30 gallon redecoration

[Teelie]

Originally, it was a 3 Spot Gourami tank but the gourami didn't get along too well and I ended up losing two and replacing one with a Gold and the other with a Red Tailed Black Shark. The gold injured itself and later died so I just had a Blue and the RTBS. I'm not sure what happened to my plants. They were doing great then one day they just started dying off.

Anyhow, I was in my LFS Wednesday to pick up some W-2 forms (used to work there) and saw they had Clown Loaches in and I just couldn't resist getting four of them today (Saturday) when I came back for the forms (ex-boss is going to get them done tonight.... possibly. ). They're going to be moved to a much larger tank in a few years once they outgrow this one so this is not their final home before anyone freaks.

Anyways, here are the before and after pictures. The water is still cloudy from the huge wood decoration I put in this afternoon and some of the fake plants and the pagoda need to be properly rearranged.

My only concern is the loaches will get stuck in the rocks (you can see one hiding under some rocks bottom left corner in the middle picture) so I'll have to go and make sure there is no chance of a fish getting pinned or having a loose rock fall on them. I might end up having to just replace the rocks with sand or more gravel which I'm hesitant to do for obvious reasons.

Both my previous deaths were either a direct or indirect result of the gourami poking their heads down in there and being trapped. On the plus side, loaches do this kind of thing naturally and shouldn't freak out and die before I discover them where they don't belong..

 

[fufanu360]

very good looking, it would look more natural if you got rid of the red house, and silver plants, but thats cool

 

[Teelie]

That will all be phased out as I redesign this tank. I want to get some java fern and amazons to replace the current fake plants and I have another piece of wood to replace the pagoda (house). The silver plants were originally meant to give the fish territory boundaries and they looked real good under the light until the diatoms got on them, but yeah, they really don't fit so well anymore.

 

[Yenko]

Alage is the number one reason not to get fake plants. Of course, it's even worse when your real plants are covered in alage.

 

[Teelie]

Yeah the algae and diatoms get to be a pain though my shark loves to eat the stuff. He seems more interested in that than the worms and wafers I usually feed the tank. Still, he obviously cannot get all of it.