Catfish pairs - already?

Well, this is interesting.

The new fish haven't been in their new home for very long, but it seems the catfish have already made some important decisions.

I didn't know much about catfish (well, corydoras, specifically) until about a year or so ago when the pepper corys I had at the time decided that laying eggs on the walls of their aquarium was a great idea, and shocked the heck out of me. I'd never seen corys mate before, so I went straight into research mode.

From what I could find out, it's really quite difficult to encourage corys to mate. They're not as promiscuous as guppies - there are comments I could make about that but I'll refrain from doing so - and will only think about mating if the conditions are right. Also, of course, you need to have a male and a female who get along; I think I've mentioned before that determining the gender of catfish is not easy?

I'd only ever had two corys at a time until a few years ago when I ended up with four, then three (one became ill and never recovered). As it turned out, there was one female and two males. The female and one of the males got along really well... and eggs started showing up on the glass. Unknowingly I'd somehow set up just the right conditions for cory love; unfortunately it didn't last long. A couple months ago the male died, I suppose from old age - he would have been at least four years old - and the female passed not long after. In my research I came across a surprising fact: corys mate for life. I'm serious. They pick a partner and that's it. So I wasn't shocked when the female died shortly after her mate.

Now, back to the present. I have four catfish; I was hoping that maybe I might end up with a mix of males and females again, and after some careful observation, I think that happened. My best guess: it's equal - two males, two females... and they've already picked their partners. Caesar and Aurelia are nearly inseparable, while Julius and Augusta are never very far from each other, though not quite as close as the other two. It is behaviour I observed between my pepper corys when the eggs started showing up; the odd thing is, these corys are still quite young. My other ones were at least two years old when the eggs appeared, and I'm fairly certain these four are less than a year old right now.

Who knows? Perhaps, if the conditions are right, corys pick their mates early, but wait longer before anything happens? From my research there seems to be a lot of things we don't really know about corys and their behaviour; they don't seem to be a very popular fish to study. I'll be keeping a close eye on my four, and whatever happens I'll report it here!

Yes, I like to name my fish.

I think we've covered this topic before, but here we are again. Why? Because I have new fish, that's why!

I have been inspired by whatever weird quirks occur in my mind to name my four new catfish after Roman emperors. One slight problem: from my experiences with pepper catfish in the past, it is rather difficult to determine which ones are males and which are females, though one clue seems constant for nearly every fish species I have encountered: the females are, more often than not, bigger, and such was the case with my pepper corys. Using this as a guideline, I think I can safely say that of the four corys I have now, one is definitely a male, one is definitely female, and the other two are identical and mid-size so we'll have to wait and see.

The smallest, the male, I've decided to name Caesar. Slightly ironic, yes? The twins are Julius/Julie and Augustus/Augusta, names that can be switched from male to female or vice versa, depending on what they turn out to be (if I can ever say for sure). The largest, which I presume is female, will be Aurelia - like Aurelius. If you know your Roman history, you'll know who these names refer to... Hopefully these little guys have happier, more peaceful lives than their namesakes!

Photos tomorrow. Or, well, actually - it's 12:42am, so I guess I should say "photos later today".

Aquarium Links.

I just added a new widget to my blog, as well as doing some creative redesign; it is a links box, where I will add any websites that I have found with good information on aquariums - guppies in particular - that I think anyone reading this blog might find useful.

Enjoy!

Also, update on the new additions: they are settling in to their new home quite nicely.

The new additions!

Here they are, the new additions! Three bags, ten fish, one plant. Close up photos of the guppies coming soon, plus names. Any suggestions?

I said before the catfish are julii corydoras, but now I know that's not quite correct (the label on the aquarium was probably referring to the other corys...). I'm currently searching for exactly what kind they are, but it's slow going. Does anyone know what type of cory they are? I'm much more familiar with the pepper corys, I've had those ones forever and they always get along well with my guppies, but "Paul's" didn't have any today so I picked these guys instead.

Here's a closer photo of the plant:

It's the one in the back with frond-like leaves. I would really like to know what type it is; it's quite nice, and I'd like to get another. I've discovered a love for live plants... before I didn't think it would be a good idea to get any, for whatever reason, but now I quite like them, and I know my fish prefer them. They also help with biological processes in the water, of course.

Flashback: "Paul's", and how this all began.

Today brings the next step in establishing Atlantis Aquaria as a living aquarium, and not just a really nice water feature...

In a torrential downpour, I hit the road, determined to find the aquarium store I frequented with my father when I was just a kid. I wasn't sure if it was still open, but I hoped it would be, and after taking only a few wrong turns I found it.

