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Round indoor pond project queries.

The kessil finally dried out and I turned it on. It's working!....well, at least it's been working for the last hour...It's lighting the floor on the side of the tank as not to stress the fish all of a sudden 🙂

I am to receive the new Qube any time soon....

I could take a good look at the little harlequins and I am amazed at how well they're growing. The 6 adult ones almost blend into the school now. It's been many weeks and they still like doing rounds around the tank exploring the entire perimeter. I still no see any type of aggression from the the larger fish. The harlequins are completely being ignored. It seems that neither the denisons, nor the clown loaches are fish eaters...I guess they prefer my plants, ha,ha.


In the last few weeks I walked in every garden centre here and I found no plant that could grow emersed in a fish tank. They've got nothing but spring flowers... I am still stuck with the just two type of plants, its frustrating....The only thing I found is Anthurium Lily. I had it before, it grew and flowered but it eventually tried to turn into a horizontal type of plant growing long stalks right across the surface which of course sank in, so was not working out well for me. If I don't find anything else, I might give it another go.....

Pic of the flowering lily. There's only one now but normally once it starts flowering, it produces a good bunch..
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The palm is rather boring...It has not stopped flowering for the last year probably. It has several flower stalks at a time at different stage of development. I had to fish out seeds floating on the surface the other day and I planted some on the window sill in a pot...will see if they grow..

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Well, the kessil is working but not with the same intensity. 😉 So something went off...Now it sort of works well as a low light which the loaches don't mind. 🙄Also, the controls aren't quite working any more. Prior to drowning the light I was able to turn it completely off by the dials and it was quite bright on the highest. Now I can't. It's stuck on the same intensity which is rather low.....I might end up using it for some emersed plant on my small hillstream tank or as a desk lamp, lol...I hope I get the damn Qube light soon, still not delivered but is with our local post!! The plan is to order a second one if I like the colour rendition of this one. I did not like the colour rendition of the kessil at all..
 
I finally got the Aqua Qube 50. I am quite pleased with it. It is actually a way better looking light aesthetically wise than the Kessil. It is very light weight, smaller(less W of course to be taken into account) but the best is the gooseneck which is way, way better. It is thinner, way lighter, slick etc,..etc..It's not that I go for looks over that pond but its worth mentioning....

And the most important part...I love the colour rendition. It has the purple/reddish hue that I so much like in my simple arcadia stretch light and that the Kessil totally lacked.
It's not enough light over the pond at only 50W to grow plants underwater but at the moment I have it aimed mostly at the above water plants. The fish seem to like it this way better anyway. I'll be definitely purchasing a 2nd one. I totally love it.
 
Well, the Kessil completely packed bags. I am sort of relieved getting rid of it, lol.

I am after ordering 2 more Aqua Qubes 50 🙂 One will be for the pond and one for emersed plants on my new temporary tub with more hillstream loaches. It's got its own light but I need more, lol, to grow algae and illuminate the emersed pot.
I am loving these lights.

One of my new fish 😀

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Commiserations on the Kessil

I do like the "round" aspect of the Kessil over the Qube but agree the gooseneck is an atrocity - disappointed that the new arms (that came out with the AP700 luminaire) don't swivel (the one thing I like about the gooseneck) - I thought they might looking at the diagrams, but Kessil said not ...

How did that "new fish" sneak in 😱
😀
 
Yes, I think the round aspect of Kessil is definitely nicer but inn person I prefer the Qube as an overall design. The Qube is half the Kessil's size and more elegant looking if side by side, sort of like a cow next to a cat 🙂 The gooseneck of the qube is also brilliant. Kessil should have done something like that...not to mention the colour rendition.....

alto said:
How did that "new fish" sneak in
Click to expand...

Ha, ha.

About a week and a half ago, sneaked through the door and jumped straight into a new tub I had set up for them. How convenient 😀 Pity I hadn't gotten a proper "pond" tub yet 🙂 So they're stuck in my ex clown loach tub for a while until they learn to feed on fish food. Then I may exchange for a bigger/proper tub.
They've got the flow, the stones, etc.. so should be ok in this for a while. .

