Archive for August, 2005

Bristlenose catfish continued..

Thursday, August 25th, 2005

..and the Bristlenose catfish are settling in fine, overnight the 20 small catfish have removed all the algae from their quarantine tanks. I use Triton and PowerGlo tubes in the fish house to encourage maxiumum algae growth to feed L’s and other algae eating catfish. If you look at Angelfishcam1 the tank is covered in algae which also helps feed the fry, but the last time I introduced a young Bristlenose catfish the pair of Angelfish thought it was live food and ate it!

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Autumn approaches..

Thursday, August 25th, 2005

The nights are getting shorter and colder, the minimum fish house temperature has dropped to 20 degrees C during the night, I’ve now started to unwrap my “curtain” which is an old pink blanket, I use over the fish house external door to keep the cold draught out, and I’ve blocked the fish house entrance with a spare off-cut of jablite, I had to remove these during the summer because the fish house temperature rose to a staggering 40 degrees C. NOTE to self start to move items under the metal roof beams before condensation starts in the Winter and drips over items outside the fish house! Coming soon real-time temperatures of aquariums in fish house displayed via the web.

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Female Angelfish spawning

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

This was photographed with a very old floppy based Sony FDMavica MVC-FD200 2.0 Mega-pixel digital camera.

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Hagen Nutrafin Cycle 236ml (8oz)

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

I’ve just obtained some bulk quantities of Hagen Nutrafin Cycle, 236ml (8oz) bottles, Expiry Date 04/2006. I use it in the fish house all the time for maturing breeding tanks, and filters. TIP Pour a little Cycle on new filter media

A bargain at 5.00 GBP a bottle, a little less than RRP 7.49 GBP including p&p.

Nutrafin Cycle can be used to mature new aquaria and as a general filter booster.

Hagen claims that its bacterial cultures can remain viable for up to two years in unopened bottles, and for up to six months in opened bottles stored at room temperature.

Hagen also claims that it provides the highest bacterial dose on the market at around 500 billion live bacteria a time.
For maturing new tanks, you need to add 10ml per 35 l./8 gal. once a week during the first month and then switch to a regular maintenance dose.

Visit Hagen Website

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Bristlenose catfish Ancistrus sp.

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

I’ve just collected another 20 1″-2″ Bristlenose catfish Ancistrus sp. from a local breeder, that’s a total of approx 40 I have now, these are ideal fish to keep the algae down in the fish house tanks, what I call biological control, no chemicals, no UV! I hope when they are larger, that I’ll at least obtain a pair of fish, I’ve got albino and the more common brown variety.

When I can figure out the blog code to add pictures, I’ll upload some pictures here also. I’ll also try and sort out the time stamps.

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Hikari Products

Wednesday, August 24th, 2005

After hearing rumours about import restrictions on Hikari Products, and the lack of availability of Hikari Algae Wafers that I feed my L’numbers and Ancistrus, I contacted the Sole UK Importer, and this was the statement they released

Hikari Stopped By EU Red Tape

PRESS RELEASE FROM PPI (sole UK Hikari distributor)

As you may already be aware, we have been experiencing difficulties with the import of Japanese fish foods which is affecting the supply of Hikari Fish Food in the UK and Europe

Many retailers are now out of stock of some of the varieties of Hikari while remaining stocks of other Hikari lines are now getting very low

This is due to import regulations laid down by the EU that have not yet been fully recognised by Japan. Kamihata Fish Industries (KFI), the suppliers of Hikari, have been working tirelessly with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in Japan and Europe to ensure they are able to approve KFI’s production facility so that imports can be resumed

In terms of compliance there is absolutely no problem with regards to the standards of manufacture of Hikari Fish Food, it is just a matter of getting the correct paperwork in place. We anticipate that we will be able to start importing again within the next few weeks and hope that we can minimise any disruption to supply

We are planning to fly in our first shipments from Japan and we will be contacting stockists as soon as we have an arrival date so that we can ensure stocks are back in the shops as soon as possible

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and can assure you that we are doing everything possible to ensure Japan’s leading fish food will soon be available to its thousands of loyal customers in the UK

So cucumber and lettuce it is, until the situation is resolved.

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Welcome to my Fish House Blog.

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2005

Welcome, I’ll try my best to keep this blog updated daily on fish house events.

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