It always amazes me how traditional styles of doing things always seem to work better or at least just as well as modern ways. Aquarium rigs have gotten so expensive and techie, with devices that monitor your tanks and send messages to your phone updating you on ph readings and what not. As if a drop in temp or raise in ph will force you to rush home to save the day.
Personally I found that HOB filters ended up being less efficient then the Air driven sponges i run now. They are certainly less expensive to run. I use a single air pump rated at 100gallons to run three sponge filters, one in my 20 hex and two in my 29 gallon, as well as several air stones in the paradise jars. Maybe once a month or two i will squeeze the filter into a bucket during a water change but that's it. Aside from some tannin staining the water is clear.
These are planted tanks that may not be Amano "quality", are certainly places of healthy plant growth. I don't use CO2 in these tanks, obviously it would be just off gassed. I do, however, use flourish excel. Algae is almost non existent, except for brush algae.
Maintenance is a weekly water change. Anything under 10 gallons gets a 90% change, under twenty gets a 50%. The 20 hex and the 29 gallon get five gallons a week removed from them and the 45 gallon gets ten gallons removed. The week looks like this: Tuesday the fish get fed chopped prawn till their sides bulge, 2 hours later i do the water change, adding excel and fertilizers at full dose. Wednesday through Sunday fish are fed every day alternating between a meaty food and a vegetable based food. Excel is added at the recommended. Monday fish are fasted, tank lids are so much as opened as I'm not hope all day.
I believe the fast helps the bacteria keep up as my water quality is really good for such over stoked tanks. The fast keeps the fish regular and forces them to feed on whats in the tank, algae and copedpods. The feast insures that, for at least one day a week every fish in the tank gets more then enough to eat. Of course I'm never afraid to skip an extra day or have an extra feast day if the opportunity arises.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Paradise fry and Oto cats.
I spotted Paradise fish fry in the to container yesterday. Right now they look more like a strand of hair with two eyes. It interesting to note that, in my presence at least, the females show no interest in eating the fry. several swam by the blue female and she ignored them, even though she has the most veracious appetite. the male in back on a nest after i cleared the duck weed from his circle and Dunkin donuts cup. This is about the time last year that the original paradise went into the pond so I'm hoping the fry will be much larger at tear down.
The Least livebearer (heterandria formosa) are also reproducing, though the Crystal black shrimp have yet to do so. They have however put on weight with at least one definatly being a female. The container they are in seems to have an endless supply of copepods so perhaps that interferes with their breeding.
The Black spot barbs/filament barbs (puntius filamentosus) seem to be doing well despite two days with night temps slightly below 60°. Their feeding seems less intense which is normal after a spawning event, of course it might also look less intense viewed from the top. They don't seems unhealthy just not quite hungry.
The ancistrus plecos seem to be doing fine, though i only get to see up to three at a time. Little buggers hide out like all good plecos. I often see the little stunted one so if that one seems okay the rest should be good.
I was at Petsmart the other day, which i sometimes do to pick up magazines or other hard tack that Aqualife lacks, and they had Oto's on sale for a buck a piece. I've had good luck with other sale fish from this place before so i snatched up ten. For better or worse i released 5 into the shrimp pond and 5 into the paradise pond. Both of which were getting coated in biofilm and algae. Normally i would have quarantined them but they looked fat and ich free so i took the risk. Ich also spends part of it's life cycle settled in a substrate and the only substrate in this setup is in the paradise container and with the cories constantly stirring the muck up i feel safe. My larger concern is where to put them this winter. I'm low on tank space but the thought of breeding these guys in an environment full of food was too much to resist.
I guess my next step is to put in a fresh order of Repashy foods to feed all those baby otos i might possible have in the nearby future.
The Least livebearer (heterandria formosa) are also reproducing, though the Crystal black shrimp have yet to do so. They have however put on weight with at least one definatly being a female. The container they are in seems to have an endless supply of copepods so perhaps that interferes with their breeding.
The Black spot barbs/filament barbs (puntius filamentosus) seem to be doing well despite two days with night temps slightly below 60°. Their feeding seems less intense which is normal after a spawning event, of course it might also look less intense viewed from the top. They don't seems unhealthy just not quite hungry.
The ancistrus plecos seem to be doing fine, though i only get to see up to three at a time. Little buggers hide out like all good plecos. I often see the little stunted one so if that one seems okay the rest should be good.
