What Did You do With Your Tank Today?

[Barliman]

Had an awful job making sure I caught them all

I can imagine. I'll be picking up some amanos this week or next, and I was trying to figure out how I'd net them out the bag.

 

[Carriwin]

shelly, I'm glad to hear your tank is doing better!!! I can't wait to see pictures of the new additions, too!

 

[Autumnsky]

shellyx - !!! Beautiful coloring!
~~~
Here goes:

Went to the CAS meeting. Had a really fun time. Learned all about the different types of micro foods for the fish. Narrowly missed getting a sample of some that were provided as door prizes. BUT got some other stuff.

Really excited today that I found a local direct source for all kinds of Bucephalandra. More on that a little later when I find out which kinds and how many I will be getting in about 2 1/2 weeks. But SUPER excited.

Back to the mini auction.

Was able to get 2 trios - of "Hawaiian" & Blue Wag Platy. Needed something for the top of the tank. Pics in a day or 2. They are in a temporary bucket right now.

Then got something kinda interesting from a breeder/business who supports the Club -donated Xiphophorus Helleri Rio Otapa babies. 5 fish fry and 4 shrimp and a tiny newborn fry shrimp Pretty dark blue kinda like shellyx's one pretty blue with a couple eggs and 3 clearish.

Sooo I didn't plan on new shrimp. Took a cylinder vase about a gallon as a probably temporary container and got all the fish and shrimp acclimated to their containers.

Baby fish temporary in the Tangerine Tiger shrimp tank. I bet the little buggers would eat the shrimp.

Got the 46G QT bowfront rinsed and finished putting back on stand. Will fill it tomorrow and add the Platy trios.

Also my friend brought me about 20 Red Ramshorn snails all with nice shells and some oyster shell grit to help harden the water. Snails were disributed into the tanks.

Enjoyed some fun conversations and got to see a Varigated Shark - stunning and exceptional orange and black specimen and a ~15" Black Shark.

Also have been looking for a couple baby Butterfly Koi. Checked with a local source but no luck there.

 

[lunch]

Had been a little lazy with the maintenance in my 700 ltr lately, was down to doin just 1 pwc per week and only gravel vac every 2nd because the flow in my vac was so slow, so I decided to 'tim the tool man' the hell out of it and took it from the standard 10mm hose to a 17mm hose and because my dw floats and is a decent size I have a little trouble getting to a lot of spots so I decided to remove is and give it a hose off too ( thing is so heavy ) I then took my Anubias out and scrubbed the leaves, rinsed the internal sponge filters and pre filter on the canister, scraped the back glass for the first time since starting the tank, removed a few less than healthy plants then did a 190 ltr gravel vac ( so much quicker now ) then the reconstruction began took about 2.5 hours, but worth it

 

[Autumnsky]

Checked the new additions and seems all is well. I took out the heater from the bucket of Platy because it was a little too warm- it was a big heater. They don't really need that much heat.

Got my water feature slate fountain cleaned, filled and ready to plug in.

EDIT addition:
Water feature outside plugged in and works great!

Moved the heater to the opposite side of the 12G Edge tank, hubby mentioned the clamp light sitting on top of the tank and if it was needing a new light.

Told him I had it in the closet and just hadn't got around to putting it up. Then got a husband look of disapproval of the clamp light sitting on top if the tank could look stock. SOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Got it out and switched it over just took a couple minutes - can't believe I didn't get that done months ago! Took longer to mop up the water I spilled over the sides from plunging my hand into the tank with out removing some water first :headbang:

Best thing was that I bought a on/off switch and if you know, the Edge tank requires removal of the lid any time you want to turn the light on or off pain in the bum. Now it is located easily to go on or off with out removing the lid!!!
Yipeee!


Then adjusted the Mini Anubias on the DW spike which covers the intake and wow does it look nice! Just need to move the Cuddle bone out from the front that flipped out of its corner to hide in back again. Pics tomorrow or the next day!

 

[shellyx]

Busy, busy Autumn! Thanks for the compliment, really enjoy watching them.
50 % clean on my elephant nose tank. Lot's off trimming on my plant's, removed loads of floating frogbit again.
Early clean on the boraras tank, been doing extra since they've not been well. Trimmed plant's, rinsed filter's and put both filter's together so the spray bars are touching ( filter feeders enjoying the extra flow ) I'm enjoying watching the boraras, the alpha male keeps chasing the other's away from the moss, it's funny considering he's on only a cm long!

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
30 gallon boraras ,bamboo shrimp, crs,rcs and different snails.

 

[MLHoenig]

Discovered my Spotted Mandarin mostly gone...

And I thought I had a pretty good population of pods swimming around in the rocks...lots of 'em still flitting about.

 

[KingKoopa512]

Rescaped my eheim 6gl with some ryouh stone i jus got.

Sent from my LG-H634 using Tapatalk

 

[Autumnsky]

Rescaped my eheim 6gl with some ryouh stone i jus got.

Sent from my LG-H634 using Tapatalk

Looks nice! Like your rock work.

