Posts Tagged ‘blog’

Electrics labelled

Tuesday, December 13th, 2005

I’m pulling the late shift at the office again, this week. So not got much time after work, so I’ve spent some time this evening doing the boring jobs, and labelling the electrics in the fish house, it needed doing. I’ve also finally completed all the electrics for Aquarium No.9. I’ve just found out that nPower are increasing their electricity and gas prices from the 1 January 2006, so I’m glad I switched!

I’ve been feeding an empty fish tank to help it mature. So I didn’t think a picture of an empty fish tank would be exciting enough to post in the blog.

Tomorrow evening time permitting, and poviding the water quality is okay, I’ll move some hardy Zebra Danios and Guppies into the tank to help cycle the it.

Aquarium No.9 Relocation Part II

Saturday, December 10th, 2005

The aquarium has been curing for the last 48 hours after I had removed all the old silicone sealer, and re-sealed the aquarium with new. I moved the aquarium outside to test fill and leave for 12 hours to check for leaks.

Aquarium No.9 Test
Removing water with an Eheim 1260 pond pump after test filling.

Finally, moved the aquarium back to its new home, and filled with 50% aquarium water from partial water changes, and 50% HMA filtered water. The electrics are currently temporary, so I can get the Dennerle C400 internal filter, heaters, and lighting on-line to quickly mature the tank. I’m using a 40w Power-Glo tube to encourage algae growth, this tank is for young Sturisoma Aureum, using 40w Power-Glo tubes in the past has proved to be successful in encourage algae growth, these tubes are usually used in Marine aquaria. I also have plans to use an Eheim 2250 external canister filter.

Aquarium No.9 Installed
Aquarium No.9 installed and “maturing”.

Hypostomus sp. L137

Friday, December 9th, 2005

I purchased this pl*co from a local “pet shop” 12 months ago, it was sold as a Blue-Eyed pleco, it did have pale-blue eyes at the time of purchase.

It was very thin, when purchased with a hollow stomach, I think the “pet shop” was feeding it on flake, it could also have been starved for export to the UK, which is a common practice for exoporting fish.

It’s been feed Algae Wafers, Courgette, Cucumber, Spinach, Kale, Prawns and Bloodworm, it’s grown and put on weight, but it’s lost it’s pale-blue eyes.

Lxxx-1

Nobody told me there’d be days like these!

Thursday, December 8th, 2005

Overcome by the smell of acetic acid (vinegar smell) after re-sealing Aquarium No.9, I’ve left the fish house early this evening. I’m surprised this fish tank held water, because after cleaning it out, the silicon sealer in the fish tank, just fell off – well this tank is 18 years old! – only new aquariums seals, are guaranteed for 1-2 years today.

L001
L001/L022 feeding on courgette with the help a Screwcumber.

Ancistrus feed on cuc
Albino Ancistrus sp. feeding on cucumber with the help of a Screwcumber.

It’s the Christmas Party tomorrow evening, so I don’t expect I’ll be adding a blog entry tomorrow!

There’s a little yellow idol to the north of Katmandu

Fish House Electricity Cost!!!

Wednesday, December 7th, 2005

At the end of October, I posted an entry Do you suffer from high electricity bills?. I’ve been looking for a power meter to measure kWh for many months to establish Fish House Electricity costs, and I eventually managed to purchase one from JLB Electronics.

The results are now in for half of my fish house, the fish house is split between into two ring mains, so this is ring main one. (It also allows me to draw up to a maximum of 20A per ring main!). Ring main one supplies electricity for 9 aquariums.

Ring Main One Summary

  • 120W of fluorescent lighting.
  • 2.7kWh of aquarium heating.

Items connected to Ring Main One:-

  • 3 x 40W Aquaglow fluorescent lights.
  • 1 x 50W heater.
  • 3 x 150W heaters.
  • 2 x 300W heaters.
  • 2 x 500W heaters.
  • 1 x Hydor 300W external heater.
  • 1 x Hydor internal combined Filter/300W heater.
  • 1 x Eheim 2260 External Canister filter.
  • 1 x Hagen Biolife 55 Internal Filter.
  • 1 x Project PH600 Powerhead.
  • 1 x Hagen 201 Powerhead.
  • 1 x Personal Computer with 150W power supply.

