Hi,
I am very excited to find this club. I grew up with salt water tanks (lived in Hawaii where is was very easy), and after a long hiatus my husband and I are entering the fresh water world. He is German and interested in aquascaping. We currently are cycling a 30 gallon fluval flex, we have a small house without a lot of aquarium space sadly. I know I like kribensis, and my husband would like to learn to grow plants. If anyone has suggestions of forgiving plants and fish while we learn the freshwater world we would love advice.
Thanks, and nice to meet everyone!
You all should be interested too in https://gwapa.org which is our local aquatic plant club or aquascaping club.
Most livebearers and tetras and barbs could qualify as fish that are hardy for beginners, though I have been keeping them for a couple decades (well not the barbs, but that is another story). Corys catfish and the common bristlenose catfish would also fit well and help keep a small (or large) aquarium in good shape.
Thanks!!!! Just joined GAWPA
Welcome to the Club :)
Thanks!!
Welcome! Where are you Christina? DC? MD? VA?
Myhusband and I live in Silver Spring, MD
Welcome! Ditto what Frank said. Keep in mind as you start stocking that we are planning an outdoor marketplace event where you will have access to buy hardy, healthy gorgeous fish from other club members at fantastic prices. We are still nailing down the date. Normally we would have an all-day auction on the first Saturday of October. Since this will be a more informal, outdoor event we have to consider the weather balancing temperature with the hurricane threat. Stay tuned.
Some easy plants to start with would be hornwort and watersprite. I have both that I can give to you free of charge to start you off with. If we get an outdoor market place setup I could bring them to you at that time
Regards, Jim Chitty
Thank You!!! This is such a great group.
cheers,
Christina
Welcome Christina!
We've raised some nice Kribensis if you'd like some. See quick video below.
They'll rip into some plants, so for an aquascape, you'll want to do some research.
Your Kribs are beautiful!!!!! I would love to learn more about how you are treating your water, and if you have sugestions for using rain water (is it safe and does it help soften the tanks water)? My favorites are the dwarf ciclids, and I would love to venture into Kribensis and apistogrammas.
Thanks and nice meeting you today!
Christina
Thanks! It was nice to see you today! Dwarf Cichlids are our very favorites. We have a particular “crush” on the German Blue Rams (Mikrogeophagus Ramirezi). We’ve raised hundreds of them. Here’s a video on them...
Apistogrammas are nice, but because the bright red / orange and yellow ones are line-bred in the Czech Republic, they only show up in the US market once the Florida fish farms get heavy shipments. Right now, they’re very expensive and hard to come by. To trigger spawning in certain fish, we use ground water after a hard rain from our sump in the basement. Here’s a short video showing what we do...
What an amazing setup and great thing to do as a family! Your fish are amazing. I definitely would like to work toward a dwarf Vickie species tank, but am happy to learn with our little community tank right now. It looks like you had a shrimp in with the rams, do they leave them alone? Also do you ever sell your babies? Thanks for the videos!!!!
cheers,
Christina
Welcome to the club, If you are looking for a great planted tank occupant you might want to look at Neocaridina shrimp, pretty easy to keep and add very nice pop of color and will breed in to a large colony and I love watching them zoom around the tank.
Thats a great idea, we just moved some guppies into a 10 gallon tank and that may work well there. Is you tank planted?
Hello Christine,
Welcome to the club! It was very nice meeting you today at the virtual meeting.
Likewise, this group is great, I have been very warmly welcomed!