Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Here fishy fishy

With all the talk of the big aquarium, this is MY aquarium. In it is a Bala Shark, 2 Black-Banded Leporinus, 1 Gourami, 1 pleckostamus, 2 black widow tetras. There's not much in the way of decoration as my fish like to either rip it up or destroy it. There are plants, though they have to be free floating. Anything planted gets uprooted. Note: My Bala is 9+ inches in length, same for the plecko and leporinus. The tank is 75 gallons. There's one other fish in the tank that I can't remember the name of and can't identify. It reminds me of the leporinus, but instead of vertical bands it has a horizontal stripe. It's also not quite as brightly colored.

2 comments:

Blake Kennedy said...

Yeah, leporinus won't leave much where you put it. Bala sharks can munch a little bit on plants when they get hungry, but I've never had any trouble with mine uprooting anything, except the occasional cabomba replanting, which sometimes they can crash into when they're being chased by my albino rainbow shark. Plecos are not a good idea with a planted tank, as I've discovered. I think their ability to eat algae tends to be a little overrated as well; I prefer a school of otos, myself, but I don't know if your leporinus would hassle them or not.

In terms of plants you might want to try, consider cryptocorynes: they root deeply and don't get uprooted, although Mr. Bala might view it as his own personal salad bar. Of course, your standard java ferns and java moss tied down to driftwood or rocks should work as well, and are too tough to be eaten by your fish.

Nice size on the bala, though. It seems as though his fins are pretty shredded; is this due to your leporinus?

Blake Kennedy said...

Thanks for blogrolling me and thanks for stopping by my little blog.

As for redirecting your bala shark, I don't know if I can suggest anything. Those are all some pretty big fish, and it doesn't look like the bala can really hide anywhere when (s)he is being harrassed. Kissing gouramis (which I think yours is) are fairly aggressive, and so is leporinus. Maybe it would be best to consider finding the bala shark a new home and finding something a little more willing to fight back when being harrassed, like a semi- or fully-mature rainbow or red-tailed black shark. We have an albino rainbow shark, and I don't think there's much that could give him a run for his money, even though he's still fairly small.

The other fish in your tank you're wondering about is a rainbow, but I'm not sure exactly what species it is. My guess is that it's a neon rainbow, but I could certainly be wrong on that count.