The place is called "Paul's Aquarium Store" or something like that, and it's located near King George Highway in Surrey, in probably one of the least likely areas to contain an aquarium store ever. It's surrounded by warehouses, furniture outlet stores, and a "brew your own beer" place. There, in the middle of it all, is a blue sign that looks several decades old - and yes, actually, it is. "Paul's" has been there for 35 years, as I found out today. It's been about six years since I was there last, probably longer... but it hasn't changed much at all.

Walking in to "Paul's" was like stepping back in time, back to my very first experiences with aquariums. My dad bought me a 20 gallon aquarium when I was in grade two, possibly younger, and together with my sister and my mom we picked out some fish for our first community aquarium. We had blueberry and raspberry tetras, glowlight tetras, zebra danios, two Chinese algae eaters (Gyrinocheilus aymonieri), and an angel fish. I fell in love with the aquarium and the fish, and only a few years later at a garage sale I found a ten gallon aquarium for $5, complete with all kinds of supplies, and, being a very convincing child of ten years old, I talked my dad into buying it for me (I have much to thank my father for... he has been the one encouraging me in this hobby the most).

Once that 10 gallon aquarium was set up, my dad took me back to "Paul's" and I entered with a mission. I'd been doing a lot of research, reading all the aquarium books I could find, and one day in my elementary school's library I found an old, small, battered book titled "Fancy Guppy". Intrigued, I borrowed it and read the whole thing three times in a row. I'd reach the end then flip back to the beginning and read it again. I was in love. I would stare at the photos and admire this small, beautiful fish... Soon, I was searching libraries for any books that even had just a few pages about guppies, and within a few weeks I was nearly an expert in all things guppy - or, well, I thought I was. Quite knowledgeable for a ten year old, anyway!

So my plan, as a nine year old, was to get a guppy and start my own little breeding operation. My dad was cautious about this, so he only let me get one male and one female guppy. This first acquisition was not particularly successful - the male didn't live very long, but the female did; after about a week I noticed she was growing rather large, and I told my parents that she was pregnant and would have babies. Neither of my parents really believed me... until the day we found several tiny fish swimming in the aquarium.

And that's how it started.

I convinced my parents to let me get more guppies, and from then until about six years ago I always had at least one dedicated guppy aquarium with guppies of all ages; I wasn't inclined toward controlled breeding - hey, I was a kid, and preferred to let nature do what nature does best. Also, after reading about all the different steps involved in proper breeding, I decided that that was just a bit too much work for a kid. When I was twelve my hobby had expanded to three aquariums, where I experimented a bit with separating strains and removing the young ones when they were a few weeks old from the breeding tank and putting them into their own aquariums. When my guppies were old enough, I would take them to local fish stores and sell them - made a nice amount of money from that, too. Through these years I slightly inadvertently ended up with my own guppy strain, of which I was quite proud. I searched guppy strain databases online to see if this coloration was unique, and as it turned out, it was. My guppies were mostly red, but with a snakeskin-like design on their bodies in shades of luminescent yellows, greens, blues and purples, and their fins (particularly the tails) were mottled shades of red, yellow and purple. They were amazing - or at least I thought so. The males were perfect - slim bodies, huge tails and long fins; the females were nicely proportioned, their bodies in shades of pale yellow and grey, with slightly larger than usual vibrant red tails. I had never seen guppies like them before. Eventually, however, life intervened; I hit high school and discovered the stress and time consuming madness of classes and homework, and at the same time my parents decided to start major house renovations. There was no longer any room for my three aquariums.

It was a sad day when I packed up all my guppies and took them to the aquarium store called "Fishworld", which had opened recently up the street from my house. I had sold guppies to them before and so it made sense that the rest of my stock should go there. It was tough, giving away everything I'd been working on for so long... but I knew, some day, they'd be back.

Less than a year later, I seized the chance to bring my guppies home. I had been out for a walk and happened to stop in to Fishworld, and to my surprise and great happiness, I found several guppies in an aquarium near the back of the store that were identical to my beautiful red strain. I remembered that nearly half the guppies I'd sold to Fishworld were still only a few weeks old at the time, and so it made sense that here, hidden at the back of the store, were my guppies - grown up and stunning.

It didn't take very long for me to decide that they had to come home.

I bought a small 5 gallon aquarium that I set up in my room, and once that aquarium was up and running, I went back to Fishworld and bought back my guppies. I have been keeping them in my room ever since, adding a few to keep the gene pool healthy, selling a few; a couple years after this first small aquarium I acquired another one, and for a while had two operating. Soon, however, problems started showing up: the aquariums were too small (which is why I bought the second one, but even then there wasn't much room), it was very difficult if not impossible to find replacement filter cartridges for the specific filters for these aquariums (which led to me buying new filters instead of new cartridges - not the best plan financially), and despite being small the aquariums were in awkward positions to clean, and maintenance was a problem.

