Posts Tagged ‘fish house’

A Day in The Life of a Fish House!

Tuesday, September 6th, 2005

I read the news today oh, boy
About a lucky man who made the grade
And though the news was rather sad……

(Lennon/McCartney)

Do you have days, when you have a great day at work, and then it all comes crashing down around you head?

I arrived home this evening, checked the fish house, and found that the Bueno Aires Tetra was dead, also the fish house was very hot at 35 degrees C room temperature, I also noticed that the venturi aeration device on the hyflo internal filter had stopped working, couple with a tank medicated with with MelaFix, two quarantine tanks were depleted of oxygen, 20 Ancistrus sp. were diving to the top of the tank, I assume to take in oxygen. 50% partial water changes and brisk aeration using airstones, the fish seem to be okay. I’m not too sure if this accounted for the tetras death.

I currently have 120l of HMA filtered water aerated and heated at 28 degrees C for partial water changes, another 158l of HMA filtered water on standby at room temperature.It takes approx 75 minutes to fill the water vessels.

I’ve also found the missing Danios, I found one dry and crispy on the floor underneath the quarantine tank, and bones of the other stuck in the Juwel filter. One zebra danio has disappeared from the quarantine tank with the single Purple Spotted Gudgeon, I suspect the fish was hungry.

I’ve recently filled holes in the garage walls where the fish house lives with squeezable polyfilla, to maintain the warmth over the winter, the only problem is, during these warm September days the temperature increases, I’ve opened the internal fish door this evening to decrease the temperature during the day, until winter arrives.

Overall, a very eventful day.

Air Ring Main

Monday, September 5th, 2005

I was hoping to have built and completed an air ring main this evening for the fish house but our local B&Q didn’t have any 3 metre 22mm overflow pipe, so that ruined my best made plans.

Visiting friends in Otley, West Yorkshire (via tropical fish shop of course!)

Sunday, September 4th, 2005

I had hoped to attend the Otley Aquatic Society OPEN SHOW & AUCTION today, because I was visting Otley, West Yorkshire, but then I noticed the show is held at Wortley High School Swallow Crescent Leeds, so I didn’t have the time to route via Leeds, as the Auction was starting at 1.30pm. This will have to be an event I pencil on the calendar for next year.

Whilst in Otley I did get my “fish fix” by visting Waterscapes located in the Stephen H Smiths Garden Centre. An excellent range of tropical fish and Tropica plants on display, I especially liked the Leiarius pictus catfish, they had three small 4″ fish for 18 GBP each, but resisted the strong desire to own a large catfish again. These grow very large, a good example here at www.thetropicaltank.co.uk but are excellent catfish, and one of my favourites. But I certainly don’t have eight foot tank space in the fish house at present!

Angelfishcam is broke again!

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Sorry for the inconvience the webcams in the fish house are broke again! It’s stuck on the 31 August 2005, I’ll fix them over the weekend, the problem is the webcam application crahses and restarts the PC, and then the PC BSODs (Blue Screen Of Death) on startup, and it loops!

All webcams should update every 30 seconds, if you find the date and time stamp is not changing, please email me at andypandy00 at hotmail.com, and I’ll attend to it as soon as is humanly possible.

A fishy tail

Tuesday, August 30th, 2005

After the shock of the Buenos Aires tetra tail being bitten off yesterday evening by two nasty male angelfish, the fish doesn’t seem too distressed by the event.

The male veiltail angelfish also seems to be deporting correctly, probably stress of being transported.

I’ve been reading about central filtration systems, and air ring mains, it would make my water changes easier in the fish house, rather than carrying buckets. I have a very small prototype ring main, that I made, 10 years ago, but must visit B&Q to purchase a longer length of 20mm pipe, more on that later.

When Angelfish go mad…

Monday, August 29th, 2005

I had to quickly move one of my Bueno Aires Tetras from my display tank this evening because two of my large male Angelfish had gone mad and decided they were going to eat it. I have a shoal of Bueno Aires Tetras in my display tank, and I don’t know why both Male angelfish had decided to attack it, removing it’s tail. It’s been moved into a quarantine tank in the fish house to recover. Angelfish will try and consume anything they can fit in their mouths, young Neon Tetras are prime candidates, and young bristlenose catfish, but I’ve never seen them take on full grown Bueno Aires Tetras.

Additions to the Fish House

Sunday, August 28th, 2005

I’ve collected some Adult Angel fish, Syndontis Angelicus, An Orange Gourami and a handful of Kribensis from a local breeder in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, they have decided to concentrate on Discus. All the fish are sexually mature and will help the gene pool here at Angelfish house. These fish have all gone into quarantine for four weeks, until, they are moved to other tanks. All quarantine tanks are now full in the fish house, so no more fish purchases for a month, and I wanted to purchase a trio of Ancistrus. I’ll have to find some room, anybody got any space in the cupboard. Here are the fish as promised:-


Black Male Angelfish

Female Koi Veiltail Angelfish

Koi Angelfish – sex unknown

Male Half Black Angelfish

Male Koi Angelfish

Male Koi Veiltail Angelfish

Male Silver Angelfish

Syndontis Angelicus – not an angel fish, but a cracking catfish!

Photographs of fish

Friday, August 26th, 2005

I’ll add some more photographs of the fish in the fish house over the weekend time permitting, I’m on the search for the elusive Hikari Algae Wafers, and I’ve got to fit time in to collect more fish, but more on that when I’ve got the fish. I’ve spent a little time this morning re-coding the blog, and adding some more fun stuff.

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!

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.