125 gal Predatory Community (formerly Loach Lounge)

[Rychek]

I took my daughter on a "secret mission" this afternoon. We hit four different fish stores and ended up with an assortment of small plants, 2x rope fish and 2x polypterus senegalus (AKA Dinosaur Bicher). I'm thinking an ornate bichir is not in the books for this tank. They tend to be aggressive and large and hungry. I've read too many accounts of ornates attacking (and eating) tank mates (including other bichers). I think I'll stick with the small, less aggressive varieties at this point. Pics to come once the bags are done floating.

[Rychek]

Pics and vids (warning: copius children noises in the background.) of the newbies:

Polypterus senegalus


Mostly senegals and ropes (with a quick shot of the Aba Aba at the end)


Ropes

[hobogato]

very cool stock list!

[Rychek]

So far all fish are getting along just fine. The ropes hang out with the loaches under their rock structures, the loaches hang out with the black ghost under his rock structure and the tetras and danios pretty much ignore the rest. The Aba Aba keeps to himself in the back corner and won't eat yet, but I'm not too surprised by that. Everyone else appears to be eating, especially one of the ropes. I put about a dozen shrimp in there yesterday and one of the ropes has a bulging belly and I can't locate a bunch of the shrimp.

Funny thing, as I was typing the last sentence, I glanced up at the tank and saw what looked like two Angelicus loaches bullying one of my senegalus bichers. I jumped up to get a better look and to intervene if necessary and realized the senegalus had a shrimp hanging out of his mouth. The loaches weren't bullying so much as trying to "share" his meal.He made a quick exit, shrimp antennae trailing alongside.

I've been soaking a piece of manzanita that I purchased along with the first rope fish and knife fish. I plan to add it to the tank today. If it happens, I'll be posting new pics.

[Rychek]

Here's the slightly modified layout (if anyone has any ideas on aquascaping, I'm all ears). I moved all of the rocks to the right side and put the manzanita on the left. The balck ghost now resides under the manzanita and the loaches are expanding to the new rock covered areas.









I love the way this pic turned out

[Rychek]

new inhabitants, new thread title. I don't know about anyone else, but the title is kind of creepy, in an analogous sort of way.

[Rychek]

We've made a few additions to the stock list as well as the aquascaping. The giant danios have proven to be rather bland/boring, so we've added several Rainbow fish. We've picked up some really nice looking Turquoise Rainbows as well as some Australian Rainbows. I bought a Marci and a Boesmani as well, but they are hard to tell apart from the Australians at this point as their colors aren't the best. For my birthday, I picked up a nice sized piece of driftwood that is still floating after a week. I've decided to wedge a few rocks in it and put it in the tank. So far, so good.

Turquoise Rainbow


We've lost two ropefish; one to unknown circumstances (no trace of it anywhere) and one to the return pump. The pump incident was the last straw, so I pulled my drain pipe off and added some toole (sp? mesh stuff from Hobby Lobby) over the intake so the fish can't get in. My next mod for the drain will to be to put a cover on of some sort to keep the fish out of the overflow all together.

Due to the ropefish losses, we picked up one additional ropefish. I thought the ropes I had were good sized, but this guy makes the others look tiny in both length and girth.

New ropefish in new wood


New Driftwood


New Bicher

[Rychek]

So it has been a while since I last posted and much has changed. The tank was coming along very nicely and all of the fish were getting nice and fat. Then one of the bichers died. Not sure why, but it was dead. Then I went on vacation and Armageddon broke out in my tank. I thought I had taken sufficient precautions for the short time the tank would be un-managed (about 10 days). I did a water change just before I left, swapped out my light timer (the old one wasn't reliable) and added an automatic feeder. In those ten days, both rope fish died, one bicher had it's belly torn out, two hillstream (butterfly) loaches died, all of my turquoise (5), a bosemani and the Marci rainbows died and my black ghost knife. 13 fish in all and I was astounded. There wasn't much I could do as I was stuck on an island in the middle of the Pacific.

I've got things cleaned up fairly well, though I had to do two massive vacuum jobs with tank refills/topoffs in between to get the tank clean. I cleaned the tank over a three day period so as not to shock the remaining fish too much. After cleaning the tank up, it looked so empty. My daughter missed all of the fish so we bought some Turquoise Rainbow fish for 50% off. A couple days later I took my son to Texas Tropical and noticed they had "Armored Bichers" in stock. I didn't know at the time what the real name of these fish were, but I knew I had to have one in my tank. I could have purchased five of the senegalus for what this one cost me, but it is a captive bred fish and I've wanted one for a while, so I bought the largest one I could find in the tank. It is a polypterus delhezi".

IMG_3031.jpg

[Rychek]

Well, the time has come. After my canister filter dumped nearly 40 gallons of poopy fish water into my living room carpet, I am retiring this tank. I had to dismantle the tank to move it so I could pull the carpet up and get everything dried out and I don't have the heart or enthusiasm to put it all back together. I've got a buyer for the tank, but I need to find good homes for the fish. I currently have them in a 30 long, but that is not acceptable as a long term solution for so many fish. If any of you know of anyone who wants some free fresh water fish and can provide a good home, shoot me a PM. Current fish needing homes are listed below:

Blue Rainbow fish: 4
Other Rainbow fish: 3
Giant Danios: 4
Clown Loach: 1 ~4:
Angelicus Loach: 4
Kuhli Loach: 3 (java and meyers)
Hillsteam/Butterfly Loach: 2
small brown patterned plecostomus: 1 (can't remember what kind he is, but he's a small variety that shouldn't get much bigger than 4").
Rope Fish: 2
Seagalus Bichir: 1
Goldfish: 3
Black Ghost Knife: 1

And now, back to pulling up carpet.