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Well, I got my snails! I added about 25 MTS yesterday, and most of them have disappeared into the sand. My plants are establishing themselves and things are looking good. I've even borrowed a camera so that I can show you guys pictures of my setup.

Still haven't 100% decided on my stocking yet. I've done some looking, though, and I've found someone who sells proven pairs of j. transcriptus. I've emailed him, but no response yet.
As cool as a tank full of caudopunks would be... I'm just so enamoured of the idea of more than one type of fish. I've bought sand and more shells for my 10 gallon quarrantine tank, though, in case it doesn't work out. Whatever I end up with, I'll probably use the quarrantine tank as a grow-out tank for eventual fry.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I've finally got pictures of the new tank:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/p1010047.html

You can see a bunch of the MTS that seems to be doing okay in there so far, and they're keeping algae at bay, which is wonderful! I plan to add several more shells, but I think that most of the ones I ended up with are a bit small.
And more good news! I think I've decided (finally) on the species that will live here. Hopefully within the next week or so, I'll be introducing 4-6 caudopunks! /:'

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Pictures finally I really like it a lot, good job

I'm not sure how punks are with sand. If they're like some of the shellies be prepared for your plants to be uprooted.

I've been doing some rearranging here...I really wanted to add some shellies to the 29g. It was a big choice between punks and occies. I decided on the occies since they're strictly 'shells'; I didn't want any issues between the punks, julies and calvus. And I got lucky with some very good-colored occies

Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack your thread Looking forward to seeing pics of the fish

Forgot to ask: are you getting your fish locally or online?

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There is water at the bottom of the ocean

illustrae

That looks very good!

Most shellie tanks I have seen are just sand and shell which IMHO doesn't look very nice. You did a good job adding the mound with the crypts. It adds something nice to look at. I'm interested in seeing how your fish turn out.

Rick
See all my pictures at Google Web Albums

Theresa_M:
Thanks! I saw your recent pictures, and your community tank looks fantastic! Do you get fish locally or do you order them?
I'll be ordering mine, probably from one of the links you provided earlier in the thread. Wet Thumb Aquatics is looking good and will be my first stop.
I figured that the small crypts in front might get uprooted regardless of what I put in there. The taller crypts are all in pots that I had siliconed rock bits to and put rock on top of the laterite they're planted in, so hopefully that will keep the fish from tearing those apart. Everything else is tied down and slowly growing out, so I have high hopes for the look of this tank in the future. I'm also hoping to avoid the kind of algae problems I've seen in a lot of african tanks by keeping as many plants as I can sucking up the nitrates in there. I've already seen some trying to move in on the anubias, but fortunately the snails are still alive and munching away at it.

slickrb:
Due to the height of the tank (I got a 20 high, rather than a 20 long) I wanted to take up more of the vertical space, since most shellies tend to stick pretty close to the sand, so I started building the rockpile (it's actually 3 seperate columns of siliconed-together rock and ceramic caves that will disassemble easily and come out more easily than one huge pile), but when I was done, I'd taken up almost half of the floorspace that would have been covered with shells. That was a big part of my decision to go with Caudopunks who are known to stake territories in caves and rockpiles but spawn in shells in captivity. Hopefully there's enough broken up space in there for good territories and I can get a colony going that mostly gets along.


I should be getting more shells in this week, and next week I'll be ordering fish!

I just got news that the funding for my job is being yanked, so I'm super-glad I mostly-finished this project before getting that awful news. It looks like the rest of my aquarium projects I wanted to start this summer will be put indefinitely on hold...

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

The potted plants are definitely a good idea

Unfortunately I ended up with BGA in 3 of my shellie tanks...just adding some floating hornwort made a big difference.

