good pic of tank, bad pics of sidthimunkis, and a story

[zmo63]

over the months, we've done quite a few plant rearranges and changes, and here's the latest iteration of the 55 gallon sidthimunki tank:



after spending $$$$ on pot after pot of glossostigma, only to have it uprooted again and again, my husband decided to try something a little crazy - using stargrass as a ground cover. The stuff grows like crazy in our tank, so I figured if it didn't work, at least we wouldn't be losing so much money.

Well the result is great - i think they should market it this way! The sids and SAEs absolutely love diving in and out of the thick ground cover - it makes hunting for algae wafers and snails all the more exciting.

Originally, we had six little sids in the tank. I posted a while back about being very disappointed at my favorite LFS for keeping a single sid in a 6 gallon display tank and refusing to sell it to me. After about five trips of me asking, they finally let her go home with me. Here she is in her favorite spot:



Since I'd been watching her carefully for so long, and she was in a closed system display tank at the store, and also because both of my Q tanks were occupied, I did a bad thing and put her straight in with the others. That was when I realized that although she was quite healthy, the other sids were freakishly skinny and under developed.

Then came Levamisol, then PraziPro, then Kanaplex, then metronidazole, then back to Levamisol. Three of the six are doing wonderfully (almost caught up to the big one), and the other three are finally showing some improvement.

In this picture you can see one very skinny one, the big displaytank one (far right), and a couple of the ones who responded immediately to treatment:



My favorite thing about these guys is how their personality has changed from ultra-shy to little puppydogs. The six original guys race to the glass, begging for food as soon as i walk in the room. They have no qualms about eating from my hand. The displaytank sid is much more shy, and stays by herself for the most part. I'm hoping she'll settle in better as time goes on.

The other day i threw in some algae wafers, and even though there were three of them in there, all the fish went after the same one. I heard lots of clicking so I watched closely as a fight broke out. It was between the displaytank sid, one of the SAEs, and one of the skinniest sids. Skinny sid won! The funniest part was that when another skinny sid came over, he was willing to share. Only the big ones got chased away. I guess they take care of their own.

[loachmom]

A gorgeous tank!!

I'm glad you were able to get the lonely sid. I'm sure she's loving it in your tank with all her friends.

[lf11casey]

Very nice tank. Love the sids.

[Rubix]

awesome tank! could you tell me about your substrate please? also, what is your approximate wattage per gallon? i assume you dose ferts also? beautiful sids

[NancyD]

Lovely tank, zmo! Glad your thin sids are fattening up. I have a couple that were very thin but I think they may have just younger & smaller. I did treat with levamisole but it took a few months for the runts to catch up. The newer batch are still smaller than the first after a year, but i can't tell the thin ones apart any more.

I hope your loner joins in more eventually, she's very cute lounging in the wood.

[zmo63]

thanks everyone!

Rubix, the substrate is EcoComplete - we use it in all our tanks because it has nutrients for root feeding plants. Tried one tank with fine gravel/sand, and the plants just didn't do as well, so we switched it over too. It's also got nitrifying bacteria in it, so it speeds up the cycling process if you're setting up a new tank. Only drawback is that it's hard to burrow in. In the kuhli tank, we tried putting sand in one area of the tank to give the kuhlis a place to dig, but they ignored it in favor of creating their own tunnels through piles of rocks. I'd love to have horse faced loaches or moosefaced loaches, but I don't think they'd do well on eco complete.

We have 130 watts, 6,700K over 55 gallons, so that's somewhere between 2 and 3 watts per gallon. The only thing we've tried to grow and couldn't is the glossostigma, but I blame that on the fish more than the lights. We inject some CO2 with a low budget pressurized system, and dose Seachem ferts (Flourish) according to the instructions on the bottle.

NancyD, it's encouraging to hear that it took yours a while to fill out. Ours are finally starting to show improvement (it's been a long time!), and they're so active and happy, that I'm optimistic about them.

[Rubix]

awesome thanks for the information... eco-complete seems to be the next move i need to make in my planted aquarium experience, sand just isn't cutting it anymore, ive read nothing but good things. again, beautiful tank show us more pictures if you've got'em

[lf11casey]

EcoComplete is an awesome substrate for planted tanks IMO. I use it in two of my tanks and will eventually switch the rest over to it at some point. Also all new tanks I set up, except the loach tanks, will have EcoComplete put in them.