Oh hey! A newbie thread! Score!
Right, I would have posted here first, but I didn't notice it and the the only board I frequent has . . . rather stringent rules, and quite a few of them revolve around not posting "Hi I'm NEW!" threads.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone for the help they've given me so far. I come in, lambast you with questions and random innanities, and have plenty of new information in the morning. You guys kick ass.
Oh, right. Um. As for my tank . . . It's a mess really. I just started about two months ago with my parents 40 gal (which everyone simply forgot existed . . . poor fish) which by the time I got ahold of it had evaporated down to a 20 gal and never been treated with anything, much less filtered. Out of the seven fish originally in it, a 7-8" pleco and a male red sword tail were all that survived--how, I have no idea. We're talking a full year and a half with no water changes, and maybe once a month additions to what water had evaporated, and that was simply hosed in from outside.
Come to think of it, everything survived like that until about two months ago, so my guess would be that it was all the painted ceramic frogs my dad put in.
Oh, right, and before everything died off the tank had exactly no real plants, two inches of gravel, a breeding pair of red swordtails, the aforemention pleco, some ghost shrimp (oh yeah, still alive), a couple black mollys, and four of some kind of flat silvery fish (silver dollar?).
My tank is now home to:
--A 7" black pleco thing with (natural) white spotty colorations (swimfin or fintail or something).
--2 Gold (yellow?) barbs.
--1 Mickey Mouse platty
--2 gold swordtails
--1 blue dwarf Gourami
--1 black molly
--1 teeny surviving black molly fry.
--an unknown amount of ghost shrimp (2-6?)
-- And two upside-down catfish.
--and several plants!
As for what I'm most interested in . . . I dunno, breeding is a neat thing. I want to get it to the point where I have a few survivors of each fish (egg and live) without my help, but where most of them are naturally eliminated so as to have my tank naturally balanced and populated with as little of my help as possible.
The livebearers are nothing special in that department, but I hope to get my Yellow Barbs to spawn soon.
Also, I want to get a much more full and natural looking tank, lots of plants and logs and rocks and such, and maybe a few more docile versions of traditionally aggressive fish. for whatever reason, I really enjoy the egg and live breeders coexisting, it lends personality to the tank.
And yes, I'm buying a couple separate tanks to house those which turn out to not get along at all after any failed experiment.
And . . . Well, that's it really. I've only owned and taken care of fish for a couple months really, and I just found it rather addicting.
I'm sure I'll be loaded with questions from time to time, so bear with me.
Right, I would have posted here first, but I didn't notice it and the the only board I frequent has . . . rather stringent rules, and quite a few of them revolve around not posting "Hi I'm NEW!" threads.
Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone for the help they've given me so far. I come in, lambast you with questions and random innanities, and have plenty of new information in the morning. You guys kick ass.
Oh, right. Um. As for my tank . . . It's a mess really. I just started about two months ago with my parents 40 gal (which everyone simply forgot existed . . . poor fish) which by the time I got ahold of it had evaporated down to a 20 gal and never been treated with anything, much less filtered. Out of the seven fish originally in it, a 7-8" pleco and a male red sword tail were all that survived--how, I have no idea. We're talking a full year and a half with no water changes, and maybe once a month additions to what water had evaporated, and that was simply hosed in from outside.
Come to think of it, everything survived like that until about two months ago, so my guess would be that it was all the painted ceramic frogs my dad put in.
Oh, right, and before everything died off the tank had exactly no real plants, two inches of gravel, a breeding pair of red swordtails, the aforemention pleco, some ghost shrimp (oh yeah, still alive), a couple black mollys, and four of some kind of flat silvery fish (silver dollar?).
My tank is now home to:
--A 7" black pleco thing with (natural) white spotty colorations (swimfin or fintail or something).
--2 Gold (yellow?) barbs.
--1 Mickey Mouse platty
--2 gold swordtails
--1 blue dwarf Gourami
--1 black molly
--1 teeny surviving black molly fry.
--an unknown amount of ghost shrimp (2-6?)
-- And two upside-down catfish.
--and several plants!
As for what I'm most interested in . . . I dunno, breeding is a neat thing. I want to get it to the point where I have a few survivors of each fish (egg and live) without my help, but where most of them are naturally eliminated so as to have my tank naturally balanced and populated with as little of my help as possible.
The livebearers are nothing special in that department, but I hope to get my Yellow Barbs to spawn soon.
Also, I want to get a much more full and natural looking tank, lots of plants and logs and rocks and such, and maybe a few more docile versions of traditionally aggressive fish. for whatever reason, I really enjoy the egg and live breeders coexisting, it lends personality to the tank.
And yes, I'm buying a couple separate tanks to house those which turn out to not get along at all after any failed experiment.
And . . . Well, that's it really. I've only owned and taken care of fish for a couple months really, and I just found it rather addicting.
I'm sure I'll be loaded with questions from time to time, so bear with me.
But Hi!
I can only please one person a day, today is not looking good and neither is tomorrow....lol 
um....40" long?!?!? They sure didn't tell me that at the pet store. It's def. and iredscent shark.
