Any fishkeepers out there?

AndrewA123 said:
Great news :thumbs:

Got to be said, I wouldn't be without the tank now. Far too entertaining, even when you decide to rescape and large water change immediately after work :lol:
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When you say a large WC, how large, I do 25% every week, which is about a bucket full of water.


Here is a photo of my external thermostat

20130130_162746.jpg


:)
 
last nights was about 60litres, so about a 40% water change.

Got to love the nest of wires attached to EVERY tank the world over :)

doesn't seem to matter how neat they start out :)
 
Calling Matt (and others) :)

after a general tinker last night and the removal of some of the worst effected plants, I'm after a few suggestions for a low ground cover plant (not moss) that will grow to a height of about an inch, will be relatively robust.

I want this to grow effectively like a lawn between two rock faces about 8" apart.

having looked something like the following would be good but it grows much higher than I'm looking for.

ECHINODOROUS TENELLUS / PYGMY CHAIN SWORD

I've even considered going down the artificial route, but would much prefer not to :)

the tank has sand substrate and no CO2 system.

Any suggestions readily accepted :)

Thanks in advance
 
How about Eleocharis Parvula (Dwarf Hairgrass)

Have a read here. It sounds like it could be ideal for what you're after :)

an extremely versatile and useful plant. It may be used to great affect by itself to form a grassy carpet: a very dense lawn like effect may be achieved in 6 – 8 weeks from planting.
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A unique feature of this plant is that if it is cut short before it is planted then it tends to stay short when it grows in and becomes established.
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Eleocharis parvula is a plant that is not particularly demanding and is fairly tolerant of lower levels of light
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Cheers Paul, That was one I looked at but the height was excessive to my desires, but reading that link it appears if cut short tends to stay short.

I really didn't want to have to be cutting it every week :)

cheers, I'll await any other suggestions, but that could be ideal. :thumbs:
 
I have a carpet of Pygmy Sword and it's prolific! I actually pull loads out every water change. It spreads like wild fire :). It grows to about 3 - 4 inches in my tank, so probably not the one for you. Lovely ground cover plant though ;)
 
cheers guy's, Matt, that first link one seems to tick the boxes too.

A bit more digging is in order then I'll likely place an order online somewhere as most local stores seem to keep very few foreground plants.
 
Well, I looked at all 3 suggestions, then looked again, and again for good measure and decided I'd take a punt on some of the Dwarf Hairgrass (Eleocharis Parvula) as sugested by Paul.

An order has been placed with seapets and hopefully it'll arrive over the weekend or early next week. Then we'll see how it goes. it looks like it should do as I want, my main concern being whether it'll get established before the Rams decide to take a liking to it :D
 
AndrewA123 said:
Well, I looked at all 3 suggestions, then looked again, and again for good measure and decided I'd take a punt on some of the Dwarf Hairgrass (Eleocharis Parvula) as sugested by Paul.

An order has been placed with seapets and hopefully it'll arrive over the weekend or early next week. Then we'll see how it goes. it looks like it should do as I want, my main concern being whether it'll get established before the Rams decide to take a liking to it :D
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Nice choice
 
cheers Matt, time will tell if it's the right choice :) :thumbs:
 
Any of the fish keepers in here got a pond?

Im trying out figure an *easy* way of doing water changes on mine.

I have a 3000 gallon, lined, kidney shaped pond about 4' deep in deepest part. Got 4 koi in there less than 12" each. I have an external filter plumbed in that took me ages to get the leaks at the joins sorted so I dont want to break those seals again.

To water change at the moment I have to rig up a long rickety line of old guttering to a drain, swivel my filter outlet pipe round and let it flow out down the guttering too the drain. It doesnt work that well and a lot of water escapes onto the lawn at various points. On the plus side it gets shot of about 250 gallons in about 20 minutes. To refill from the mains takes about 2 hours and I go out every half hour and bung in some dechlorinator.

Just wondering whether to buy another pump and a load more hose purely for use in emptying out water or perhaps buy a pond vac thing. I imagine the pond vac sucks the water out quite slowly though?

Anyway, grateful for any input or ideas on how best to do it? Once I can do it easier I'll do it more often which has got to be good for the fish (if not for my water bill).

