Aquarium update - 15th October 2017

This is an update of all of my aquariums @ 15th October 2017...

This is the fry tank in the greenhouse. I removed about 20 White Cloud Mountain Minnow from the Summer tub pond and they are growing well. It also holds my stock of Ramshorn and Malaysian trumpet Snails. I like to keep a few of these in my tanks as a "cleanup crew", but when they become too numerous I move them out to this tank. The tank is filtered with the Boyu external filter and it is working well.

This is my Carnivorous plant terrarium. I bought these two plants from LIDL supermarket for £6 the pair. There is a Pitcher plant and Venus fry trap. I thought it would be interesting to try and grow these. The tank has a piece of capillary matting in the bottom and I keep this wet so moisture can be drawn into the plant pots. A plastic lid is on the tank to keep the humidity up but there are holes so any bugs can be attracted into the tank. They are doing well up to now but apparently you are classed as an "expert" if you can keep the alive over the winter :-), so we shall see what happens.

My plants in my small aqua nano shrimp tank are doing well, particularly the "Jungle Val". I removed about half of the red cherry shrimp from the tank and placed them into my tall shrimp tank. The reminder are doing well and there are some berried females so I am hopeful they will breed. I have covered the exit grill with foam to prevent small shrimp babies being drawn into the filter area. The 2 Amano shrimp also look well.

This is the 24" livebearer tank. The tank contains a selection livebearers from the Maidenhead aquatics "spares" tank, (were people bring surplus fish for resale). There are some guppies that look to be endler/guppy cross breed, some Wagtail platies, and some Temperate platies.  My 3 corydorus are also in there with a Siamese algae eater. All seem to be doing OK. I am using a large sponge airlift filter that is working well. The air pump is in the stand below the tank so the noise is kept to a minimum, Plants are fed with "easy" fertiliser once a week and 1 ml of "EasyCarb" liquid carbon each day.  I decorated the tank with a piece of driftwood and Dragon Stone, which I really like.

The Aqua One aquarium is still stable, it contains home bred Kribensis together with Cherry barb and 3 Ember Tetra. The Kribs enjoy the heavy planting with Cryptocorn plants as they can hide in the under growth. The tank is quite highly stocked but Aqua One tanks have a large rear filter area providing excellent water supply. The filter area contains multiple sponge filter medium and some of the Biohome ceramic media sold by Richard (The PondGuru). 

This is my second Shrimp tank. I have tried to achieve optimum conditions for the Cherry Shrimp to encourage breeding. Filtration is achieved with a " Hang on back" filter this also has a sponge fitted over the inlet tube and a pop sock stocking case fitted over this. The flow is good to the filter pump and the hose should prevent any baby shrimp being drawn into the filter. Temperature is maintained at about 24 C. There are 8 adult Cherry shrimp in the tank and I have spotted 5 baby ones. 3 of the adults are also "berried" (carrying eggs).

Close up of the Red Cherry Shrimp.

Pond update 3

The summer tub pond has done well, it is now the beginning of September 2017 and over the past 4 days or so the water has gone crystal clear. I am not sure how algae blooms work but the only thing that has happened is that the days have been less bright and the sun is now lower in the sky resulting in less light.
The water temperature is 17 deg C at 09:00 the air temp is about a deg higher. The fish still seem very happy dashing about and feeding. I have an aquarium cycled in the greenhouse ready to receive them if the temperature drops much further I will leave the tub filled though as the resident Toad and Frog are still making use of it.
Approx 20 fry in the green house grow-out tanks are doing well. The external BOYU filter is working well, keeping the water in that tank very clear. The fish in the other tank with the Alfagrog home made filter are doing well but the water is slightly cloudy so I will have a go at making an airlift sponge filter to provide mechanical filtration.

Fry tanks in greenhouse

I have been having some success with my 2 fry tanks that are in the greenhouse. One is filtered using the home made "Alfagrog" airlift filter (that I described in an earlier post) the other is filtered using a BOYU external canister filter. Both are performing well and the fry appear to be growing.

The fry have been extracted from the outside tub pond, where the White Cloud Mountain Minnow have lived during this summer. I have placed about 12-15 fry in the two tanks to grow on. The temperature in the tanks is about 23°C @18:00hrs after a warm day and it seems to drop to the high teens during the night. The fry seem quite happy. I also notice there are at least 4 fry in the pond that are about half an inch long but it has quite a lot of algae growth so they are difficult to see.

Fry tank with BOYU filter

Fry tank with Alfagrog air filter

I also made a hood light from some 9mm plywood. It is 18" long and is drilled at each end to receive a glass tube LED unit that I bought as a submersible light. It comes on for a couple of hours in the evening via a timer switch. It is quite effective though it would not be bright enough for plant growth.

 

Greenhouse Tank update

8th May 2017

24″ x 12″ x 12″ aquarium reinstalled in the greenhouse ready for the summer. (56 litre, 15 US gall)

I am using my Boyu external filter, it is an EF-05 (the model without the UV lamp). It is a 5.5 watt version moving 150 litre per hour. So I am looking at about 3 tank water changes per hour.

I have initially filled the tank with rain water - I am hoping this will reduce the amount of green filament algae the develops as in theory it should contain less dissolved nutrients (nitrates etc) that our tap water. It is also much softer with no dissolved calcium salts.

I have seeded the filter with “Evolution Aqua Pure Aquarium Balls”

I may add some Temperate Platies or White Cloud Minnow in a couple of weeks depending how the tank develops. At the moment there is no substrate in the tank, so I can monitor the cleanliness more easily.

I have added a heater to the tank but this is set to a low temperature i.e. about 20C.

28th May 2017

Update - I had the same issue as previously, too much light causing masses of algae. I have replaced the tank with a 2.5 gallon one to keep the filter bacteria maturing.