A Flurry of Firsts

Okay, this one is a lot of firsts for me.

-First planted tank
-First heated tank
-First tropical fish (neon tetras)
-First ADFs
-First oto (not purchased yet cause he'd be hungry!)
-First sand substrate
-First thread in this forum.

My hubby and I just picked up this little baby last week. It's tiny but we wanted to make sure our 4 year old didn't perform another tank slaughter by pouring Dr. Pepper in. He was only 2 at the time... My poor poor goldfish! I loved your fantail glory while you survived!

Anyway...We got it going a bit. It's nowhere NEAR perfect, but I'm trying. I've been looking everywhere for dwarf baby tears to make a nice carpet or covered stone with but just can't seem to find them locally. I'm still a bit uneasy about seeing product before I purchase it. I want to get the plants in so I can work toward a sustainable ecosystem for them. Any suggestions from you fellow North Texans? Know where to buy healthy cuttings or suggest a better carpet moss for me? I don't have much height to work with here and java moss seems too intrusive for the tiny tank.

Dallas North aquarium Has lots of nice plants you can find just about anything there from time to time. http://www.dallasnorthaquarium.com/ check into them!

I have baby's tears! and a few other small plants that would go nicely in there! Just let me know and we can work something out.

By ADF do you mean African dwarf frogs? If so they eat fish like neons.....

Fern, I'm realizing that all the research I did before was useless. Everywhere I read it said they were fine in a neon tank! We came home from buying our oto and a few more neons only to find one of the little ladies we had dead. Ph was fine, water temp was fine, no bloat or glassy eyes...99% sure the ADFs (yes, african dwarf frog) smashed into her and stunned her to death thinking she was food. They're still too small to eat the neons so she just floated there for a few hours. QQ And now I have a bag of fish I'm reluctant to let loose in the tank. They're acclimating now while the sand from our new plants and pot settle and I frantically research some more.

I did some more research based on what plantedtankdude mentioned in my introduction post. I didn't realize dwarf baby tears needed so much light! Well, good we didn't order them before. I bought the rest of what we need today plus three small plants. One hydrilla because apparently they're perfect for our lack of light. I expect to be pruning often. We also grabbed a couple of tiny succulent looking clusters because they were free with our hydrilla purchase. I can't find any info on the breed online so I'm going to charge the camera and make a "what the heck is this thread" later. ha

Well, one of the new ones died shortly after we dropped them. The rest seem to be thriving, but that's two in one day. I starting to really worry about them all. The levels all look fine...Maybe the transfer shocked her to death? I don't know. *sigh* I feel so shoddy when they pass on like that.

Dovie Neons are from a low PH area are are really sensitive to water changes so not to worry about the deaths during new introductions. You say a succulent plant. LFS have a tendency to sell non aquatic plants that will just die and foul up your water so know what plants you are getting.

The neon's have been coming in in pretty bad shape lately, you may have better luck with cardinal tetras.
I think the importers are cutting way too many corners on harvesting and shipping neon's right now....

and cardinal tetras look better then neons

What a relief to know that this isn't exclusive to my tank! PHEW! I'll try the cardinals (my second choice) if the neons don't work out.

The succulent I think is semi aquatic. They're beautiful so I'll be watching them closely. If they aren't thriving I'll pull them out and plant them in the extra terracotta pots we bought. They came in stacks of six and we needed one. I figured they would probably be a trick even though they were in the aquatic plant tank. I knew the hydrilla would be fine since it was one I'd considered for height.

If you want plants advertise on forums to other hobbyist with planted tanks as they can send clipping cheaper and better plant IMO.

That's the plan for the future, FishVixen.

Very few neons are WC. Most neons are breed and grown in the Hong Kong area. PH isn't a major concern. The PH in the Amazon is so low that your test kit won't read it. Low PH means less bacteria.

My strangely efficient heater and a faulty thermometer seem to be to blame. We lost another little lady on Friday. When I went to pull her out I noticed the tank was WAY too warm despite reading 78 on the thermometer. A new heater seemed to have done the trick. The water's temp has dropped noticeably and everyone's a lot more active. The three new neons we picked up seem to be thriving as well.

We've decided that if anymore die we won't be replacing them until we know the tank is completely ready. Like six months from now. I can't bear to see dead animals, especially those that die of my own fault. >.<

Hello Sometimes our starts have a few difficulties! You are going in the right direction to get accurate information here. Don't let this set back get you discouraged.

It happens from time to time, don't get discouraged!

I'm not discouraged, just guilty feeling! eek

Oh, I really want to get pics of the lady of the house soon. We managed to get a female neon with the first pair we bought. She laid eggs that night from stress I'm assuming. I was worried she would die because of the stress and eating like a mad woman she's very food aggressive. She's taken over the tank! She's the largest and most active. Out of all the neons, she's the only one I've really taken notice of so far.

Salacia (our smaller frog) is very active and hates when you look in the tank. She sees you move and turns to give you the stank eye until you leave. haha

I'm so used to my old goldie Spot, who was full of spunk and would stare down the dog for hours, that I was a little disappointed in the activity of our current tank. Now the personalities are coming out and I'm much happier.