When I first saw my guppies in Fishworld after so long apart, I made a plan. Having the small aquariums was the first step in the plan of re-establishing my guppy hobby, but the long term goal was to retrieve the 10 gallon aquariums from their places in storage and have them back in operation. This is what I did last week - fighting off giant spiders and all kinds of other creepy things, I moved one of the aquariums from the garden shed, made sure it was still in good condition, cleaned it out (no soap, of course), set it up, and started this blog.

Today, I went back to "Paul's".

It looked nearly the same as when I was last there, more than six years ago. They had set up new tanks and now have a larger selection of fish, but the general atmosphere of the place is the same. I thought it was quite fitting that I should go back there at this, the new beginning of my guppy hobby. I browsed the tanks, seeing the familiar labels; I chatted with the lady working there, and told her I remembered the place from years ago. I was pleased to find the quality of the fish was just as good as I remembered, if not better, and I left with four julii catfish, four female guppies, two males, and a nice plant - photos to follow.

These fish will be the first occupants of Atlantis; within the next day or two, once I'm satisfied the water quality between Atlantis and the old aquarium are close enough not to shock my old guppies when I make the transfer, they will join today's new acquisitions in a nice, bright new home. The old 5 gallon aquariums will be decommissioned and join the others in storage, waiting for the time when I'll need them again - whenever that might be.

Now, if you made it all the way to the end of this long, long post, you will know pretty much everything there is to know about my history with guppies. If you follow this blog (I promise, this will be the longest post! I won't ever write this much in one go again! It's too much!), then you'll know the present and the future of my guppies, too.

The New Aquarium: Atlantis Aquaria

Here it is: the new aquarium, which has, at 2:30am, acquired the name Atlantis Aquaria.

Don't ask why, because I really couldn't give you a coherent answer.

Anyway, it looks nice, doesn't it? So very clear and clean... the complete opposite of the old aquarium, photos of which will never, ever be seen by anyone other than myself. It is a horror I would rather not acknowledge ever happened. However, my fish don't seem to mind its awful state... Odd, but fortunate. They must be the hardiest guppies on the planet.

The lines on the glass are bubbles, formed as I poured water into the aquarium. They are nearly evenly spaced at about every 2L, which was the size of the jug I used. Yes, it took a fairly long time. For future aquariums, I must figure out a better way to do this.

I'm thinking about getting a few more plants. It seems a bit sparse at the moment... but I am cautious. There is a live plant lurking in there, it's hard to see in the photo but I will post closer images soon. It is the most ridiculously fast growing moss-like plant that floats at the surface of the water, and I have no idea specifically what type it is. I have had to prune it in the old aquarium every couple of weeks, and when I do so I only leave a few strands in the aquarium because within days, the plant has nearly covered the surface, leaving no room for my fish to access food. It's a hassle, but the guppies seem to really love this plant so I'll keep it there for them. The small bunches in Atlantis I pulled off the main plant in the old aquarium.

I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions for what else I should include in the aquarium? I'm mostly thinking plant-wise; where random decor is concerned, I have a small flower pot from the old aquarium that I will be transferring to the new one soon, probably when I transfer the fish, and after that I don't think I want to put much else in there (unless, of course, it's green and plant-like). This aquarium will mostly be the home for guppies, several corydoras, and I'm toying with the idea of including perhaps another type of fish, for variety, but I have not yet decided for sure if I want to do that.

In the beginning...

So, here it is. The first post. Momentous, I suppose.
I am writing this at 2:27am because for some absurd reason I cannot sleep and came to the conclusion that I should start a blog. Who knows how this will go, but I'm feeling fairly positive about it.

Basically, this blog is about my aquarium. While doing some research for this aquarium I noticed that there are a lot of aquarium blogs out there in cyberspace, so why can't I have one, too? It seems like a good way for aquarists - either simply hobbyists or those with more serious, professional pursuits - to share information and chat about what we like. Now seems like a good time for me to start my own blog, since I have just set up a new aquarium into which I will soon move my current fish, which I am sure will make them very happy. Who wouldn't prefer a large, well-lit, well-oxygenated aquarium over a small, crowded one with filter issues? Yes, definitely time for a change.

This new aquarium's decor theme inspired the name for this blog, as I am sure will become apparent in the photos I will post shortly... just in case any of you were wondering why I would pick such an odd name for a blog.

Also, a little thing you should know: I like my fish, quite a lot, to the point where, more often than not, I will name them. This seems like a rather ridiculous thing for someone over the age of 13 to do, but whatever. After watching them for hours and seeing their different personalities, how could you not name them?

So, in summary. This blog will follow the adventures of my fish and myself in first the move from the old aquarium to the new, and in whatever happens next. I hope you are entertained by it all, and thank you for taking the time to check out my blog!