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The Nymph's Spring (EA900)
- Thread starter shangman
- Start date
Angus
Member
Yeah absolutely unreal looking male, sometimes interbreeding leads to better colours and forms but worse longevity and worse long term health, i know you did everything you could for that fish buddy. 🙂
Well I am his adopted mother so it had to rub off somehow! 😛
What a compliment thank you 🙂 fingers crossed one day I can raise some more lovely apistos. How are yours doing? ❤️
His parents were from different sources in different countries, though I suppose you never truly know the provenance of fish unless they're all wild caught.
Angus
Member
Couldn't have put it better myself, if you don't get upset when a pet dies i don't think you deserved its love and companionship in the first place.
Just because you can't cuddle aquatic pets doesn't mean you don't get attached, the only thing i never got attached to was insects really but i've never kept praying mantis or large snails ive heard those have real personality.
What a lovely thing to say thank you.
I really feel like the hobby has trained me to be more aware of the intricate natural beauty that surrounds us everywhere. More open minded and empathetic too from spending so much time observing the fish (and shrimps!) trying to understand what they're doing and learning how to interpret it. It's easy to become so fond of them, they're all almost magical in how beautiful and captivating they are. Apistos being the most magical so far tbh but they all have it. I guess what I'm saying is that the hobby itself turned me into a good aquarist by just being so enjoyable and fascinating, I'm hooked, line and sinker. I cared about keeping them alive from the start but didn't fully appreciate how alive they are until I experienced it I guess.
You are totally right!! I think people who don't spend time in nature/with pets seem to assume that the only thing with sentience and worth their time is humans and maybe cats/dogs if your lucky, when if you look around you, everything that's alive... Has life and so is naturally beautiful with awareness of their life ... They all has immense worth. Even shrimps have this fairy-like bouncy quality that is so funny to watch, prior don't consider alive shrimps ever in normal life at all.
The nature in a tank is just so pleasing, the plants count too they're so great, just fascinating to see how they react and grow and adds so much to the experience of a fish tank. Just brimming with life I love it.
I'm in a funny reflective mood cos yesterday was a particularly s**t day. After my fish died in the morning I went to the dentist and on the way got hit by a moped learner driver in the street. I'm very lucky I just have some nasty deep bruises, so am actually ok other than a bit of hobbling but omg that was scary!! Came home and just watched the fish and relaxed.
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Karmicnull
Member
Relieved to know you are ok. That sounds like a monster of a day. Hope the bruises heal fast.
❤️ Luckily not bad at all, well enough to manage to go and pick up a second hand ADA tank on Sunday 👀😀
I've just fed the tank and although Mr Daffodil is gone there is still plenty to enjoy. Particularly the cardinals, I bought 10 wild ones to add to the school... And then went back and got 10 more cos it didn't seem like quite enough yet. It's a perfect school now, they are so much more interesting, way more all over the tank and just have so much more impact. I think the tank is fully stocked now, but I think it is better to have this bigger groups of schooling fish rather than smaller groups of different types! They have a very classic look that I really like, and that blue is just stunning
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MichaelJ
Member
Hi @shangman Yep, I am addicted to Cardinals and always feel I can add more...but won't... Mine are not even shoaling - they are all over the tanks (I have them in both) acting on their own it seems, but they probably keep taps on each other ... They do snap into their instinctive schooling behavior really fast when feeling threatened like when I mess around with the tanks.
Cheers,
Michael
Yes they aren't really schooling much during the day, they are quite evenly spaced around the tank and bicker at eachother constantly. Much more confident than before when they mostly lurked in the back though! When I fed them and they all come to the front it's just wonderful to watch how they move about both turner and alone searching for food high and low (they stay for an hour just in case 😅). Just that much moving blue is just fabulous.
John q
Member
"Tis but a scratch" said the black Knight.
I'm guessing you'd have crawled over broken glass to get that tank, lol.
Glad to hear you are on the mend.
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Well, you know... A bargain's a bargain!!
In general the tank is looking really nice ATM, all going great except for some moss I killed with liquid carbon while trying to kill some clado algae lol, just a patch tho. Will post pics this week of the tank properly.
I have a weird problem though, ever since my male apisto died my female has taken to bullying and chasing my sparkling gouramis all over the tank for quite a distance. The gouramis are luckily faster and better at hiding, but I'm worried they will jump out or she'll murder them!! She will go from the bottom of the tank to the top to have a go if she sees them. Before the male died they would only be charged when she had babies (she has none rn), and only for very short distances but now it's all over the tank and around corners.
I think I will have to re-home them, annoyingly I don't have any other tanks that would work for them (one is a cold water and the other has a Betta apparently they would also fight). And my new tank is going to a studio to be an arty project. So... Anyone want a pair? They are very beautiful and charming but I'm worried they get got!
