I have become a bit bored with my tank, not only do I want to completely redo it, but I think want different inhabitants as well.  I have been considering discus for a long time.  The fish store  I worked at gets fairly healthy young discus in that do fine in our water, despite the pH being a bit high for what is normally acceptable for discus.  My only concern is that my tank is only 13" wide.  It is a 60 gallon tall tank.  I have seen some rather large discus so I'm not sure te tank is wide enough for them at adult size.  I suppose I probably have some time before they got huge though.  I would do a planted tank, as I love live plants and maybe 6 young discus and keep my rasboras and botias.  As the discus grew, I would keep which ever 2 paired off I think.  I don't think a 60 gallon is big enough for 6 adult discus for sure.  Is a 60 gallon even big enough for 2 adults?  I know people breed them in much smaller tanks, but I am wanting a display and I want for my fish to be comfortable and have decent lives.  They are more like pets to me.  My concern is that in such a narrow tank they won't have room to explore and entertain themselves. 

A new study shows that mosquitoe fish (similar to guppies) can count up to four.  I wonder how high cichlids can count then?

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/26/eafish126.xml

On several of my aquatic plants the older, outer leaves are dying off and if I look in the center, new leaves are growing in:)  I think I will go through and just cut off a bunch of the older leaves before they have a chance to die and rot in my tank.  It may make my tank look a little bit more bare than usual, but I think it will be healthier for the plants and the tank for me to do so.  It might even encourage faster growth:)

On another note, I am hoping that with spring approaching my characodon lateralis "los berros" will spawn.  I have had the heater turned down to 70*F most of the winter, as I was advised to cool them down a bit for winter to encourage spring and summer spawning.  In a month or two I will knock it up to 74*f or so.  I am sadly only left 3 juviniles, who now appear to be old enough to possibly start spawning.  The males are starting to get a red hue to them (adult males are red, juvies are a grey color) and the lone female is actually a bit bigger than the males are.  I have seen both of the males making attemps at courting the female, and their is usually at least one male near her at all times.  I think I am going to remove my harlequin rasboras, as they would try to prey on the fry for sure.  I think my botias will be safe with the fry, they have fairly small mouths and goodeid fry are usually quite large.  

For the last 3 days I have fed my fish in the same spot and about the same time.  Already they  have learned to hang out there and weight for food.  Even my normally elusive peckolita is sitting near the spot I have been feeding.  I've seen some videos of people who have managed to "train" their fish to do certain things, such as syngronized dancing, or to ring a bell, or move a small ball through a hoop in the water.  It is usually goldfish or larger cichlids that are used for these antics, but it seems that even rasboras and catfish can learn:)

I am getting a tad tired with the look of my tank and want to change it.  I want to change my substrate to ammazonia II and I want to change some of plants.  I even would like to maybe change some of my driftwood.  Want is a funny thing though, I can want things and not be able to obtain them for various reasons.  The easiest thing for me to change at this time would some of the plants.  I have 3 fairly big amazon swords that I think I might replace with saggitaria.  I have dwarf sag. in the foreground and I think replacing the big swords with a tall sag would help tie the look in together more.  I also might add some kind of smaller, redder sword (to contrast against the green of the sag) as well some crypt. balanese, which grows nice tall and has a nice dark green to it.  None of my plants currently reach the top of my tank (except when my lilies send out floating leaves), so I want to get some that will hit the top.  Overall I think I am going for a bit of a "grassy" look, where as right now I have more broad leaved plants.

This week I am pet sitting for a friend of mine.  Among his various animals he has a livebearer tank which includes montezuma swordtails.  I am now enthralled with these swordtails.  They are gorgeous, much, much nicer than any of the overbred hybrids you find in petstores.  They are mottled colored (black and white) and the males have an extremely long sword.   I think I may need to add some to my tank:)  Aquabid, here I come!

I have an overgrowth of duck weed in my tank (whats new) but lately it hasn't looked great, and I have noticed my fish constantly going up to it.  I took a look at it and there are these little bugs living on it.  I think they kind of look like mites, maybe?  What ever they are my fish love to eat them and they seem to be killing off some of my duck weed (yay!). 

