Neon tetras, Bolivian rams, black skirt tetras

 

A long update, three months in.

I wanted to make some kind of update. The tank seems to be going very well. As you can see in the picture above, there's lots of plant growth.
 

Above, neon tetras and a bit of anubias nana in the foreground. Background is some driftwood and amazzon sword. The right side is a red melon sword plant.

Looking down from the top of the tank. It's blurry because the filter output is moving the surface. On the right is a medium amazon sword. On the left is another anubias nana.

This is the other side of the tank looking down. If you look close, you can see the top of a couple neons and a black skirt tetra. On the far right, an otocinclus cat rests on a leaf. I dunno why, I was just entertained by these top down shots.
 

Bolivian Ram Babies

My Bolivian rams pair that had babies still has some left. I counted as many as five last night. I'd guess they are about 1/4 of an inch right now. I can even see stripes on them. They swim just like rams, too. Rams make this little darting motion forward and stop, hovering. Most other fish seem to glide about. Rams do a stop start thing I find entertaining. And the babies already do it. I have no idea what they are eating, by the way. The only thing special I'm doing is dropping sinking tablets/pellets near where they are when I can. Usually, the rams will "chomp" that kind of food and make a cloud of food around them. I assume the babies are able to eat that. Maybe they eat something else. Regardless, they must be eating something as they have survived this long. What has it been, two weeks?
 

Coryadoras Cats and Eco-Complete

I thought I would also mention a couple things. I have Eco-Complete for my substrate. Some people have said that it is too sharp for Coryadoras catfish. I beg to differ. The rumor is that it will damage their barbels. I see zero evidence of that. I have 9 corys in the tank and all of them are growing, getting fat, and have healthy, long barbels. I have looked very carefully for any degradation of barbels. As a matter of fact, I think a couple of them have very long barbels. I think the thing that might degrade cory barbels is poor water quality more than any substrate you would noirmally use. I say this because I had some of these corys in my 20 gallon before I upgraded. I had only a couple plants, lots of fish, and poor maintenance. At one point, I let the tank go because I hoped to teach my daughter a lesson on the importance of cleaning your tank.
 
The lesson was a massive failure for both her and the fish. She didn't learn anything because I couldn't let the fish suffer any longer (well, she learned I would take care of the tank for her, I guess) and the fish suffered from, at very least, very high nitrates. I started to notice corys losing fins. One of them still survives in my big tank today. He has no dorsal fin and only a sliver of a tail fin. It's not pretty. He has to wiggle like crazy just to get around the tank and his "swimming" is very erratic. I once considered euthanizing him after I got him in the big tank. I changed my mind because the tank has great water quality and I have no reason to believe he's really "unhappy," or what ever fish feel. I realized I wanted to get rid of him because I feel guilty every time I see him.

So, I kept him and named him "Finn." He is, actually, the one of my fish that has a name. You can see him pictured above with a female ram in the background. He has eight other cory friends, plants to rest under, heavily planted, in fact, and water that is filtered twice as much as it needs to be, the tank is not over-stocked, has a UV filter, and I feed them all good food by Hikari, Omega One, New Life Spectrum, and Zoo Med. In short, I think it just might be about the most ideal environment a catfish in a home aquarium could ask for. The only reason to euthanize him as far as I can see would be to soothe my conscience. Instead, I keep him to remind me I should keep the water quality up.
 
But, back to the previous topic, I don't think the Eco-Complete is bad for cory catfhish. I'm in front of my tank right now and looking at a bronze cory that is about two and a half inches long tip to tail and he has 1/4" long barbels. I'm not a cory catfish expert, but those look to be good barbels, to me. There might be other substrates better for corys, I admit. I've read stories about corys burying themselves in sand. Mine root around in the Eco-Complete but they don't really dig. I think I'm having great results with Eco-Complete.
 

Bolivian Ram aggression?

Another thing I have seen mentioned is that Bolivian rams are bad to keep in a community tank when they are breeeding. There is a little truth to this. But, I have 47 total fish in with my 5 rams. Four of them have paired off if I'm seeing things correctly. Both pairs have bred, too, I think. One pair, as I mentioned, currently has spawn with them. There is clearly aggression in terms of chasing off other fish when they come into their vicinity. Interestingly, I have seen them stake out various areas. But, they don't really seem to have a territory. I'm not sure if that's normal or not. They will protect eggs once they lay them. And, they will dig out a little pit to hold the hatched fry. But, once the fry are out, and even free-swimming, they move around. The parents definitely protect the babies though.
 
