My first uploaded Movie

Not that bad! Even if i say so myself.

Music Tell me what the Rain Knows by Yoko Kanno from Wolf's Rain OST 2

Tank Cam

Want a closer look?

Click here

Papa Natural Is Sick

I have diagnosed Papa Natural ("PN") with Hole in the Head Disease.

Its a nasty looking disease but easily treated. Ive moved him into a hospital tank and dosed the tank with salt which will kill the bacteria and protozoan that is currently munching on him. (GROSS)

Ive also raised the temperature of the water, this will speed up the metabolism.

According to Wiki and many other websites its a dietary issue. However we feed them Tetramin and frozen bloodworms along with some Nutrifin. So i cant see it being a diet issue.

Never mind. Daily water changes for a while and see if that helps the healing.

Vinyl Pulse: Devilrobots - Smery

Stinky Tofu has an action figure! Vinyl Pulse: Devilrobots - Smery and get this - it complete with smell! Yes people - you have the choice of Standard, Spicy or Wasabi! Yum!

As they say in the entertainment business - "You know you've made it when they release an your action figure"

Stinky is here to stay.

Revlon

Miss you Revlon. RIP

Tank in the Chinese Festive Season

Going through the photos i found this one of the tank during Chinese New Year...

Deep Fried Goldfish

I found this while googling for Cleaning equipment for the 110L tank.
A Japanese guy has invented a deep fryer that allows goldfish to live under the oil without being cooked itself.



The mix of technology and goldfishes is certainly unique.


i doubt the fish would breed, and i wonder how oxygen get into the tank. not to mention water changes. HRM....

An update

Swish

• Steph didn't like cleaning the partitioned tank so he's gone back to the big vase.
• Big Vase has moved from the TV to the Kitchen bench

Planted Tank

• Swish took back the vase, so the planted tank was dead for a while
• PT was revived when Nigel gave me his spare tank, a 20L corner (diamond shaped) tank. 
• PT was filled with amano soil, driftwood covered in java moss, some amibula, hair grass and java fern.
• PT died when steamboat forced us to move the living room around.  PT was put outside for a cold winters night.
• PT's innards were used to create garden tank for babies.
• PT RIP

Babies Tank

• The young ones are how free and swimming, Tina took 2, the rest (6) are living with little brother
• Plastic rocks arrived from HK
• Fish removed for tank redesign.
• Substrate and plants from PT Innards were added to BT
• Plants doing well, except for Java Moss, which is covered in fine particles from the amano soil.
• Bought catfish to help with the clogged up plants.
• Catfish very hard to find!!!

Papa Tank

• One of the scissortail had some strange growth happening at the base of his tail, scary.  water changes and melafix, seem to have resolved the issue. 
• Went almost 2 months without a water change, Tank water was very brown but ammonia levels were low! Hooray I have a perfect ecosystem.
• Algae was over running the tank.  Water change would mean a scrubbing.
• Patch is very big now, about the size of my palm.  and that's his body. adding fins he's bread plate size. well exaggerating a little.
• Natural Papa had some white stuff coming out of his head.  Caused some worry, water change and some melafix and it had gone away! Phew!
• Filter isn't keeping up with the natural system will have to buy an external pump on the weekend.

Dreams

• I think I'm ready for the 5 foot tank.  Scary I Know but it would be so COOL! '

Tank Cam

• Steph is working on an under water tank cam.  I think ill set up an outside tank cam too.

New Tank mates

Sunday we popped down to Hurstville Aquariums to pick up some bristle noses
Catfish.

4 for $32 dollars, which is okay, they were rather small and I don't think
they were bristle noses. They didn't have bristles and they are a pale
brown rather than the normal dark black brown.

Sometimes its annoying going to these shops when they don't label their
goods properly. Still, the purpose of the fish is to help disperse some of
the fine particles the Amano Soil has left in the tank. and so far so good.

The babies are a bit perplexed by them initially and keep pecking and
examining the catfish, however when the food showered they forgot all about
them!

Plant Tank

I need this stuff to grow. and grow FAST!!!

Details:
The vase is a 9L cylinder vase.
Equipment is a 11W Compact florescent. and a 25W heater set at 26 degrees celcious
I have ADA soil, a bit of laterlite, (5cm deep at back 3 at front) 2x Ferro Tablets in the soil (somewhere)
In the water i have some Aquamaster Plant food
Plants: Val grass, separated and individual planted
Java Moss floating on the surface.

Now grow little ones! Be strong!

Note: Its muggy now as its only been 30mins but i expect it to clear up by the morning

Question: Do i need filtration?

Shopping

Today i've bought heaps!

• 1x Val Grass
• 2x Hair Grass
• 3x Fluffy Stuff
• 1x java moss
• 1x Christmas moss

I'm hoping to culture the mosses first before planting out.

Steph and I enjoyed a good hour at SS in Maroubra, chatting with Michelle and a very excited young sales man and Michelle's parents.

I nearly fainted when they gave me a quote for the CO2 gas canister/difffuser and regualator! that alone was almost $200! (i think ill wait til Hong Kong)

We got swish a new tank (see prev blog) and some ADA soil, nice red africana stuff. That doesn't need washing!!! pretty good huh?

