Hi, and welcome to the online home of my newest obsession! You're either extremely interested in this, or extremely bored, but either way I'm glad you came along! Here are some details for your reading pleasure:

Aquarium start date: April 1st, 2008
Aquarium size: 28 gallon bow-front
Aquarium substrate: blue & red gravel plus assorted weird plastic stones, all picked out by Max
Aquarium filter: Biowheel by Penguin
Aquarium filter media: Charcoal filter pads, cut to size, changed every 1-2 weeks
Aquarium day lighting: 24" Aqualight T5 Freshwater (14W x 2...1.8wpg equivalent) ~12 hours/day
Aquarium night lighting: Double blue LED moonlights (Thanks Gil!). ~14 hours/day
Plant supplements: Seachem Flourish with each water change, Seachem Flourish Excel every day at 3/4 recommended dose

Pass your mouse over any of the images, and a little menu bar will pop up that will give you the option of scrolling through the pictures or starting an automatic slideshow. Enjoy!
Aquarium Update 3/3/2010: The aquarium's doing great, and all of the pruning I did last year to destroy my staghorn algae problem seems to have encouraged the plants to grow grow grow! Everything's doing great, and I prune a big handful of leaves weekly just to keep it from becoming completely jungle-like. As you can see from the first picture, it's much more bushy than just a few months ago, and even more filled in than it was at its previous peak last July. Mr. Snail unfortunately died, but the golden mystery snail lifespan is only 18 months, so I think he lived a nice contented life. His shell remains in the tank as a tribute to his cleaning efforts. We have one addition in the form of Freddie the Gold Gourami who does a lovely job of adding color and movement to the top part of the aquarium.
  • Gold Gourami (Trichogaster trichopterus)
Aquarium Update 11/25/2009: So it's been a while since I updated the page, primarily because I've been at war...at war with the dreaded staghorn algae! Staghorn algae is a nasty critter that grows quickly on slow-growing plants and is a bitch to get rid of. It also doesn't help that algae eating fish don't like the stuff either. The infestation started as small black spots on the edges of plant leaves, and ended up as a huge nightmare of a problem, covering pretty much every leaf of every plant in the tank for a while. I spot-treated with peroxide, increased my dose of Flourish Excel, and tried prolonged blackouts with varying success. I finally ended up cutting down nearly all of my plants to healthy leaves, and I think I finally have it under control with only tiny spots remaining here and there. The plants may not be as tall as before, but they're definitely more dense than in July's pictures.

