An UnOrthOdOx Aquarium: Old school solutions

Seems to be a theme going on with this aquarium.

Old School. REALLY old school.

First, we have the Paradise fish. It was among the first fish exported for the hobby. Once king of the aquarium.

Then, there was the angels. Who replaced the paradise fish as kings of the aquarium in the early 1900's.

Why then, should one seek out the newfangled shrimp to solve the little growth problem on the wood?

As long as we're going OLD school, let's go OLD SCHOOL.

SNAILS! Keep your shrimp, snails are some of the best cleaners. Old school cleaners.

From Aquarium

Oh, sure, there's the bad wrap of multiplying unchecked and everything...so, we needed something to keep THAT in check as well. Enter the redtail shark. Oldschool solution to snails...

From Aquarium

Within a day of adding these guys, the fuzz on the log is gone. So, we rolled it over to let them pick at the other side. A day later, all that fuzz was gone as well. To my surprise, though, the shark loved it as well.

So, with all that, the current death toll:

1 paradise fish. Cause of death: Getting stuck in the intake on the canister filter. Fixed that situation.

1 eclipse catfish. Cause of death: apparantly choking on one of those newfangled shrimp that got accidentally scooped in with our shark.

Otherwise, this tank is coming along nicely.