My last fish order included calvus, occies, stapps and multies...that was the second time I purchased from Wet Thumb, no problems at all

Sorry to hear about your job/money situation Keep us posted how things are going though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

I was going to wait until I had pictures, but a few weeks ago I finally got my fish! A total of 10 neolamprologus caudopunctatus. I have two definite pairs, a lone male trying to assert dominance over the whole tank, and the rest are quite a bit smaller, so those five will probably be removed soon.
They havn't done a lot of rearranging, so all of my plants are still in place and doing well. They've buried the shells a bit to make the openings smaller. These fish are still all less than 2 inches long, so the shells I got were all a bit too big for juveniles. They don't seem to mind. In fact, the two pairs and the lone male have all taken over the three largest shells in the tank.
They were all pretty skittish for the first few days, but they're all doing quite well now, even coming all the way up to the surface to eat. Selecting foods has been a bit of a challenge in itself. I originally bought some cichlid flakes and some cichlid pellets. However, I think the flakes are mostly meant for cichlids with a mostly veggie diet, as my little guys aren't all that interested in the spirulina flakes. They also have a hard time with the tiny pellets, though that may change as they get a bit bigger. So for right now they're getting tropical flakes and bloodworms, just like all my other fish. So much for special foods...

Overall, I'm absolutely thrilled with these fish. It will probably be a while before any breeding happens, but even so, they are facinating to watch. They develop a very stark checkerboard pattern when they show agression (or stress). They aren't hanging out much in the rockwork, unless I startle them when I come up to the tank, but I think it helps separate their territories and makes them feel more secure.
I'mm getting quite a bit of brown algae on the glass, and while it's easy to get rid of, I wonder if there's anything I can do to prevent it in the first place. Water changes are still a bit stressful... For me! I'm so worried about altering their water chemisty too much, or sucking up all the sand and such. I think just practice will alleviate that.
I do promise to have some pictures soon, probably next week!

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

Congrats on the fish, and the pairs as well! Where did you end up purchasing them?

I don't bother with flake for any of my cichlids. For the smaller fish (shellies, juvie calvus, etc) I feed NLS Grow. For variety I crush larger pellet-type foods, not into a fine powder but into a size they can handle.

My multies were not fully-grown when I got them and they had their first batch of fry 2 months later.

Very much looking forward to seeing some pics

~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is water at the bottom of the ocean

It's been a lot longer than I'd hoped to finally show pictures of my little Tang. tank with fish in it, but I finally got some. The plants themselves are doing well, and the fish aren't digging them up at all so far, so I'm very pleased with that. The anubias are very susceptible to algae, so a lot of the leaves have a brown/green/black layer on them that the snails have a hard time keeping up with, but they keep putting out new healthy leaves, so I can't complain too much. I have a bunch of floating wisteria in there at the moment that I mostly just threw in so I'd have a place to put it for the time being, and to add some cover for the fish while they were getting used to their surroundings. Now it's just kindof in the way and blocking a lot of the light which is probably contributing to the slight brown algae problem I'm having on the front glass. The sand, however, is staying remarkably clean. Either I'm extremely lucky, or the snails (who i never see anymore since I put the fish in) are doing a remarkable job.
Anyway, enough of my rambling... Here's a shot of the whole tank as it looks now:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/p1010055.html

And here's the best picture I've been able to get so far of one of the little Caudopunks:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~illustrae/Aquaria/pictures/p1010060.html

He's the lone male, and the largest of the fish, at nearly 2 inches. His shell is in the front center of the tank, while the two pairs have their shells in both front corners. The others are generally smaller and tend to hang out in back of the rockwork or in the upper regions of the tank. I haven't noticed a great deal of aggression that I expected from the pairs and the lone male. While they do chase the other fish away from their territories, they do not chase them down and attack them. There are no ragged fins that would indicate this kind of fighting. Perhaps in another month or two when fry are more likely I will see increased aggression. Overall, I am thrilled with how this tank has progressed and look forward to watching these fish grow.

I'm also currently in the process of setting up my 10 gallon with sand and shells, either for fry, or if I'm too impatient, getting a couple of brevis... You'd think this was an addicting hobby or something.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

I Have Fry!!!

I think they just hatched yesterday or the day before. They are the size of pin-heads. I think one of my other pairs (there are possibly 4 pairs in this tank now) is also guarding eggs. I just got a new 10 gallon last week that I'm going to set up for the fry to grow out in, after I figure out how to get them out of the main ank, that is...

I have a lot of reading to do...

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...