So as some of you may know I have plans to get 2 125s for my tank rack. I currently do not have enough money for the second so it will have to wait until winter.
Quick rant you can skip if you want, in my quest to get 125s for myself, I find myself digging deeper into my questions as to how people can just buy and bastardize 125s as easily as they do. Being a relatively common and accessible tank size (accessible as in, you can buy one from a petsmart, ignoring costs), I can understand why it's a go to for people looking to upgrade their fish. But it's always the same fish. It's always a pair of oscars that used to be in a 55 or something, a bunch of goldfish someone bought from the fair that somehow lived long enough to attain some size, or angels. I've even seen all three at once, on MULTIPLE occasions. Sometimes there's a severum, sometimes there's a bala shark, sometimes it's just a random mix of peacocks or petsmart strain mbuna. Maybe even a largemouth bass some kid caught. But 90% of them have little to no substrate, fake decor, and are cloudy as sh*t. Sometimes they're just empty. I even had a folder full of pictures of awful 125s a few years ago. I don't understand how you can spend almost a grand on a single tank and pull that bs. I don't understand how those fair goldfish people go from spending $5 on a bucket of balls to throw in a fish bowl at the fair to spending a grand on a tank for them, just to keep the tank exactly like they kept the bowl or 10 gallon they had the fish in before. I can count the number of nice 125s I've seen on my hands. I'm buying my first 125 from an lfs brand new without a stand or lids or lights or anything, and that's $550. The LID is $100. The biggest kick in the d*ck in this whole transaction however, is the fact that I have to pay $40 in sales taxes on top of all of that.
Anyway, that aside, I already know what I'm doing with the first 125, I don't remember if I've already said my plans with regard to that individual fish, but I've definitely mentioned it on here before. I won't say it again though, you'll just have to look out for the thread when it pops up in the next few weeks. The second 125 however, I am a little on the fence about. I have two options. Either I do a rio sucio biotope, with amatitlania septemfasciata (x6), cribroheros rostratus (x5), and hypsophrys nicaraguensis (x2), or I do a non biotope US native tank, with the intergrade longears I catch around here, luxilus cerasinus, and some other fancy colorful native fish. Both would be entertaining to me. The latter will cost $2-300 less than the former.
Rio sucio:





Native tank:





The darter is just a hypothetical. I don't actually know what darter I'd get, if any, but I would like some if I did go with this scape. I used etheostoma obama as an example in this visual. I don't even know the legality of it, but it would be pretty funny to have one of the (two) obama fish.
Pros and cons of each:
sucio pros:
cool breeding behavior in everything
bucket list tank
I get to be one of 4 known people breeding the sucio septemfasciata
cons:
can't put any little dither type species
additional $200 on top of the $700 tank
everything might be a bit crammed at full size
native pros:
cool breeding behavior in everything
free
everything fits
cool variety of species of different sizes and niches
don't need to buy a heater
cons:
some species might be illegal but I'll figure that out later (before getting them of course)
have to drive 4 hours to collect luxilus and chrosomus (cost is now gas money)
might need those blue chubs/sucker things to build mounds for the shiners/dace to show breeding behavior (I don't know if they're legal to keep/might be too big for a 125 too)
Seems like a pretty cut and dry choice, but I'll let you weigh the pros and cons. If you've made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this.
Quick rant you can skip if you want, in my quest to get 125s for myself, I find myself digging deeper into my questions as to how people can just buy and bastardize 125s as easily as they do. Being a relatively common and accessible tank size (accessible as in, you can buy one from a petsmart, ignoring costs), I can understand why it's a go to for people looking to upgrade their fish. But it's always the same fish. It's always a pair of oscars that used to be in a 55 or something, a bunch of goldfish someone bought from the fair that somehow lived long enough to attain some size, or angels. I've even seen all three at once, on MULTIPLE occasions. Sometimes there's a severum, sometimes there's a bala shark, sometimes it's just a random mix of peacocks or petsmart strain mbuna. Maybe even a largemouth bass some kid caught. But 90% of them have little to no substrate, fake decor, and are cloudy as sh*t. Sometimes they're just empty. I even had a folder full of pictures of awful 125s a few years ago. I don't understand how you can spend almost a grand on a single tank and pull that bs. I don't understand how those fair goldfish people go from spending $5 on a bucket of balls to throw in a fish bowl at the fair to spending a grand on a tank for them, just to keep the tank exactly like they kept the bowl or 10 gallon they had the fish in before. I can count the number of nice 125s I've seen on my hands. I'm buying my first 125 from an lfs brand new without a stand or lids or lights or anything, and that's $550. The LID is $100. The biggest kick in the d*ck in this whole transaction however, is the fact that I have to pay $40 in sales taxes on top of all of that.
Anyway, that aside, I already know what I'm doing with the first 125, I don't remember if I've already said my plans with regard to that individual fish, but I've definitely mentioned it on here before. I won't say it again though, you'll just have to look out for the thread when it pops up in the next few weeks. The second 125 however, I am a little on the fence about. I have two options. Either I do a rio sucio biotope, with amatitlania septemfasciata (x6), cribroheros rostratus (x5), and hypsophrys nicaraguensis (x2), or I do a non biotope US native tank, with the intergrade longears I catch around here, luxilus cerasinus, and some other fancy colorful native fish. Both would be entertaining to me. The latter will cost $2-300 less than the former.
Rio sucio:





Native tank:





The darter is just a hypothetical. I don't actually know what darter I'd get, if any, but I would like some if I did go with this scape. I used etheostoma obama as an example in this visual. I don't even know the legality of it, but it would be pretty funny to have one of the (two) obama fish.
Pros and cons of each:
sucio pros:
cool breeding behavior in everything
bucket list tank
I get to be one of 4 known people breeding the sucio septemfasciata
cons:
can't put any little dither type species
additional $200 on top of the $700 tank
everything might be a bit crammed at full size
native pros:
cool breeding behavior in everything
free
everything fits
cool variety of species of different sizes and niches
don't need to buy a heater
cons:
some species might be illegal but I'll figure that out later (before getting them of course)
have to drive 4 hours to collect luxilus and chrosomus (cost is now gas money)
might need those blue chubs/sucker things to build mounds for the shiners/dace to show breeding behavior (I don't know if they're legal to keep/might be too big for a 125 too)
Seems like a pretty cut and dry choice, but I'll let you weigh the pros and cons. If you've made it this far, thank you for taking the time to read this.