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Something a bit different here

Haaahahaaa......... I've got a fever :lol:

Another album I have been listening to the past month is 'ultrasonic studios' by Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George. This is my fav track from it, a Steve winwood cover skip the first 2 minutes if you don't want to hear Bonnie tune her guitar and talk ;). It isn't a great quality vid and there is...

I've just listened to all those tracks, the Gary Coleman's 'Sky Is Crying' is sublime. I recognised the 'lido shuffle' too although I always thought it was by Billy Joel or someone like that, lol. The Boz scaggs - Boz scaggs 1969 album is definitely worth a listen to. It's got that muscle shoals...

I had never heard of Boz Scaggs before last week. I have listened to The Allman Brothers Band occasionally and came across this listening to other Duane Allman tracks he had played on. I will check out those other references as I'm in the mood for some more blues :) cheers

Haha, thanks but it's not quite true. Youtube has revolutionised learning though. Imagine being personally shown how to do things by master craftsmen in any field for free, priceless.

I decided to build an addition to my pond. I think it came out ok seeing as I've never even nailed two bits of wood together before. I haven't seen my white cloud minnows at all so I'm not sure if adding them this early in the year was a good idea. On the plus side the lilies' leaves have...

:thumbup:

Cheers Martin, the grass was a last minute decision. I have got some moss covered flat stones that I think were part of an old pathway decades ago (if not centuries) but they are quite deep, 2-3 inches. The stones were on the other side of the river from me and I've had my eye on them for years...

Thanks for the input everyone. Yeah that moss was taken from a well shaded place but this pond area only gets direct sunlight after about 3pm so maybe it will stand a chance but I wouldnt be surprised if it dwindles. I am only planning to put in a few white cloud minnows for the summer so I...

Cheers, I was thinking of putting a load of plants in and just leaving it to grow wild and natural without a filter. Is this reasonable or will I just end up with a stinky stagnant pond?

I have never had a pond before and on a spur of the moment I bought a 6ft preformed pond on ebay a few days ago. I immediately regretted it thinking I should have done it properly and bought a liner but it was too late now! I dug a rough outline yesterday and at 11 o'clock this morning the hole...

Well it has been non stop spawning for the pygmaeus the last few weeks. I think plenty of live food and daily water changes were the trick. This egg was laid Friday morning so should be ready to emerge any time now. It has been great watching the embryo wriggle around today. The head is on the...

Excellent kezzab. How are your fry getting on?

Yay!!!! More of the real things for me this morning :) This tank is a bit of a jungle but I could see at least a dozen of these stuck to the glass. I have taken 6 eggs and placed them in a little hatchery and I've left the rest in place. There is plenty of leaf litter and moss and java fern...

Thanks for the tips. Im 99% sure these new eggs are fish eggs. The H Elachys are in full breeding colour so I think my routine is working. The dominant male's anal fin is constantly flared and has turned red and the main female is looking gravid. So these eggs could be either of the fish species...

I have had a stroke of luck I think. In the pelia that I seperated out I have found 4 eggs which are much more like corydora eggs. Let's see what happens

After a little google I think you are right angus...... unfortunately. I've managed to breed almost every fish I have ever kept but the supposedly easy C Pygmaeus are defeating me!!!!!! I won't give in though :banghead:

Hi all, I have been trying to spawn my corydoras pygmaeus the past week with plenty of cool water changes and feeding live worms. I woke up this morning to find half a dozen clumps of eggs in the java moss and pelia. I thought corydoras laid eggs individually but these look like concentrated...

Thanks everyone, I've never seen any seedlings but I've never really looked so will keep checking this year. I googled the 'veneer' graft with acer palmatum from your advise Darrel and found a really nice website called 'Japanesemaplelovers.com'. It seems a nice source and has answered a few...

Thanks zozo, I will check out some bonsai forums. I am guessing the tree is a bog standard acer palmatum. It has classical shaped green leaves and stands about 30ft. The quality of its leaves in the summer and its overall geometry is just stunning.

Hi, I have zero experience of taking cuttings from trees to propogate so I thought I would ask some of you good folk to see if anybody can help. I have a stunning 30ft acer that I wish to take cuttings from. There are quite a lot of bits of information on the internet but plenty of people...

Just doesn't get any better than this

Nice, the main rock on the left hand side was designed by Edvard Munch I think :)

I know the leaves indicate a deficiency but my first port of call would be to absolutely make sure my co2 was nailed on. Over here you can buy a ph pen/indicator solution and a KH measurement solution for a tenner. Measure your KH, measure your pH before lights on continue to measure your pH...

