Archivarium 2004

[marto]

The other day I went to my LFS. in the coldwtaer section all what they had where goldfish, koi, wcmm & zebra danio.

IMO I think coldwater fish are boring cause there isnt that much selection its only goldfish, koi WCMM, danio . trhere are other coldwater fish like the weather loach but they are rare nowdays. not many shop stock em
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Martin
70 gallon tank with 11 various kind of fish
Pond with 3 goldfish

[nonamethefish]

Not boring at all-simply harder to find...thats why shops don't stock them. Their are tons of coldwater fish(this ties in to NA natives) but you will never see them at a LFS. Also, a few "tropicals" actually like cooler water.

[marto]

well what type of tropicals actually like cooler water?
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Martin
70 gallon tank with 11 various kind of fish
Pond with 3 goldfish

[nonamethefish]

A Google would pop up a list of tropicals which are fine with cooler water, and a few supposed tropicals which do best in it.

Hillstream loaches

Paradise fish

Then cool water could also mean "water at 70 degrees". I've kept kribensis in tanks where the water went down to 68 and the male still kept his breeding colors. Not too surprising, but there is no need to keep tropicals at 80 degrees for them to survive.

[dale]

Hi Marto,
That's weird, I usually find Bettas to be quite boring. All they ever talk about is their beautiful plummage."look at my beautiful fins" "Don't my fins look lovely?"
Boring!!!

If you just keep fish to look at then perhaps some fish may seem boring but there can be so much more to it than that.
Creating habitats or biotopes that accurately reproduce the fishes natural environment can be challenging and rewarding. As well, you can begin to understand the needs of different species and perhaps breed them etc... In my area the Nooksack dace and the Salish sucker are endangered and we have been active in stream restoration and reintroduction.
Also the highest prices paid for fish are for select specimens of Koi and Goldfish and some people spend lifetimes creating certain strains of fish.
Coldwater species have an added advantage as well. You don't need to heat the tanks so larger tanks can be used and less equipment is needed.
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Think like a fish

[marto]

You missed the point. Goldfish need 10 gallons to live in, why is it reestricted? cause goldfish are really messy.

for a 55gallon tank you can have either coldwater (5 commets) or tropical (more fish)

and antoher thing Bettas are TROPICAL http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/profiles/fighter.xml 75F-86F
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Martin
70 gallon tank with 11 various kind of fish
Pond with 3 goldfish

[Marcos Avila]

Right now I've got my first-ever coldwater setup, a Chinese theme tank with 6 Veiltail White Clouds, 3 Dojo Loaches and a Hillstream Loach (aka Hong Kong Pleco). "Boring" is the last word I would think of to describe this tank...it's been just as pleasuresome to watch as any and all other tanks I've maintained.

I've chosen a "back to basics" approach in terms of planting...mostly hardy species like Cabomba, Elodea and Sagittaria, simple lighting, simple sand substrate, no CO2, and a little bit of fertilization, and the aquascaping within these restrictions has definitely been another plus in the interest this tank presents to me.

BTW, during the winter the tank temperature went down as low as 8-9
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Are you a Fish-HAVER or a Fish-KEEPER?
Success with a fish/tank is measured in YEARS, not months or weeks...

[Glitch]

I have goldfish and my sister has warm water fish. Every time she visits me she comments on how she think her fish are way more boring than mine. hers just float around untill fed. Mine swim all over the place playing or searching for food, but rarely sit still and look boring.
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Glitch your mind so chaos=logic
Narf I think so Brain, but how do you tune a piano made out of spam?

[kilted]

Keep in mind too that the variety of fish for sale at your LFS compared to the variety of fish available for your LFS to sell can be very different things. Find out who orders the fish at your LFS and tell them to keep an eye on their lists for certain fish. Many fish distributers will have bitterlings, rainbow dace, flagfish, and many others on their availability lists but the LFS's rarely order these fish as they think no one will buy them. But they would probably be more than happy to get the fish in if someone specifically asks for them.

Also keep an eye out on the tanks of feeder fish and ghost shrimp at your LFS. When I worked in fish stores I can't tell you how many blue fin kilies and blue spot sunfish and other interesting fish I saw come mixed in with our feeders.

One last thing to look into is paying a visit to a bait shop. I used to have a 10 gallon tank stocked with nothing but sticklebacks all of which I found swimming around with the minnows being sold for fish bait at a local shop. So finding coldwater fish can be a bit of a challenge and require a bit of creativity, but that's half the fun in my opinion

[nonamethefish]

Marcos: you're really lucky to be able to get longfin white clouds!

Kilted: I've also found bluefin killifish in feeder shrimp tanks. I'm keeping a few bluespotted sunfish(including one pair which I hope to breed) they are really cool fish. Also, I've only got 2 heaters here so besides my experiments with baby brine shrimp and Nothobranchius killifish everyone gets water maybe 62-68 degrees at this time of year. My 46 gallon BF tank keeps montezumae swords, a single blue gularis, and a trio of American flagfish. The tank is quite active, especially the swords. My LFS gets in bitterlings on the occasion, but the price is too steep for me.