Cheers
 
Aha! Thanks Andy.

equates to 500 gallons per hour by my reckoning. That might be ok. How quick would you say it empties a full water butt?

Advantage of it is Ive already got enough hosepipe to connect to it and reach the drain. (Or water the garden, rinse the car etc)
 
Believe it or not, it's been used no more than about 10 mins as after watering the garden the first time the rains started :lol: (just my usual comedy timing!)

I bought that one as it was the cheapest at the time (£30 I seem to recall) and I wasn't in any rush to empty anything. The pressure seemed pretty good on it as I recall too.

I think Machine Mart do a few of them too, if you have a local branch.
 
Well, after a slight mishap (for the second time :bonk:) during a water change, one that found me dropping the dirty filer media into the newly cleaned tank I've taken the plunge and opted for an external filter.

The weekend will therefore be filled with cursing, panic and regrets as I undoubtedly encounter issues with the installation and question my sanity :lol:

In fairness the process looks pretty straight forward and I'll run both filters together for a fortnight or so before turning off the internal filter and removing it into storage so that it's on hand as a spare in the event of any issues.

looking forward to gaining a reasonable chunk of internal tank space, lot looking forward to losing a much larger chunk of under tank storage space :D
 
AndrewA123 said:
Well, after a slight mishap (for the second time :bonk:) during a water change, one that found me dropping the dirty filer media into the newly cleaned tank I've taken the plunge and opted for an external filter.

The weekend will therefore be filled with cursing, panic and regrets as I undoubtedly encounter issues with the installation and question my sanity :lol:

In fairness the process looks pretty straight forward and I'll run both filters together for a fortnight or so before turning off the internal filter and removing it into storage so that it's on hand as a spare in the event of any issues.

looking forward to gaining a reasonable chunk of internal tank space, lot looking forward to losing a much larger chunk of under tank storage space :D
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You could also put a piece of the existing filter media into the external filter to help it get established :)
 
Rob 80386 said:
You could also put a piece of the existing filter media into the external filter to help it get established :)
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:thumbs:
I've spoken to the guy's in the LFS and the "Optimal" safe route appears to be to stick the ceramic media from existing into the new filter (with new ceramic media too) and run for a week or two. as I'm in no major rush I'll do this.

As the external filter is a little larger than anticipated I'll need to modify the unit first, but then all should be good. Mind, I'll probably use the excuse to build a new unit in the future :)
 
You can't go wrong with external filters mate, mine ran on an fx5 and a tetra ex1200,
 
cheers mate, looks straight forward, but I fancy I'll complicate matters with trying (and failing) to keep things neat :lol:

as I say, a few minor unit mods before I can start.

I've gone for the EFX 300 from Aquamantra (Maidenhead Aquatics) they had it working on one of their show tanks and the noise was negligible. It will be a little excessive for my tank but I'm more than happy with OTT filtration :)
 
The only hard bit with external filters is getting the water actually moving through the blighters at switch on. hopefully the more modern ones will be fine. I lashed out on a Eheim classic once and could never get it to "suck" so its sat in the garage doing nothing and Im still using my stone age Fluval.
 
DorsetDude said:
The only hard bit with external filters is getting the water actually moving through the blighters at switch on. hopefully the more modern ones will be fine. I lashed out on a Eheim classic once and could never get it to "suck" so its sat in the garage doing nothing and Im still using my stone age Fluval.
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Most are self priming, usually once you get the siphon going, it should be fine.

I would advise putting a stop tap on the filter inlet pipe, so when you have to clean the pump or media, you can stop the flow without breaking the siphon or unintentionally draining the tank over the floor

:)
 
The Aquamantra filters have an automatic self prime feature. It works brilliantly! You just push the button, the filter primes then starts flowing.
 
That's my understanding too, seems a cracking filter for the price. :thumbs:

Roll on tomorrows fitting. tonight will be spent drilling the hose holes into the unit and repositioning plugs :D


Button won't budge currently but I assume that's because it's not got power or water yet?
 
