Before and After, progress of my 55 gallon
 

This past Sunday I had off so I finally got time to work on the tank. Just with my working every day I have not had time to do a proper deep clean of the tank and it was showing the neglect.

I spent all day Sunday scrubbing algae, making water changes, and etc. Also, in the process of cleaning I broke a filter, so ran out and got a new one. Same brand of filter so I could just put in the old filter cartridge media in. I even got to add in a few new live plants.

First picture is before, as you can see the algae on the rocks and plants. Second picture is after a few water changes and removing all decor to be cleaned. Third picture is the finished product, a bit cloudy but it has been clearing up over the past few days.

It looks great!! I'm quite jealous lol

Thank you!

I see a couple little guys swimming around, what do you keep in there?

10 Ember tetras
6 Neon tetras
6 Emerald cory cats
2 Opaline blue gouramis
3 Turquoise rainbow fish
3 Boesemani rainbow fish

I will be adding some beckford pencil fish soon too.

Sounds exciting :) I've never heard of half those, I'm still pretty much a newbie though as far as community tanks go. Lol

Community fish are nice to watch. This tank used to be semi aggressive and that is why I still have my opaline gouramis. I was able to rehome my angel fish with no problem. But so far I haven't had any problems with the gouramis.

I am lucky too since I have a real aquarium store near me. They tend to carry fish that you wouldn't see at a petsmart or petco.

I've got one pretty close to me too, that's where I get almost all of my african cichlids from :) I deal with pet supermarket a little too, they just sell them as "assorted", which is a bit of a pain, but all of their fish are health and pretty cheap too.

I mainly get my supplies from the pet "supermarkets" seems to be cheaper. I always have bad luck buying fish from there though, half the time there is a ton of dead fish in the tank.