Fluvals

I have . . . well, had . . . been a fluval canister enthusiast for a long time.  They do a good job, catch lots of debris and work efficiently.  They are however a pain to use.  I always have had a hard time priming them.  If I was lucky enough water would catch in the hoses that it would prime itself once I hooked them back on and opened them up, however if the hoses need cleaning I was in for a good long time of pumping.  Well, last week I finally had it.  After trying to get the filter to prime for a good hour, taking it apart, putting it back together, pumping, filling it firt, trying it empty, trying to tilt it to get air out . . . I just had a enough.  I called up my good old LFS and talked with them and they agreed to let me bring it in and they would give me a little bit of store credit for it, and resale it for cheap to someone who wanted to play with it. 

Decisions

Now it was time to make a decision, what kind of filter do I want?  I wanted a canister filter, I like having them stored under the tank and I like that they don't make a lot of water noise from the return.  I also wanted one that would be quiet as the tank is in my bedroom.  I wanted one that was easy to take apart and clean and easy to prime.  After reading different boxes and talking to a few different employees on their experiences I decided on a rena filstar XP2.  I made my purchase and went home.

Rena Filstar XP2

The XP2 does up to 75 gallons according to the manufacturer.  Normally I probably would have gone one more size up (my tank is 60 gallons) but the store was out, and I don't really need the extra filtration as I only have small fish now. 

Setting Up

Setting up the filter was overall very easy.  The only trouble I encountered was getting the flexible tubing over the pipes.  It involved hot water and a lot of pushing on my part, but once they were on everything else was easy.  At least I know the tubes are on nice and tight!  Everything else was easy to assemble and get on.  There are two different choices for the return flow, a spray bar or just a spicket type pipe.  You can also attach a peice that has a flow adjuster, or you can leave it off.  I was dissapointed that there does not seem to be a way to put the return down at the bottom of the tank.  The intake tube allows you have different lengths, but each section is about 4 to 5 inches long, so my intake is a bit higher than I would normally like it, but that is a small price to pay for the ease with which everything went together.  Overall I am very pleased with how easy it was to put together.

Priming

Priming was a breeze!  Once all the hoses are hooked up, you twist off a cap from the top of the intake and pour some water in.  Once the water has filled the hose you recap the top, open the tubes to the canister and water wonderfully flows into the filter and fills it.  According to the directions you wait 2 minutes to ensure air has left.  I found after 2 minutes a tiny amount of air was left in the filter, gently tipping it to the side got it out.  Then I plugged it in and it ran beautifully.  I was surprised at how powerful it was, generally I have found that filters are usually not quite as strong as the box would lead you to believe, however this one was better than I expected. 

After A  Week

After a week of running I am still pleased with my rena filstar XP2 filter.  It is running silently and seems to be catching a lot of debris.  I love that it is clear and you can see into it.  The fluvals have always been dark so you never new what state it was in.  This one I can see wether it needs to be cleaned rather than guess.  The flow is still going strong, infact I had to turn it down just a bit. 

Review

So far I really like the rena, it seems to work good and most of it was easy to assemble.  The only bit of trouble I had was getting the tubing over the pipes, but once they are on there they shouldn't need to come off for a good long time.  Priming was a breeze.

So far so good!  I will report back in a month on how it was to clean!

 Fluval image from: http://www.fishtanksdirect.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1006

Rena image from: http://www.aquatichouse.com/FILTRATION%20MENU_files/Filstar.asp

Since I decided not to breed the killi fish anymore due to lack of space (and gave them to a friend) I finally went about the task of taking down the tank.  While taking it down I found 9 fry!  I knew there had been a couple, but didn't know that any had still been alive, much less that there were 9.  They are all in good shape too.  Daphnia had taken off in the tank and the fry must have been feeding on the daphnia.  Since I no longer have angelfish in my big tank, all I have are botias, characodon lateralis (rainbow goodeid), harlequin rasboras and an peckolita species unkown I put the fry in there.  I have seen at least 3 at a time since I put them in, so at least some are surviving.  They were all I think big enough to not get eaten easily.  I also put the water from the 2 gallon into the 60 gallon to see if the daphnia would breed and make a population in there.   It will be interesting to see if the fry make it.