Updating an old aquarium, Juwel Rekord 72, and other ramblings

[dcurzon]

The mystery of the missing loach....

So wayyyyy back in post 1, it was mentioned that the rio125 former crab den had been repurposed back to fish, and the previous occupants of the 72l had been moved into it. One being the yoyo loach.
Now, he was always a bit of a ****, if im honest.

He would lay on his side motionless, amongst some plants or on the wood, and play dead. Waiting until I was getting a bit concerned before having a bit of a swim around...
Anyway, he's gone missing. About 5 inches long, and no way to get up the filter pipe (I had watched him trying to enter the original Juwel internal filter via its outlet pipe in the past, however that is gone and an external filter in place). Theres a lid on the tank (standard Juwel flap type). Ok, a couple of cutouts at the rear for pipework, which are mostly filled with... pipework. But still, he is missing. Not hiding, as I've removed all the wood for a good scrubbing. No decomposing corpse. No dried out loach around the tank anywhere.

So where did he go???

(on the plus side, I could put some snails in now for algae control)

 

[dcurzon]

Excuse the reflections on the glass!
With the tiger lotus, the leaves are really quite delicate, so I trimmed out any that had tears on them. Also removed damaged leaves from the cispulata, and gave the carpet a trim.
There was either more baby shrimps hiding in there than I thought, or the same ones kept moving to the next patch I was cutting! Anyhow, the carpet has grown fairly dense under the nicrew light. Its a mix of DHG and dwarf Sag. I think I'm going to have to trim down the giant java moss growth to let a bit more light through.
Also, I was getting thick scummy layer on the water surface, so I added a usb air pump on a small foam filter. Coupled it to a spare wifi led strip controller, so I can set timers on it with Alexa. Comes on a couple of hours after the co2 goes off, and runs until midnight. Seems to have cleared it up nicely.

 

[dcurzon]

Seems to be successfully co-habiting with the tiger barbs in the 125

 

[dcurzon]

The crypt crispulata went a bit wild. Sending out thick runners and new plants all over. So I removed it, as the originals were reaching nearly 3 feet.
Unfortunately pulling these up made a bit of a mess of the carpet, pulling that up also, so I've trimmed that back to to encourage new growth into the bald messy areas

 

[dcurzon]

I've had to wrap up the Juwel 70l tank, there was an amount of water between the cabinet top and the plastic base of the tank, and the water has caused some veneer damage to the cabinet, so I stripped it all, the shrimp are currently resting in a tub and the black neons have gone into the 125 in the lounge.
I haven't actually been able to find a leak in the tank, but I've lost confidence in it :/

I should be picking up a used Aqua One Arc 46 to go in its place, which whilst its smaller, will now be shrimp only