New Hobby

I realised that I have not yet shared my latest addition to my home:

"Fish"

After a 12 month E-bay search mission, I finally found (and won) the fish tank that I was looking for. To give some idea, new large tank costs somewhere in the range of $1000+ to get set-up and operational.

I was lucky to get mine, complete and ready to go - including some fish - for $275!!

We have had a 'practice' Gold fish tank for quite a while, so we knew most of what was needed, but I quickly discovered that a large tropical tank was a different situation altogether.

For those that love to Google things, we started out with 4 types of fish: Clown Loach x 1, Neon Tetra x 3, Guppie x 11 & Angel x 1 (possibly Koi Angel)

After a little while I felt the need to get more fish, particularly since we had lasted a little while without killing any. So we went for the Neon Tetras based on the advice that they have a really nice schooling habit and usually hang out together in a big group. So instantly our fish family grew to 30 (including the 4 Gold Fish).

The beauty of the Guppy is that it is a livebearer, and our fat little mummy fish had 5 little fishies (frye). Unfortunately, they didn't last long and only 1 remains, but I am hopeful of this one making it!!!

The missing babies made me think it was time to get some hiding places for the future babies. The obvious choice was for some plants - and they are good for the water quality too.

Of course, going to the fish shop leads to all kinds of temptation, so with the plants I also came home with more fish......

I'd heard that Clowns like company and given ours was solo (and had been for over 5yrs with original owner) I bought 2 new Clowns, much smaller but very cool.

I had also been advised to keep the Guppy gene pool mixed, so got 2 guppies in a different colour to the originals. (note: bad move, these were gone within 3 days....)

If you have had a fish tank you know about the problem with algae, so I sought some 'cleaners', and found the Siamese Flying Fox loves to each algae, so I got 4 of those. They are brilliant, they eat all day, and only eat the algae off everything!!

So our fish family is now:
Clown Loach x 3
Angel x 1
Neon Tetra x 12 (lost one)
Siamese Flying Fox x 4
Guppy x 11 (optimist is including the baby...)
Gold Fish x 4 (different tank)



Here is a before and after photo: (There are fish in there....trust me on that)
It looks so much better in real life....

Did you figure out which picture had something that didn't belong???

In case you were not sure, my little one hates the camera.....