I will admit that I did not follow all of the formal fish protocol with my tank. I did not wait for the full cycle to be completed naturally, nor did I quarantine any of my fish. All things considered, though, I don’t think that it would have been necessary. I have lost three fish thus far (more details on why later).
When starting my tank I was advised to get a small school of hardy fish that I didn’t mind losing to aid in the cycle. I chose cherry barbs! I’d been attached to the cute little guys since I first started researching what fish to add. I got seven of them and during the cycling process I lost two. I haven’t been able to find their bodies, though, so I’m guessing they’ve been eaten. There was one male and six females, so I named them Satoshi and his harem. They were extremely shy at the beginning, thus I don’t have very many good pictures of them. They also didn’t exhibit very much schooling behavior until more recently.
Since the barbs were small, shy, and antisocial I opted to get more fish about a week later. Before doing this I had added supplements to the water to speed the cycle along and tested the nitrate/nitrite levels to find them…acceptable. My second choice was mollies! I actually hadn’t been planning on getting these but I saw them at the pet store and found them to pretty to resist! I got three each of dalmation and creamsicle lyretail mollies. They got along with the barbs swimmingly! If anything, they made the barbs much more open and social. I was seeing a lot more activity in my tank. For the most part they school within their colorations, but they socialize frequently.
Fast forward another couple weeks and I ended up getting some dwarf gouramis. I had read a lot of conflicting opinions on whether multiple dwarf gouramis could be together or now and decided to go for it. All in all I have been successful. I got two different variations of the standard dwarf gourami, one powder blue dwarf gourami, and one flame red dwarf gourami. All male. Within a couple days of getting him the powder blue showed signs of dying. He was hovering near the top or hiding away, staying very idle, and ignoring food even when it was dropped on his head. As such, the other three started picking on him, perhaps sensing weakness.
Ultimately I decided to isolate the poor guy to live out his last days in peace. It didn’t take him long to pass on. In this case I believe I got him sick. I decided against getting another as the three that remained seemed to get along and I didn’t want to risk disrupting that. These gourami have also had their names changed approximately three times, so it’s fortunate I’m not trying to teach them their names.
They will still chase and nip at each other occasionally but for the most part they cohabitate and even socialize just fine.
Yesterday I finally added my bottom feeders. The panda cories. I find Cory catfish absolutely adorable and spent a lot of time agonizing over which ones to get and whether or not they would be okay on gravel. The general consensus was that they are more comfortable with sand but will do fine with standard aquarium gravel. So I got a school of five panda cories. As it’s only been one day I can’t say a whole lot about their behavior and relationships to the other fish. From what I have seen thus far they seem mostly healthy and active. They got to exploring the floor of the aquarium right away. I have decided to address them as standard middle aged white males. I’m unsure of their actual sexes, but as of right now they are all Carl.
My last unexpected addition to the tank are some babies! I have both dalmation and creamsicle molly fry now. They may possibly be hybrids between the two, but only time will tell. It started with spotting three on March 4th but now there are eight!
At first I was expecting (and somewhat hoping) them to get eaten, but they’ve remained strong and grown quite a bit! I’ve also grown quite attached to them, so it’s looking like any remaining stock I had left in the take will be occupied by more mollies! If another generation pops up I will definitely have to do some population control but for now I’ll just enjoy the larger schools.
For now I believe that will complete my community tank! I certainly don’t have much more room but we shall see what the future holds. This leaves the count at:
- 5 cherry barbs
- 6 lyretail mollies
- 3 dwarf gourami
- 5 panda cories
- 8 fry
Sofishtication 