Have you ever taken a ph profile of your tank?

Hi Mick, Is H. siamensis a particularly hungry plant? I don't get this sort of growth and shedding of leaves on my siamensis in my low tech tanks, just my high tech ones that are EI dosed. Any hints on which nutrients in particular it might be a deficiency of? Having just re read my post I...

Here is my 'amateur' opinion. I get this with my siamensis too. When the plant chooses to grow extra leaves from the lower nodes it 'gives up' on the older leaves. Instead of having 2 older leaves at the node it grows 3,4 or 5 new ones. Its energy goes into the new leaves and I think you will...

Hi Darrel, why pick the leaves of those two plants as opposed to oak etc?

This will cheer you up :)

Did you find one that is adjustable in height kadoxu? Can you post the link please

Tilting

Yes the seneye. One point I would make about the chihiros is the sharp drop off in light from the middle to the edge and corners. Ideally I would like to raise it another 5-10 cm and use a slightly higher power setting. The stem plants that grow to the surface at the back of the tank will...

On no! my apologies. I mixed my measurements up. These reading are correctly taken at the substrate but the distance from light to substrate in the chihiros case is 38cm. I was measuring the PAR of my ADA grand solar too. This distance from light to substrate is 60cm and I got the two mixed up.

They were for the 60cm (601) version and through water

I took a few PAR readings from the A series today. A dimmer is essential!! My dimmer is the standard one and has 7 settings. Lets call 1 the lowest and 7 the brightest. On setting 2 it gives par values between 22-35 at the substrate (60cm from the light). Mid 40's mid water. Setting 3 gives...

I have used a substrate called 'aqua gro' that can be found on ebay. I've had great success with breeding plenty of species of fish (rams, tetras, cory etc) and crystal red shrimp with it. A good black colour, soft and nice to the touch. 8 litres for £19 seems reasonable

I would like to send a public thank you to this company and also let people know they are a quality outfit. A piece of equipment developed a fault and not for the first time it was dealt with in a highly professional and timely manner. I doubt this level of service exists from most of the...

Ive added some tap water this morning to raise it slightly, thanks for your help. I will get it right in the end! :)

I was just thinking a bit more about length of day. Most of brazil is in the southern hemisphere and if the corydoras spawn this time of the year then that is in the period where they have their longest day. A quick google shows this to be around 13.5 hrs of daylight around 21st dec. At the...

Hi, yeah my females sometimes look ready to explode. A few weeks back i went and bought a few more females to increase the female/male ratio and the first day after they were introduced i thought they showed slight signs of wanting to spawn. Since then nothing... My tank gets very little...

Ive bred most fish ive kept but pygmaeus and hastatus are defeating me!! And pygmaeus are supposed to be very very easy..... My pygmaeus are now just over a year old so they are definitely mature enough. I remineralise ro water to about 150 tds, kh 0. I have lakes nearby with masses of daphnia...

Many congrats! I bought 15 of these little guys about a month back. Ive done everything to try and get them to spawn but with no luck so far. My nice big shoal of pygmaeus and hastatus is probably my favourite sight in 5 years of keeping tanks. I dont think there is a better feeling in this...

Im not an experienced discus keeper but I had a couple of wild greens that I couldnt get to feed and its heart breaking to see them slowly dying. I eventually succeeded by quarantining them in a dimly lit tank, de-worming them and leaving them with live food. It was a bare bottom tank where I...

Aqualife which is a shop between croston and leyland in the north west has them. I was in there at the weekend and nearly bought them myself. I have bred otto affinis and i will have a crack at these one day. obviously you would need postage so give them a ring and see what the score is

nice work ardjuna, keep going. We also know that the law of minimum isnt always true though. Plenty of work has been done on allocation of resources by plants to combat shortages. google will give you the papers.

fantastic! I love this sort of thing. Individual, memorable, enjoyable. Exactly what life is about (I did quite like the pool balls as eyes though :woot:)

why do you need to change your bulbs?

I think im near the limit of plants mass without co2 because the lower leaves of the bacopa were falling off. Im not definite about that though, just a guess. Maybe light? dunno... Oh yeah and there is vallis and half a dozen bucephalandra in too. not bad for 1/6 watt per litre! (apologies...

I have one 30watt T8 bulb over a 180 litre low tech discus tank, probably the same dimensions as yours. 10-12 hours a day.The light is a couple of cm's above the water line. The plants I have in there that grow are; hygrophila siamensis, crypt parva, bacopa sp. ludwigia repens, anubias nana. I...

thanks DTL, I had read that thread and had seen your link to the PFK article mentioning 3:1 calcium to magnesium ration, same as james'. Although the PFK uses calcium carbonate which I guess you wouldnt use if you want to keep KH at O. Nobody seems to know what else is in these shrimp minerals...

