Here is a video tour of my fish room. Warning… this is the longest video I have ever posted.
I have a LOT of plants arriving tomorrow. The plant table at the bottom of the livestock list has been updated, and we have a good window of opportunity to ship on Tuesday – Thursday this week.
Filed under asides
Singapore Plant Order Time!!!!
Where can you get cool plants like this Mayaca seweliniana? I get them from Singapore when I am able to put in an order. Unfortunately, I am only able to take advantage of it a few times a year. Now is one of those times, so I thought that we might try something different. I very, very, very rarely do pre-orders for anything. I prefer to get stock in, acclimate it and then offer it once I know it is good. Plants are different than fish though. They come in GREAT and are best when they can be sent out as fast as possible. So let’s see if doing pre-orders works out.
Please note that this list is all the aquatic plant species that the exporter MIGHT have, and that the fill rate is usually 70% or less. So please do not get mad at me if they do not send that really rare plant you desperately want. The stem plants are priced per stem, and will come to you as loose stems… no rubber band or lead weight. You should also assume that if the description says ‘bulb’ that it will not have a shoot coming out of it.
I need orders (use the contact button above) by Tuesday, January 22. The plants will arrive to me the following Monday. I will let you know what filled and give you a chance to add to it from other stock, then invoices will go out. I need to be able to ship on that Tuesday or Wednesday.
Here is a link to the plant list: SINGAPORE PLANT PRE-ORDER LIST
Filed under asides
New Repashy Feeding Discs and Packages
Matt Kilford liked this post
The Repashy feeding discs have been a hit, and thanks to your feedback I have expanded the line of feeders to include some shallower discs and some larger discs. Now the feeders are available in three sizes. The 2″ deep disc has a deeper bowl and will hold a food thickness of about 1/4″-3/8″. The 2″ shallow disc is flatter and will hold a food thickness of 1/8″-1/4″. I really like this size for using as feeding stations for bottom-feeding fish. I am also offering a new 3″ dish with a shallow profile. This disc holds a deceptively large amount of food. The thickness will be about 1/4″-3/8″ in the middle and much thinner towards the edges. I like this disc for feeding tanks full of open or upper-water fish like growout danios and rainbows.
I have added a start set of 2 of each size disc, with suction cup hooks (six discs total) for $20. There are also sets of 4, 8 and 12 of each size; and a 4-of-each set (12 discs total) that offers the most versatility. Most of the people that have purchased sets of four discs have reordered a week later to get more! Here is a picture of the 4-of-each set, so you can have an idea of what the different sizes look like:
All of the disc options are available in the stock shop: Repashy Feeding Discs
Filed under Repashy
Stiphodon percnopterygoinus
I have always wanted to have a river tank with some Stiphodon gobies, and now I do. These interesting little rapids-dwellers come from Taiwan, where most of the colorful species currently popular in the aquarium hobby come from. They live in fast-flowing coastal streams that are oxygen-rich, shallow and bright enough to foster a healthy growth of algae. These gobies are such good algae eaters that they can easily clean off several square inches of surface area in a day. They are also very territorial, and where there are many in an aquarium (I have about 30 of them), small groups form up and stick to their little areas of the tank. Each group will have a dominant male, a sub-dominant male or two and several females. The dominant males flash a lot of color. S. percnopterygoinus is referred to as the ‘yellow stiphodon goby’ on the import lists, but I am not sure why. The displaying males have a jet black eye and dorsal fin. The other unpaired fins are red. The body becomes very dark, almost black, at the front and back, while the abdomen flashes a bright tan… I guess it looks a little bit yellow in contrast. These gobies will readily spawn in an aquarium, but the fry will not survive. In the wild the larvae are washed downstream to the ocean where they live through a long planktonic stage. Once they settle they find a freshwater stream to return to. There are several very colorful species in the hobby right now, and a tank with a lot of them is fun to watch. Enjoy…
Filed under Fish, video posts
Auctions!
I am running a series of auction on AquaBid for the next couple weeks. I do not do this very often. When I am selling something on auction I remove the price from the in stock list and will not sell the fish until the auction in done. In place of the prices there are links to the auctions for that species. Here is a link to my auctions on AB: Ted’s Auctions
Filed under asides
10-gallon Planted Nano Makeover
Stephen M Parlin liked this post
We were snowbound on Thursday this week, so I decided to to a much needed makeover in my 10-gallon planted nano tank. This aquarium is an unfiltered tank that sits on my work bench. Honestly, it gets neglected a lot, which is why it was a bit over grown. Some of the plants were so think that they were shading themselves. And I had let the foreground plants get too large and obstruct the midground plants. This simply would not do! I received a shipment of plants on Monday (hint hint… check out the livestock page), and there were several that I wanted to play with. Most notably the Cryptocoryne tonkinensis and the Myriophyllum matagrossense. I have never done much with myrio plants, so I incorporated two in this cleaned up aquascape. I also put in different fish, including the very cool neon yellow Microdevario kubotai. Check it out…
Filed under Fishroom, video posts
The Dark Knight Paradise Gouramie
Wisconsin Area Killifish Organization, Brandon Olson, Chad Whittaker, Stephen M Parlin liked this post
The common name of this fish is all it took for me to want it (I am a bit of a batman fan). The pictures sealed the deal. This is a typical paradise gouramie in just about every way, except that it comes from some pretty temperate climates and prefers its habitat cool. I am probably keeping them too warm, but that will change with I give them the 75 planted tank in the living room. That aquarium stays in the low seventies, and dips into the high 60′s in the Winter. I have a group of six, but these two are the pair. They colored up nicely this week, but I think the water is too warm for them to spawn. Hopefully moving them to a colder tank will help. Cool fish! (literally… LOL).
Filed under Fish, video posts