The fish are doing OK...the blackouts and constant chemical changes I think finally killed one of my tiger barbs as well as the zebra loach, but then he miraculously reappeared 3 months after I'd last seen him, looking fat and happy. Very weird! I got 2 new sunburst platies, and they're fine, but the two old ones died soon afterwards...not sure why. I also bought 2 red wag platies, and only 1 survived...again, it was probably not a great idea to be adding fish to the tank while all of this was going on, but I had this weird theory that if I could change the chemistry in the water by any means (including by adding fish) I'd make a dent in the algae content. Oh, and I got another otoclinus b/c they're so cute.
  • Staghorn freakin' algae (Compsopogon sp)
  • Dwarf Suckermouth Catfish (Otocinclus affinis)
  • Red Wag Platy (Xiphophorus maculatus)
Aquarium Update 7/5/2009: In early June I decided to take the plunge and try to make my plants happy. I more than doubled my lighting by adding a double 14w T5, and started adding a carbon source in the form of Flourish Excel. I started the dose very low, and slowly increased it, but leaves started to fall off of my cryptos a week or two ago, so I've backed off of the dose a little...the leaves might actually have been falling off because it's growing so fast everywhere else (including sending out runners for new baby plants)! Note the huge mass of untrimmed rotalas on the left, and note that they've turned pinkish-orange again up near the light. I also added 2 algae eaters and some baby tears in that right rear corner.
  • Bristlenosed Plecostomus (Ancistrus temminckii)
  • Dwarf Suckermouth Catfish (Otocinclus affinis)
  • Baby Tears (Micranthemum umbrosum)
Aquarium Update 5/6/2009: So I've trimmed the plants, and they keep on growing, with the large central crypto starting to get downright huge! I decided that the tank was stable enough, so I added 3 new fish to the mix, and they look great swimming in and out of the plants, and so far get along with everyone else just great. I finally figured out what the mystery plant is: it's a java fern! I matched up the leaves and roots with pix on the web, and did what many have suggested, and tied pieces of it onto my driftwood! Oh, and the snail problem seems to have fixed itself, or the loach finally got busy, because I only rarely find them nowadays! New problem is algae growth! It might be time for an algae eater or two again!
  • Java Fern (Microsorum pteropus)
  • Rainbow Shark (Epalzeorhynchos frenatum)
  • Sunburst Platy (Xiphophorus maculatus) x 2
Aquarium Update 4/3/2009: It's officially been one year for the aquarium, with the tiger barbs as the one and only constant! Other fish have come and gone, as have plants, but the 6 tigers are alive, happy, and fat as ever! I've let the aquarium grow on its own this month without any pruning just to see what would happen, and it's a bit jungly right now. My one annoyance has been the water sprite which grows, then the stalk dies, and it floats to the surface and I replant it...I'm thinking of getting rid of it altogether, but we'll see how it does. The loach is doing a lousy job with snail control, and I've been luring them with beans and lettuce or just squashing them as I see them...I was hoping he'd do a better job than he has been!
Aquarium Update 2/22/2009: It's been tough, but I managed to resist uploading pictures in hopes of seeing a real change over the course of the past month. When you stare at the aquarium everyday like I do, it's hard to see if anything's really growing, but as the picture below shows, everything's doing great! The Rotalas on the left are going crazy and will need to be trimmed (with the clippings replanted) soon. The water sprite's not growing as fast as I thought it was going to, but that's OK...the right side is pretty well balanced now. The Cryptos are all getting nice and bushy, and I clip off grungy-looking leaves once a week or so. And I finally did it! I went out and got myself a zebra loach to handle the snail problem!
  • Botia striata (zebra loach)
Aquarium Update 1/24/2009: The Lilaeopsis all finally died, but I went on a shopping spree and filled out a lot of the remaining space...woohoo! Also added 2 new fish to color up the tank a bit.
  • Ceratopteris thalictroides (water sprite)
  • Cryptocoryne walkeri (lutea)
  • Cryptocoryne wendtii (variety 'tropica')
  • Swordtails (Xiphophorus hellerii) x 2
Aquarium Update 1/13/2009: Unfortunately the last of the Glo-fish died, but everyone else seems happy and healthy. My plants are doing well with the exception of the Lilaeopsis, which are looking a little puny...apparently my light isn't strong enough for most of the carpet plants...oh well, that's what makes aquascaping so much fun! I've added 2 new plants, finally getting rid of the last of the plastic plants. I've been adding Flourish mineral supplement twice a week, and the white-tip problem is gone! As always, more details underneath each photo.
  • Rotala rotundifolia
  • Vallisneria gifantea
Aquarium Update 1/3/2009: The aquarium's been chugging along fine for many months now, with a bunch of happy fish swimming among plastic plants. Recently I made the move to live plants, and it's now my latest addiction! Here's a listing of my flora and fauna, with more details available on the photos themselves:

Animals:
  • Tiger barbs (Puntius tetrazona) x 6. These guys have been in the tank from day 1, and have survived a week-long power outage. They tend to be shy, & hide from the camera flash
  • Xray fish (Pristella maxillaries) x 2. These two used to be out and about all the time, until I put in the live plants, and then they totally fell in love with the Limnophila, and hide behind it all the time, coming out only to eat...it's weird and annoying.
  • Albino bronze cory catfish (Corydoras aeneus) x 2. I love these guys! There used to be 4, but one died a few months ago which means more hoovering action from the 3 that are left
  • Zebra danios (Danio rerio) x 1. I had 4 of these, all the "Glofish" genetically altered variants, but recently 3 died, and my last one isn't looking too hot either.
  • Golden mystery snail (Pomacea bridgesi) x 1. Known as Mr. Snail, this guy has totally cleaned my tank, and eats anything and everything he can find (including dead fish)
  • Ramshorn snails. I don't have any pictures of these, mainly because I squash all of them I can find (leaving them for Mr. Snail and the catfish to clean up). They came with one of the plants unfortunately, and I can't seem to get rid of the buggers. Apparently they can asexually reproduce when they're only a couple of weeks old, so the little ones hide somewhere, and I get to them when they get to be the size of a small pea. My plan is to buy a loach of some sort (whenever the parasite issue is figured out/burned out) which should take care of the baby snail situation once and for all
Plants:
  • Limnophila hippuroides
  • Lilaeopsis Brasiliensis
  • Bacopa caroliniana
  • Bacopa monnieri