By and large, though, I have not seen them be truly aggressive to any other fish. They will hit the corys with their mouths when they get too close. I've seen them chase a way neons and black skirts, too. But the most aggression I've seen is when the rams themselves mouth fight with each other. I've definitely seen them charge each other, fins flaring, and lock up from time to time. But, mostly they are peaceful, beautiful fish. When no babies are involved, I have seen them sit quite harmoniously right next to corys.
 

And, finally...

I have gotten lucky, finally, with my otos. I have five in there right now. They all have little round bellies indicating they are eating plenty. They are active, too. I even see them interacting with each other from time to time. It's not quite schooling, but ti does seem like they enjoy each other's company occassionally.
 
Speaking of schools, my neons don't really school. They all seem healthy. But, some of them will hang out under plants or whatever very frequently. I don't get it at all. The rasboras will definitly almost always be together, as will the black skirt tetras. The corys get a little school together sometimes, usually about five of them (honestly, I have two kinds of "cory" cats in the tank. There are coryadoras aeneus and brochiis splendens, so that might explain why they don't school in a group of eight or nine.) Finn can't school as well as the others because his swimming I think takes more effort and it isn't as smooth.
 
Well, this is a very long post. I hadn't posted in a while and I thought I'd share some of my observations. Thanks for reading!
 

 

Something is going right

That's three otocinclus in the same picture. Just out of picture are two more, one on the driftwood behind them and one on the glass to the right. I counted six this morning. I have a good feeling about this group of otos. They are eating and active. All seem to have nice little round bellies! Now I'm actually concerned that my tank might not produce enough algae to keep them alive! I do feed algae wafers, for the cory cats (and the Bolivan rams seem to eat them, too) so it isn't as if they should go starving, but I have no idea if they know to go eat wafers. Anyway, they seem healthy. I had lost one but that's it right now. I was down to three but petsmart had a few in stock one Saturday that I dropped by. They looked active so I took them. It brought my total to 7, if I recall correctly. I lost one within a day or two. But, the rest seem to have thrived.

 

These two pictures show free-swimming Bolivian ram fry! I couldn't find two of the rams for a couple days. Now I know why. The were makin' babies. Again. I don't know if this is the same pair or now. But, this is the fourth batch of eggs. It is only the first time I've seen the babies make it to free swimming state, though. The first time, the eggs didn't hatch. He second time, some hatched but the fry didn't last long. The third time, the eggs hatched and we got a lot of wrigglers, but the parents moved them and I never saw them again.

This time, we have actual tiny swimming fish. There are a lot of them, too. I'd say there's at least 30 or more! I'm trying to get some food back there that hopefully they could eat. They are hanging out in the back corner of the tank, under the filter inlet. I have a sponge filter over the inlet, so it's relatively safe for them, there.

The parents are, of course, protective. I've seen them chase off cory cats a couple times already. I don't blame them as I think the corys would definitely eat the babies.

Here are a few eggs someone deposited on my anubias. I know for a fact they were not there last night. I think they were laid sometime this morning because I didn't notice/see them when I first looked at the tank in the morning. Then, after breakfast, they were there. I want to guess they belong to the neons. They have seemed very frisky, twitching around and chasing each other. I noticed a couple doing that in the area, too, so maybe. But, I really don't know who they belong to. I know I've got snails but, I thought they laid eggs on the glass, which I've seen a few times. I also noticed my cory cats doing some chasing and kind of frisky looking behavior (e.g. swimming very closely, over top of each other, etc.) but I haven't seen the "T" formation that corys make when they spawn.

I'd say the tank is going pretty well. I think the best thing for their health is the UV sterilizer. The water looks very clear and I think it's not a coincidence that having that installed is also when the otos are doing the best. The tank is a pleasure, right now. I have a good balance of flora and fauna right now. I even took out some of the cabomba the other day. The filter, UV sterilizer, plants, Seachem Purigen, etc. are all working to make great water quality.

I should say, I'm guessing about that. I haven't tested the water in a few weeks now. I guess it's like, the fish are spawning, the water looks clear, and it smells right, too, so, what would the tests tell me. The tank is fully cycled, so I know there's zero ammonia and nitrites. I suppose I could test the nitrate, but I think if it were high at all, no one would be spawning.

 

Update for New Year 2014

The tank has been going pretty well. I have actually had a bit more luck with some otos lately. I had as many as 13 in the tank at one point. But, almost all but three of those died. I bought four more about a week and a half ago. One of those died. But, I counted six as of this morning. The main difference is that I installed a UV sterilizer. It's a TMC Vectron v2, 8 watts. Is it helping? I can only guess, honestly. Water quality is clear. In the nearly three months the tank has been up, I have only lost a single fish, a cory catfish, besides the aforementioned otos, which are notoriously fragile and difficult to keep.

One of my otos.

