Shai

One of my LFSes sells a nice-looking plant under the name "dracena sandriana". The specimens they have are "tall" like a stem plant (about 6 to 10 inches or so) with white edging on the leaves (green in the middle). The leaves are quite large and wide. I've Googled the name and suspect the LFS has it wrong, because the results that come up are for plants grown in greenhouses, and none of them look the same. Google suggested a similar spelling, "dracaena sandriana" but that didn't yield anything either. There was one search result, on this page, where the plant pictured looks very similar (here is a bigger pic) but the page isn't in English and nor is the plant an "exact match" for what I've seen in the store. The one in the pic looks short and bushy (but perhaps it's just the angle), but the leaves are right. I'd like to get some info on it before I buy it, to know if it needs special care, how big it gets, etc etc. Does anyone know about this plant?

Good to know, thanks! He's been listless for several days, but I have seen him eating, so I have hope he will pull through! I understand why adding more cories is probably not a good idea, but it's hard to resist the tempation to run out and get some, because I want him to be happy! For now I'll see how it goes. I'll feel really bad if he dies, I'm quite attached to him and his twin (I even named them...Dash and Delta...Dash is the listless/depressed one). Until all this started I was planning to add more plants today or tomorrow. Should I still go ahead with that? They would at least contribute a bit more oxygen.

lol Great videos. I agree, the score for the second one is a nice touch.

Thanks everyone. Week's finally over, and thank goodness! I've been reading up on ich and have found the heat therapy method recommended in many places. Since buying enough meds to treat a 55g tank for the appropriate amount of time is not financially reasonable, I'm going to go that route instead. I do have reservations about heat therapy though...information I've been able to find on pandas says they are most comfortable in temps no higher than 25C, which is 77F. He's already stressed so I don't want to add to it and perhaps kill him because of the increase in temperature, even if I only go one degree per day until I hit 30C. It will take me five days to get to that temperature (I have read recommendations of going one degree per hour, but in a 55g tank I would imagine the entire water volume would not be heated through in an hour, plus it seems somewhat fast to me). I suppose I could try two degrees per day, once in the morning before I leave for work, and again in the evening when I come home. I'll have to see how the panda reacts. A bubble wand sounds like a good idea. I was thinking about getting one for decorative purposes anyway, so I'll look into it. But if worst comes to worst I'll just lower the water level in the tank so the filter creates more splash at the same flow rate. I've read a lot of conflicting information about salt in freshwater aquariums. Many people say it doesn't really do anything, so I'm not sure I want to add it at all. Wish me luck! I haven't had any fish losses to date, don't want to start now!

: ) Thanks! Well...week's not over yet but it's been "one of those" all around. As far as the 55 goes, I may not have the luxury of waiting another week to add more fish. One of my pandas has taken to being a pretty motionless lump on the gravel. He's eating and he swims around occasionally, has no physical signs of illness like fungus or ich or anything, so I figure the new tank has brought out that longing for companions to school with, and he's depressed because there aren't any other than his twin. Problem is, today I noticed my betta has a single white dot on his body. We all know what that means. *sigh* I suspect he may not be handling the current very well and has gotten a bit stressed, giving ich an opportunity. I've turned the filter down as far as it will go now to reduce the flow (I had it set at half before), but in the meantime have to start treating him. Plus I'll have to keep an eye on the panda to make sure he doesn't end up with it too. Add to that the need to introduce more pandas to hopefully cure my little guy of depression...oy. Could be a mess. I only have one tank with which I can quarantine, so I feel stuck. Do I quarantine the betta and hope the new pandas don't introduce anything or end up sick themselves (not to mention the rest of the tank), or treat the betta in the 55g (which would be very expensive medication-wise), quarantine the pandas, and hope the depressed one hangs in there? Tough choice.

Good question. I haven't had any problems at all this year either until just this last week...beaten up tetra, and the cherry barbs I just bought have ich, les sigh... It wouldn't surprise me if the changing season had something to do with it in some indirect way. Just as some people suffer headaches and other maladies when the weather changes, perhaps fish can react too. Plus, with the weather getting colder, our furnaces actually have to work to keep our homes at a stable temperature, the lag time for which can cause our tanks to "chill" until the heaters can also play catchup.

