Posts Tagged ‘fish’

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Hot or Cold?

Friday, October 7th, 2005

After some careful consideration, considering the advantages and disadvantages, I have decided to re-locate the air-inlet to my compressor back into the fish house in the garage, at ceiling height. I’ve drilled a small hole in my jablite partition and inserted the eheim tubing which connects to the air-inlet of my Hailea Air Compressor.

Air Compressor

Advantages of Internal Air

  • Internal air tends to be of a constant
    temperature.
  • Internal air tends to be of a constant
    humidity.
  • Internal air will be free of pollutants.

Disadvantages of External Air

  • Cold external air will cool the body of the compressor,
    possibly causing some condensation and water damage to the surrounding area.
  • It will cool the aquariums.
  • Air could be contaminated.

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What’s for supper?

Thursday, October 6th, 2005



An 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!

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Time flys by when your the driver of a train…..

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

Another emergency again this evening, and it would happen when I’m pulling the late shifts in the office.

Arrived home at 7.15pm to find one of my display tanks in the house very cloudy, checked the Eheim 2015 External Canister filter, and again it had stopped working, I’ve previously reported this failure a few weeks ago.

I checked the water quality, and the ammonia was higher than usual, this could be the filter has stopped working, or the addition of the vallis which has been slowly rotting.

I completed a 50% partial water change, with water at the correct temperarture and pH.

I’ve also brought in a “daddy” of a filter an Eheim 2317 external canister filter, this is a mature filter, that is used in the fish house, as a standby filter for emergency use.

I must now investigate why the 2015 is failing.

Collection of Eheim Filters

This picture shows an Eheim Classic 2015, 2313 and 2317, along with Hy-Flo Model C, UV Filter and Dennerle Profi 2000 System.

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Fish House

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

This is a picture of the fish house, I took some months ago, I’ve had to mangle many photos together because I couldn’t fit it in the frame, but you’ll get the general idea, of what it looks like, and what keeps me busy.

Fish House

I’ve just added some new blog code, and wanted to test it here! I’ve hopefully fixed the bugs now. Where do I get the time!

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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!).

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Young Koi Angelfish

Monday, October 3rd, 2005

This is one of my special Koi Angelfish I’ve breed.

Young Koi Angelfish

Sorry for RSS users, I’m modifying the blog code, to add new features. So you may get this entry a few times, depending on how often you download the RSS feed.

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Cheap Alternative to Aquatic Planting Kit Pots

Monday, October 3rd, 2005

This was emailed to me by a fellow aquarist after having difficulties with the gibbiceps digging up the plants in my display tank. Reproduced here in its entirety with permission of the author – Amerce.

“Actually I managed to rig something a little bit cheaper up for myself with items I had left over or had squirreled away.

I had some peat left over from my killifish breeding pots (sterilized in the microwave), I had some aquarium sand (£2+ for a 3 kg bag), some fine gravel left over from another aquarium and some plastic containers left over from various things (Ferrero rocher container, strawberry punnet container etc. I’d punched some holes in the container bottom beforehand), the most expensive part was buying the plants and the plant rooter granules.

I lined the bottom of the containers with some peat, sprinkled some of the root granules and then tied up the plants (using the lead that java sent me), once I had decided where all the plants were going I then used the wet sand to firmly place the plants in the container (I’d washed the sand earlier and it was still a bit moist) the sand acted like putty and was easy to shape and mould around the plant roots, then I sprinkled the gravel over everything to make sure the sand and plants didn’t float up once it was placed in the tank, and because the containers had been punched before the water soaked in to the base of the container and gradually filled it and it sank nicely without loosing the plant, soil, or sand.

This way the undergravel isn’t bunged up with roots from the plants and you can take out the containers at any time to do plant maintenance and also move the container where ever you want without upsetting the plants too much.”

So this Christmas, save those Ferrero rocher containers, and recycle them, and save them from landfill!

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Soaking Bogwood

Sunday, October 2nd, 2005


These
are the four pieces of bogwood I purchased, currently soaking in a vat of water
before adding them to aquariums in the fish house, the brown stain in the water
is caused by the tanin in the bogwood leaching into the water. Boiling and
soaking for long periods can reduce the tanin leaching into the water, the use
of carbon in a filter will remove the tanin from the water but can also remove
other nutrients required for plant growth, regular partial water changes will
also dilute the effect. I quite like the colour, and it appears more natural
for the fish that I keep. It also helps to acidify the water  in the
aquarium. You usually have to pay for chemicals to do this e.g.
Tetra Blackwater
Extract. (the observant amongst you will notice this vat was last filled
with a potassium permanganate solution, this has been siphoned off into 20l
bottles, so I can dispose of, at a rate of 500ml (half a litre) a day!)

I’ve planted out my display tank this evening using Aquatic Potting Kits,
I’ve inspected the Totra Vallis, I received from Java-Plants and they are of
very poor quality unlike the Amazon Swords I received, I’ve emailed Java-Plants
for comments. All 25 plants look like they need a priest, very brown, I don’t
think they’ll recover.

On the subject of emailing suppliers, I’ve also emailed Pond-Supplies UK,
because I’ve noticed stress fractures/cracks on my new Air compressor, and
that’s not been in service very long. Air is leaking in via these cracks, and
not via the air-inlet.

On a happier note, my "aquarium sealant fix" seems to have fixed my other
Hi-Blow type air pump.

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Found an L190 on the A1

Saturday, October 1st, 2005

Okay, I’ve bent the truth a little here, a friend travelling south from Newcastle met me on the A1/A59 at Junc 47, so I could collect a L190 Royal Pleco/Parnaque L190 Panaque nigrolineatus, extremely nice fish, currently in quarantine. Do other people conduct similiar activities?

Whilst as I was only a few miles from Tropica, Knaresborough, I thought I would drop in and have a browse. Tropica have a fantastic planted Dennerle display tank, just inside the door. Well worth a visit if your travelling up the A1, only a few miles from Junc 47 A1 (and this garden centre has a cafe!) From 5th October 2005, they will also be stocking Tropical Marines. I purchased four aquatic plant potting kits.

On returning to York, made a quick visit to Maidenhead Aquatics to purchase some bogwood, I only wanted small pieces, so browsed around in the box to collect the broken pieces, good value for a tenner (10GBP), I don’t think the staff were too amused, as most of the larger pieces are at least 5 kilos, at 5.50 GBP per kilo, that’s a few quid. I just wanted a few small pieces to add to various tanks, for the L’s and plecos to graze on. This wood is definately bogwood, it’s not been sandblasted like Mopani wood. I also checked out the young Angelfish, but didn’t part with any, because I didn’t think they were in good condition, very poor condition, tatty and torn finnage.

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Breakdown near Animal House

Friday, September 30th, 2005

Well, I didn’t break down but a friend did, so apart from show him around the fish house, I had to collect his car not far from Animal House in Batley, West Yorkshire that’s the only fish connection to the fish house, and I got back that late, it was too late to feed the fish.

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