It's been interesting researching the aquarium this time around.
Everyone has their own opinions, and I'm doing it ALL wrong.
As I read up on individual additions or intended additions to my tank, I'm finding sites dedicated SPECIFICALLY to that particular fish. And, universally, they share one common theme:
The goal of keeping fish should be to breed them.
Uh. No thanks.
We did breed our cichlids last time, at first out of curiousity. There is simply not enough outlets to breed fish, especially for the layman. PetSmart/PetCo won't take them. And most smaller stores either can't take the volume a single breeding pair of anything produces, or have been run out of business by the big chains.
For instance, one female, one brood, of our cichlids produced over 60 fish. After giving half away to random folks, we turned them into a local fish store, only to have the same problem a month later and start flushing.
Nah, the goal of this aquarium is for it to be pretty and easy.
What's frustrating, though, is trying to research suitable tank-mates. This site says 2 fish do fine together and quotes this book here. This other one disputes that and quotes this book there...
Yeah, the hell with it. We'll go with what has worked for me in the past.
A lesson learned:
Don't trust PetSmart.
The Eclipse cat was bought with a couple things in mind: I needed something that could hold it's own vs Cichlids if we went that route, yet something that was mild enough for a community tank if we went that route.
The sign at PetSmart listed these catfish as semi-aggressive, maximum size 5", best when not alone. So, we got 3. And, they do tend to dogpile on each other in the tank, and are perfectly content to just sit there and not pester everyone.
However, there was NO, and I do mean NONE, ZERO, ZILCH, information on an eclipse catfish. Turns out they are
Sun Catfish.
Baensch reports the maximum length as 130mm. Imports have been recorded larger than this size and the maximum size given elsewhere in hobby literature is 450mm.
So, PetSmart is obviously using whatever Baensch is as it's information. 5-6", just what I needed...however, 450mm translates to 18"! There's some debate whether there are 2 species at play here. THIS is what you get when you buy something on impulse rather than doing your homework.
I may end up having to kill off the eclipse if they do start growinng towards the 18" mark. (sorry, 18" catfish sounds more like a catch than aquarium denizen)
Next came the Paradise fish...
Staring at the tank. Some experience sexing gouramis, and I can't tell any difference in any of the Paradise fish. We buy 7, hoping for a mix of male/female.
Once again, reading up more on the topic, Paradise fish aren't precisely gourami, and turns out we gots us 7 males. No females are for sale locally.
This is potentially a problem since paradise fish tend to have an attitude only comparably to the Siamese Fighting Fish (aka Betta). I have seen a bit of posturing and posing in the tank, but no real hostility. We might have to import some girls if that becomes a problem.
The good news is they like gourami females as well. I might be able to find some of those females locally.
Finally, Wood.
Mopani wood, to be precise.
Following recomendations, we boiled the stuff. Which was a fun process...
This was SUPPOSED to leach off all the tannins to prevent it from turning the water brown, and kill off all the foreign material.
Nope.
Brown water the next day. Nothing a change of some carbon can't fix. But, the cracks of the logs still have SOMETHING in them, causing some lovely cotton-like fungus to grow.
Turns out this is normal for the Mopani wood, and not harmfull to fish. But, I sure don't like it. The reccomendations are to get some shrimps to eat it. FINDING said shrimps is easier said than done right now, however.
The angels seem to be enjoying whatever it is, though, and they've slowly been pecking at it. Possibly the loaches as well, though they are sneaky and nocturnal, so it's hard to say.
