Remanso . . .

[Gill]

Thanks @Gill, looking forward to seeing that behaviour! I don't mind a little sparring between the males - as I understand it they don't make physical contact with one another, it just posturing, is that right? The main thing I want to avoid is the females getting too harrassed, but I've read that Threadfins don't tend to do that, and the males are more concerned with one another than the females. Anyway, I'll ask Wildwoods for a female biased split, and see what they can do.

yeah thats right, they never actually fight. its all peacocking at each other. A Very Docile fish and never seen nay aggression towards the females. Would be good if you can get a good mix of males/females, if they cant get females. The males aren't too picky and will display to other fish, especially guppies with longer finnage.


Something different you may consider for the tank, are Ghost cats. When the light catches them the iridescence is great on them. Stay in a tight group in one spot most of the day till food is presented. and a very peaceful fish.

 

[Conort2]

So with all these fish and the new ones incoming in a couple of weeks, I need to ramp up live food production significantly! Grindal worms first with existing containers quadrupled in size with fresh coconut coir - I’m going to need more cat biscuits!

View attachment 209100

Also finally got the front doors on the cabinet - took a mammoth amount of adjustment to get the doors all to line up - OCD maxed out on that one!

View attachment 209102

Looks great mate, that stray guppy grass really suits the scape.

 

[MWood]

This is just my experience, but my shoal of Marginatus rapidly diminished through them jumping out. Similar in planting style/level to yours, though a bit smaller!

 

[cldskt]

Great photos! I see from your journal that you have the Ruby tetras too - how do the two species compare in terms of activity levels?

Rubies’ movements are far ‘jerkier’; like short bursts of energy all around the tank. Tucanos’ on the other hand, is more like what you expect from a tetra.

In terms of temperament, I find tucanos are also more daring, which will come up to front glass to beg for food, while rubies are generally more reserved.

Both seem to eat whatever I throw into the tank though, so that’s good. Both are beautiful ‘nano’ fishes, but imo tucanos are more colorful with the blue/green eyes.

Can’t go wrong with any!

 

[Wookii]

Looks great mate, that stray guppy grass really suits the scape.

It does look good, but today when trimming it, it’s proved to be a bit of a nightmare. The stems break into pieces as you pull the out (it must be how the plant propagates naturally), so it ends up all over the tank. My strategy now is to pull off excess pieces with tweezers rather than trying to cut it like a normal stem plant.

 

[Wookii]

This is just my experience, but my shoal of Marginatus rapidly diminished through them jumping out. Similar in planting style/level to yours, though a bit smaller!

I’ll have to see how they go, I’m hoping I have sufficient cover to prevent that and give them somewhere to retreat to. In my tanks most jumpers seem to go over the rear, so the foam strip I have installed should ensure they can just flip themselves back into the tank. I also have the water level about 25mm off the top edge to make jumping more difficult.

 

[Conort2]

I’ll have to see how they go, I’m hoping I have sufficient cover to prevent that and give them somewhere to retreat to. In my tanks most jumpers seem to go over the rear, so the foam strip I have installed should ensure they can just flip themselves back into the tank. I also have the water level about 25mm off the top edge to make jumping more difficult.

Acrylic triangles placed on the corners can also help. I’ve found a lot of fish like to launch themselves out the front corners. Normally not an issue once they’re settled but can be a problem for the first week or two.

 

[Wookii]

Acrylic triangles placed on the corners can also help. I’ve found a lot of fish like to launch themselves out the front corners. Normally not an issue once they’re settled but can be a problem for the first week or two.

Good call Conor, I’ll sort some out.

Most of the fish are gaining in confidence and we making the linking between seeing people and food. I think it helps that the tank is at the entry point to the kitchen, so gets a lot of traffic past it.

The Sedge Tetra are starting to come out a lot more and explore the tank, and the males ere staring to fin-flare at one another a bit more.

The Cuneovirgata are starting to show themselves on occasion too - I think some frozen bloodworm helped:





It’s becoming evident though that I don’t have nearly enough live food capacity for this many fish. The two 80 litre tubs in the garden aren't producing enough daphnia and midge larvae - plus they're going to be out of action for half the year. I've set up a third tub of heavily fertilized water in direct sunlight to try and generate additional green water to feed them more.

