• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Round indoor pond project queries.

This is a really short video, so one may want to hit the refresh button but its taken underwater! My phone is somewhat waterproof, sadly the camera stops after a few seconds....but its so much clearer...My poor plants though...no leaves and they've also knocked another soil pot on the other side, making a mess on the sand....

 
The little guys seem to be accepting food readily. Due to the lack of proper sized food I just tried crumbling the 1ppm NLS pellets between my fingers as hard as I could and sprinkling on the surface of the water at one spot, and they all gathered underneath :) I'll try feeding twice a day that way and we'll see how it goes....They're so cute...

Thankfully the larger fish are not trained to eat from the surface as I sink the pellets with my hand each time. They were circling like sharks, could smell the food I was feeding the rasboras but could not figure out where it is :lol:
 
And I managed to get underwater pictures!, he, he. They're still not great..:confused:

Dirty sand, ha, ha. But that's from the soil pot they knocked about recently. I am going to remove all of them pots tomorrow as there's just one plant standing, or rather empty them completely and put them in as shelter for the corys/kuhli loaches.

Screenshot_20180129-210634.png


Below you can see the new rasboras and two of the 1 year old ones(bottom left and top right, just the tail) which are have a lot more red.
There's a lot of TLC to follow for the new fish...
Screenshot_20180129-204648.png
 
I did a large water change last night. I'll give the fish a break until Sunday, then do another large water change and dose praziquantel. The lights were already off when I came back home so I could not remove the ugly empty plant pots or siphon the soil mess done by the fish..:confused: It can wait until sunday. The corys are having a field day :)

So far, from what I can see, the little fish are doing good. They appear very active. They're already figured when the usual feeding spot is and beg for food when I approach the tank :lol: That didn't take long, ha, ha.

They also appear completely unfazed by the presence of the larger fish and are swimming amongst them. I have not seen any of the larger fish yet showing the minimum of interest in them whatsoever. And these rasboars are tiny! They're only fry size yet.
 
Yesterday I noticed that the baby clown loach I bought end of September 2016, so about 1 year, 3 months old loach, is now looking like a 4 inch loach, quite grown up and hangs out with the bigger loaches. That's quite the growth for a clown loach in such period of time, and is certainly to do with the extra water volume I think.

That's him exactly a year ago

Clown_21.jpg


And today, bottom centre on the picture

Screenshot_20180201-190853.png
 
I spent over an hour yesterday watching the fish. They all look healthy to me so I've decided not to dose praziquantel. I can't risk causing any harm to the gravid female loach who is even more gravid now...I don't know if she'll expel the eggs or absorb them...I don't think I've ever seen any of my clown loaches gravid like that before...The other large clown loach is almost the same size but not one bit gravid...

I had some fun watching the tiny rasboras yesterday. They were stealing 2mm pellets, although I had just fed them smaller ones prior, and were simply chewing them down with mouths wide open while doing so...It was really funny....So no fear for them not getting to food :) They're a really hungry bunch and beg for food when they see me, the lot coming up to the front of the tank. I suppose they're brave now being in big numbers:D They also, like every other fish I first added to the tank, swim around the perimeter in circles, just can't have enough of it but know exactly in which "corner" the food comes :p

Today I tried picking up the ugly plant pots that were knocked sideways by the fish months ago, and a bunch of kuhli loaches shoots out, the lot of them inside living in tangled roots of the struggling chopped down crypts :) I put them back down again,Who cares it looks ugly :rolleyes: Let them have a little house for themselves to call home....

After lights out, the clowns like "sleeping" around at the front. I see them every evening. There's a coconut cave and a hollow artificial cave next to each other and it seems the proximity of the two caves makes them feel secure....so I left them be. It's the clowns that dragged the coconut cave over there.....

Here is a bad picture of 3 of the clown loaches resting happily on their sides.

20180202_194651.jpg
 
I just came across the below forum account of someone accidentally breeding denison barbs. Apparently they kept them in tropical water, high range temperatures, way higher than mine, and the water was very hard, pH of 8.2, lol...Totally not the recommended water conditions for these fish..

http://www.badmanstropicalfish.com/forum/index.php?topic=21523.msg230999
 
Not the best video but here are the new rasboras swimming around. They're extremely active little fish. I love having them in the tank...

There is a runt in the harlequin group, way smaller than the rest. I saw it while they were still in the fish shop but the runt seems to be doing just as well as the others. I also had a runt when I bought the denison barbs and now I can't tell which one it was....

 
I am thinking to try plants under water again. I saw anubias hastifolia for sale and I am itching to get a few plants but wonder if the fish will decimate them all again....They've pretty much eaten all plants apart from the crinum calamistratum, which is struggling by the way.....

My poor large anubias species are recovering in a shrimp tank, some leaves are growing back, and the snails are cleaning up the left over damage.

Or are there any other bulb plants like the crinum that fish don't eat? I still have never seen any of fish in action, eating the plants, but they ate them down to stalks like eating a corn knob.....I am largely suspecting the barbas as I read they eat plants but I keep seeing them in fully planted tanks.....

Here are a couple of pics of the accidental snail and shrimp tank/tub. All plants came from the pond at some stage, apart from the moss..

20180202_193539.jpg

The anubias is actually under the moss....The tank is a real mess as nothing is anchored to anything....There's a very thin layer of sand at the bottom...It went through a humongous blue green algae outbreak straight after I set it up but that cleared up long ago...
20180202_193814.jpg
 
Just got myself an Aqua Medic Qube 50 LED fresh water light.

It should come with a gooseneck as well, not as expensive as the Kessil, in fact about 1/3 the price. I just want to try it. I am not sure if I'll put it over the pond or on some of the tubs or the hillstream tank....But if I like it, I might get another one...

Has anyone tried that LED?

Here is a pic:

13760_0_21.jpg
 
I've been watching the kuhli loaches this morning lurking in and out of the plant pots which are on their sides. The plant pots are still full of clay pebbles and some crypts previously planted in them trying to grow sideways :mad: but the fish seems to love it...I'd love to swap them for clay pots, and not those ugly plastic ones but...that'll disturb the kuhlis too much.
 
Thanks fishy :) I hadn't seen that particular video.

Two of my loaches are quite large. I can't show the scale from above but they look big, and are about twice as wide girth wise than these two in the video but perhaps a bit shorter. Mine are females, these look like males. My largest one was measured the length of a fork about a year and two months ago. The fork is 9 inches. One is 6 years old, grown from a baby, the other one I bought 5 years ago and was a 5 incher then, so my 6 years old did a lot of catching as its almost as big. I sometimes can't tell them apart. They're probably roughly 9-10 inch now and very very wide. I am well prepared for more growth....I hope I live long enough to care for them :)

Check out my older video, they appear briefly several times. keep in mine I am shooting from way above and the tank is 80cm tall so the fish do appear way smaller than what they are. For reference, the denison barbs are fully grown adults, around 5-6 inches. 9 out of the 13 loaches are bigger, and wider than the denison barbs.

 
In the last second of the video that's when you can see the true size of your big clown loach, defo the biggest I've ever seen apart the video I just shared. Cory is 100% going to buy more monster clown loaches like he hinted at so maybe he might get some even bigger ones in his next shipment. How many inches do they top out at anyway?
 
Back
Top