Back!

Ok, so I tried moving my blog ages ago. I did, but then did nothing with it. So I'm back here!! Yay :D

Things are going well!! It's been over a year now that the tanks have been going and we've added 4 fish to our family and moved my 9 year old, now 10 year old, not longer very gold - goldfish Cosmos into the house.

I must mention we did also have the addition of Cydon, the red capped oranda and also two panda goldfish, sadly all of which never made it out of quarantine =(

So, what's new? Not much, the fish - Cosmos, Voodoo, Saffron, Opus and Astral are all so big now! I've uploaded the photos of my goldfish journey to flickr - aquaoasisaquarium feel free to check it out and see the progress of my lil finsters growth :)

For example: Saffron and Voodoo, the first additions (besides Cosmos), check out their growth!!! Their shapes have completely changed!! Click to enlarge...

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Well, I found out the genders of my fish. They are as follows ...

VOODOO
the black moor

FEMALE

SAFFRON

the orange fantail
MALE

ASTRAL

the broadtail
MALE

OPUS
the white ranchu 

MALE

COSMOS
the white and orange nymph
MALE

How's that? out of 5 fish, I have only one female. At one stage, recently, I had Voodoo, Astral, Saffron and Opus all in my 220L tank together. Then it became apparent that some, and by some - I mean a lot of, breeding behaviour was going on, hence I found out the genders of my fish.

I've since had to separate Voodoo into her own tank. Poor love was getting really tired of being chased around by the boys. I was concerned for her health and was worried they might exhaust her to death with all the chasing.

At the moment, I'm a bit stuck at what to do. Voodoo is currently in the 70L tank until we can organise the 160L for her, most likely this weekend coming up. I feel sad for her though, Saffron and Voodoo have grown up together, we bought them home together on the same day, in the same bag!

I guess I have a few options.

1. Turn the 160L into a breeding tank for Voodoo and Saffron.

2. Get another FEMALE goldfish to share the 160L with Voodoo (but that won't be for some time yet, the newbie would have to go through quarantine etc as well)

3. Or.... I don't know? lol... I'm yet to do more research and seek help on fish forums.

My fiance and I are looking at upgrading eventually to a very large tank and hopefully by then we will have an equal male to female ratio!! (as in getting more female fish haha).

I will have to get updated photos / video of the fishlings. They are getting BIG! I was going through old photos and video and it's hard to believe they were ever so small. Their shapes have changed immensely as well, you can hardly tell they are the same fish.
 

Stay tuned.

R.I.P Cydon

I mentioned in my last post that my fiance and I had an Oranda goldie in quarantine. Unfortunately Cydon passed away on the 16th of March. It turned out that he had a vicious case of columnaris - a very aggressive fish disease.

R.I.P Cydon

Passed: 16th March 2013

When I got him I noticed a small pink blemish on his lip but thought nothing of it really, I figured he might have bumped himself on something or whatever.

Unfortunately, as you can see below, it developed into this and started eating his face away really quickly. The photos below were over 3 days. We salt bathed him and even got some antibiotics for him but sadly he didn't pull through.

The day he past, we buried him in our backyard then purchased some plants and mulch to make a garden for him. This is Cydon's Garden....

Much news!

Well, the 220L tank has been set-up for some time now. Today we added some black sand substrate as well as some of the live plants we've been growing. Below is a picture of it. The water is a bit murky due to the newly added sand, I'm looking forward to it settling. The reason we changed it was because Voodoo seemed to really enjoy sucking up the gravel/small stones, but the thing is he has gotten to the size that he could fit some of them in his mouth and I was worried it would only be a matter of time before he got one jammed!

Opus is growing fast! He has a little belly now!!! It's so cute haha... The photo below doesn't do it justice - It's just one I liked of him that I took today.

And here is one of Voodoo ^_^

 A big welcome to the family - Astral! Astral has been in quarantine for sometime. Last weekend we tried introducing him to Cosmos, however Cosmos didn't seem to like that idea one bit and became a bit mean. Luckily we have enough tanks that Astral can have his own for now until maybe we get him a friend? We shall see! I absolutely love Astral's fins!!

A few weeks after Astral finish his quarantine we have another fish in quarantine. He's an Oranda. The wen on his head is what made us think down the line of royalty and hence spin off name "Cyden" from Poseidon. I will get photos of Cyden once he finishes quarantine, he seems to be having issues with his mouth. I think it might be the case of mouth fungus? But I'm not 100% sure yet.

Oh! and check out the photo album page as I've updated it with new pictures!!

The new addition - Opus!!

Welcome Opus our baby white Ranchu Goldfish!! So tiny and so cute! (click the images to enlarge them)

He is entirely white besides the orange spot on his left tail fin, and a little orange above his eyes (looks like eyeshadow or something haha).

Also, check out the progress of our plants!... the left is the newest photo, right being the one from last week. The Green Foxtail (middle) has gone nuts! and the Spiralis (right) has made heaps of progress. The lily on the left will get there eventually lol...

We have also finally picked up out 220L tank setup. I've been starting to cycle it since last night, added some filter media from an established tank and also have put some fish food in there to give it a good kick start. So far pH is good, ammonia is 0.5ppm and 0 nitrate and nitrate. I haven't got a photo of our set up yet but it's the Blue Planet Orient tank and stand, which I can't seem to find a photo of online either. I'll get a photo of it soon :)

Plants!

Today my partner and I started a planted tank. This is a new venture for us, as he has never had much to do with fish and tanks before and as for myself I've kept goldfish before but never a planted tank as far as I can remember.

So we thought we'd give it a go and use an old smaller tank we had lying around in the shed. Bought some supplies as well as the plants today.

Here's some photos...

We shall see how this goes! Hopefully, when these are better established, we will put some of them in with the goldfish. In with Saff and Voo anyway, not necessarily Cossi because he'd eat the plants entirely. Saff and Voo would nibble at most I'm guessing lol.

Also, we are planning on this tank shown above to be home to a fighter/beta at some stage as well.

Growing fast!

Happy New Year! It's been just over a month since we bought home Saffron and Voodoo and they have already grown so much. They are starting to get fat little bodies on them now, so cute!

Saf' almost doesn't look like the same fish! (Compared to the photos from when we first got him).

Voodoo was a bit camera shy tonight, I couldn't get a good shot of his growth. He looks really grumpy at me here.

Cosmos is still trucking along, and I am happy to report that he no longer floats upside down due to his swim-bladder disorder. He still has floating issues but... right-way-up only now =)

This skeleton ornament was Cosmos's Christmas present from some of our family haha. It's awesome, seems to suit Cos' as well, in a cheating death kind of way.

Lastly here is Saffi in the log ornament I've put back into their tank. I can think of him saying "Ah! you found me!" that or he's just really shocked to see me... haha.

Other than that, my fiance and I may be looking at upgrading / getting another tank soon!! Depending if our local pet shop has a sale on.