Picture of the day: Our freshwater aquarium 6.11.2010

Posted by on November 6, 2010 1 comment

Below is a picture of our aquarium taken 6th of November 2010. We added some white stones to the foreground and also some foreground plants (unfortunately I cannot now find the name of the grass we bought. Anyone?). We wanted to have the smooth stones for our sewellia lineolat loach. And of course the stones look nice too.

Freshwater aquarium with good plant growth and happy guppies

Our freshwater aquarium, 6.11.2010

We now have:

  • More than a dozen guppies (thanks to the baby guppies we have)
  • 2 Sunset platy fish
  • 3 Dwarf Gourami (two female, one male)
  • 2 Clown Loaches
  • 2 Zebra fish
  • 1 big male male ancistrus
  • 1 old Copper Tetra.

New members of our freshwater aquarium

Posted by on November 6, 2010 No comments

So we have some new members of our freshwater aquarium family. The new tank is really looking great, water values are stable and the plants grow very nicely. So it was time to get some new fish.

Two Dwarf Gourami (Colisa lalia)

Male Dwarf Gourami, VilleOur new Dwarf Gourami chased by the older female one

Female Dwarf Gourami, Lena

We got two new Dwarf Gourami, one male and one female. We already had one female in the tank, but she needed a partner so now he has her Ville 🙂 Also, we got a new female since two female Dwarf Gourami can live together.

Two clown loach (Chromobotia macracanthus)

Clown loachClown loach

I wanted to have some bottom crawling fish in order to keep it clean from any excess food. They also eat the clams we seem to have gotten in our tank. And last but not least, they are quite fun to watch as they race the bottom.

Two new Guppy (Poecilia reticulata)

A beautiful blue guppy

Yes, we already have loads of guppies, but we found this beautiful blue male guppy so we had to take it. We also got a yellow guppy. Now we have guppies in all colors: red, blue and yellow. Let’s see the colors of baby guppies when they grow.

Images of the day: Freshwater Aquarium the moment after a water change

Posted by on November 4, 2010 No comments

Below are some photos taken of our freshwater aquarium a few hours after a partial water change was done. I really love how a recently water changed aquarium looks.

Before this, I deliberately waited four weeks before changing the water in order to let the aquarium complete the N-cycle. I checked the water values almost daily and there was no rise in NO2, no major rise in NO3 or drop in pH. This looks very good now.

Tomorrow we will get some new fish to our aquarium Smile Two clown loach (Chromobotia macracanthus) and two dwarf gourami (Colisa lalia). I hope they like our aquarium.

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Our freshwater aquarium 30.10.2010 – Or how I made my freshwater aquarium beautiful.

Posted by on October 30, 2010 No comments

Below in an image of our aquarium taken 30.10.2010.

Our freshwater aquarium - 30.10.2010At least to me the aquarium looks more or less like an aquarium I would like to have. Recently I have been more focusing on good plant growth since to me that is the basic for any good and beautiful aquarium. Good plant growth without algae shows immediately that the aquarium is healthy and to me at least showing nice looking, healthy plants is to show that I keep good care of my aquarium in the long run. Anyone can drop in a few fish and buy some plastic boats that will spit air bubbles, but having healthy plants requires some effort.

I have also had some troubles with the fish in the past, especially in the beginning of our new tank. I had some issues with the N-cycle but it is looking all better now. I haven’t changed the water in three weeks and my readings look good: pH: 7.0, NO2: <0.025 ppm and NO3: 10 ppm. To add to this, we are also having guppy babies in the tank. We got five of them and they are all still alive. They are now two weeks old and about 1-1.5cm long and it looks very promising for them to reach full growth. People say that this is not a big deal for guppies as they give birth so often, but to me this tells that my aquarium is healthy!
Especially people that are new to aquariums and getting their first tank, I think they start wondering shortly how they can achieve these results and a healthy looking aquarium. I will give you my advice below so you don’t need to wonder what are the secret to have a good looking aquarium. Read more »

Images of today: Sunset Platy

Posted by on October 30, 2010 No comments

Today I post some pictures of our Sunset Platy. We have two Sunset Platy, one male and one female. The Sunset Platys are very easy to keep as they can tolerate big variety of water temperatures and pH values. They like to play around in the tank by chasing each other. They like to hide behind the plants together, but are playful enough to be one of the more fun freshwater aquarium fish you can have.

If you are looking for some fish to start your aquarium hobby with, I definitely can recommend Sunset Platy for you. They are both beautiful and fun to look at but also easy to keep.