Thanks, Jason! I got the driftwood in as well as a number of anubias nana and anubias afzelii. On the far left where all the wisteria is for the moment I think I will plant an amazon sword and possibly put in some kind of small slate rock formation. Still more plants to come!

The way the hoods are designed, the filter is close to the middle of the tank. A second one would be almost right beside it. I'll see how things go for now and keep your comment in mind. Thanks! So, an update! No pictures for right now, but yesterday I picked up six Malaysian rainbow shrimp (some of them look slightly blue!) as well as two pieces of driftwood. I haven't put the driftwood in the 55 yet, I only had time to get the shrimp acclimatized before I had to go to my grandmother's to help her move. I'm following a transfer recommendation from an experienced fishkeeper on another board, who said that after a week of running the old filter media on the new tank with "half" my stock I would be able to transfer the remaining existing fish into the 55g, so I'm going to do that today, plus add the driftwood and some more plants. Last week one of my neons was bullied by his eight buddies (tail fin completely eaten and dorsal fin shredded) so I removed him to the 10g to recouperate. He's doing well and is even showing a very small fringe of new tail fin already. I'm going to leave him in the 10g for now until I'm ready to buy the other 3 neons I need. After today, the stock in the 55g will be: 1 betta 8 neons 2 pandas 6 shrimp I think I will wait two weeks before adding any more fish (work on plants in the interim). My question is, what should I aim to stock with next, out of my stocking plan? Should I buy the 3 neons that I need to complete the school, or the 5 pandas? Or the otos? Does it really matter?

: ) I'm open to making adjustments. Do you mean drop as in, lower the numbers, or drop as in, eliminate? On another board it was recommended I reduce the shoaling numbers...but also double the pandas. I'm not sure I want to do that with the pandas, so I compromised with this: 1 betta (currently in the 10g) 2 rams (to be added much later) 12 neon tetras (currently 9 in the 55g) 12 harlequin rasboras 8 dwarf rainbowfish 7 panda cories (currently 2 in the 10g) (willing to stick with 5) 3 otocinclus 6 shrimp How am I doing now? This drops the shoaling fish by 13 bodies, but the pandas are up by two, from my original plan. I don't have any experience with canister filters (another HOB would probably introduce too much current for the betta) but I'll keep that in mind too!

All right so...turning this into a journal... On the weekend I put in gravel and filled the tank. I also took out most of the (overgrown) wisteria from my 10g, cut it up, and planted it in the 55g. I also put in a castle ornament with java fern already attached. This also came from the 10 and I thought would be a good addition since it ought to be covered with beneficial bacteria. As was recommended to me on another board, I put the filter media (sponge) from my 10 on the 55 (I have two sponges in the 10, so left one to continue filtering the 10) plus the AC70's proper sponge (which had also been running on the 10) and transferred "half" my existing stock. This amounted to the 9 neons, as I felt it wouldn't be a good idea to split up the school nor use the pandas. The neons are doing well, showing good color, schooling like I haven't seen them school before, and eating. Next weekend if the weather is good I am going to Riverfront to get a piece of bogwood or driftwood for the other half of the tank, plus the shrimp and some more plants. While I was out on the weekend getting the gravel, I checked some of my LFSes for current stock, to see what might be available to complete my stocking plan. For the first time I got to see rams up close (ie, not in a photo) and am interested in having one or a pair in the tank if I can and if my betta will play nice. No one has yet to let me know if my previous stocking plan is understocked and since this is such a big tank, I'm going to assume it is until I hear differently. Revised stocking plan is: 1 betta (currently in the 10g) 2 rams (to be added much later) 15 neon tetras (currently 9 in the 55g) 15 harlequin rasboras 15 dwarf rainbowfish 5 panda cories (currently 2 in the 10g) 3 otocinclus 6 shrimp I'm still also interested in cherry barbs and glowlight tetras, but think that this new stocking plan is probably "getting up there" if it isn't maxed out or over the top already. Comments? Thanks in advance.

