Another young pair of silver angelfish have spawned.
The eggs that the Platinum angelfish laid have disappeared, a slight over-sight and I forgot to remove the Ancistrus catfish , I think the Ancistrus catfish, may have had a meal in the night!
Posts Tagged ‘Ancistrus’
Silver Pair of Angelfish spawn
Thursday, October 27th, 2005Replacement plants
Monday, October 17th, 2005Unfortunately, my local East Riding supplier of Frozen Ruto Bloodworm has ceased trading, so I’m looking for another supplier. If you know of one, please contact me at aquablog@gmail.com.
Air pressure appears to have dropped on the ring main tonight, need to check airstones and connections for air leaks.
Fish House Minimum Air Temperature is a constant 20 degrees C.
I’ve replaced the rubber washers on the Eheim 2030 with plastic half-inch washers, used PTFE tape on all threads, and tightened with a new 30mm socket torque wrench. I’ve filled it up over-night, I’ll check for water leaks tomorrow.
I think I need to feed my Ancistrus, that share a tank with a Purple spotted gudgeon Hikari Algae wafers, rather than the Sera brand Catfish chips, the Gudgeon eat whole wafers, can fish choke on fish food? The Purple spotted Gudgeon in the fish house, have grown very fast compared to the fish in my display tank in the house.
Good News: Java-Plants.com have agreed to replace my Vallis Torta.
What’s for supper?
Thursday, October 6th, 2005An aquarist in Germany recommended that I try
Sera Catfish Chips for Ancistrus and Pleco Catfish if I’m finding it difficult in obtaining Hikari
Algae Wafers, he has had great success with this product in Germany. Many high
quality aquarium products come from Germany, Eheim,
Tetra and
Dennerle are just a few manufacturers,
so I’ll definitely experiment with this product.
Sera retailers in the UK are not common, but I know a place on my doorstep that
stocks Sera products. Petland, York is a
Sera retailer.
I purchased some Sera Catfish Chips for Ancistrus and Pleco Catfish, the
ingredients are very interesting because the usual marine algae and spirulina
are present, but willow wood and bark and alder wood are also ingredients. This
product will certainly help if you have no bogwood present in your aquariums for
the catfish to graze on. Many years ago, when I first saw a "pleco" in aquaria,
it was given willow wood and bark to graze on, this was before the days of any
"Algae Wafers", it was said, that chemicals in the willow made the catfish
sleepy, like an anaesthetic if they ate too much, so it was only fed in small
quantities. This is the first fish food product I’ve seen using "wood" as an
ingredient.
I offer my fish a varied diet to stop them getting hooked on one type of
food, I vary the food each day, here’s a list of the products I use:-
- Tetra Prima.
- Tetra Tips Freeze Dried Tablets.
- Tetra Fresh Delica Daphinia, Bloodworm, Brine Shrimp.
- Tetra Holiday and Weekend Food Sticks.
- Tetra Min Flake Food.
- JMC Catfish Pellets.
- Barlow’s Aquatics Sinking, Stinking Catfish Pellets.
- Nutrafin Max Complete Flake Food.
- Aquarian Tropical Flake Food.
- Phoenix Tropical Flake.
- Today’s Freeze Dried Tubifex Worms.
- ZM 000, 100, 200, 300, 400, Small, Medium and Large Granular Advanced Fish
Diets. - Ruto Frozen foods, Spinach, Tubifex and Bloodworm.
- Frozen prawns.
- Courgettes, Cucumber, peas and lettuce.
- Live Food when available.
- and Sera Catfish Chips for Ancistrus and Pleco
Catfish.
When I first started "fishkeeping", many years ago, when my Dad won a
goldfish at the Fun Fair, we came home with a glass goldfish bowl, and a
cardboard tube of ant eggs to feed the goldfish.
Tropical Fish Food Technology has greatly improved! If it had not improved, I
don’t think I would have been as successful in breeding and caring for the
tropical fish in the many years I’ve kept them. For many years I was hooked on
Aquarian Tropical Flake, not personally, but variety is the spice of life!
Go on, change your food today!
Bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble!
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005….The Witches Cauldron Brew, the
bogwood is still soaking nicely.
I’ve seen the
L190 this evening, it’s still in the tank and feeding. I visited
Petland in my lunchtime today in York, they have an excellent collection of Ls
in stock, I almost parted with an
L177 but needed to catch the bus! Maybe next time! I don’t think they
have a website, but here’s a
review by the Ryedale Aquarist Society.
I’ve just noticed that I use the
terms Ls and Lxxx numbers a lot, and some readers may be confused with what I am
referring to. The group of catfish I keep are in the scientific name
Loricariidae, this is pronouced
Lori KARI Iday or more commonly referred to Suckermouth Armoured Catfishes (yes
they do stick to the glass!), they have rows of armour plating covering body,
underslung suckermouth. They all come from South America. Originally when a
suckermouth armoured catfish was discovered, it was given a scientific name (latin),
and a common name, as more were discovered in recent years it became impossible
to readily identify them, and give them common names, so the L numbering system
was invented to uniquely identify each catfish, and hence the L series was born,
there is also an LDA series, the same has also been done for Corydoras
catfishes, Cichlids and Rays.