The maximum wattage drawn by the electrical applications was 2.1kW on Friday 25 November at 4.03am.

In the last 32 days, the electricity consumed by ring main one is 605 kWh. A cost recorded by the power meter of 49 pounds. I’m charged 8.1p per kWh by nPower.

I’ll measure ring main two, and post the results on the blog, in a few weeks.

Third batch of Sturisoma Aureum Fry start to hatch

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

Male Sturisoma Aureum on eggs third hatch-1
Male Sturisoma Aureum fanning eggs as they hatch.

Male Sturisoma Aureum on eggs third hatch-2
Male Sturisoma Aureum fanning eggs as they hatch.

Male Sturisoma Aureum on eggs third hatch-3
Close-up of Sturisoma Aureum eggs, newly hatched fry also visible on right hand side of image.

Aquarium No.9 Relocation

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

I’ve finally made an effort to re-locate Aquarium No.9, which has been used as a Daphina rearing tank since I setup the fish house, due to the space and 15 inch height of this aquarium I’ve not been able to add fish to it, because of the 16″ height of the metal stand. I don’t know why they make double stands, where the bottom space is two small, maybe it was designed for a 12″ height tank. I had hoped to purchase a 48x18x18 inch aquarium to fill the void under the 6x2x2ft tank, but it’s a waste of money having an empty tank and needs must. It gives me 48x12x12 of space for a few small fish tanks.

Fish Tank 9 Pic 1
This is the bottom shelf below my 6x2x2ft aquarium, currently being used as a shelf for tropical fish odds and ends.

It would have been easier to purchase a new tank, than move and existing tank, with little space, I was unable to use an Eheim pond pump to remove the water, so it was slowly syphoned. It’s taken me a few hours this evening, to remove the water, and move the tank. I need to clean tomorrow evening, and I’ve also found, so missing silicon inside the tank, so whilst it’s empty, I’ll quickly re-seal with silicon sealer.

Fish Tank 9 Pic 2
Aquarium No.9’s new home.

What catfish is this?

Friday, December 2nd, 2005

I purchased two of these catfish over 2 years ago very cheaply from UK Marines Ltd, Batley. I purchased them to reduce the algae in the fish house, but they don’t seem to like too much algae, they were quite small and thin, when purchased, but have grown to about six inches, they are housed in a 6x2x2ft aquarium, and have now started to fight.

Lxxx

I’ve not been able to find these listed in the Datz or Aqualog L numbers books, so I’m curiours to know what they are called, and what L number they are, so If you know, please contact me.

New Toy – not very exciting

Monday, November 28th, 2005

Last week, I reported on my new toy for partial water changes, well here’s a picture.

Syphon

Okay, it’s a syphon connected to a small length of housepipe with a Hozelock connector connected to it. This is a Reef One Syphon, the manufacturers of the biOrb and biUbe, others are available. But it makes my job a lot easier, than carrying buckets of water out of the fish house on a cold night. (and now I’ve got a knackered back!). I had thought of purchasing an automatic water changer The Python No-Spill Clean And Fill, but I don’t top up my aquariums direct from mains water, and the water pressure is low, and water is wasted when using the syphon, so for me, this seemed like a waste of cash. I was going to install some 40mm waste pipe and plumb it to the outside of the garage (drain), but a length of housepipe does the same job – cheaply.

Fish House Temperature Issues

Thursday, November 24th, 2005

The fish house indoor temperature fell below 20 degrees C today, to 18 degrees C mainly due to the cold gale force winds hammering the garage door which faces the direction of the wind. I had only spotted this by checking the operation of my blog this evening. (I need to start on text message alerts from the fish house!). I may need to obtain a sheet of polythene to secure to the front of the garage or wrap the garage in a giant blanket!

I had reconnected a 300 watt tubular heater in the fish house, after trialing the 1kW fan heater, and the tubular heater, was not able to raise the fish house temperature. The consequence of this is a number of fish tanks connected to my thermostat started to alarm this evening.