So far they are not interested in fish food and have been stuck to the stones and I am blasting light 16 hours a day to get some algae going(succeeding on the plants at least, lol....my anubias got destroyed) They're pooping a lot, not sure what they're eating. I tried NLS algae max pellets, normal pellets, Repashy soilent green on stones, home made gel food with veggies and spirulina, veggie sticks, bloodworms....nothing peaks their attention bar whatever's growing on the stones. I am waiting on a micro worm culture to try some live food....😎

They're beautiful. I think I have two species G.Ctenocephalus and G.Sticulus.

I pic of G.Scitulus

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I wanted to show a couple of pictures of my new hillstream loaches. It's been rather busy 3 weeks since I got them to keep them happy. I did lots of water changes, daily 90% to 50% plus tons of different foods to get them to eat, etc...and up to 18hrs of light to get the algae going because I set up the tub new, sort of in a rush as I bought the fish on a whim. So far they seem to be doing really well, especially after the addition of live black worms.

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I also received the 2 new Aqua Medic Qubes 50W. Now I have 2 over the pond and a 3rd one is facing the above new loach tub which sits just next to the pond. For anyone that can't suspend a light from the ceiling and wants to grow emersed plants, I really recommend them. It is very hard taking a picture of "colour rendition" but I'll take a video one of these days...I think the light is really good.
 
I got home from a 3 week holiday yesterday.

I had left the fish alone, no one looking after them. That's the longest period I've been away for and I am pleased to come back to a pretty much happy tank, although a bit too hungry. For some reason in my attempt to leave things on the safer side I had left the fish feeder dropping only a few pellets once a day, like 10 pellets max after I tested it again, which of course wasn't near enough to feed the fish normally. I only noticed when I came back. The fish were really happy to see me looking over, everyone came out :lol: Hence I tested the feeder because they got furious when I fed them :lol:

Luckily the clowns haven't had a go at the harlequins.There's a big bunch of halrequins still swimming around although I don't know how many. Clowns, denison barbs and SAEs seem fine. I also saw a few kuhli loaches as well, meaning chances are all of them are there under the stones.

The water level was down but on the safe side and it could have lasted another week I think if I stretch it with no water changes. It just gets a bit too noisy due to the low water level.

I got scared for a second seeing some clown loach flesh in the coconut cave, thinking one got stuck. When I lifted it 3 of the small clowns swam away 🙂

Glad to see the tank can last that long with no issues whatsoever. Plants have grown although the new fern isn't doing well at all. A week before I left I put one experimental ochrid which my other half brought home half dead from the window at his work place. It's grown a leaf and has greened up.

As for the rest of the tanks, still checking...The singlet platy in one tank is alive and binge eating over the last day. She normally hides from me but since I came back she's first line at the surface :lol:

The two hillstream tanks are due to be checked as I speak....I hope they survived without food....
 
I had a good look at the 2 hillstream loach tanks over the last few days.

One of the tanks, besides the tons of green hair algae, looks perfectly fine and I can't detect any fish losses. There were a few baby loaches among them and even they are still ticking so my guess is all are fine. There are no bones or dead loaches around. All the fish look plump and active and despite being a combination of a few species, they seem to be getting on really well. There a a lot of stones in this tank, the bottom is pretty much covered in them, all with algae. I think that has helped a lot. Plus I still saw some blackworms surviving which the fish like the dig for.

I am not so certain about the second tank. I only saw half the crew in there. They normally come out at the front to eat each time I feed but so far I've seen only half and they're a bit on the skinny side. This tank is mostly planted, so besides food I normally feed, the loaches wouldn't have had much to eat. There are some algae covered stones though. I hope I am wrong but I may have lost some. The tank is also smaller so that would play a role on the water quality too. It could also be that they're hiding out the back and not coming up to the front....if I am lucky.
 
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