Tank updatessssss
A little while ago I ran out of sinking algae wafers, and so I simply had to go to the LFS to buy them. Certainly it was JUST A COINCIDENCE that I gave that particular LFS my apisto babies, and JUST A COINCIDENCE that I happened to walk past their tank and amongst the 6 left spied a cute lil male making trouble for the rest of them. Who could resist? Did I not raise these fish? Are they not - sort of - my children? **** it, they are and I took that boy home. Young Master Apisto is very sweet and Ms Apisto has welcomed him happily, she's already breeding with him lol. He's much much smaller than Mr Daffodil, and not nearly as colourful but I'm interested to see if and how that changes now he lives with me again.
Second story:
I've given up on stem plants completely **** it, and now have 8 echinodorus in my tank because I truly never know when to stop. But seriously, there are too many beautiful ones, and still so many on my list, I should've been born German 😢 I'm hoping one or two will get large enough to have leaves growing out of the top, and I'm raising my light soon just in case. The list is currently: E. Palaefolius, E. Cordifolius red, E. Red flame, E. Yellow sun, E. Hadi red pearl, E. Rose, E. Red sword, E. Rubra. I'm screwed when they get bigger but OH WELL LOL, I'll just give away any that don't look completely fabulous. I've added about 20 root tabs to help them along, v intrigued by root tabs and how they change the growth, because in my tank the ephiphytes are popping now, but the planted plants have struggled (and frankly I just sort of ignored the back for ages because of it). Now the plants in general are not only not dying but growing well, I realised it's time to really take care of the whole tank. And I think it'll look awesome to have this giant leaves and stems in the back in all different colours, with the more delicate plants on the wood.
I also bought a realllllllly nice Echinodorus cordifolius var. marble queen, but that's going to grow emergently in the 45L downstairs so I guess it doesn't count. My dad has planted a huge number of variagated plants in our garden of all different types and it looks really cool, so it's nice that the tank we share also has something variagated too. I bought the marble queen from Pro Shrimp (great plants and interesting echinodorus sold there), and got the yellow sun and red flame from Fish Barn (probs my favourite shop now, amazing fish AND plants). These pics I've nabbed from the internet show then at their best, though I think yellow sun is more simply golden submersed, it's hard to find mroe info online about them.
Third story:
This week I cleaned the filters and lily pipes, omg they were FILTHY. The mini waterchange I did after was pure cold rainwater, and it caused a flurry of pygmy corydora breeding all over the tank which was super awesome. They lay tiny lil pearls all over, one at a time. Of course... all the eggs got hoovered up by my greedy apistos and sparkling gouramis, but it's the thought that counts. My tank is still not very heavily planted at all in the back and corners, so hopefully in a few months when the echinodorus grow in then some eggs and babies can make it.
I've also noticed the smaller wild cardinals are "fighting" with eachother more, they look like tiny jewelled daggers have a knife fight. It's very fabulous, I really like them. When I bought the extra ones I wondered if I'd made a mistake and should've got some smaller schools of other fish instead but I think having a big group of one kind does look awesome and their behaviour is much more interesting than I previously gave tetras credit for.
Fourth story:
After seeing the beautiful aquarium of @Ullalaaqua, and her fabulous DIY backlight, I realised that I have some spare LEDs for the kitchen cabinets and rigged them up. It's a subtle difference but I really really like it, I can see the fish in the back better, and the fish don't just automatically hide in the back any more, but in shady areas all over the tank. It really makes such a lovely difference, and the wood stands out even better now. Hooray, DIY! BIG THANKS to my childhood self for painting my room blue all those years ago. Just omg, it's so much easier to take niec pics now 😱😭😍
Ok.. ok... enough stories, this is just to say I'm now free enough to finally talk BOTANICALLLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. So as soon as I post this I'm gonna go back to those posts and reply to them like they deserve and work out how to get this ball rolling. I know it's a bit late this year, but I still think there are some great plants that can be collected from year-round, and it'd be great to get a list of good potential species to try next year and work out how to organise it all well in a forum post and all that jazz.
A little while ago I ran out of sinking algae wafers, and so I simply had to go to the LFS to buy them. Certainly it was JUST A COINCIDENCE that I gave that particular LFS my apisto babies, and JUST A COINCIDENCE that I happened to walk past their tank and amongst the 6 left spied a cute lil male making trouble for the rest of them. Who could resist? Did I not raise these fish? Are they not - sort of - my children? **** it, they are and I took that boy home. Young Master Apisto is very sweet and Ms Apisto has welcomed him happily, she's already breeding with him lol. He's much much smaller than Mr Daffodil, and not nearly as colourful but I'm interested to see if and how that changes now he lives with me again.
