My tilapia buttikoferi
Welcome to the FishHouse Blog!
My Zebra Tilapia
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009Fish House Update
Sunday, August 23rd, 2009I’ve introduced another tank buster into my 6 foot display tank, to join the Giant Red Tail Gourami, Osphronemus laticlavius and commom pleco, a Zebra Tilapia, Tilapia buttikoferi. It’s about 6-8 inches. Tilapia buttikoferi are extremely intelligent and aggressive aquarium fish, like most Cichlids! It’s a large African tilapiine cichlid fish that can be found mainly in West Africa, specifically Liberia. (Fish Distribution here on PFK). I’ll have to regularly check, that it’s not starting to attack the other tankmates. Although I collected this fish in a large bucket, I acclimatised it, to tank water conditions, by floating in a very large fish bag for 45 minutes, and changing water in the bag for tank water every 10 minutes. I had to collect Lindsey from the bus station, and when I returned, the Tilapia buttikoferi was swimming around the tank, and the Giant Red Tail Gourami, Osphronemus laticlavius was in the bag!
Now that’s what I call magic!
Trying to get the gourami, out of the bag was another matter!
A few other little problems, my Male Quetzal Cichlid, Vieja synspila (another very agressive cichlid – even with me!) has bashed his head, I’ll have to keep a watch on this, and may start treating with Melafix tonight. The male fish has a pronounced hump, called the the “nuchal hump”, and one of my large Clown Loaches, Chromobotia macracanthus, (8″-9″) has died, of what looks like over-eating! Greedy fish, looks like he’s eaten all the cichlid pellets for the Gourami and Tilapia, and it’s stomach has exploded, with over eating, there’s a message here I think!
and finally, at long last, after 12 months of hassle, I’ve successfully managed to get a replacement aquarium replaced under guarantee. Last year a 48x18x18 glass aquarium leaked in my fish house, and I remembered it had a five year guarantee, after tracking down the initial credit card statement, it was only four years old, and the bottom aquarium seal had failed. It’s taken me over 12 months, to get it resolved with manufacturer, wholesaler, and reseller – finally I collected the replacement last week on Friday.
Blog post of the tank leaking – https://andysworld.org.uk/2009/04/19/the-leaking-fish-tank/
Here’s a picture of the new tank
new aquarium for fish house
So sometime this week, I need to clean, move the old tanks out of the fish house, and move this tank in!
Thanks to Chris at The East Riding Koi Co Ltd for arranging the replacement of this tank!
My Giant Red Tail Gourami
Thursday, August 20th, 2009Here are some pictures of my Giant Red Tail Gourami, Osphronemus laticlavius, it’s approximately 12 inches long. It’s still recovering from some damage inflicted when it had outgrown it’s owners tank, and so they took it to Maidenhead Aquatics, Beverley – whilst there it was attacked by another tankmate, and caused some serious damage, I believe it was red raw, so is healing well, although it still has the battlescars! These may disappear with time. It’s currently on a varied diet, of mussels, prawns, crayfish, Tetra doromin, Hikari Cichlid Staple and Gold, peas and cucumber. (not all at once!). It’s a little baby at present, and can grow up to 20 inches.
My Giant Red Tail Gourami
My Giant Red Tail Gourami
Large aquarium for tank busters
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009I’ve made a decision with the largest aquarium (6ftx2ftx2ft – 700l) I have in the fish house, I used to use it to hold my breeding angelfish stock, but it’s been rather empty of late, as I’m not breeding angelfish currently anymore, so I’ve finally accquired some large fish for it. (it’s being filtered and heated, so I might as well use it to house some tankbusters). The first was a young Giant Red Tail Gourami Osphronemus laticlavius, I introduced a few weeks ago. (I’ll get some pictures), and yesterday evening I was called by my local vets that had rescued a large common “pleco”, approx 12 inches – they had it in their aquarium but thought it needed a larger aquarium, someone had brought it in to them because it had got too big for their aquarium.
common "pleco"
It could be a Hypostomus plecostomus, the problem with these suckermouth catfish, they are sold as “common plecos”, small specimens to people that have algae problems, but they don’t realize how large they can grow, and then they become rather boisterous. They don’t do well, in my opinion on algae wafers entirely, and require shrimp, mussels and prawns to flourish.