Swish is downsizing...

Yup he's too little for that big rattle box so he's moved into a semi!

Good news is that the other side is vacant!!

Should put up a for lease sign here! i'm sure there some desperate tenant out there looking for a home...

Fishtank Lighting

http://www.fitchfamily.com/lighting.html

 

is a great way of calculating how much wattage you need for your plant orientated tank

 

So on the shopping list I need a 50w light for the 23L nano tank.

and 100W light if I want to change the AR620 into a planted tank.

 

 

Slippery Suckers

Is closed on Wednesdays!!! ARGH! Never knew!

I skipped out of work early so I could sneak in and get a fish fix.

Oh well

On another note, In the supermarket they were selling pool filters quite cheaply and I wondered if It would pick up some of the floaties I have in the big tank. Oh my did it pick up heaps!  Kinda embarrassing…

And the tank got another waterchange to boot.  :)

Gravel

I have decided I need to buy some red gravel, small size.

Glosso Talk

This is an Australian Native! Wow! And you can find it in Cradle Mountian growing in shallow streams... Ahh the feeling of home!

But unlike Tassie grown its quite fussy - it wants the best of everything! But then again if you've grown up with the best it hard to go backward. *wink*

Google it and its notoriously everywhere. Tropica, my favourite plant site has something on it
The Krib - write essays on it. Even Tassie has a fax sheet on it !

Grown well it looks like a field of clover. Badly, and its disgusting.

I will be adding some of this to the Nano Tank

But if you want to know what it looks like admire other growers through the power of Google

Checklist for NanoTank

• Soil
• Gravel
• Ferro Tablets
• Light
• Rocks or broken slate
• Filter System
• CO2 System
• Active Carbon
• Heater
• Plants
•         Ricca/Glosso
• Volume of Tank

The light aint right...

I had purchased ages ago a 11W compact flourscent hood with an 11W floursent globe.

Glosso in a 20L tank needs about 30W of light.  So ill need to find another compact light system.

ARGH!

Update

• Babies are big and ready to swim out of the tank
• Two have been fostered to Tina who has an AR510 tank with 2 small angels, tetras, platys, loaches and a tiny SAE.
  
• Goldfish have passed way, they never quite got over the big water drought. RIP... T_T
• Brine Shrimp System has been packed away. Hopefully ill never have to put that out again.
• Nigel is going to give me a small corner tank! Im going to put the nano tank project into action!
  
• Next Project in winter ill make up another outdoor tank, with a bigger pot.
• The angelfish babies are big enough to give away or integrate. I now have the 90L tank back. What to do.... Marine? Hardwater? Planted? Suggestions?
  

Near Fatal Experience

The weather here in Sydney has been rather hot and windy... and today i stepped out to say hello to the goldfish. (yesterday i was late coming home) and to my horror they were lying on their sides with an 1inch of water!!!

STEPH!!! i scream as i race to the hose and grab reels to run it to the tank.

filling it up at full blast, adding dechlorinator. Steph and I watched with worry then a BIG sigh of relief as 4 goldfish swam up in their new water.

what a near miss!

Welcome to the Tankhood

Say hello the the new addition to our household.
Steph was in my bad books today over something (and waking me up with such a cheery voice when i couldn't even open my eyes as i walked out of the bedroom) and i sent him a txt after work while I mentally working myself into a frothing mouth.

Thankfully when I came home, i was glad to see the source of my irritation gone. (dirty dishes) and Steph was down south visiting Denzil, so i wasn't expecting him back til late... then to my surprise he appeared an hr later with this beautiful round vase and a new Swish!

He has definetly redeemed himself.

On the Shopping List

I hate water changes… but I think ive found a solution!

Plant an Aquaclear 50 Powerhead in your tank, make sure you have a long PVC tube that fits over the outlet nozzle and pump the water out!  Then putting fresh water back in, use the reverse flow and suck the treated water out of the bucket or straight from the tap! (adding treatment to the tank first.

Hrm… I wonder what effects it will have? At least the carpet wont get drenched so badly!

Equipment Manual
http://www.hagen.com/usa/aquatic/manual.cfm

You can buy it at
http://www.equarium.com.au/store/detail.asp?id=210&cat=20

http://www.thereefshop.com.au/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=922&zenid=9a0f9711d3c459a710060af602ee491c

http://www.boroniaaquarium.com.au/product_info.php?cPath=11_160&products_id=2271&osCsid=d6cadd22c348b9983355d91a4b710667

Making Baby Food for Baby Angels

well the little critters are finally off Brine Shrimp!!! ( Yay! 1.2 hr sleepin in the mornings!)

so to grind up dried flakes to the small bits i found this neat method.

Dried flakes need to be reconstintued with water so what you do is get a tall glass, a turkey baster a bit of tank water and a tiny quantity of flake food. mix the water and the food together in the glass and using the turkey baster suck and sqeeze out the water in a rapid stream, repeat until flake food has broken into tiny bits perfect for those tiny mouths! :)

See!!! Smarter than your average bear!