You're welcome! Yeah, I've had a lot of fun with my 10g. If you're curious to see what yours can look like fully planted, I posted some photos of my tank and its inhabitants in this thread. Certainly! After you have some readings for nitrate, put the plants in. They will use the nitrate as food, helping to reduce the levels. You might also be interested in this article, which describes a "silent cycling" method. A 15g tank is probably still too small to use this method exclusively, but you can try to combine some of these techniques with the regular fishless cycle and shorten the overall waiting time. I did this myself and it worked well. Thanks, me too! Still trying to figure out the stocking, haven't had a whole lot of definitive feedback in that area yet. : ) I have lots of time though, the tank is still bone dry! (Being patient is the hard part.) Yes indeed. All of my plants have come from Pisces. Theirs look healthier than other stores. They have a wider selection too and it's easier to pick the plants out. In places like Petcetera, the plants are all jammed into one tank and it's nearly impossible to know what you're looking at. (Last time I was at Riverfront, their plants were the same way.) I haven't been there yet either. I live in the NW so going to the southern parts of the city is rare. But one of these days! Keep us updated on the progress of your tank!

A Canon PowerShot S1 IS. This one is 3.2 megapixels which 10x optical zoom. There's no macro setting on this camera, I shoot all my tank photos on manual (no flash) and have a lot of patience. They have a newer one out with more MPs and a longer zoom. Either way, I really recommend this camera to anyone looking to get a good digital. Thanks for the comments! The 10g has an Aqua-Glo bulb in it, very fantastic for showing color. The shrimp is a great example: in the tank at the store, they all looked flat brown, but under this bulb they all show different hues, living up to their name. Yeah, I couldn't believe Isis was still at the store when I went in, very late in the day. Naturally, as soon as I spotted this fish, so did everybody else, but I had my hands on him first! I haven't seen many bettas in that color!

Thought I'd share! His name is Arokh, after the dragon from Drakan. He's in the 10g. This one is Isis, from my 5.5g. The mob! The "twins", Dash and Delta. Malaysian rainbow shrimp! My 10g...the wisteria needed pruning.

If you want to find out for sure how much water your tank holds, you can use this calculator: http://animal-world.com/encyclo/information/calculate.htm

Fantastic setup! The aquascaping is very well done. Sorry to hear about the fish losses. I don't know how experienced you are but I'm going to supply some info anyway. : ) With a new tank, you should have stocked over the course of several weeks or months, only adding a few fish at a time. This would have helped preserve the stability of the water and avoided too much pressure on the nitrifying bacteria. Since you added a whole whack of fish all at once and then added another group close after, your tank probably experienced a minicycle, and that's probably why those fish died. Too late now, but good to keep in mind for the future. You might also find this article and this article useful for the future. Since you're planning on adding yet more fish you could be in for more deaths. The tank needs about half a year or more to fully mature. I'd recommend you wait a few weeks at least before you add anything else (perhaps the pleco can stay at the store for a bit?). I know it can be hard to stay patient! The pleco can grow to 15cm and can also be very territorial. They are also poo machines so take care to watch your water quality. You don't need to buy water from the store. Your tap water will be fine. Just add a conditioner such as Prime before adding the water to the tank. In addition to removing chlorine, chloramine, and ammonia, Prime also detoxifies nitrite and nitrate. If you buy a large bottle (better price per fl. oz) you'll need a clean eyedropper to properly dose the water, because a capful will be way too much. When testing, Prime can give you a false positive on ammonia but if you're keeping a good maintenance schedule you shouldn't have to worry. Something else to keep in mind: if you didn't get all male guppies, they will quickly start breeding and will overrun the tank. Most of the fry will probably get eaten by the other fish, but undoubtedly some will survive to procreate even more. This will put pressure on your bioload. If there are more males than females, the males might start harrassing each other and/or the females, potentially causing death from stress. The catapiller thing is probably a parasite of some sort that hitchhiked in on a plant. I'd go ahead and remove it. If you're going to add any more plants in the future, rinse them in a bucket of conditioned water before you put them in the tank. This will also help avoid hitchhiking snails. Snails aren't bad, but if you are unlucky they can overrun the tank too. I read that you want the plants to fill in the back of the tank. This is a great idea, however I would still put a flat colored background on the back of the tank to fill in the gaps that you will still have. Dark blue or black are great choices and will help the color of the plants and fish "pop". A background will also help keep the light inside the tank, which helps draw attention to the tank instead of the nicely-lit up wall behind it. Good luck! I hope you have a lot of success. It's a beautiful tank, I'm sure others in your future will be just as gorgeous.

