THE FISH
Cephus and Reesie are Pink Kissing Gourami's. According to fish folk, Kissing Gourami's can live up to 8 years in captivity. Cephus and Reesie are going to be 15!! They're the 2nd oldest pet residents in my house. I got them when they were about 2 inches long. They're roughly 8 to 10 inches long now. Like the name says, they really do kiss...
The only bad thing is they don't kiss that often. I have found that the kissing behavior has to do with dominance, and not romance, and once they work things out, they really don't kiss as often. The only time the kissing really starts up again is if you add some more Kissing Gourami's to the tank. For the longest time, Cephus and Reesie had the aquarium all to themselves but I decided they needed some friends. Now, the tank is home to several species of fish and critters including Mickey Mouse Platies, named that because the black spots on their tail resembles Mickey Mouse's head. These fish are live bearers which means, instead of laying eggs that hatch, they get pregnant and give birth to their babies! Some of my girls look like they may be "with children" so I may be a "grandma" soon, lol.
My favorite new additions are Silver Hatchet Fish aka "Letter D" fish, as my niece calls them. I used to have them many years ago when my niece was little and she thought they looked like the letter D and that's what she called them and that's what we all call them now, lol. They are actually a flying fish and can leap into the air to catch insects. Unfortunately for them, I have a top on the tank and I don't keep the tank filled to the top with water so that means no flying for them.
The prettiest additions to the tank are Neon Tetras. The red and blue coloring on them is absolutely beautiful and it's best to keep them in a school of at least 6 and it's so pretty to see them swim around. The bad thing is, they're so quick, it's hard to get good pictures of them, lol.
I also have a school of Corydora catfish. Cory cats need to be kept in a school of at least 5 and what I love most about them that if you watch them long enough, they "wink" at you. In actuality, they're just rotating their eye but it's amusing to watch.
The other fish include Black and Dalmatian Mollies and Angelfish. In addition to the fish, I also own 2 snails and 2 Dwarf African Clawed Frogs.
For those who are wondering, the tank is a 55 gallon tank. I have 2 filters running. One filter, I use carbon in the filter bag and in the other, I use an ammonia removing media in the filter bag. I've had this tank set up for 9 years and decided to completely drain it, as it was completely filthy, this year. My biggest mistake was cleaning the filters and throwing out the media bags. That meant my tank had to completely cycle again and I had a horribly high ammonia and PH spike and a case of ICH break out. I lost a few fish but I began to treat the tank with ICH medication, raising the temperature to 84 degrees, cutting back on feeding, putting in ammonia remover and stuff to lower the PH, adding Biozyme and doing daily water changes for a week. After doing all of that, the ICH was gone, the PH is lowered and there's no ammonia in the tank. Now that the tank is back to normal, I keep it at a PH of 6.6 to 6.8 with temps of 82 degrees. I do testing on the water once a week to make sure everything is in the right parameters and depending on that, I either do a once a week or every 2 week 25% water change. I don't top the tank off with water. I keep the water about 4 inches from the top as the splashing from the filters helps oxygenate the water better and it prevents the frogs and Hatchet Fish from jumping out of the tank. In addition to having 2 hood lights, I also gave a multi-color LED bubbler in the middle of the barrel decoration that looks spectacular at night. This is what the tank looks like during the day...
And this is what it looks like at night...
Here's a video of the lights in action...
I really enjoy watching my fish and I hope you enjoyed seeing pics of them. Here's some more pics of my aquarium....