Are the shrimp specific general hardness increasers just expensive versions of normal GH+ salts? Or do they contain anything else apart from magnesium and calcium salts in a specific ratio? (google doesn't tell me much) I am basically thinking of using calcium sulphate and magnesium sulphate...

Go for it! reading the journals is also a fantastic way of learning and seeing how other people overcame problems.

notes from a beginner(ish): One of the great things about this hobby is that you can start with very simple equipment and 'upgrade' as you and your knowledge develop. You can honestly have a stunning tank with the equipment you have got right now. There are great tutorials around on light, co2...

amazing link jordi! can't wait to see what you come up with Alistair. Whatever you do I bet you will want a bigger one in 6 months! lol. After all these amazing links I want one too.......... I think we need to sound out a few investors up here in the north west and open a ukaps shop. We can...

Very nice Al! stunning in the flesh too.. beautiful shrimp and those oto's look fantastic, award winning standard I'd say, lol

I should explain what i meant by 'underestimate' better. If we assume healthy plants = a healthy tank. We are, in effect, not trying to stop algae directly but trying to grow healthy plants which indirectly inhibits algae growth. When people have plant problems with co2 deficiency, fert...

I came across a pot of marsilea hirsuta a few weeks back. I have never kept it before so my 'collectoritis' kicked in and I bought it. I split it into two equal parts and placed half in a discus tank at around 28-29 celcius. Its a 200l tanks with one 30w t8 bulb. I hardly ever dose any...

Im sure you can dose any time of the day. Just dose when you are home and save the ear ache :) As long as your plants have the enough of each element they arent bothered about when they are fed. When you do you your weekly water change just bang a load of ferts in then, even a double dose if...

My otos spawned late last year. I got nearly 30 through to adulthood by feeding them blanched lettuce, cucumber and occasionally carrot and tomato. Basically any blanched veg. It can take a day or two for it to go a bit mushy before they seem to take to it. My lot preferred the lettuce though...

Ive got a good friend who is a pro photographer and spends a lot of time photo'ing wildlife. I love the outdoors and photography myself and Ive spent loads of time with him a few years back out and about shooting wildlife. I had this vision of wildlife photographers being intrepid adventurers...

good read. I think jaafaman in the last post has it right (not that I know much though!) Maybe this is the process. Higher levels of o2 require less movement of water over the gills to provide enough o2 to satisfy respiratory demands. Therefore lower levels of co2 enter at the same time. If...

thanks for the link. So the only variable in the rate of diffusion of a gas is the difference in partial pressure between the two solutions, which is what I would have thought. How then can fish tolerate higher levels of co2 dependant on higher levels of o2? Given that they cannot alter the...

really good thread ardjuna - good work too! I don't know much about fish biology so what is the mechanism that increases fish + inverts tolerance to co2 as o2 levels increase? Can fish regulate the osmotic pressures of each gas independantly?

what do you have to lose by removing a bulb for a month or so? It could even bring a smile to your face :) (lower algae levels and lower leccy bills!) I have just one 30w T8 bulb over a low tech, rio 180 discus tank and the easy stem plants still grow a bit too rapidly for my liking! little...

this is my next hobby for spring 2014....... bee keeping! My dad used to keep an apiary 'when I were a lad'. I dont remember much so im in the process of reading and learning. Im now set on a poly langstroth hive with a carniolan nuc of bees, I think..... Its not a cheap set up but it if my...

Hi ceg, Is that because I cant accurately measure those values or is it something else? For instance, if I could magically get exact figures for Kh and Ph could I still get a false reading for co2?

Hi Thomas, I am no expert but I only have Otos, cherry shrimp and rasbora's in my 60l and I am 99.9% sure that cherry shrimp are the most sensitive to co2. The only plant I consistently struggle with is hairgrass. I am fine with HC etc but for some reason my hairgrass never flourishes and...

The baby in pic 1 and mum

Yeah I will keep you both posted, prob be a month or two to see how many reach a decent size. I have never received or sent fish by post so nearer the time I might need some pointers. At least I know they will be happy in your tanks! The baby in the first pic looks a decent size but he is...

My apologies for shoddy images but I decided not to clean any glass whilst the baby otto's were happy munching on it. Anyway here is a shot of the eldest of the babies, about a month old I reckon and about half the size of mum and dad, about 7mm, gorgeous little thing! The shot below is of...