Endlers’ are doing well, and have another four fry.
Purple Spotted Gudgeon in the fish house are massive compared to the fish in the
display tank. Sexual difference possibly.
Many projects still to complete, fish house needs a tidy for the forthcoming
cold weather, and I’ve got a new temperature project finished, but need to
relocate the computer system in the fish house.
Again, I’m pulling the late shift all week, at the office, so not much time to
organise the fish house.
Had an excellent response from
Pond Supplies UK, and a replacement end-cap for my Hailea air compressor
has been posted. That’s Excellent Customer Service, I’m still awaiting to hear
from Java-Plants (I think all
the Vallis is now dead!).
As Rare as Rocking Horse Pooh!
Friday, September 23rd, 2005Hooray!
I’ve finally managed to obtain some
Hikari Algae Wafers
from a secret source, Hikari
products are like rocking horse pooh at present in the United Kingdom as
previously stated earlier on this
blog. The
Gibbiceps, Ancistrus and L numbers will be happy. I have purchased two 1kg bags,
hopefully they will last for the foreseeable future until
Hikari are allowed back in the United
Kingdom, this is good news, as stocks of my
Tetra Plecomin are almost depleted. My fish prefer
Hikari products.
Anyone for cucumber?
Saturday, September 17th, 2005
I
awoke this morning by a loud knocking at the front door, it was the post person
wanting me to sign for a small package. My Five Pack of Screwcumbers had
arrived. Here’s a picture of five new sealed twin packs of Screwcumbers
available from
Gary Evans at Opti-Fish. I’m sorry to flog these to death, but they are
a fantastic invention and worth every penny. Every Ancistrus, Pleco, Gibbiceps,
L number lover should have one. With NO Hikari imports expected into the UK for
many months until the situation is resolved with the EU, NO algae wafers these
are a lifesavers in feeding cucumbers and courgettes to my L Numbers, Gibbiceps,
and Ancistrus sp.
The yellow tug beneath the screwcumbers is filled with aquarium water soaking
the filter media I "found" the previous week..
An order placed more for Screwcumbers.
Friday, September 16th, 2005I’ve ordered an additional five Twin Packs of Screwcumbers.Contact Gary Evans for details. It’s much easier feeding cucumber and courgettes to Ancistrus and other loving veggie catfish using Screwcumbers.
Sunday visit to the local Garden Centre
Sunday, September 11th, 2005I’m in need of some garden peat to acidify some of the aquariums in the fish house, but it seems that all gardeners, are bio-plant friendly, and most composts are peat-free and I cannot find a small bag of peat anywhere, so I visited our local Wyevale Garden centre today at York, which also has a recent addition of Maidenhead Aquatics. I could not find a small bag of peat, they only have 60l bags but did have a look around the tropical fish.
I’ve noticed that Maidenhead Aquatics, have switched all the substrate from gravel to sand in all the tanks. I was very surprised at the cost of fish, 15 GBP for three Poecilia Endlers, 5 GBP for one very small Ancistrus Sp. They had 15 small white, possibly platinum Angelfish with red eyes at 5 GBP each, or 2 for 10 GBP. I was very tempted to purchase the tank of 15, but I’ve currently got no where to put them as all quarantine tanks are full.
Live Algae Magnets
Sunday, September 11th, 2005I’ve been shuffling fish around the aquariums in the fish house today, I’ve moved most of the Zebra Danios back to my large holding tank of stock angels. I use zebra danios to cycle and mature the aquariums in the fish house, the only problem is, they are very difficult to catch, once their job is done, they usually share the tank with their permanent inhabitants, because I cannot catch them all. I’ve still got two to catch in a few tanks.
I’ve also moved a few ancistrus into tanks, that had bad algae, I forgot to take a pictures for a before and after shot, I’ve got one tank left with bad algae, I’ll make sure I included a picture here. They are great for eating algae, great little live algae magents, it saves me cleaning the tanks and purchasing Algae wafers.
Fluidized Bed Filter finally installed.
Thursday, September 8th, 2005I’m finally happy with the flowrate in my test bucket, no media is at the bottom of the bucket, so it was time to install the filter in the aquarium. This is currently installed in a 170l aquarium.
Three Angelfish, Kribensis and Albino Ancistrus sp. can be seen in the picture. This filter is driven by a Maxijet PH600 powerhead, I cabled-tied some spare filter media onto the media adaptor supplied with the powerhead. I usually obtain my cable-ties and other electrical bits and pieces from the following website JLB Electronics, a small business located in the West Country of England, fantastic customer service, delivery and good quality products, the cable-ties are excellent. If they don’t list it on the web site, just ask them JLB Electronics. This stops any large dirt particles getting into the media. I’ve mislaid the water deflector which helps to aerate the water, I’ve emailed PentAir for a replacement, so to aerate the water, I’ve fitted a Eheim diffusor, this ads some back pressure, so the media is not fluidized completely at present, to add additional aeration to the aquarium, it is necessary and important to do this because bacteria in the fluidized bed filter can reduce the oxygen content in the water to dangerous levels.
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