Happy Feb fishy people! I can't believe the year is going so fast! Anyway, time for a little update

Happy news first - After a lot of driving around, I finally got the Rosys some girlfriends. They are quite possibly the most active fish I've seen! They certainly have me worked out - I only have to walk in to the dining room and they all come over to see if its time for a nibble! So much fun to watch though - definitely entourages me to eat at the table more

I thought I got all girls this time so that it would be a 50/50 mix, but under the tubes I picked for this tank, the front tube really brings out the "rosy" so it's hard to tell! I'm pretty sure I do have a mix though. I'll try and dig out the camcorder and post up a video of the little darlings. I will be leaving this tank to mature now - I might consider a bristlenose at some point in the future (pH is about 7.2 at the moment)

On a sadder note, you may have seen my thread regarding my Amazon tank. After "helping" a cardinal on Saturday, I've noticed 1 further tetra with a tiny white spot in the same place. It's strange that it seems to be only effecting the Cardinals and only 1 at a time. I'm thinking of getting a UV unit, to see if that helps. Still not 100% sure on the diagnosis. I have taken some pics on my camera (rather than my phone) and I might have a look to see if they are any clearer. Unfortunately, I was a donut and left my memory card at home this morning

Marine: Still not got any water in the tank! I've decided on stock, so it's just a matter of time and money now! I'm thinking of starting a thread detailing how much my "cheep" little cube has cost to date. And that's without doing any mods! :-s

Anyway, more later

Hi fishkeepers!It has been quite a while before I posted so I'll let you know about things in my fish tank.Today morning I saw a couple of eggs in my fish tank.I have bought a tank seperator and an extra air pump for the eggs.It appears that my female platinum Aro have given birth!I will post again.

Greetings,other fellow fishkeepers! I have just returned to Australia from Singapore and got a few shrimps for my humongous tank whose inhabitants are my beautiful platinum Arowanas!I've got 2 of these beauties,1 male and the other 1,female.These guys are real costly!It took about $100,000 to get these two!

Had a nice little trip out to my LFS on Saturday - I am now the proud keeper of 6 Rosy Barbs

These guys are fantastic! It's a shame they didn't have any females in, but the males seem to be happy enough for now. I will be adding some females at some point - once these guys settle in. At this point, I'm thinking of getting 6 girlies, to bring them up to 12. After that, we shall see

The obligatory pics... (quality isn't great, I took them on my phone)

Well, it's been a fair few months since my last post on here. As the blogs were mentioned with regards my tank log post, I thought I'd give a little update on all things fishie for me

First off - My Amazonian tank: I've got a slight issue with my Cardinals - A little white blob appears on the tail, which gets bigger over time. I've lost one so far, and now have 1 with a large blob, and 1 with a tiny spec. Currently treating with Waterlife Sterazin, but not sure this is the best thing. I've already tried Waterlife Protozin. We shall see what happens... If this doesn't help, I'll try Waterlife Octozin - and then I'm at a loss...

Still not sure what happened to poor Andre, but the girls have a new "stud" called Ozzy. After a rough start (the girls were not impressed!) he has now settled in, and his girls are much happier. In fact, they seem to be getting on better now than before.

First new project - I've finally aqua-scaped my empty tank.
Looking at 8 Five banded barbs initially & still deciding on a 2nd fish - possibly some Rosy barbs. Media is sitting happily in my 1050 external maturing. Should be ready this weekend



Currently, I've got (from Left to Right) Anubias Barteri on the wood, behind that is Cabomba (Can't remember the exact type!), Some nice Java fern on wood, Vallisneria Spiralis in the corner, some lovely plastic grass stuff and a couple of Echinodorus latifolious from my Amazonian tank. This is my first time buying plants from Aquajardin, and so far I'm very impressed. We shall see how they take. The aim was to leave lots of swimming space


My other project, is a Dennerle Nano marinus 60 cube.



So far, all I've done is taken it out of the box, and tried the light

I am SO looking forward to that project - need to finish a spot of DIY in the lounge first though...

I'm thinking of upgrading the stock Skimmer, and going for a few soft corals, Hermits, Snails, Shrimp, a small Goby (or pair) - maybe a Neon and maybe a firefish/Royal Gramma.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be more updates to follow

I just gotten new fish and I am so excited! Watching and learning about fish is so interesting! My new fish are neon and cardinal tetras, one of the most popular tetras in the world. I also have a tank, plastic corals, gravel, a filter and a heater. Finally I am able to own fish! I will show my parents that I am truly responsible and let my fish live for many years!

I have just gotten some fish and a tank with filter,plastic plants,gravel and a heater.It has been so exciting keeping fish.At first the water was very cloudy but it cleared after a while.I've been buying loads of books lately about fish and so i dare say i may be an expert.