As you can see in the pictures, the sword plants are doing very well.

A few of the harlequin rasboras. I love the colors on these fish. It always reminds me of the heater light, though. :)

And, because I can't resist, here's a shot of one of my male Bolivian rams showing off his amazing fin colors. There's only a slight boost to the color in this shot. He really is beautiful. The picture almost didn't do his colors justice.

 

Wait! We have baby Bolivian rams!!!

It's hard to see, but the rams are guarding a small depression they scooped out of the substrate beneath the driftwood. I was curious why they were guarding the area still even if there were no babies... And I looked closer and saw movement! Sure enough, there are tiny wrigglers in there. Cichlids being great parents, they are zealously protective of the area fending off all cory cats that dare to look for food nearby. They are right to do so, as corys will eat eggs and baby wrigglers.

In this shot, you can better see that the female is guarding the nest area. Both male and female are taking turns hovering over the spot. I have no idea how many are down there. They are too small. In any case, I'm glad to see that my water and environs are suitable to enable fish making babies.

 

Tank looks clear!

The water is really looking clear! I thought I would share a few pictures. It really looks great, I think. I think the fish and plants are all "happy". I don't think I've lost any fish in a few days, if not a week. It's hard to say because I just can't seem to count all of the otos at once. I know I had 13 as of last Saturday. I verified at least 9 today, but I think I counted 10 at one point. Those fish are small and the blend in so well, not to mention that they could be anywhere hiding on a plant or driftwood.

Here's one chilling out on a sword plant leaf. Oh, speaking of pictures of my otos...

See that long stringy plant thing? That's called utricularia. I didn't know, but someone on the www.scapeclub.org forum saw pictures of my tank and noticed it. So, I posted this picture and they ID'ed it for sure. So, it's this plant that eats microscopic organisms. It doesn't hurt fish, but it is carnivorous! And, apparently it can go crazy in an aquarium. I was warned it will get all invasive. So, I pulled out what I could find. I don't want that stuff everywhere.

The rams' eggs did not hatch. I'm not surprised. But, they have been busy defending their territory and digging a depression in the sand. I love cichlids! So much personality and behavior for fishes. I mean, I like my other fish, too, but with cichlids, you can see some thought going on behind their eyes. And, they are courageous, too. I was cleaning the glass with a scraper on a long handle and they were coming up to it to peck at it like they could make it go away. They were not afraid of it, they were going to show my scraper who was boss.

Turned out I was. I finished cleaning the glass.

I haven't gotten many shots of my rasboras. They move quickly and are small so it's hard to get a good shot. This one is decent.

 

Here's a couple bad shots of my tetras. The top is a black skirt and the bottom are neons. Sorry I didn't get better. Next time.

 

Bolivian rams spawned again!

Two of my rams paired off again and spawned! I think this is the pair that spawned last time. However, they decided they liked the front of the driftwood instead of the back for this go 'round. As a result, I got some clear pictures of their spawning site. Incredibly, I had just gotten home from work and came in to check out the tank. I noticed the eggs and then saw that mom and dad were still in process of laying eggs.

I watched as the female passed over the site, her ovipositor very prominent, and she laid eggs onto the flat area. The male followed her and made his own pass to fertilize them. It was quite business-like. They paused occassionally to chase off an interloping fish. In fact, as is the nature of all cichlids, they have been very diligent in protecting the area. Even now, the female is hovering over the eggs and making clear to any other fish she is determined to be a good mother.

My sword plant in the middle of the tank is suddenly huge! It is touching the surface of the water! Those leaves are over a foot long, for sure. They look great! Maybe I wasn't really paying attention but it seemed like they didn't grow for several weeks and then all of a sudden they were inches away from the surface. The otos have been very active in the tank, too, which helps. In fact, you can see in this picture to the left a leaf on the lower left side that has patches of brown algae removed by the otos, bless their hearts! They are very entertaining each night as I play, "Where's oto?" and try to count them. I found 10 for sure tonight. I can see 8 right this second. I really like these little guys.

Water parameters are near perfect. I have zero ammonia and nitrites. Only 5 nitrates ppm, too. The bacterial bloom is near gone.

I did recover one oto body yesterday. I will try to replace him this weekend, I think. Maybe I will get a stronger one this time. They just have a hard time surviving being collected, sold, and rehomed.

The other fish seem healthy. I am still treating the tank with Paraguard. I saw a couple of the black skirts flashing against plants and gravel. And, at least one oto had that long, thin stringy poop that could mean an internal parasite. The Paraguard doesn't seem to stress anyone and it sure helped with the fin rot, so, I think it's a good idea for now.

***update: I just counted 11 otos right now. I might still have 12, but I am pretty happy with 11!