Goldfish
Thursday, July 30th, 2009
my old water feature
This is my “pond” in the front garden, I’ve had this old water feature for many years, it’s half an oak barrel. I always like to have goldfish in it, but I thought that my remaining single goldfish had not over-wintered because I’d not seen him for many months, so I purchased a bag of ten goldfish today from Pets R Wright, Hull. On checking the bag later, I had eleven!
a bag of 10 goldfish
I always like to quarantine any fish I introduce, and if you check the water feature picture above, you’ll notice that my single goldfish did survive the winter! So the gold fish remained in this small tank for a week before I introduced them into the “pond”.
Fish House Stock List – July 2009
Sunday, July 5th, 2009I’ve been meaning to put this list together for a while, so I’ve “audited” the fish house today, and this is some of the fish which are currently in the fish house.
Catfish
Ancistrus
Bristlenose catfish Ancistrus brown sp. (many breeding pairs)
Albino Bristlenose catfish Ancistrus albino sp. (many breeding pairs)
Gold Bristlenose catfish Ancistrus gold sp.
Corydoras
Corydoras Aenus (breeding group)
Corydoras Aenus Albino form
Corydoras Aenus Green stripe
Corydoras paleatus
Corydoras Loxozonus
Corydoras Sterbai (wild breeding groups)
Corydoras Weiztmani (wild breeding groups)
Synodontis
Polka-dot catfish Synodontis Angelicus (my pet Spotty, he’s now twenty this year, cost me alot 20 years ago, from Blagdon Water Gardens, Plymouth. He’s been with me a while)
Large spot catfish Synodontis Ocellifer (my pet Dotty, also twenty this year! He’s been with me a while also!)
Synodontis Petricola (wild breeding group)
Cuckoo Cat Synodontis Multipunctatus
“Plecos”
Giant Whiptail catfish Sturisoma aureum (breeding groups)
Goldspot pleco L001 Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus
Goldy pleco, L014 Scobinancistrus aureatus
Sailfin pleco Pterygoplichthys gibbiceps
Snowball plecos, LDA33 Baryancistrus LDA-33
Characins
Bleeding Heart tetra Hyphessobrycon erythrostigma
Buenos Aires tetra Hemigrammus caudovittatus
Cardinal tetra Paracheirodon axelrodi
Congo tetra, Phenacogrammus interruptus
Neon tetra Paracheirodon innesi
Cichlids
Electric Blue Jack Dempseys Rocio octofasciata (Cichlasoma octofasciatum)
Nicaraguen Cichlids Hypsophrys nicaraguensis (Cichlasoma nicaraguense) (breeding groups)
Green Terror Aequidens rivulatus (breeding pair)
Geophagus proximus (breeding pair)
Geophagus sp?
Jack Dempseys Rocio octofasciata (Cichlasoma octofasciatum) (breeding pairs)
Kribensis Pelvicachromis pulcher (breeding pairs)
Quetzel cichlids Vieja synspila (Cichlasoma synspilum) (breeding pair)
Yellow or Tricolour cichlids Cichlasoma salvini (breeding pair)
Cichlids – Lake Tanganyika
Tropheus Moorii Ikola (wild breeding group)
Tropheus Moorii Bemba (wild breeding group)
Tropheus Moorii Kasanga (wild breeding group)
Tropheus Moorii Ilangi (wild breeding group)
Loaches
Clown Loach Chromobotia macracanthus (Botia macracantha)
Candy Loach Botia striata
My Odballs
Boesemani Rainbowfish, Melanotaenia Boesemani
Black Ghost Knife Fish Apteronotus albifrons
Spotted climbing perch Ctenopoma acutirostre
Buzzing airstone
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009On these very hot summer days we are having at present in the UK, I leave the door open to the fish house to circulate the air and reduce the air temperature in the fish house to approximately 26 degrees C.
This morning I noticed a buzzing in the fish house, which sounded like a large bumble bee or hornet had got trapped somewhere in the fish house, but with all the pumps, filters, air stones running it was difficult to track down. I spent some more time this evening, and I’ve found the loud buzzing sound is being caused by a large pond air stone I have in a 200l water butt for water changes. The large water butt also amplifies the bass sound. I’ve reduced the air flow and the buzzing has stopped!
Spotted climbing perch (Ctenopoma acutirostre)
Sunday, June 14th, 2009When I was in Otley today, I visited Waterworld in Stephen H Smiths Garden Centre. I noticed two fish in a tank, I’ve not seen for sale in a very long time. They were labelled as Archer fish, but they we clearly not Archer fish and labelled incorrectly. Oddballs of the tropical fish world, so I snapped them both up.
