hello im just wanting to say HOORAH!!!!my aquarium has cycled and i havent lost any more fish.nitrires 0. have been for two days.my nitrates are about 30 is that ok.thanks for all your advise.

hello,

i just wanted to say, my ryukin and my oranda had a brood.

the babies were born on valentine's day 2010. The ryukin also had a brood with my fantail. (they hatched two days earlier) this is the first time i've ever had fish babies so it's all a great new experience.

I watch them close everyday and the oranda / ryukins are now 5 days old. on day 4 i noticed i could see that some were coloured and some wern't. (the mom oranda is matte and the dad ryukin is red)

i also notice i can already see which ones will be ryukin! the little black line in their body is already humped!

I know you all may already know this but i found it cool. i'll add a picture soon. i've got some great video of them that i've added to youtube already lol.

I hope to get a matte ryukin ... i'll keep you posted!

thanks for reading my post.

Last time I posted I was waiting for my triops in my triop kit to hatch. They never did - that I saw but I learned a couple of things.
First I was over complicating the whole thing. Triops need a very low TDS to hatch which means that cycling the tank before they hatch is near impossible. Plus when they hatch they are so small that having a cycled tank is pointless anyway. Their bioload is so tiny that even in a pint glass it would be like a single tetra in a 50 gallon tank. In a 30L tank all they really needed was to be left alone.
Anyway, that was a learning experience so I ordered some new eggs from ebay and got the european species "cancriformis" that is more comfortable with lower temperatures and grows larger.
I set up a bowl on top of the tank with a light and put in mostly pure RO with a small jug full of old tank water from the tropical tank. Left it a day and then poured in the new eggs.

A week later some triops where born, last week I thought they'd all died before growing.
This was followed by the growing on tank becoming overgrown with algae and last weekend by my marine tank sump return malfuctioning and 30 gallons of water ending up on the dining room floor. The fish are ok but the Cowrie hasn't moved since so I need to go check him out as soon as I've finished typing this... tomorrow I'm fitting a new laminate floor (the tank itself is mounted directly onto the concrete so at least I don't have to get under it!

Overall I've been feeling pretty fed up about all this but just this afternoon as I was about to tip out the grotty bowl of water I spotted a 0.5cm triop lazing at the surface. Some good news at last
The newborns where smaller than the sand at the bottom of the bowl and so despite my best efforts proved impossible to photograph. Actually I do have some images with tiny white specs on them that may be the baby triops but here is a photo of the 0.5cm one today.

I put the adding of triops on hold as I wanted to run some chemistry experiments on the tank first. Results on those still to follow but I've done a few water changes and the water is now clear.

I have found that the exceptionally soft water required for the triops is resulting in difficult keeping the PH from crashing. With the additional chemical activity of the plants and the ammonia starting a cycle the ph drops low, the cycle stalls and it all goes pete tong. Lucky this is all being discovered before adding the triops. To counter this I have chosen to increase the KH and TDS of the tank a little. I am now holding a PH of 6.4 - 6.6 and a TDS of close to 200.

To answer a couple of questions posed on the last blog entry,

1. I have some egg cysts left over from a couple of years ago, I know they are good at surviving drought (~sp.) but do you think they would still be viable?
Triop eggs are amazingly resilient and can be viable after decades. It will depend on how they've been kept, hopefully dry and cool. The only way to know is to try it out.

2. How big do they get?
That depends on the particular species of Triop. I've been told Triops inhabit every continent and climate, the largest being the european (Triops cancriformis) and grow to over 4" plus tail. The UK has triops however they are an endangered species so collecting from the wild is a definite no-no. Normally the ones you get in kits are from one of a few species that grow to around 2" (plus tail). Once you learn the species names ebay makes it easy to get the ones you're after.


I promise there will be triops in the next instalment of this triop blog!

Well after quite some time ive gotten round to an update thins have progress slowly deliberately so allowing the tank to machure and fish to be quarantined

I came across a few problems with the set up which have mostly been solved the first was quite a large amount of fuss and slime accumulating on the bog wood.
After consulting LHG we came to the conclusion of adding a Pleco to the tank as this would work quite well with the currant inhabitance i was on the look out for a wood eating Pleco that as a bonus to chewing the bog wood he would clean the fuss as well.
whilst in my lfs i came across a dull eyed royal pleco(l191) and promptly got him home and into quarantine
after introduction he cleaned the bog wood up nicely within a few days



then i started having clarity problems misting of the water my levels where very good no problems with filtration or flow around the tank clean gravel and all agen after talking to forum members including LHG
it was decided that far from being a bad thing happening it was more likely to be an abundance of life in the tank coupled with the usual misting that cichlids produce
so the discussion was made to add a uv steriliser i searched e bay to fined one suitable and within my poor man's budget i came across this

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&item=180220836188

all seemed good a nice uv steriliser with fittings that would rotate 360 degrease to allow easy figment and mounting under the tank and well within the flow rate of the fluval 205 filter.
it arrived 3 days later i got all exited with a new gadget but to my disappointment after assembling and switching the unit on the bulb would not illuminate. of back to the e bay seller i go i have to give credit hear to the customer service of the seller 100 percent good i sent a message explaining the problem and they promptly sent me a new bulb and transformer which on fitting worked perfectly. all well and good i plumbed it in today i will update on the effect it has on the tank in the future.



