Cardinal Tetra
Cardinal tetra is a common fish seen in almost every household with a community fish tank. I believe their striking neon colors, of greenish blue and red, make them stood out quite prominently even in their hideout area. They are generally a shy fish and a school of at least a dozen created a sight to behold. Though they tend to hide in heavily planted area, unless they are hungry for food, I never get tired watching them all day.
Rummy-Nose Tetra
The last time I kept this rummy nose tetra was during my kindergarten days. It was like "eon" ago and having them in my tank rekindled those fond memories of old. This tetra mostly swam at the bottom part of the tank to pick on uneaten foods. Thus they are very much needed and will never get tired doing those chore regularly which pleases me. On top of which, they are like living water "test kit". Some findings, thru google suggest that if you see their "nose" having strong red glow, it means the water in your tank has reached optimal conditions.
Lamp-eye Killie fish
Lamp-eye is not a tetra, they are killie. I kept a dozen because they are schooling fish. They do not have colorful body but their upper "eye lid" gave out aquamarine light, akin to dozen touch shinning around the tank. This fish swam mostly at mid-level of the tank, and appear hungry most of the time until they became quite bloated with food. They may dart at water surface for floating food or tried to cause the food to sink and catch it at their eye-level, and than gobble the pellet whole.. At times, they may be moving separately in inquisitive manner, picking on moss or rock cavities.where foods were trapped. Though rummy-nose can manage the "cleaning" job, lamp-eye killie has the advantage of being agile and smaller in size on area where rummy nose overlooked. The good news came recently, when they were overfed, they rewarded my tank with dozen (or more) of baby lamp-eyes killie. The baby lamp eyes glowed like their adult fish too. Did you see it?
Nitrite Snail
I am not sure if we can trust snails (alone) to solve our tank algae problems, but they will contribute in some ways (like vacuume cleaner) for their presence in our tank and lay ugly eggs too? At least, they add as different variety of fauna in non-swimming way.
Shrimps (Amano & cherrie)
Shrimp is a must have living things in my tank. They are algae eater and speed up decomposition of organic foods or dead fish lying in forgotten area. I love to keep them in big quantity - 10 cherries (with many shrimplets scattered around) and 8 amano shrimps. In different sizes, they can roam around freely (like ants), exploring all corners where my snail and fishes could not challenge.
Mixes of Flora
My tank space is quite limited for stem plants nor do proper plantings job. I decided to let nature take its course by mixing small plants to rival each other and eventually cover up the gap among the rocks, the nature way. The effect is, it turns out quite natural looking and no less fitting to the overall rocky scape as follows:
When the night is out, all the stress of life is happily tossed away, and replaced with other activities of glowing disquiet within the tank. In life most precious moment such as this, a cup of Camomile Tea beside the night aquarium pretty sum up the longing mood.