I've increased the Grindal worm capacity significantly as detailed above, and I'm currently feeding them up to increase the population.

I have plans to again attempt an indoor Moina culture given I can now get live Moina from Ebay to seed it with (my last three attempts with cysts have all failed). My plan is to go big to try and get the stability I couldn't achieve with a little 20 litre tank, and have a large 5 litre Chlorella reactor, and 60-80 litre sponge air-filtered Moina tank. If I can get the green water generating in sufficient quantity I think I can make it work, so watch this space.

The 20 litre tank I want to try and culture some freshwater Copepods, if I can source a starter culture from somewhere.

Edit: Also forgot to say, I'm going to have to dust off the brine shrimp hatchery too!

 

[Liam]

The little loaches are just great. 🙂

 

[Wookii]

Well the ramping up of live food is in progress. The green water production has gone off like a rocket with a little ammonia based ferts and some direct sunshine, the aged water went from almost clear to this in a week:





It seems to be upping the daphnia production:

 

[Wookii]

As a pertinent example, I have a small seedling of an idea at the back of my mind for a little system to automatically clean the plastic media. 🤓

Looking forward to seeing that.

This took a while for me to finish off, and I'm not sure if that comment was tongue in cheek or not @hypnogogia (fair game if it was though its a bit of an outlandish idea 😅), but here is the filter self cleaning system:

Firstly a reminder of the filter - I'm running a wet/dry trickle filter with plastic 'Hel-X' media and a fleece roller pre-filter:



By design, the water level sits low in the sump, around to the bottom of the plastic media.

As a result, bacterial mulm can collect on the plastic media over time, and also in the area of the sump directly below it. Given my love of automation, I pressed the old grey matter into coming up with a simple system to clean up this muck. The result was a mesh tray (think of a baking cooling rack) with four large flat airstones on it and USB pump in the middle, with an inlet tube bent down to siphon from the base of the tank. I did take a photo before I installed it, but I must have deleted in error (apologies).

The basic premise is that when the sump return pump is switched off, the display tank partially drains into the sump, which raises the water level and cause the plastic media to float:



I then run two old Eheim air pumps through the air stones to pass a massive amount of bubbles through the plastic media, moving them about and knocking of excess mulm (as they would do naturally in a fluidized bed filter) - as you can see, glorious mulm everywhere!:



This then eventually drops to the bottom of that sump section:



I then use an old stream pump I got second hand on this forum, to blast the water at the sponge block. This (hopefully) cleans some mulm off the surface of the sponge, and creates a circular vortex drawing the mulm towards the centre of the sump section. Finally the little USB pump kicks in, and draws the mulm up from the base of the sump and deposits it neatly back into the fleece roller to be filtered back out (thin tube in the image below):



It's not 100% removal, but it gets up most of it:



Hence . . . the self cleaning filter 😅

 

[Wookii]

A bonus bonanza from the daphnia tubs tonight - a load of these have appeared in the surface!

Slightly against my better judgement they’ve gone in the tank. If I get a swarm of mozzies in the house now, I’m going to be in big trouble!:



I needn’t have worried though, the Reed tetras and Chillis demolished them!

 

[Wookii]

Okay so it’s parasite quiz night tonight down at the tank. Everyone ready on their buzzers . . .

Question 1:

First up, does this fish have white spot, or a different parasite of some sort, or has it got grains of sand stuck to it?





It looks otherwise healthy, is eating normally and busy chasing daphnia. A couple of the other Anchors have similar grains on them, some don’t, and no other fish in the tank have any on.

You might have to zoom in, but they look like grains of sand stuck to them to me. I’m not sure if they habitually bury themselves in the sand or not. If not, I have white spot treatment on hand and ready to go.

Question 2:

Second up, my emersed plants have succumbed to an alien invader, that is gradually chomping its way through the Verticillata.







Can anyone hazard an ID - looks to me like there may be more than one species at play? I don’t see any flying variants currently!

Then can anyone suggest an eradication solution? I’m currently at “take the pot off and submerge fully in a bucket for 48 hours” - but not sure if that would be sufficient? I’ve dusted some off into the tank water and the fish won’t touch them surprisingly!

 

[Conort2]

First up, does this fish have white spot, or a different parasite of some sort, or has it got grains of sand stuck to it?