Filter now in, working and leak free. Currently in tandem with the internal filter for a week or two but pretty impressed. Looking to replace the hood in the future to allow better routing of the pipe work but over all very happy. :thumbs:
 
AndrewA123 said:
Filter now in, working and leak free. Currently in tandem with the internal filter for a week or two but pretty impressed. Looking to replace the hood in the future to allow better routing of the pipe work but over all very happy. :thumbs:
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Pics pics pics
 
:agree:
 
:thumbs:
 
Lots of great info and amazing tanks.....


But hardly any ponds - are they out of favour?

I am looking to build a new pond (filled it in 8 years ago) over the next few weeks - research phase ATM :)

Please post your pond pics too :thumbs:
 
Got a pond with 4 smallish Koi in it and an Evolutrion aqua eazy pod filter.

I say pond, blanket algae reserve would be more accurate I think.
 
After a few years out of fish keeping, I have reset one of my tanks (Juwel trigon 350) as an amazon biotope.
I am looking for plant fertilizer in both a liquid and tablet form, any advice ?
I am also looking into replacing my old carbo plus CO2 system (which never worked well) with another system, some of you have beautiful planted tank, what CO2 dispenser do you use?
thank you
 
Hi Bruno :wave:

I use Aquarium Plant Food UK for all my fertilisers. Their product out performs all of the commercially available products that I've tried.

I use this NPK fertiliser - Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorus, the main fertiliser that your plants need. Then I use this as a trace element fertiliser.

The CO2 system I use is the JBL Proflora system. Not the cheapest on the market, but I've found it to be absolutely reliable and consistent.

By using the above my plants are thriving! Almost too much so lol. I have to trim 4-5 inches every week off the tall fast growers!
 
Hello Bruno,

The tank I have has a good number of live plants, but I've not setup a CO2 system, instead I dose approximately once a week with this
http://fishkeeper.co.uk/site/product/jbl-ferropol-refill-625ml-

I've found this keeps things growing as I like ;)

It's also the product used in my local Maiden Head Aquatics for their big display tank, so thought it was "Proven" and has certainly worked fine for me.
 
Hi Paul and Andrew
Thank you for your input, I am going to try the suggested fertilisers from aquarium plant food UK firstly, they look promising and will take it from there.
The CO2 system will have to wait for a while until I gather a few more pennies, Xmas will come soon enough !!! :lol:
 
Well, that's it. I finally broke the tank down a few weeks ago. Got rid of all the livestock now, emptied the tank, which is now sat in the back garden after being cleaned.

All the stuff is now ready to sell :(

It's a shame, I do miss watching the way the fish, the corals, and all the critters interacted....but the work involved was just way too much to the enjoyment worthwhile.
 
Marcel said:
Well, that's it. I finally broke the tank down a few weeks ago. Got rid of all the livestock now, emptied the tank, which is now sat in the back garden after being cleaned.

All the stuff is now ready to sell :(

It's a shame, I do miss watching the way the fish, the corals, and all the critters interacted....but the work involved was just way too much to the enjoyment worthwhile.
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Today is a bad day :( I remember the feeling all to well.
 
Hi all,

Just got some recent additions for my tank (Aqua-one 950 tropical).

Been a real struggle over the last few days to get some pics but herewith a selection that are almost acceptable.

1. Rosey and green tiger barbs

IMG_0279 by amaFotho, on Flickr

2. Syd the Synodontis

IMG_0222 by amaFotho, on Flickr

3. Silver shark (?)

IMG_0284 by amaFotho, on Flickr
 
amaFotho said:
Hi all,

Just got some recent additions for my tank (Aqua-one 950 tropical).

Been a real struggle over the last few days to get some pics but herewith a selection that are almost acceptable.

1. Rosey and green tiger barbs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/100402040@N05/9789114373/
IMG_0279 by amaFotho, on Flickr

2. Syd the Synodontis
http://www.flickr.com/photos/100402040@N05/9789044234/
IMG_0222 by amaFotho, on Flickr

3. Silver shark (?)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/100402040@N05/9789032585/
IMG_0284 by amaFotho, on Flickr
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3's a flying fox, what type of syno is syd? I recognise the markings but cant think of the name.
 
Ben6 said:
3's a flying fox, what type of syno is syd? I recognise the markings but cant think of the name.
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#3 looks more like a Siamese Algae Eater to me, the black line is less rugged on the Flying fox, and the scales above the line are outlined.
 
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