55 Gallon semi-aggressive freshwater tank...
I took a picture of this tank
when we first set it up. Now, there are more fish, the fish are bigger
and more interesting, and there are several species of plants in the tank
(and some more rocks). It's still an ugly tank by some people's standards
- sparsely planted, with lots of fish and gaudy gravel, but if you don't
mind the slightly "unnatural" look, it actually looks pretty good.
In this tank, we currently have the following fish:
- one pair of convicts,
Cichlasoma nigrofasciatum, (Here's more info)
and two of their offspring (the males are about 3.5" long, the females
are about 2.5"
- 1 4" Geophagus
brasiliensis with two spots on one side, instead of one!
and another 4.5" Geophagus brasiliensis (both female, I think) Here's a
shot of one of them
- 2 2.5"
irridescent sharks, Pangasius sutchi (one of them lost an eye in
the first week, but has been fine for months since then)
- 1 5" or so long pleco,
Plecostomus sp. (Here's more
info)
- 2 opaline
gouramis, Trichogaster trichopterus sumatranus (here is an awful picture of mine - the right one
has a green barb over its face)
- 8 full grown tiger
barbs, Barbus tetrazona
- 2 5" long tri color
sharks, Balantiocheilus melanopterus, one male and one female. Here is
an awful picture of one of them and the other.
- 2 3.5" rainbow sharks
- 1 7" four line catfish
- 1 3.5" pictus catfish, Pimelodeus pictus
This is Mike Austin (my boyfiend)'s
first attempt at an aquarium ever, and my first attempt at a "from
scratch" semi-aggressive tank. Having [what we thought at the time was] a
big tank for the first time, we tended to get one or two of everything
hardy, and now, well hey, our tank looks like the semi-aggressive section
of our local favorite pet store, The Pet Advantage. :-)
I maintain that I would do things differently if I had to stock the tank
again, but whenever Mike and I talk about it, we have a hard time with the
idea of not choosing any of the fish we chose. Personally, I think I would
have done without the convicts, because they're such a territorial
nuisance when breeding (which I don't want them to do anyway), and I they
bite me fiercely when I vacuum the gravel in that area, several times
causing me to jerk my hand out of the water and almost break the glass
with the rock I was holding at the time.. I think one male or female would
have been ok - they *are* very pretty fish. And perhaps we could do
without the irridescent sharks and the 4 line catfish, since the tank
isn't really designed for catfish, even though we both love the cats. The
real question, of course, is not "which fish should we not have
bought?", but "where can we put that 125 gallon aquarium we need to buy
next?" :-)
I took an inventory on 12/1/96
and measured each fish with a ruler as well as I could - the catfish were
very hard to measure.
(note: some the images I linked to, and plenty more, are available at
FINS, http://www.actwin.com/fish/)
Would you like to go back to my home
page, or back to the list?
Last Modified February 2, 1997
