My New Aquarium.. Come See

Good idea. low maintenance! Great work John.

A tank would be cool to. Once it is going and good bacteria builds you wont have many issues. the ecosystem takes care of itself if you get the right fish lol. great picture btw

Thanks, I used to have a successful tank years ago, African Cichlids/tropheus dorsi. Would like goldfish, but I remember sucking through a hose to clean the bottom of the tank, eh.... not a good memory. lol

LOVE that! May have to get a print when I get paid.... It's so cute

lol I sucked at gold fish. My granny can get them huge but I cant keep them alive. So I went for the Cichlids as well, both African and South American. Oscars being my fav. Actually they ate gold fish lol.

I think goldfish need a lot of space to thrive and it's better to understock.

Thank you Abby Shores, there isn't a better compliment than someone wanting to buy your art!

I just had a pond built in my backyard last month and I love every aspect of it. :)

What a nice idea! We were so lazy. We killed our fishes once. so heartbroken ;(
Thanks for the idea. I don't think I can create like yours though. so vibrant and look so real.

Very cool - having done the aquarium thing in the past, I'm sure this would be more my speed. ;-)

And a fun marketing angle - want fish in your dark and dreary cube at work, you can have them now! :-)

Nice work!

I have a goldfish tank. I love their personalities. I keep a semi bare bottom tank, meaning that I don't use gravel, and instead I have a few large rocks scattered around and some glass beads. Having the bottom mostly bare has really helped in regards to the maintenance, so if you ever do decide to do another tank, maybe you can skip the gravel and try something different. I still do regular water changes, but very rarely do I have to clean the bottom of the tank. The filters usually take care of it.


~ Angela Murdock

Very cool

Awesome!

I've always wanted to get a saltwater aquarium so I can have seahorses and maybe seadragons.

sweet!

That's beautiful John

I have a couple of tanks in the garage if anyone is interested.

I had successful tanks running a few years ago with African Cichlids. Best advice -

- get the biggest tank you have room for - more water is easier.

- Get a canister filter

- let the water/filter "age" before adding fish.

- Add fish gradually.

- 25% water changes weekly

- do your research on what fish are compatible

- buy from a reputable store

John, having had aquariums both salt and fresh water and large outdoor koi ponds, I can really appreciate your enthusiasm for this type aquarium. Your fancy tails are very cool, and you are right about maintenance. I remember once driving home one day and hovering high above my house were a few egrets, when I checked on my koi many of which were very expensive ,I discovered they had been feasted on by the egrets.

Thanks for all the stories, tips, and kind comments everyone. Mario, I'm sorry to hear about your Koi pond. We have Great Blue Heron and Red Tail Hawks flying around our house so I'm unable to have a koi pond outdoors.

If you like fancy variety goldfish, you really should check out the Golfball Pearlscale, Ryaku, or the Dragon Eye. I'm a big fan of the Oranda and the Panda Moore as well.

I'm thinking about painting a butterfly tail next, those are very beautiful fish!

That's really beautiful, John! I'd love to have a print of that also.

John, that was years ago, now I just maintain the memories and the art work, both are much less expensive and much less labor intensive.

Very nice work, John.

John,

Nice work, as usual!

In real life, I would never put goldfish and Cichlids in the same tank, since cichlids and many other fish, are known as very aggressive and are "fin nippers". I've had ALL kinds of aquariums, both fresh and salt, big ones, but this was years ago and you had to mix your own "salt water" and much harder to maintain than today's waters.

My favorite fresh water fish, were the Discus, and if not your not familiar with them and how beautiful they are, look here!

http://search.aol.com/aol/image?q=fish%2Cdiscus

I had these, a pair, in a 55 gal tank, alone for about a year,hoping they would breed, but nothing ever happened!

My LAST saltwater tank met a very bad end! We had an Aunt visiting us for a week or so, back in the late 70's/early 80's, and she thought she would help out with dusting, while we were both at work. She used up a full can of "Pledge" ALL through the house and by the time we got home, I could see the fish already dying from the Pledge covering the surface water and also in the filter system! Maybe $500 worth of fish died! That's when I converted back to fresh and the discus/cichlids,

Rich

Oh god Rich, that's awful!