~~~
Thanks shellyx - Glad to hear your fish are acting like fish instead of sickly in a corner.

Did a 1G pwc on the fish in a bucket fed the night before. Moving them tomorrow.

Thought it was a goner but found there a was still a 3rd in the group of nano Rasboras. Hides well in the ferns and other plants.

The tank has a clear background and am wondering if that inhibits them. The Merah aka Phoenix Rasbora kinda hangs out with the 2 Green Kubotai.

The 2 Boraras uropthalmoides aka Exclamation Point Rasbora hide like there is a shark on the loose.

Think I might try a bit of frosted window film on the back panel and see if that helps their comfort level.

So frustrated that I can't seem to get the fish I am looking for at the lfs that are kinda near me (45 - 60 min.)

If I can find the little fish I am looking for far away, will get them to add to their groups. Already called the "local" ones for this week. Will make a few phone calls for this weeks shipments all over the area. Usually Wed-Thurs arrivals.

Hope to get the 2 trios in the QT tank Monday.

Would prefer if I can get the QT done (kinda all at once) in the next few weeks and be done for awhile.

Found a cool piece of DW in the river. Need to clean it. Also got a small clump of some plant I can't recall atm, the name I think it is.

Also want to sneak over to a ditch that has dwarf cat tails and pluck up a clump of them for the outdoor water container. Should be getting the Blue Endlers for that very soon.

Thinking I should catch the 5 baby Swords and put them with the Platy trios for the QT 3 -4 weeks, and then they should all be big enough to go into the 72G.

As a side note, there have been NO new eggs laid in the 72G by an Angel fish, so maybe I have 2 males now. Hoping so.

 

[Carriwin]

So, I'll be replacing evaporated water out of my 38g tank, because it's missing a lid, and have a huge evaporation problem... so, we'll see what I can do to fix that problem. I have not seen where I can just buy the lid, so I'm going to figure out something creative I'm sure. Maybe I'll look at glass lids. We'll see.

I'm just working on maintaining my status quo with what I have going on at present. Not really making any changes. However, I am getting the "i want to give my convict fish a buddy" bug... though I know it would be an exercise in futility.

 

[cgthebeast]

Painted the new top for my 75g. Now I just have to install the screen work and then I can finally place my order on live aquaria. (Darn fire fish and their crazy jumping habits.) also cleaned out the sump

 

[Autumnsky]

Today, was busy day!

Went to a special plant nursery found a couple plants I can use for the pond container, found some very small pond plant containers like pint and 3 inches at the ReStore - new never used, as the ones at the nursery were for very large plants and ponds. Will be using a bag of organic Miracle Gro I got maybe 2 years ago and chickened out of the dirted tank,

Found a Butterfly Koi white with a orange-y yellow under tone.

Filled the qt tank - spent a little time to get the tank at the right temp. Adding the Play trios and the Koi at the lower Temps say 74F. Good for both.

 

[Autumnsky]

Fun find tonight...A Western Painted Turtle in my yard, then went over to the area near the wildlife pond a pool of water contained cool snails half of them with a cool stripe. Will try and load it so you can see, and a million worms in the mud!!! Brought a number of the snails over to my outdoor AquaFarm tank. Pretty fun and most beautiful.

 

[lunch]

Decided to go with some Monte Carlo as ground coverage and added a couple threadfin rainbows

 

[Autumnsky]

Decided to put up my pond again. Will need to find a different filter than the trash can one I made for it before - probably. Maybe I will be able to hide it.

Deciding on whether or not to get a different shape, or make it a rectangle. It will be going under the stairs area of a 2 story deck, so I might be able to figure out if I can dig out and put it in all the way or partly inground and use a liner. Maybe this year I will just use my little preformed pond and plan for this bigger build next spring. Sounds like less work now.