Definitely sand, fish looks to be in great shape. It’s not a fish I’ve kept but I’m sure it’s pretty common for them to bury themselves.

 

[Liam]

Regular aphids and then whitefly I expect, I would brush off the aphids, some fish happily eat them. The fish has a great little grumpy face, maybe the stuck sand helps them to camouflage in nature, or maybe the slime coat thicker if the fish is irritated by something and the sand is then sticking to it.

 

[ScareCrow]

I think they're Acyrthosiphon pisum or greenfly. I think the white things are their molted exoskeletons and the colour variation is the various instars of the aphids.
I've not tried it but apparently they're attracted to yellow so you can get yellow sticky traps or make a water trap. They plagued my peppers this year and despite using soapy water, neem oil or a combination I've not been able to get rid of them.

 

[Wookii]

Definitely sand, fish looks to be in great shape. It’s not a fish I’ve kept but I’m sure it’s pretty common for them to bury themselves.

Thanks Conor, that's a relief.

Regular aphids and then whitefly I expect, I would brush off the aphids, some fish happily eat them. The fish has a great little grumpy face, maybe the stuck sand helps them to camouflage in nature, or maybe the slime coat thicker if the fish is irritated by something and the sand is then sticking to it.

Thank Liam - he's probably grumpy because the daphnia are too fast for him lol - I've not seen anything flying, so not sure on the White Fly ID?

I think they're Acyrthosiphon pisum or greenfly. I think the white things are their molted exoskeletons and the colour variation is the various instars of the aphids.
I've not tried it but apparently they're attracted to yellow so you can get yellow sticky traps or make a water trap. They plagued my peppers this year and despite using soapy water, neem oil or a combination I've not been able to get rid of them.

Thanks Nick - jees, that would be a lot of moults, there's literally hundreds of the little white things. Those are the ones I put in the water and the fish don't touch or spit out, makes sense if its just an exoskeleton.

So do we think sumberging the pots for 48 hours would get rid of them, or can the aphid survive underwater for that duration?

I would go out and try and collect some Ladybird larva, but I'm not sure there'll be many around now at this point in the year?

EDIT: I see you can by the larva online for putting on your plants - have you considered this for your peppers @ScareCrow

 

[shangman]

This happened to me in my big tank with emersed hydrocotyle too, one day greenfly came in and sucked everything dry, little vampire b*stards. There was no way to get rid of them, they are too many and too small and if you miss any they just breed again. The plants grow back and look great for a month or two, and then the cycle happens again. I only keep tough plants like ferns and aroids emersed now.

 

[ScareCrow]

EDIT: I see you can by the larva online for putting on your plants - have you considered this for your peppers @ScareCrow

I've heard of this but it doesn't seem right to me. If there's not enough aphids to sustain however many ladybirds there are they'll either starve or go elsewhere. Fine if they go elsewhere but I don't want to be responsible for the others that don't make it.
I saw a person on a gardening program years ago explain his belief that when plants are stressed or are not 'happy' pests can sense it and take advantage of their weakened state. I've taken the approach that I'll intervene in the short term but if they fail to establish or recover then it's not meant to be. Could also be described as being lazy.

So do we think sumberging the pots for 48 hours would get rid of them, or can the aphid survive underwater for that duration?

I have no idea how long they can last underwater. I resorted to blasting them off under the tap and crushing the ones that held on. They do have a survival instinct and throw themselves to the ground when they think they're about to be eaten so that might help if done over the tank.

literally hundreds of the little white things.

They're incredibly prolific but also quite short lived so not surprising there are a lot.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

You might have to zoom in, but they look like grains of sand stuck to them to me. I’m not sure if they habitually bury themselves in the sand or not.

Grains of sand and "yes" respectively*. *edit what @Conort2 said.

I think they're Acyrthosiphon pisum or greenfly. I think the white things are their molted exoskeletons and the colour variation is the various instars of the aphids.

That one. I'm not sure which species of aphid <"Identify the most commonly seen British aphids">.

I've heard of this but it doesn't seem right to me. If there's not enough aphids to sustain however many ladybirds there are they'll either starve or go elsewhere. Fine if they go elsewhere but I don't want to be responsible for the others that don't make it.

You can <"get parasitoid wasps">, they are pretty effective, but tend to be species specific. There is also a predatory midge that works <"Aphidoletes">.

cheers Darrel