Azedenkae's 1st 'Rubbish Bin' Aquarium, Part 1

Well, unfortunately loss the guppy today. Reason is unclear, no attention was paid to it by any other fish. It did have a very fat belly though, potentially overfed/bloated that lead to death.

Added two super green texas today. :D My first ever american cichlid was a green texas (Herichthys carpintis, not to be confused with the texas cichlid, Herichthys cyanoguttatus). A 'super' variant specifically, potentially var. Escondido. Just got two to add to this aquarium, but not sure of the collection locality. More than likely they are of mixed blood (intra-species) anyways.

So a few days ago the water got very yellow, probably a mix of tannins and myself overfeeding - no actual algal or bacterial bloom though. Expected - likely the nitrifiers are easily consuming all the ammonia and suppressing reproduction of non-nitrifiers, but all the organics would still be there in the water.

All of my pothos died off with the move for some weird reason, the new pothos are yet to be growing roots, and the potato I tried to grow got eaten (by the cichlids lol).

So I did a 95% water change because I was getting annoyed at the discoloration. Not that it was causing any issues aside from being aesthetically displeasing.

I was lazy so decided to top up the aquarium with a hose with tap water, then dechlorinate as I went along. Bad idea - the larger R. lentiginosus immediately responded badly - doing death swirls and so on. All other fish, including the smaller R. lentiginosus seemed fine though. Anyways, after dosing Prime, and a bit of panicking by them, eventually the fish recovered. Very hardy buggers these fish are. But yeah, lesson learnt - DO NOT add untreated tap water to an aquarium.

Anyways, here’s the aquarium now. :)

The move was completed. On Saturday October 1st, I initiated the move. Emptied out as much of the water as possible, leaving just about 2 gallons in a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket. Caught all the fish and placed them in there. Unfortunately because I moved the water conditioner (Prime) to the new house already, the fish had to stay in old water full of detritus. Took about two hours before I realized hey, I can run the sponge filter in the bucket, and so I did, until mid-afternoon before I drove over to the new place with the bucket fully closed. Once over, I ran the sponge filter in the bucket again. By late at night, the tank was half-filled (did not have time to fill it). I dumped the bucket of fish in and ran the sponge filter.

It's Monday (Oct 3rd) now, and the water is still not clear, but all the fish survived the transfer just fine - no signs of any issues at all.

I also decided to take the chance to re-scape the tank. Picture to be added.

So, most of the platies are now gone. Only one is left. D: Expected though. There are piscivores in the tank after all.

The other day a family member accidentally emptied all the food in the autofeeder into the tank too. Well, nothing happened, all the fish are fine. Perks of robust nitrification capacity.

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Amatitlania nanolutea and Amatitlania nigrofasciata have been transferred to this aquarium.

Preparing for a move, I have moved all plants into this tank, and removed all stones from the tank. The tank will be moved this Saturday October 1st, and will be set up at my new house then. Not expecting any issues with the setting back up process, will provide an update here for those who are interested in the impacts of moving such an aquarium though.