 

[shellyx]

Ooh a pond! Sounds good Autumn
Cleaned my elephant nose tank, can't believe how big he's grown.
Pwc on my shrimp tank, lost 4 babies and 3 adults which I think has been down to the heat wave we've had.
Hubby bought me some more boraras 22 of them. They're in QT at the moment, thinking 2 week's. They all look really healthy I hope they stay that way! Can't wait to add them in with my other guy's.
Fed live baby brine shrimp to the boraras who loved hunting for them and live bloodworm for Gonzo. Think that's it!

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
30 gallon boraras ,bamboo shrimp, crs,rcs and different snails.

 

[Alan79]

A pond would be great. Having one built in under the deck would be nice too. It's something I will hold off on till I own a house though.

So I found a bargain today. I've waited a fortnight for this to eventuate. But I picked up a coralpower quad t5 light and a fluval 305 filter for $300. For now the filter is too big for any running tank but means I'm halfway to filtering a tank I'm keen to get running. I'll have to buy another filter and build a stand. But I'm about ready to set up my 4x2x2 foot tank. I've waited a long time to set it up.

The light was the real prize though. I wish I had held off on buying a dual t5 last month. I'll only have to replace two bulbs. I'll swap the two from the dual t5 and maybe aim to add 1/4 bulbs to offer the plants some different light colours. The fixture has two switches so I can adjust the light intensity. I'm really happy with it.

I added some alternanthera reineckii mini last night to my 3foot tank. No signs of change yet but it was an emerced growth pack from aquarium industries. They're developing a good range of plants lately. I've had trouble finding a lot of plants I wanted but they've surprised me lately with some nice additions to their range. I might work on getting more CO2 injections in my 3 foot tank and risk the algae fight by running the tank at high light.

One of my goals has been to get all the plants that will show reds or pink to colour up. I've seen good signs of that with the dual t5, the quad t5 should provide plenty of light. It's a little scary to think of how quickly the algae can take hold though.

I'm expecting my endler guppy to drop some young soon. My LFS has been trying to order me more for three weeks but they're not available. The plan is to get a small breeding colony started. Sadly I only bought the three available and one died. I'm down to a male and a female. Hopefully I see some young soon. Guppies are my last resort for breeding a vertebrate. I tried breeding bn plecos but Frank and Barry weren't as keen to breed as id hoped before betty became Barry.

 

[Autumnsky]

Well did bring the plastic pond to the spot under the deck and not so pretty sitting on top and not in the ground as it was designed for.

Thought about the rectangle in ground with a pond liner, and saw some nice material for putting around the edges called rock on a roll and it seems like a splendid solution to the ugly black liner and endless stones to secure and take up space around the edges, as I have small amount of space for plants as it is in the confined area.

Doing 50% pwc on the 72G and the 46G today. 20% on SW nano. Need to order more Prime!

EDIT: Did the Tangerine Tiger tank substrate clean and WOW I can't believe what a mess that was, just clearing up now and probably 7-8G water change with all the cleaning.

 

[Barliman]

Platys! Platys everywhere, Mr. Rico!!

So, I did the usual 20% water change today, plus a major plant-trimming. While working on the tank, I saw a tiny platy fry swimming among the Cardamine Lyrata! This guy was tiny, no more than 2mm, so he (or she) must only be a day or two old. Smart little fellow, he's hiding among the plants where the tetras can't get him.

I trimmed back the cardamine and my ludwigia repens, which was throwing the whole right end of my tank into shade. It was frustrating to throw away the trimmings; I wish I knew another aquarist in the area. Why does West LA have no aquarium club?

I added four more neons (bought at Nature Aquarium in Santa Monica), bringing my school to 11. It's really made a difference with them, as I noticed them schooling more tightly. So pretty in the tank.

I also bought five amano shrimp. Naturally, being aquatic bugs, they hide a lot and I've never seen all five out at once. It was funny to see one of the platys try to "investigate" a shrimp ("Can I eat you?"), and the shrimp go into "Back off, Jack!" mode.

 

[shellyx]

Did an extra clean on my boraras tank, got up this morning to a dead bamboo shrimp don't know why my other 3 are fine. Soo sad.
Fed live bloodworm to my elephant nose he's been out all day hunting for them! At least someone is happy!

55 gallon elephant nose tank.
30 gallon boraras ,bamboo shrimp, crs,rcs and different snails.