The next stage was finding a specese of fish that would add some movement to the tanks upper levels as the cichlids kept in ther end of tank territory and the Platydoras costatus had gone fully nocturnal and only appear after lights out hiding among the bog wood throughout the day so left most of the middle and upper tank void of movement. and again another LHG recommendation along with dwss59 input and some research we found a good sized medium shoal fish with enough boisterousness to hold ther own and not bother or be bothered with the cichlids as well as having ther own character i decided on selecting one of the large rainbows once i could fined some in my lfs of the right size i wanted to introduce larger specimens.

When in my lfs looking for them i struck up a conversation with a friend of a friend ho had decided to shut dawn his tank and had 6 Glossolepis incisus (red rainbows). i got them home and put them in qt they where pretty washed out not showing much colour the first few days until they settled after some more research i discovered i had 6 males. (bummer lol) so will have to track dawn some females and swap out 4 of them at a later date.

So i will finish of with a few tank shots and under tank shots of the filter and electronic layout the stand is ready for cladding now i have everything as i want it so till the next update.

EDIT: I am not going to be making the new stand for a while, so I'll start on a weekly blog post.

The tank's been doing fine, I've been feeding the fish, and so far nothing's seemed to be a waste of money. I'm trying to get more decor as the fish seem a bit bored at the moment, the goldfish are eating, or attempting to eat, bubbles, and the corys are eating the goldfish's poop. What a wonderful cycle! XD
Ah yes, I can make my own models for the bottom. Do you think seven-month-old plastic cement would be fine? I have a model ship that I don't have any other use for.

so, I am pretty fluent in caring for coldwater fish, and today, my first project in a while has come into full swing! Let me explain.
A few weeks ago, I told my dad I wanted to get a fishtank. So we surfed the web, looking for good fishtanks, when my dad came home with a charming, yet slightly worn, 15-20 gallon fish tank! So, for a couple weeks, we just cleaned it out, tested the caulk's integrity, among other things. So, finally, I had time to go buy fish! I took the opportunity, and before long, the tank was up and running! There, ordered from smallest to largest: Edward, the male cory cat; an un-named albino comet; Cheeto, the male comet goldfish, and Chicken, the fat female cory :3.
So, without further ado, some pics:
















Questions, comments, drunk rages?

Been doing more work, playing with my power tools

To make all the filter connections easier and neater i've concealed pipes in the middle section of the bookcase, along with wires for lighting and the elctrics needed. This way you shouldn't be able to see any of the filter plumbing or wiring at all.

Also done plumbing in the cupboards underneath. The two filters will be fed from a common feed system draining from both ends of the tank. Thats all the piping marked in red. Each filter feeds from a sepaerate cut of valve to allow maintenance. I've also included an extra valve to facilitate water changes. Each filter will then have a separate outlet, the green marked pipes. I'm planing on spray bar at one end and a sort of jet flow at the other.

This is where i left it today, its really sprung up now. To finish the book case i will put beams across the top with shelves on top of that up to the picture rail. Lots of room for my books Then a couple of doors for the cupboard under the fish tank to hide stuff. Tank is delivered tomorrow, can't wait to see it and start fantasising what to put in it.

Ok so, next bit of the tank progression I added some moonlights to the tank which were looking excellent :












However, As pretty as this is, I have had to alter my plans a little frustratingly I had the moonlights set up along the base of the light unit on the top of the tank, but then this weekend i went to a lfs to buy some more supplies and for my new small tank which i will get to in a moment.

But I got a new filter for the new tank, which was an Eheim 2213, but this came with a spraybar, So i thought hmm stupid to put it on the small tank so ive put the spraybar on the big tank obviously




but now the amount of water flying out of here is great for the oxygenation, but it was spraying water all over the moonlights, and as confident as I am about aquatic electrics and water I just didnt really like to leave them as they were, SO pulled them all off, and I plan to either reattach them somewhere better, or to build a whole new lid to the tank myself which would also help to insulate the tank better re the sound of the spraybar, seeing as I have to try and sleep with it running





I also added a couple of the plants that were spare from the ones i bought for the new smaller tank, but Im unsure on the floating grass now it looks a bit messy to me, but the fish really really love it, they really get up in there so am tempted to leave it, if anyone has opinions on this pls let me know.





-- The Micro tank --

Next was the continuing start of the smaller tank ive been trying to plan and bring together, am fairly happy now with where its at So to summarise bought the tank its only a 13"x13"x16" tank So I have bought a decent sized external filter to give me some extra water volume, and am planning to keep a small shoal of tetra in there along with maybe 1-2 shrimp







I started a small cycle going over a week and a half ago just to get things happening which as you see cleared up soon, I added all the filter media to the new one and will monitor and keep it progressing now until its all ready for the new fishes

So today I collected the rock and plants for it, which i cleaned off the rock by boiling, and then added with the plants and connected up slightly awkwardly the filter but got there in the end, this is the result so far