3rdimension
09/23/2011, 10:31 PM
When I first started the hobby, I went against any of the aquarist professionals' advice and experimented on my own in my 180 gallon just fish tank, even with tons of hiding places with plenty of live rock. Some of them were housed together, while some of them lived in harmony, while others didn't so much.
That's when I decided to buy a thin sheet of acrylic and drill a bunch of holes in it to make a tank divider. during the temporary separation, I wanted to see how distracted the more aggressive fish would get when I placed a mirror on it's side of the tank. Boy was it angry! haha! It couldn't stop wanting to attack it's self, thinking it was another fish. I only had the mirror up for 5-10 minutes at a time or until it got bored with "the other fish" in the mirror.
At least that gave the other fish a break from being terrorized. I tried the mirror technique without the tank divider for a bit, and the fish only stayed on it's side for about 30 minutes or so until it figured out that it wasn't confined to 1/3 the tank anymore. I guess you could call it a time out. haha! anyhow, the divider and mirror is just a temporary solution, but effective, and much more humane than placing it in the sump with less oxygen and less flow.
Here's a list of all the fish I had, "not all at once", but at different times. Once there, click on each individual photo to read up on my personal experience and what I learned from each of them. I also kept a 1' long bamboo cat shark that reach about 1' 6" before I took it back to the aquarium shop. It was cool, was doing fine, eating from my hand, just got bored owning a nocturnal species, seldom active during the day, but swimming around at night. I think my most favorite fish was the stars and stripes puffer, emperor angel fish and clown trigger for various reasons I wrote about.
http://artistitouch.biz/tropicalfish.html
That's when I decided to buy a thin sheet of acrylic and drill a bunch of holes in it to make a tank divider. during the temporary separation, I wanted to see how distracted the more aggressive fish would get when I placed a mirror on it's side of the tank. Boy was it angry! haha! It couldn't stop wanting to attack it's self, thinking it was another fish. I only had the mirror up for 5-10 minutes at a time or until it got bored with "the other fish" in the mirror.
At least that gave the other fish a break from being terrorized. I tried the mirror technique without the tank divider for a bit, and the fish only stayed on it's side for about 30 minutes or so until it figured out that it wasn't confined to 1/3 the tank anymore. I guess you could call it a time out. haha! anyhow, the divider and mirror is just a temporary solution, but effective, and much more humane than placing it in the sump with less oxygen and less flow.
Here's a list of all the fish I had, "not all at once", but at different times. Once there, click on each individual photo to read up on my personal experience and what I learned from each of them. I also kept a 1' long bamboo cat shark that reach about 1' 6" before I took it back to the aquarium shop. It was cool, was doing fine, eating from my hand, just got bored owning a nocturnal species, seldom active during the day, but swimming around at night. I think my most favorite fish was the stars and stripes puffer, emperor angel fish and clown trigger for various reasons I wrote about.
http://artistitouch.biz/tropicalfish.html