Hi Jimmy, welcome to the board! You can add many more plants to your tank than just a single java fern. Anubias nana and anubias afzelli are great plants that also only need low-light. You don't *have* to attach them to wood; mine are growing just fine in the gravel. Wisteria is another plant you should consider for the early days of your tank (like Willfishguy said, even after you cycle, your tank will still need time to mature). It grows very fast and will do a lot to help keep nitrates in check while the fern is establishing itself (java fern grows slowly). You'll have to prune it or it will overrun the tank (a pair of scissors when you change the water works well). Wisteria is cheap; just get one (a big one), cut it in half, and stick it in the gravel. It'll do the rest. : ) I live in Calgary also. Personally, I wouldn't ever buy any fish from Petcetera. The two locations in the NW that I have visited always look dirty (the stores in general) and not well-maintained. The fish are often very badly mislabelled and I've seen dead specimens that look like they've been there a while. I have purchased equipment there as they sometimes have had better prices than elsewhere, but that's about it. Pisces is probably my favorite LFS. Most of my plants and equipment have come from there and I think the staff are more knowledgable than most. The fish selection is great but be prepared to pay a little more than other places. Riverfront is good, too, also with knowledgable staff. I got my shrimp from there and I'll be going back for more plus some bogwood and snails in the near future. Have you been there before? The location is kind of a bummer unless you already live close to downtown (which I don't). Be prepared to not leave anything valuable in your car when you park. I frequent the Petland in Crowfoot quite a lot, too. I like this location; most of my fish came from there. It's hard to find staff in the fish area sometimes but if you have the patience, their specimens have all been healthy and the prices not too bad. The Petland inside Market Mall is really limited in comparison; the only fish I've ever purchased there was a half-moon betta of exceptional turquoise color. The staff at the mall location are not knowledgable by far; I've overheard them recommending things to other customers that made my skin crawl. I've never shopped at Petsmart myself so someone else can comment on that. Another place I have been is the pet store in the Sunnyside Garden Center off Highway 1 and 29 Ave NW. My pandas came from there. The selection of fish is very small but they were the best-priced on the pandas anywhere in the city that I could find. Wal-Mart is iffy, usually a judgment call. The Wal-Mart at Northland is definitely a no-no in my book; I've been in one week to see they have a fully-stocked fish section and the next week the area is bone dry, all the fish gone, the tanks covered in black hard sludge. Yuck. The Wal-Mart up at Royal Oak is *much* nicer (probably because it's newer). The tanks so far always look clean, not too many dead fish just lying around, and they've had some specimens I haven't always seen at other locations. Have fun with your new tank!

Hmm. Unload them to where though? Yes, they are. I got mine from Riverfront; they were selling them as "algae-eating shrimp" but I later found out the actual kind. I just don't know how many I should have in this huge tank! This week I got the tank out of the box. Woohoo! I also got the tank onto the table. Double woohoo! To prep for cycling, I took the sponge out of the ACMini on my 10g, placed said sponge in a mesh bag, and hung it in the 10g. Then I took the sponge from the 55g's AC70 and squashed it into the ACMini. About how long will it take for the AC70 sponge to acquire enough bacteria? This weekend I plan to get some water into the tank to make sure it doesn't leak, buy the gravel, and thereafter get that plus some ornaments into it. Once the sponge is ready I'll put in the plants, fill the tank the rest of the way, and get some shrimp. I've been told that I can also put in some of the fish from my 10g to help supply ammonia since the filter will already have bacteria in it—I'll just keep an extra-close eye on the water in case I end up with a mini-cycle. Still not sure about that overall stocking plan though. Any more ideas/input, anyone?

lol Indeed! Nice to see ya!