I was at Petsmart the other day, which i sometimes do to pick up magazines or other hard tack that Aqualife lacks, and they had Oto's on sale for a buck a piece. I've had good luck with other sale fish from this place before so i snatched up ten. For better or worse i released 5 into the shrimp pond and 5 into the paradise pond. Both of which were getting coated in biofilm and algae. Normally i would have quarantined them but they looked fat and ich free so i took the risk. Ich also spends part of it's life cycle settled in a substrate and the only substrate in this setup is in the paradise container and with the cories constantly stirring the muck up i feel safe. My larger concern is where to put them this winter. I'm low on tank space but the thought of breeding these guys in an environment full of food was too much to resist.
I guess my next step is to put in a fresh order of Repashy foods to feed all those baby otos i might possible have in the nearby future.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Why i like contianer ponds.
My first container pond for tropical fish was a necessity. I sometimes visit petcos and on one occasion they had paradise fish on sale for a $1. I always read good things about this fish and had some extra tank space at the time so thought what the hell. What i hadn't taken into consideration at the time was lack of quarantine space. Fortunately the I had set my fancy goldfish in a pond so their pond, normally an indoor one was available.
So i filled the container with tank water tucked it under a bush. tossed in some floating plants and said good luck guys. Soon after all the gold fish died. I had set the container up underneath my car port, so it was protected from the worse of the sun but it was still on cement so i feel it just over heated. I left the container set up to grow mosquito larvae and daphnia. The feeding of the paradise fish became sporadic, once a week at best. water changes were really just top offs. They were out there from July until mid September.
I started breaking down the pond, I found the adults fat and simply radiant with color. More surprisingly i found twenty five fry that were about an inch long or so. They were fat bellied and in good color. I moved the adults into my twenty hex. They spawned once in the house, no fry survived. Within the month the parents were dead. Probably due to the Angelfish.
I had moved the fry into a spare five gallon, filled with pond water and some plants from the pond. One thing i noticed immediately was all the little critters scurrying around. My freshly set up five gallon freshwater had about as much biodiversity as a salt water tank. The fry were large enough to take chunks out of shrimp pellets and eat flake. as they grew the little critters disappeared. Once the critters disappeared, the growth of the fry slowed, despite an increase in manufactured food intake.
I picked out two females to rear up, giving them each a 2 gallon, planted tank to grow up in. Ninety percent water changes each week and just an airstone for water movement. Over feeding of tubifex worms and blakworms kept a small population of inverts prowling around the dirt bottom tanks. A picked out a brilliant male from a local shop and set him up the same way.
This year i set the pond again, putting the trio out with 4 paleatus cories around memorial day weekend. Despite two unexpected nights down to 45 degrees, the fish are thriving, the male having already built a nest and hatched a clutch for both females. The cories have scattered eggs along tank. More importantly all the fish are already showing color improvement and bulk up. i feed twice a week, thawed, crushed prawn and some sinking pellets. The rest of their food is from whatever grows in the pond or falls in. i purposely set it up under a tree for this reason. What changes are just top offs for evaporation, with a little over flow. Filter is a powerhead that moves water from the lower container to the upper and then over flows back. Duck weed runs rampant.
What we have learned from saltwater tanks is that biodiversity is important in aquatic environments, marine tanks are crawling with copepods and other critters that scavenge and fish and corals eat. Freshwater tanks, do to how they are set up, using always sterile materials, lack this diversity. Even when introduced to the tank, freshwater critters have a hard time finding a niche to survive in. The summer pond allows our fish to benefit from being in a more natural environment, full of more natural prey items and algae , while simultaneously reducing our work load.
The other benefit is size of containers. For instance, I would not house my paradise fish in 2 gallons of water all year round, but i have to concerns housing them in such a way for the winter, knowing that from may till October, they'll have more then adequate space to roam. That owner of larger fish, who might just might be meeting tank requirement for a species, could perhaps use a summer pond to house the fish. This would ensure, for the summer at least, the fish is more then adequately housed.
So i filled the container with tank water tucked it under a bush. tossed in some floating plants and said good luck guys. Soon after all the gold fish died. I had set the container up underneath my car port, so it was protected from the worse of the sun but it was still on cement so i feel it just over heated. I left the container set up to grow mosquito larvae and daphnia. The feeding of the paradise fish became sporadic, once a week at best. water changes were really just top offs. They were out there from July until mid September.