My new WCMM tank has been delivered by swell.co.uk so here is some information about the setting up





The tank comes as a complete package with a 450LPH internal filter and 75w heater the tank is 70cm in length and has a capacity of 98L.

I over bought decor from Maidenhead Aquatics but in the end I settled on a hefty peice of bogwood, a bag of pebbles a small BW with moss and a peice of slate.

I decided to use play sand as the substrate (Argos).

Planting is Elodea and Camboba?? and a couple of moss balls






The play san takes a while to settle and the water took a while to get up to room temp, but the fish are in and all is well so far.


Costs
AquaEL 70 from swell.co.uk in 24hr delivery £74.99
Bogwood from Tri-Mar £4.99
Bag of Pebbles from Dorchester Aquatics £1
Aquarium black backing West Dorset Aquatics £7
2kg Argos Playsand £2ish
Moss balls, small bog wood and plants nicked from other tanks.




JON

DIY tank divider

I have recently had to divide my tank to separate a 2 male goldfish I had just adopted (a common and a fantail) from my 2 female fancies. They are much larger than my girls and my oranda already has buoyancy issues and is not coping well with the relentless chasing from the common. As it was already winter when I got them, moving him to a pond straight away was not an option, so I decided to divide the tank temporarily until the weather warms up.

Unfortunately, my tank is not a well known brand and the dimensions are quite different from the standard tank dividers available commercially, so I have had to DIY this one with some help from the internet. I have detailed the process below for anyone who ever finds themselves in this situation!

What you will need:

Sheets of Plastic Mesh:
I got mine from Hobbycraft – plastic canvas in the Cross-stitch section. This is 5 mesh, 55.9cm x 33.7cm (22” x 131/4”) but they also do a 7 mesh which is a much finer mesh (smaller holes) – this might be a better option if you are dividing the tank for fry-rearing purposes, but the sheet is smaller though so if it’s a large tank you will need more of them. These sheets are really cheap, under £2!




Craft Knife


Cable Ties
These are only necessary if you need to join sheets together. I used the smaller ones in this pic (80mm long).


Suction Cup Clips
For securing the divider in place. I used theseClips


Decent pair of scissors

Patience!


Making the divider:

First you need to check your tank’s dimensions INSIDE the tank. My tank dimensions are: 61cm deep and 44.5cm width (straight across the middle). If you want to divide the tank at a slight diagonal instead (which is what I eventually did) bear in mind that you will need extra width. Sheets can be overlapped to achieve the right dimensions. Also, it’s a good idea to aim for a width of divider a tiny bit wider than the actual width of the tank as the slight ‘bowing’ of the divider will help it keep in place better. If you make it too wide you can always trim it down a bit.

This is where the ‘patience’ is required. These plastic sheets and also the plastic clips on the suction cups) have LOADS of sharp plastic bits sticking out on both sides as a result of the manufacturing process, and these need to be shaved off using the craft knife to leave a smooth finish. It takes ages but think how guilty you would feel if your fish cut themselves or tore their fins on these! The ones o the plastic sheets run along the rows and columns in almost a pattern so it’s not hard to locate them all.

If you need to overlap sheets to get the right dimensions, secure the sheets together using cable ties. You need to use enough to make sure there are no bulging gaps large enough for your fish to get stuck between the 2 sheets, and to give the divider a bit of rigidity (the mesh is flimsy on its own) but also bear in mind that the more you use, the heavier that overlapped section becomes, and the more difficult it will be to make it stand up.



I used 2 sheets overlapped along the longer edge to get the right depth. I then trimmed it down the side to get the required width.


Once you have pulled all the cable ties tight, trim them as close to the head as possible.


Once trimmed, I then rotated the ties and pushed the trimmed edge through the top sheet so that it sat tucked between the 2 sheets – again minimising the chance of fish injuries. The squares were the perfect size for the cable tie heads – they went in with a ‘click’ almost locking into place so unlikely to come out on their own.


The last step was to place the suction cups in the tank, it took a few attempts to get the spacing and angle of the diagonal right but then you can just slide the mesh into the clips, and tuck it slightly into your substrate to help keep it in place.






It seems fairly sturdy but obviously try not to be too vigorous with your tank cleaning!

Added a tiny bit more gravel after asking and looking about so that it's about an inch and a quarter or so at the front and about 2 inches deep at the back.

Tank is now filled with water, U3 filter is pumping water and the heater is on. The "lcd thermometer" that came in the box is on the outside of the glass isnt reading anything yet but ive another in the tank and the water needs to heat up quite a bit by the looks of it.

Used the 6 in 1 test strips to try test some tapwater, i've read the liquid tests are more accurate and i can see how that could be. Test strips are tricky to read and i tried twice but the results look like they should be somewhere around:

NO2 = 0
NO3 = 0
KH = between 4 and 5 (not sure of units)
GH = between 8 and 10 (not sure of units, really hard to read)
pH = 6.6
Cl2 = 0.8