I have been in discussions with a supplier from Borneo for the past two weeks with the view to bringing in 46 varieties. It turns out there is a little more paperwork required than was first discussed so my order is on hold for the time being until I get more information. Getting a phytosanitary...

nicest cabinet ever.. I think I remember reading a thread about you making it somewhere in the past. just brilliant

Hi Tom, have you experimented with diffusing Co2 at a lower rate but on for 24 hrs a day? I know you have lots of surface movement so your Co2 gasses off quickly, but is there no way that large fluctuations in Co2 are actually worse for inverts and your elephant nose than them acclimatising...

Hi Alan, great tank. Have you experimented with on and off times of co2 or is 24 hrs just what works so you have stuck with it?

I have a 30 litre fluval nano with the same light probably and I had to cover the glass with a clear plastic and add some floaters to keep the intensity down. The easy to grow plants are doing fine and at a much nicer rate than my co2 tank! what substrate are you using?

Very nice tom. A bit of off camera flash in the first? Looks good. I like Mr + Mrs frog too.

Fantastic, thank you, that filled in a lot of the gaps that make a lot more things make sense. For example why high tech tanks need more water changes. I think this might also explain why my discus tank needs more water changes than a normal low-tech tank. I also think there is a market for...

I am just trying to get my head around what stuff is in my tank water. I understand that when I add the inorganic salts, KNO3 etc, they dissociate and we have all these various ions zapping around our tanks. Plants use these ions for various functions in order to live, so they are being used up...

Im new to this game with about one years experience of co2 injection. I might be wrong then but thinking more about Troi's points, I think it was such a hurdle in the past to convince people that more light, 99% of the time is not better, that it took a sledgehammer to smash the nut, so to...

gorgeous discus tank Tom. what does happen if you dose 10x excel?

I don't mind at all. I love the orange on the tetra, stunning. Keep the macros coming!

A 100% zoom of the last rasbora's dorsal fin and scales

a quick run through neat image to take out a bit of noise for you flygia :thumbup: These older sensors (d300s) are at the limits at iso 800 I reckon, they were probably slightly over sharpened which exaggerates it too.

Does anybody have a link to any pictures of the tanks from this years contest?

I decided to try and photograph my mother Oto this morning and snapped a few of her tankmates too. The colour might be a bit off because I need to get the spyder out and recalibrate by colour driver but they look ok on my monitor.. A bit gutted I chopped the tail off no3 cos this was a full...

that last thread is a good read Darrel, I finally got through the 26 pages! I hope my wrigglers can last long enough to find a taste for the cucumber. Im having a few problems with my colour profile at the moment so the colours in this photo will be slightly off but any chance of an ID of mama...

thanks Darrel and mafoo I've just studded a slice of cucumber with some of the adult oto's algae wafers and dropped it in. I blanched the cucumber for a minute in boiling water but im not sure if thats necessary or not. I've got a box of dried oak leaves somewhere too so I will drop a couple...

The only fish in there are some of the dwarf rasboras so Im pretty sure they wont take them. Cherry shrimp and the odd assassin snail are the only other inhabitants so I had sort of ruled out predation. I hardly ever feed the adult oto's as the tank is mature and they are never skinny. I'll keep...

I've just spotted three of these little beauties on the front glass. I have seen them get to this size once before (about 3mm) but I have never seen them grow to being adults. Has anyone ever bred them? should I be giving them any type of special food? I imagined they would easily survive on...

I think its one of the eriocaulon sp. I don't know what it was doing in my lfs but one of these was the very first plant I ever bought. I never knew what it was and I tried to grow it in a low tech tank with about 0.5 wpg. haha

this a great read Marco, thanks. Do you have any more info or good links on the technical side of keeping these fantastic tanks, co2 levels, flow rates and distribution, maintenance regimes etc?

any updates swee?

Charlie the cat Loki as a pup Loki as a teen

Ive not done much photography for the past year or even been on flickr much but your photos have inspired me to get my ass out more often again! superb shots and you they must give you so many great memories, congrats. Ive just added you as a contact too.

Im a prime man! 35mm, 50mm's, 90mm, 105, 135, 500.. (nikon though). The 50mm f1.8 is without a doubt the best couple of quid you will ever spend.....ever, ever, ever!!! ive got the f1.4 too but dont bother with it. Imho kit lenses are vastly underrated and there is nowt wrong with your lenses...

Superb Victor!! my kind of tank. What is your lighting regime for establishing a new tank? and how does that change with time? Congrats