The fish I bought are Spotted climbing perch (Ctenopoma acutirostre), commonly called the Leopard bush fish or African leaf fish, not to be confused with the real leaf fish from South America. The Spotted climbing perch is endemic to the Congo river basin in Africa. (Ctenopoma acutirostre distribution map) It is part of the unique Anabantidae family, that is freshwater fish that originate from South East Asia and Africa and is therefore related to the Siamese fighting fish (Betta Splendens) and all gourami species. The Anabantidae family can breath atmospheric air using a accessory organ called a labyrinth and create bubblenests to breed.
Spotted Climbing Perch, Leopard Bush fish, African Leaf fish (Cteponoma acutirostre)
Must not keep them with anything small, as they are predators!
Tropical Fish Shops in Hull
Monday, June 8th, 2009Last Friday 5th June, I had some spare time in Hull, so spent the day driving around visiting the local Tropical Fish shops in and around Hull.
Here are some comments on the lfs I visited
Frisby Aquatics, 115 Sculcoates Lane, Hull, East Yorkshire, United Kingdom, HU5 1DN
Located here
Frisby Aquatics is stacked with fish tanks, majority of the smaller tanks are filtered with undergravel filters, the larger tanks are filter with large external filters. When I visited there are many different types of livebearers, cichlids – young angelfish, and if you are an african rift lake cichlids fan, this is the place to obtain some nice large specimens. They also had two large arrowanas as well.
Ings Lane Garden And Water Garden Centre Ltd, Ings Lane, Dunswell, Hull, East Yorkshire, United Hull, East Yorkshire HU6 0AL
Located here.
A very nice modern and clean tropical fish section, the usual John Allan tanks or similar and central filtration system. Good lighting. This place is great, nice synodontis and L number catfish.
and the water garden section is fantastic, what can I say, the Koi on display are fantastic.
This place would encourage me to replace the front lawn with a large koi pond!
The koi are execellent!
Maidenhead Aquatics @ Beverley, Peter Barratt Garden Centre, Hull Road, Woodmansey, HU17 0RS
Friendly staff, the usual Maidenhead setup, with central filtration, lots of fish, and on visiting they had some Electric Blue Jack Dempseys, and I purchased some young Nicaraguen Cichlids to add to my collection, I also have some young males, that these young females will pair up with, and Peter Barratts has a nice coffee shop, to have an expresso!
Located here
Outlet Garden Centre, Hull Road Woodmansey HU17 0RU
I’ve never been here before, and was surprised they stocked some marine, tropical, coldwater fish and reptiles. Many tanks on the far wall. They also had lots of hardware and goods on display, some with dust on, so they don’t sell much of it!
Located here
KKC 6 Astral Rd Hessle East Yorkshire United Kingdom HU13 9DD
Located here
Located on a housing estate, behind the back of someones house! (hedge could do with cutting!) A fantastic supply of livebearers, guppies, platies and mollies, some very nice blue and blood red guppies for sale. Looks like a much larger version of my fish house, no prices displayed on anything though!
and the marine section .
OUT OF THIS WORLD!
If you need any tropical marine fish, you need to go to KKC!
I’ve never seen so many different clown fish. There are hundreds of tropical marine fish for sale.
It’s all gone Pete Tong again!
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009I don’t know why I bother… After spending time, testing, painting a new fish tank, removing all the existing tanks…..moving the new glass tank carefully into the fish house, in amongst all the other glass tanks, manouevering into final position.
It doesn’t fit!
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- Whoops it doesn’t fit! No.1
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- Whoops it doesn’t fit! No.2
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- It definately doesn’t fit!
There’s not enough clearance, because of the larger 6ft x 2ft x 2ft tank! (and I’m not moving that!), and to add insult to injury, I then thought it would be a good idea, to move the bottom two fish tanks (2ft x 15 x 12) to the second shelf, and put the 4ft x 15 x 12 fish tank on the bottom shelf, only to find, I could only fit one 2ft fish tank on the middle shelf, and the 4ft x 15 x 12 fish tank on the bottom shelf, still wouldn’t fit!
Umm… looks like, I’ll be putting everthing back to how it was!!!
Well that’s a day in the life folks!
and
I’ve got a headache…..
Anyone want a cheap 48 x 15 x 12 glass tank, painted matt white? Contact me?
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