Owens L'ill Slice of the Web

I keep Freshwater Tropical fish.. About 50 of them in 6 aquariums. Oh, and I have a ever expanding freshwater shrimp population too.

It’s a goldfish keeping habit that got out of hand.

Checking out the boys

180L

I have a selection of tanks, the current pride-and-joy is my 180 litre tropical community tank. This is a Jewel Vision 180 tank and stand, located in my sitting room. It’s the centrepiece of the room and almost the first thing visitors see. I have it set up as a ‘community’ aquarium, meaning that there are several different species of fish (and snails) in it all living together and interacting.

You can see almost live pictures of it on my webcam but don’t expect to see any detail, the camera is too far away for that, but it does let me check that everything is OK when on holiday sometimes I can be seen feeding, cleaning or just sitting and staring at the tank.

Current occupants are (I think, it can be hard to count the schooling fish):

• 1 German Blue Rams
• 2 Bristlenose Plecos
• 2 Kribinensis
• 6 Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish
• 6 HockeyStick Pencilfish (Diptails)
• 7 Peppered Corydoras
• 20′ish False Neon Tetras
• 20′ish Lamb-Chop Rasboras
• Snails: Malaysian Trumpet, Ramshorn and Pond
• Plants… lots of plants, all growing like crazy.

It has two filters; the standard Jewel internal unit and an Eheim Ecco external ‘cannister’ filter. This means it’s actually over filtered, but is good for the water quality. There are several very nice pieces of bogwood in it, some selected stones and a mixed base of fertile substrate and gravel at the back, and finer sand in the front. The setting is supposed to be naturalistic, so there is a minimum of artificial stuff visible.

45L

I also have a Clear-Seal 45 litre hexagonal tank, with a pair of Goldfish in it, and some elderly White Cloud’s, it’s not nearly as rowdy as the big tank. It has a much smaller filter setup, no heating, but lots of plants relative to it’s volume, the fish in there seem to like it a lot.

• 2 Cute as hell Goldfish.
• 5 White Cloud Mountain Minnows (palliative care, they are very elderly)

35L

Then there is the 35 litre desktop tank, an complete system from HS Aqua, heavily aquascaped with a very dark background and gravel, lots of green plants and interesting rocks, planted to provide dense cover for it’s inhabitants:

This list is a bit imprecise, it’s very hard to count the fish in here, and they are very shy, so a bit of guesswork is involved.

• 7 Celestial Perl Danios (nee. Galaxy Rasboras), tiny and shy.
• 15 Boraras Micros, very, very tiny and shy; reputed to be one of the smallest known invertebrates.
• A unknown number of red fire (red cherry?) shrimps! Small, half transparent and very hard to count. They have been breeding too, I can see some baby shrimp in there.
• a Zebra Nerite snail.
• It has other snails too, including some red ramshorn snails to add a bit of color.

I’m quite proud of this tank.

30L

This is an old battery case made of glass. It was used in a telephone exchange until rescued from the scrapheap by a friends father. It is a lovely glass cube, not optically flat, but a perfect for a tank, I use it as a hospital/quarentine tank for new fish on their way to my other aquaria. It’s well established and planted, heated and lit, I keep it on my desk next to the computer so I can keep an eye on the occupants.

Currently it has:

• Nothing.. nada. zip. Recovering after being used for quarantine for some poorly fish.

15L

Another old battery case.. Smaller, I’m just bringing it into use, it sits below my main tank and is intended to become a breeding tank, or maybe a small species tank, depending on need.

Some baby shrimp were recently introduced to it, I’m curious to see how that works.

10L

And finally, the Dennerle nano-cube:  A 10 litre glass cube that lives on my bedside table:

• 20+ very small and colurful freshwater shrimp (Crystal Red Shrimp).
• Two freshwater Horned Nerite snails.
• A mossball, some other mosses and tiny plants.

Very small tanks are hard to maintain, things can go wrong in them very fast, and the shrimps are quite delicate creatures, so this is a real adventure for me!

In Planning!

Get one of these; the 450 Litre version of my current tank. I then simply relocate my big community into it, and expand it over time.. The 180L tank ends up elsewhere, and full of goldfish.

And in fantasyland: The amazing shrimp coffee table.. Maximum surface area, only 20cm of water.. Should be easy to make in truth, hardest part is the legs and base, glass is just a case of having 8 pieces of tabletop type safety glass cut and a big tube of aquarium silicone selant. Filter etc is easy too, and lighting from a celing fixture. Lots of surface area for shrimps and maybe some microrasboras. Maximum wow.

So, show us something then..

Here is a small image gallery of my tanks; for more of my fishy photos please see the Fish section of my gallery.

As a side note: I use the old tank water for my house plants, and they are all growing like crazy too..