I started breaking down the pond, I found the adults fat and simply radiant with color. More surprisingly i found twenty five fry that were about an inch long or so. They were fat bellied and in good color. I moved the adults into my twenty hex. They spawned once in the house, no fry survived. Within the month the parents were dead. Probably due to the Angelfish.
I had moved the fry into a spare five gallon, filled with pond water and some plants from the pond. One thing i noticed immediately was all the little critters scurrying around. My freshly set up five gallon freshwater had about as much biodiversity as a salt water tank. The fry were large enough to take chunks out of shrimp pellets and eat flake. as they grew the little critters disappeared. Once the critters disappeared, the growth of the fry slowed, despite an increase in manufactured food intake.
I picked out two females to rear up, giving them each a 2 gallon, planted tank to grow up in. Ninety percent water changes each week and just an airstone for water movement. Over feeding of tubifex worms and blakworms kept a small population of inverts prowling around the dirt bottom tanks. A picked out a brilliant male from a local shop and set him up the same way.
This year i set the pond again, putting the trio out with 4 paleatus cories around memorial day weekend. Despite two unexpected nights down to 45 degrees, the fish are thriving, the male having already built a nest and hatched a clutch for both females. The cories have scattered eggs along tank. More importantly all the fish are already showing color improvement and bulk up. i feed twice a week, thawed, crushed prawn and some sinking pellets. The rest of their food is from whatever grows in the pond or falls in. i purposely set it up under a tree for this reason. What changes are just top offs for evaporation, with a little over flow. Filter is a powerhead that moves water from the lower container to the upper and then over flows back. Duck weed runs rampant.
What we have learned from saltwater tanks is that biodiversity is important in aquatic environments, marine tanks are crawling with copepods and other critters that scavenge and fish and corals eat. Freshwater tanks, do to how they are set up, using always sterile materials, lack this diversity. Even when introduced to the tank, freshwater critters have a hard time finding a niche to survive in. The summer pond allows our fish to benefit from being in a more natural environment, full of more natural prey items and algae , while simultaneously reducing our work load.
The other benefit is size of containers. For instance, I would not house my paradise fish in 2 gallons of water all year round, but i have to concerns housing them in such a way for the winter, knowing that from may till October, they'll have more then adequate space to roam. That owner of larger fish, who might just might be meeting tank requirement for a species, could perhaps use a summer pond to house the fish. This would ensure, for the summer at least, the fish is more then adequately housed.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Just a Little Hello.
I've been keeping fish since i was little. Good old goldfish in the bowl and that teenage ten gallon on the bureau. It's been in the last few years that I've become really dedicated. Moving quickly from live plants in the tank to emergents to aquaponicly growing houseplants in replication of a submerged amazon canopy. One of the things that always stuck with me when reading aquarium magazines was the adventures folks had gathering fish in the wild or the science of raising live food. People raising endangered or extinct species in their basements. The diversity of technique in fish rearing was fascinating.
One thing that always frustrated me was the lack of courage in fish keeping. the unwillingness to step outside the box. People would often parrot advice with little to no personal experience in it. Then folks like me start growing plants in air driven systems and raising fish with no filters, just flow and people freak out. Get almost hateful.
So for this space I'm simply going to write about how I keep the species I keep. how I house them, what I feed them and how many fry they spawn. I'll talk about trips collecting daphnia in rhode island or local plants. Guess that's it for now next time it's how i raise paradise fish, paleatus cories, blackspot brabs, crystal black shrimp and bristlenose plecos in container ponds in the summer.
One thing that always frustrated me was the lack of courage in fish keeping. the unwillingness to step outside the box. People would often parrot advice with little to no personal experience in it. Then folks like me start growing plants in air driven systems and raising fish with no filters, just flow and people freak out. Get almost hateful.
So for this space I'm simply going to write about how I keep the species I keep. how I house them, what I feed them and how many fry they spawn. I'll talk about trips collecting daphnia in rhode island or local plants. Guess that's it for now next time it's how i raise paradise fish, paleatus cories, blackspot brabs, crystal black shrimp and bristlenose plecos in container ponds in the summer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)