Second story:
I've given up on stem plants completely **** it, and now have 8 echinodorus in my tank because I truly never know when to stop. But seriously, there are too many beautiful ones, and still so many on my list, I should've been born German 😢 I'm hoping one or two will get large enough to have leaves growing out of the top, and I'm raising my light soon just in case. The list is currently: E. Palaefolius, E. Cordifolius red, E. Red flame, E. Yellow sun, E. Hadi red pearl, E. Rose, E. Red sword, E. Rubra. I'm screwed when they get bigger but OH WELL LOL, I'll just give away any that don't look completely fabulous. I've added about 20 root tabs to help them along, v intrigued by root tabs and how they change the growth, because in my tank the ephiphytes are popping now, but the planted plants have struggled (and frankly I just sort of ignored the back for ages because of it). Now the plants in general are not only not dying but growing well, I realised it's time to really take care of the whole tank. And I think it'll look awesome to have this giant leaves and stems in the back in all different colours, with the more delicate plants on the wood.
I also bought a realllllllly nice Echinodorus cordifolius var. marble queen, but that's going to grow emergently in the 45L downstairs so I guess it doesn't count. My dad has planted a huge number of variagated plants in our garden of all different types and it looks really cool, so it's nice that the tank we share also has something variagated too. I bought the marble queen from Pro Shrimp (great plants and interesting echinodorus sold there), and got the yellow sun and red flame from Fish Barn (probs my favourite shop now, amazing fish AND plants). These pics I've nabbed from the internet show then at their best, though I think yellow sun is more simply golden submersed, it's hard to find mroe info online about them.
Third story:
This week I cleaned the filters and lily pipes, omg they were FILTHY. The mini waterchange I did after was pure cold rainwater, and it caused a flurry of pygmy corydora breeding all over the tank which was super awesome. They lay tiny lil pearls all over, one at a time. Of course... all the eggs got hoovered up by my greedy apistos and sparkling gouramis, but it's the thought that counts. My tank is still not very heavily planted at all in the back and corners, so hopefully in a few months when the echinodorus grow in then some eggs and babies can make it.
I've also noticed the smaller wild cardinals are "fighting" with eachother more, they look like tiny jewelled daggers have a knife fight. It's very fabulous, I really like them. When I bought the extra ones I wondered if I'd made a mistake and should've got some smaller schools of other fish instead but I think having a big group of one kind does look awesome and their behaviour is much more interesting than I previously gave tetras credit for.
Fourth story:
After seeing the beautiful aquarium of @Ullalaaqua, and her fabulous DIY backlight, I realised that I have some spare LEDs for the kitchen cabinets and rigged them up. It's a subtle difference but I really really like it, I can see the fish in the back better, and the fish don't just automatically hide in the back any more, but in shady areas all over the tank. It really makes such a lovely difference, and the wood stands out even better now. Hooray, DIY! BIG THANKS to my childhood self for painting my room blue all those years ago. Just omg, it's so much easier to take niec pics now 😱😭😍
Ok.. ok... enough stories, this is just to say I'm now free enough to finally talk BOTANICALLLLSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. So as soon as I post this I'm gonna go back to those posts and reply to them like they deserve and work out how to get this ball rolling. I know it's a bit late this year, but I still think there are some great plants that can be collected from year-round, and it'd be great to get a list of good potential species to try next year and work out how to organise it all well in a forum post and all that jazz.
Attachments
Ullalaaqua
Member
I’m so glad you found that tip usefull! The tank looks amazing!
Thank you so much @Ullalaaqua! Big love to a fellow wildness-loving lady 😍
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Some shots of the tank and fishies. The twigs are a palm flower stalk, it was so large I cut some of the "branches" off so I could place them more particularly, as when it was massive it hid some of my fav areas. This is definitely my fav botanical so far, the fish love swimming amongst it, and the otos and catfish love eating and resting on it. It is becoming quite soft now and some has def been eaten away, but that's cool with me! I kinda just love twigs in scapes, think they really add an extra dimension which you can really see with the new backlight. I think what this tank is all about is chaotic harmony.
Attachments
DTM61
Member
Wow, you have a way of making chaotic look stunning, whereas I can just do apocalyptic mess.
Very harmonious. Really lovely tank 👍.
New name for the thread, 'chaotic harmony'. 👌
Very harmonious. Really lovely tank 👍.
New name for the thread, 'chaotic harmony'. 👌
KirstyF
Member
Lovin this tank. 😊👍
Thank you! 🥰
Ah thank you so much that is so kind!! Is it confusing to people for me to change the name? 😂 I do think the chaotic harmony is right, or maybe that is just my style!
Wolf6
Member
I love your use of twigs and such to add that natural vibe 🙂
