Posts Tagged ‘fish’

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.

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.

Chipboard

Monday, December 5th, 2005

I now moved all the chipboard, and made a space for the 48x12x15 growing on tank for the young Sturisoma Aureum catfish.

Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus L001 or L022

Sunday, December 4th, 2005

The unidentified catfish posted on Friday night has been identified as Pterygoplichthys joselimaianus commonly known as L001 or L022.

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.

Mystery snails…

Thursday, December 1st, 2005

I have noticed some snails in one of the latest breeding tanks, I’ve setup in the fish house for the Dwarf Hoplo catfish Hoplosternum pectorale. This is the only tank with snails, so I am a little surprised as to where this single snail has come from.

Now there are two more, the fish tank, associated equipment and furnishings have not been used for over 18 years. It seems I’ve just added water, and a snail has appeared!

Sturisoma Aureum Third Spawning Attempt

Thursday, December 1st, 2005

I’m glad it’s a warmer night at 4 degrees C outside, I was concerned at the temperature drop last night in the fish house, but the fish must have enjoyed the drop in temperature in the fish tanks, because the Sturisoma Aureum spawned again for the third time, Endler’s dropped another four live fry, and a pair of Kribensis cichlids spawned.

The Sturisoma Aureum fry, are growing very quickly on huge quantities of greens, it’s time to move them out of the breeding tank, and into a large grow-out tank, which I’ll be installing over the weekend.

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.

Electrical Gremlins…

Sunday, November 27th, 2005

Electrical issues have been keeping me from the fish house this weekend, the 6ft twin fluorescent tube needed removing from the ceiling in the garage in the dark, after condensation blew it up, the 500 watt external floodlight blew up after filling up with water, and the 150 watt external PIR/floodlight also got damp, and kept switching on and off every few seconds! I’ve still not managed to obtain a replacement 6ft twin fluorescent tube.

and my Leica Digilux camera has stopped working! So that’ll have to go back to Leica, Germany for repair.

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.