Mustache Danios (sexes unknown). The tank is planted, though not grown out, I guess pictures are in order.
![Water Plant Vertebrate Green Botany]()
![Vertebrate Plant Water Fish supply Organism]()
Its been an adventure so far. We started cycling the tank with two of the Green Terrors as 2.5"-3" juveniles, before picking up the 3rd juvenile a week later to deal with the one-on-one aggression. This seemed to help a ton, though we still had no idea what sex they were. It's now clear first two were females.
For the first 4 weeks they were all extremely timid, hiding whenever you were in the room. It was clear that the largest of the females was the boss at the pet store and continued to be in the new tank. In her view all the caves belonged to her.
We added a fairly large 5" Chinese Algae Eater in week 3 as the had quite a lot of brown algae build up, he made quick work of the clean up, but was removed shortly after due to aggression on his part. He too wanted all the caves.
In week 4 we added eight "larger" glowlight tetras in hopes of using them as dither fish. These disappeared at a rate of 2-3 a night and didn't really solve the timidness. By the end of week 4 we knew we had at least 1 male as his hump was growing. He still wasn't the boss however. One of the two females also started turning very dark and started being harassed by the male, but only when the boss wasn't looking. She quickly put a stop to that.
Week 5 we added the six 3" Danios which has made a huge improvement to the tank. They swim constantly, the only time they stop is to eat, and well actually they do that while swimming too. For the first few days the Cichlids seemed confused as the Danios paid the no mind what so ever, swimming right up beside them, even getting in on some of the chasing. I think they thought there was food to be had. The Cichlids eventually came out of their hiding spots a few days later, and now pay the Danios no mind either.
The newest development is the male who has been outgrowing the females has learned he could be the boss. Not only that, but he's picked the less dominant (darker) of the two females as his partner and shes begun digging a pit in one of the caves. Unfortunately hes also put the run on the other female who is now hiding in the top of the tank, unhurt.
As a side project we also reused the 10 gal tank from my childhood with a new filter for cherry shrimp. I'm hopping to add some to the main tank once the vegetation in it thickens up a bit and I have some excess shrimp. We were lucky enough to snap up some Java Moss that I'm cultivating to add to the main tank. Apparently it's very hard to get it up here.
Anyhow that's the journey so far.
My fiancee and I recently settled down in Terrace after years of bouncing around for school and practicums. With things looking more permanent (stable jobs/new house) we were finally able to make a start in the hobby!
She has kept fish for years as a teenager, in fact her parents still have her 20 gal tank with a pleco and pictus from over 10 years ago. That's pretty long for a pictus isn't it?
Myself, I've really only had a couple bettas that lived about 2-3 years each in a bowl (not at the same time!) and briefly a 10 gal with Neon Tetras as a kid. Turns out I have a lot to learn.
Anyway, back to our new tank. We purchased a Fluval 45Bow kit in late October, so were about 6 weeks in. We're currently keeping 3 Green Terrors (one male, two female) as well as 6 Mustache Danios (sexes unknown). The tank is planted, though not grown out, I guess pictures are in order.
Its been an adventure so far. We started cycling the tank with two of the Green Terrors as 2.5"-3" juveniles, before picking up the 3rd juvenile a week later to deal with the one-on-one aggression. This seemed to help a ton, though we still had no idea what sex they were. It's now clear first two were females.
For the first 4 weeks they were all extremely timid, hiding whenever you were in the room. It was clear that the largest of the females was the boss at the pet store and continued to be in the new tank. In her view all the caves belonged to her.
We added a fairly large 5" Chinese Algae Eater in week 3 as the had quite a lot of brown algae build up, he made quick work of the clean up, but was removed shortly after due to aggression on his part. He too wanted all the caves.
In week 4 we added eight "larger" glowlight tetras in hopes of using them as dither fish. These disappeared at a rate of 2-3 a night and didn't really solve the timidness. By the end of week 4 we knew we had at least 1 male as his hump was growing. He still wasn't the boss however. One of the two females also started turning very dark and started being harassed by the male, but only when the boss wasn't looking. She quickly put a stop to that.
Week 5 we added the six 3" Danios which has made a huge improvement to the tank. They swim constantly, the only time they stop is to eat, and well actually they do that while swimming too. For the first few days the Cichlids seemed confused as the Danios paid the no mind what so ever, swimming right up beside them, even getting in on some of the chasing. I think they thought there was food to be had. The Cichlids eventually came out of their hiding spots a few days later, and now pay the Danios no mind either.
The newest development is the male who has been outgrowing the females has learned he could be the boss. Not only that, but he's picked the less dominant (darker) of the two females as his partner and shes begun digging a pit in one of the caves. Unfortunately hes also put the run on the other female who is now hiding in the top of the tank, unhurt.
As a side project we also reused the 10 gal tank from my childhood with a new filter for cherry shrimp. I'm hopping to add some to the main tank once the vegetation in it thickens up a bit and I have some excess shrimp. We were lucky enough to snap up some Java Moss that I'm cultivating to add to the main tank. Apparently it's very hard to get it up here.
Anyhow that's the journey so far.