Thanks for the replies! I don't want *all* the fish on that list, they are just the ones I am interested in choosing from. Since I have no idea how to judge how many species and the number of each I can responsibly house in this tank, I figure I should give myself lots of choices so I won't end up disappointed. Filtration on this tank is an AC70, so I think I have that covered well. I don't plan on stuffing the tank. : ) Yes, he's very well-behaved, but the neons and the pandas are much smaller than he is so he has less of a reason to think they are other bettas. With other fish, well, who knows? In my list I have tried to go for the most peaceful varieties I could find. Thanks for your recommendations! Agreed. See above comment about providing lots of choices for myself. lol Angels and bettas are not compatible. My betta is my centerpiece fish. I don't want quite that many cories, but let's see: 1 betta 15 neons (since I have 9 already and they usually sell cheapest when you buy 6) 12-15 2nd schooling fish species 5 panda corydoras 5? otocinclus (I'd prefer SAE's (2?) over otos but don't know how suitable they might be) 6? malaysian rainbow shrimp Since this tank is more than five times bigger than the 10g I have already, this stock still seems low to me, but like I said before, I don't really know how to judge. How am I doing so far?

Thanks for replying, Brad! I was under the impression that discus fish require soft water for long-term health. The water in Calgary is very hard and I don't have the resources to get presoftened stuff. They're peaceful, but would my betta be peaceful towards them? I've had other recommendations for rams. Some are quite beautiful, and it's tempting. I'm not entirely convinced I could get away with them though; the betta may take issue with them too. I've not been able to find any definitive information on whether or not rams and bettas are compatible. I realize an obvious solution would be to not put the betta in the new tank, except that I'm really limited for space and only really want two tanks in the house.

Thanks!! Glad to be here. : )

That's an excellent way to think about it! Once I get it set up and cycled I'll have a spare tank and some equipment to sell too, I'm looking forward to doing that here if I can, since there are lots of locals. : ) Thanks for the welcome!

Hi everyone, I'm new to this board so I hope this kind of post is all right in this forum. Today I bought a 55g tank (48"x13"x20"). I'd like some stocking help so that I know what I want to buy once it's cycled! This will be a low-light, low-tech planted setup, with java fern, anubias nana, and anubias afzelii to start (these are the plants I have in an existing tank). Substrate will be a fine (2-3mm) gravel. I have partial stock already in a 10g planted tank. I'll be putting them in the new tank. These are: 1 betta 9 neons 2 panda corydoras I want to increase the number of neons (not sure how many) and pandas (to 5). I'll be adding shrimp (amanos) as well. I have lots of room for more tankmates and I'm interested in choosing from the following fish: harlequin rasboras otocinclus cherry barbs glowlight tetra dwarf rainbowfish blue tetra colombian tetra Please feel free to suggest others (schooling, bottom dwellers, etc) which will be compatible with my betta. I'd like to have a variety of colorful/interesting-looking fish. Mostly what I need help with is determining the appropriate number of each kind of fish for the tank, how many species I can have in it, that kind of thing. I really have no idea what sort of stocking levels are appropriate for a tank this large. All help appreciated. Thanks!

lol Just after I posted here I came across a flyer deal...55g kit for $250.00, exactly what I was probably going to end up paying for a 32g, so I went out and bought it! (My birthday isn't until February, but I couldn't pass up a deal like that!)

Hi everyone! I'm 25, female, from Calgary. I've kept fish on and off for a number of years, mostly just goldfish and bettas when I was younger. This last year I really got back into it, got myself tropicals for the first time. I currently have a 10 gallon planted tank stocked with a betta, neons, panda corydoras and malaysian rainbow shrimp. I also have a second betta in a 5.5g planted tank. My birthday's coming up...I'm going to buy myself a new tank of at least 32 gallons (bigger if I can find a good deal) and transfer my 10g community into it, increase the stock. I'm looking forward to that! I've shopped at Riverfront before, my shrimp came from there. Great little store! I'm looking forward to being able to see what new stuff they have in by way of the sponsor's forum. See you around the board!