Hello OVAS!

[BrownCow]

Well I found this website through the links on wetwebmedia.com (a very helpful site as I'm sure you all know).  I hope to become a member this year, so I felt I should introduce myself:

A bit about me and my fish: When I was growing we had three aquariums in the house (my father scaled back to one now).  When I was away going to University, I missed the fish, and one of my friends later donated an unwanted betta to me.  At this point I was pretty clueless about water chemistry, the needs of specific fish, etc, but I managed to keep this betta relatively content (mostly luck, I think).

Fast forward to the fall when my girlfriend and I moved to Ottawa.  I grabbed a 15g tank, canopy and heater that was sitting in my parent's basement.  The intention was to create a planted tank for mollies.  We had a few early mishaps including my girlfriend overstocking the tank before it was fully cycled, and not realizing how woefully old and inadequate the lighting for my plants was.  Luckilly our losses were minimal, and we still have two of the original mollies, plus a dozen "teenage" mollies which are currently maturing in my Dad's aquarium.

This month I've decided to step things up a notch, and I've been doing a lot of research on water chemistry and fish taxonomy.  Last week I installed a two-strip T-5 light fixture and purchased two wonderful new fish...Jordanella floridae (Florida flag fish) and Crossocheilus siamensis (the real SAE).  I found the flag fish at PetSmart Kanata Centrum and there were 4 of them in a tank with some kind of tetras, and the poor guys were getting nipped to death!  The largest floridae was missing half its caudal and a whole pectoral, with fungus growing at the stump.  Very sad to see, so I just had to rescue one of these beautiful specimens.  In just two days it has become a fabulous addition to my tank, totally passive towards the other fish, and is constantly grazing on the BBA that fringes most of my plants.

FYI: the SAEs are at PetSmart - 1547 Merivale.  They are properly labelled and all specimens looked healthy on Saturday. 

With the fish happy my main focus for now will be growing out all my plants for the "lush" look that you see in books.  The lights should help, and I'm beginning to dose with seachem flourish (previously just used the big al's plant fertilizer).

Anyway, this turned into a bit of a ramble, but I hope to become a regular at these forums as well as meetings so I wanted to tell you all about myself.  Thanks for reading!

Cheers,
BrownCow

[BrownCow]

PS: Would a dozen assorted juvenile mollies be welcome at the fish auctions?  They are the survivors of three separate litters so there are some black, silver, dalmation and several natural greenish-looking ones.

Not sure what to do with them because I won't have room for them as adults...

[charlie]

Hey Brown cow, welcome  to OVAS, happy you found us, please do look around & make yourself at home, for sure check out one of our monthly meetings, please do come up & say hi if & when you do.

[garnpet]

Welcome to OVAS and hope you enjoy your stay.

The Mollies would be more than welcome at the auction.  See the link below for more details.

http://ovas.ca/index.php?topic=24410.msg166046#new