2 Gallon Hexagon

I cleaned up my hexagon tank just a bit. The bulb was changed from an incandescent to a compact fluorescent spiral. It's warm white 2700K, the plants love it, I see them pearling after a few hours into the photoperiod.

I got rid of the floating anacharis and put it in my fancy guppy breeding tank. I also trimmed the hygrophila difformis since it's starting to put out leaves in the submersed form, I originally got it with emersed foliage. The guppies get to have more space to swim in. The inhabitants are MTS snails and wildtype "feeder" guppies. I like these little guys, I hate how people overlook them and use them as feeders instead. They are really neat fish and inexpensive too. The colony in that tank seems to have its own population control, it never gets too crowded. They only have a couple of fry at a time, never over 5, and they occasionally eat their young. Also, by the time the surviving fry grow to adulthood, the older worn females fade away. The males seem to live a little longer than the females, but the same thing happens to them.

Over the one year that his tank has been set up, I have seen many color variations. Different colors and patterns pop up every few weeks. At the moment there seems to be a lot of males with a peacock eye on the upper part at the base of the tail. If you have an empty tank, give these guys a chance. I'm sure you'll fall for them just like I did a few years back. It's fun to watch a colony change over time and best of all you can also learn a little about genetics. You can sometimes even predict to precision what traits will show up next. Here's the tank:

Hygrophila difformis

Hygrophila difformia and duckweed. Also shown is my DIY CO2 diffuser.

Poecilia reticulata, male

Poecilia reticulata, male

Poecilia reticulata, male

Poecilia reticulata, males. Notice the males with the "peacock eye" on the upper left.

Thanks for reading.