Holding tub for White Cloud Mountain Minnow

I have just setup this holding tub in my greenhouse for my White Cloud Mountain Minnow that are still in the outside tub pond. It is a 35 litre "Really Useful" plastic box I purchased from Amazon for £10 delivered. These are excellent storage boxes and with having external support ribs I think they should be strong enough to hold water. I stood the box on a piece of plywood with bubble wrap on it ,to to provide a firm base. This should help prevent distortion. I have installed two airlift filters, the first is the Alfagrog filled one which has been running for a few months and the other is a twin sponge airlift filter. I have added rainwater to the tub as this is what the outside pond currently contains and the fish are used to it. The temperature of the water in the tub was 11.6 deg. The greenhouse air temperature is 19.3 degrees. I will transfer the fish into the tub once the filters have become established. 

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.

Emmersed Plant growing

12th May 2017

These are my sickly looking Anubias plants. They are not happy in a tank so I thought I would try growing them emmersed. Apparently they will grow ok if you keep the humidity high while they get used to the move from underwater to an air environment. I will update again in a few weeks.

Update 2 Garden Water Feature

12th May 2017

My water feature filter is now working.

After a couple of issues, I have now managed to get my pool filter system up and running.

The main problem was that the power head pump was delivering too much water to the filter, causing it to overflow. The pump was a 500 litre per hour one, also the output regulator was missing. I found a 400 litre per hour one in my spares box that had a regulator and I substituted this one.

I also replaced the filter outlet hose with a 3/4″ hose and shortened it to be no longer than required. The level in the filter now seems to be stable so I will see if it performs OK.

I am using the filter as a mechanical filter, i.e. no bio or chemical components, as I have no fish in the pond.

Update 1 Garden Water Feature

12th May 2017

My homemade pond filter up and running supplying my garden water feature.

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.

Messing about in the greenhouse

29/05/2016 - Messing about in the greenhouse

I thought I would try Dustins ideas as seen on his Dustins fishtanks YouTube channel (which is always entertaining!) and try having a couple of tanks in my greenhouse. I wanted to see if I can get my plants to grow naturally, also to monitor the temperatures in the tanks, and possibly see if fish can survive in there.

The larger container is an old plastic storage box that I normally use as a sump for rainwater to water my greenhouse plants with. This tank has intake and return pipes connected to a BOYU external canister filter that I bought a few months back for a project and then never used. I thought I would try it to see how effective it is. 

The other is small aquarium with a foam airlift filter. I haven’t used this type before so I thought I would see if it would clear the water in this tank.

The water in both tanks is rain water from my rain water butt off the house roof.

I measured the temperatures tonight and the large tank was 20c the small tank was 22c. If it is stable at this temperature then it may be used for temperate fish, i.e. Temperate Platy and White Cloud Mountain Minnow.