I had fresh water aquarium in my salon, rented/serviced for couple of years. It was great except they brought some fish once that were diseased and killed another larger fish that my mom (and I) really really liked...we got rid of the tank not too long after.

Thank you to the people leaving nice comments about the art. I appreciate them all and am glad you enjoyed it. To those saying they want a print, if you do get one, I hope it makes your home or office a little happier for you.

Rich, I know the Discus, and have researched them for creating a painting, but every time I think I'm ready to start, and I'm studying how I could make it, I get overwhelmed with the amount of detail they possess and chicken out. lol They are beautiful and I'm sorry to hear about your Aunt poisoning them. That's horrible. :(

Melissa that is terrible too, too many horrible stories in my fish thread! May as well add that my brother just spend about 2K on creating a salt water tank, looked wonderful, beautiful fish, crabs, snails, etc. and then brought a sick one into the tank and killed every single one of them. :( Which brings me to my OP, I think it's just easier to draw an aquarium and put in the fish I want, no worries or maintenance!. ;).

goldfish and Cichlids - Rich is right. Cichlids are territorial. Besides Goldfish can take colder temps while Cichlids are tropical and need warmer water. Interesting thing about Cichlids - they come from the great lakes in Africa and are believed to have evolved from saltwater fish who got trapped when the lakes were cut off from the ocean.

Edward,

I started with Cichlids, because of the variety and colors. Angel Fish are also cichlids, but didn't do well with some of the smaller cichlids that terrorized them!

When I was 12 or 13, I used to trap muskrats down in the "swamp" and was great fun, except during the winter months,when the water froze over and you had to break the ice over the hole, to see if you caught anything. They began to build Route 80 connection from the end of the NJ Turnpike to where the Geo.Washington Bridge is and then 80 went West. ALL our swamp was just about ruined from the construction, BUT as they were moving dirt and reducing the size of some of the ponds, I noticed that there were fish, big fish, big red and yellow fish in the water! Getting pushed into these smaller ponds! The construction guys must have seen them too, as I was running around the ponds, both trying to get my traps and also trying to figure out, how to do something with these fish!

Next day, after school, I came down and there were a few cars and trucks there and people were catching these "Goldfish" that were 2-3 feet long and throwing them into the car trunks! These fish, must have been flushed down the toilets and ended up in the creek/swamp and lived for years! Wonder if they are still there?

Rich

@John Wills
Beautiful Painting !! L/V/F

@Rich Franco
They look like Neon tetra's to me. Show me an African Cichlid that's green/red (not Including Lake Victorian Cichlids which are somewhat rare) like in the painting above. There aren't any African Cichlids with green/red/blue horizontal stripes.

@Edward Fielding
Not all Cichlids come from Africa. There are many different types of Cichlid species. African, Central and South American, Madagascar, some from Asia and even Texas. As for mixing Goldfish and cichlids. The main concern would be the water quality (PH & nitrates). African Cichlid tanks should have a water change of 50% once a week (Some Discus owners change every second day) to keep the nitrates levels low. Goldfish on the other hand will thrive under "almost" any condition.

The cichlids you see at Wallmart, Petsmart etc. are mostly bread in Florida and or Asia and can adapt to lower water temperatures. While they are very territorial they are perfectly fine in large groups to spread the aggression. We have a friend in Florida who breeds African Cichlids from Lake Malawi as well as from Lake Tanganyika (Mbuna, Haplochromis, Tropheus) and he ships them up to Western Canada supplying all the pet stores.

My better half was very addicted to Tanganyikan Cichlids (Tropheus) and even imported wild Tropheus when we were living in Canada. Extremely difficult fish specie to keep.

Edited: There aren't any african Cichlids with green/red/blue horizontal stripes.

Thanks Aged Pixel. :) For anyone wondering, those are Cardinal Tetras near the top, a characin, not a cichlid. Not sure how we got on the topic of combining goldfish and cichlids, but I'll agree not to mix the two.