My new fish

Ok, here goes my 1st attempt at a native tank. It's a 55 gallon tank. I am no where done aquascaping, but I havent been able to go to creek where I want to go to get my stone. I found some orange rock with calcite veins running thru them. I like the color of the orange rock. I grabbed a few while out hunting. I'll go back next weekend. Jonahs sent me an extra orange throat darter so I have 5 orange throats & 4 banded darters. I spent 4.5 hrs aclimenting them following the instructions from jonahs. I fed my 5 fatheads while they were almost ready to release into the tank. Within minutes several were already feeding. A male banded darter was flirting with a female and scootching her to the nearest rock cover. I read somewhere that they can be jumpers. WOW understatement! In a 5 gallon bucket only 1/3 full & covered with only a little gap from the edge of the shipping bag, one managed to jump out. I found it alive & put it back in the bucket. Another check up found one clinging to the side of the bucket. I've since duct taped any openings on the back of the glass canopy to keep them from jumping out of the tank.

video
My link

My link

My link

So far so good. I'm glad to hear that you are going to use natural stone for the aquascaping. Everything in my tank came from various creeks/streams, except the gravel. I bought my gravel because it's difficult it find that 'right-size' gravel in creeks. When you do, it's a pain to seperate it from larger stones and sand. Whenever I go collecting, I usually end up rock hunting too. I have some neat agate, geodes, fossils, and petrified wood, but I don't use a lot of those in the tank.

Keep us posted on the tank.

Within minutes several were already feeding. A male banded darter was flirting with a female and scootching her to the nearest rock cover.

That's interesting. A male banded that I collected a couple months ago was also doing that shortly after I put him in the tank. If I remember rightly, it seems like it even appeared as if he was trying to flirt with one of the blacksides too.

It looks like your starting a collection of some good looking rocks. Like jblaylock mentioned, I like to collect rocks while I'm collecting and sampling fish also. Often I take a 5 gallon bucket for fish and another one for rocks. Now I've got rocks all over the place that I'm not using so I've backed off on the rock collecting.

I love the pictures of your darters eating bloodworms. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on them and the fun of setting up the tank.

Steve.

That's interesting. A male banded that I collected a couple months ago was also doing that shortly after I put him in the tank. If I remember rightly, it seems like it even appeared as if he was trying to flirt with one of the blacksides too.

It looks like your starting a collection of some good looking rocks. Like jblaylock mentioned, I like to collect rocks while I'm collecting and sampling fish also. Often I take a 5 gallon bucket for fish and another one for rocks. Now I've got rocks all over the place that I'm not using so I've backed off on the rock collecting.

I love the pictures of your darters eating bloodworms. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on them and the fun of setting up the tank.

Steve.

I have the power head shooting down the middle of the tank. would it be better to direct it towards the front or back wall instead?

I have the power head shooting down the middle of the tank. would it be better to direct it towards the front or back wall instead?

If by "down the middle of the tank" you mean that it's positioned lengthways to spray the full 48" as opposed to spraying it 12" from front to back, that would be my natural inclination to do. It seems like a common thing to spray lengthways and then position the rocks and other structure to guide or break up the flow depending on what your desired pattern is.

The tank that I referenced to in the other thread is not a good example of this as I was trying to juxtapose two different habitats in the same tank. While the plumbing was a task, the flow is pretty basic so that it doesn't interfere with the other section of the tank. The video that jblaylock provided in that thread would be a better example of a true "full" riffle tank. I've also seen some examples where Todd Crail drew lines to explain the water flow in one of his riffle tanks that shows how he used the structure/decorations in the tank to direct the water flow.

Here it is. http://farmertodd.co...e_fish_tank.pdf

I think this is the one I was thinking about. Hope this helps.

Steve.

I have it centered against the left side wall (6" from back/front) and current is skimming the tops of the rocks aiming for the far back corner where my canister filter intake is. I Just got a lucky break yesterday. A neighbor tore down his tank & had a perfectly good 29 gallon tank with pine stand, power head, visitherm,florescent hood. out to the curb for free. It had driftwood so Im going to add the driftwood since I wanted to add java moss to the tank because of the banded darters. Figured it'd be a good replacement for the algae matts they use in the wild. One thing I have noticed, is the 8 darters & 5 fatheads, are alot cleaner fish then my africans were..lol. Then again that power head doesnt let much settle down either.

Edited by exasperatus2002, 09 January 2012 - 01:35 PM.