move update + pic for the masses..

last night i managed to move the 20 litre tank in the back of a taxi! i was somewhat perturbed by the whole experience, probably more so than the fish themsleves haha!! to cut a hair raising journey short, we all made safe and sound. :-) the tank is now residing in the kitchen where it will be until the 180 litre tank is up and running, for which i am still in the market for a decent piece of furniture to put it on. (cough muuummmmm....)

and finally, to appease my oldest brother and also for anyone else interested, the picture here is of the largest of my two ghost shrimp. i know it is not the best picture in the word but my camera phone refuses to focus properly on something that is nearly transparent. go figure... ;p

thursday = 70 litre move in one of those renault transit style things. this time via a colleague of my girlfriends so fingers crossed for then...

swim, be free.... - sort of.

just a quick update to keep things rolling. i have just, this weekend, moved into my new house with my girlfriend. this is all well and good and we have now decided where ALL THREE fishtanks will be going. i'm currently shopping for a decent sideboard to put the 180 litre fishtank on. the other two are still at my old residence where i pop in each day just to feed and check on the fish.

a couple of weeks ago i decided to get a decent filter for my 20 litre tank as the one which came with it just wasn't up to the job at the end of the day. i can't believe what a stupid mistake i made.... i replaced the old one with the new one, thinking that there would be enough bacterial activity in the gravel to take care of the waste products. after a couple of days it became apparent that something was drastically wrong. 3 of the neon tetras died in the next two days... i did a water quality check and yup, you guessed it, it was baaaaddd. to cut a long story short i managed to rectify the problem before loosing any more fish and last week the water tests started returning back to normal. phew!

soooo, after checking on the guppy fry last night i decided that they were big enough to look after themselves in the 20 litre tank and subsequently transferred the little fellas accross. i think they really like it, they seem to follow each other around in a mini posse and love swimming against the current from the (new) filter.

i plan on moving this tank and possibly the 70 litre tank to our new house this weekend so fingers crossed it, the move should go smoothly. :-)

and that, is about the size of that..

who you calling a shrimp?

well, that'll be the two ghost shrimp(s?) i bought yesterday on my way home from knutsford. in the absence of the little sand loach the two cory's in the small tank have failed miserably in keeping their home clean and tidy! sigh...

so, as i often do, i popped into the pet store near where i work on the way to catch the train and after being reassured that they would be okay with the journey i decided to adopt the two shrimp. and they're cool!! they're like little cleaning robots, constantly on the move and they seem to like the fairly strong current (for the tanks size) in the tank. oh yeah, and you can see exactly what they have been eating because they are near enough transparant. groovy. :-)

sand loach move

last night i was observing the behaviour of my little sand loach in the smaller tank. i noticed that he was trying to burrow into the gravel but was stopping when he got to the blue, sharper gravel which was supplied with the fishtank. the gravel in this tank is also larger in size than the gravel in my bigger tank and i think this was giving him (her?) difficulty in burrowing as well.

so, i decided that he was big enough (and nippy enough to evade monsieur pleco!) to go into the bigger tank where he will be more able to act upon his natural instinct to burrow under the gravel/sand. this morning i moved the little feller onto greener pastures so to speak and he looks like he is quite happy. (don't ask how i can tell, i just can! ;p )

and finally, just to keep you all informed i do intend on moving the guppy fry into the smaller tank when they are big enough to avoid getting sucked into the filter. i don't think it will be too long before i do this, they're almost 1cm in length now, but still too thin to avoid suction. =D

70 litre tidy

well, my 70 litre tank had been disturbing me for the last couple of months. as usual the occupants of the tank had done some of their own furniture moving and refitting and this had resulted in the general ground level sloping from the front down to the back. which i didn't like as it made the tank look less deep, thats deep as in the z axis.

so last night i had a bit of a rearrange. i removed some of the dead/dying plants at the back. i transplanted some of the plants back from the 20 litre tank to add extra cover and to disguise the filter box. and finally i have tried to make a terrace using the pebbles and slate, along with the drift wood and have packed it in at the back with more gravel.

the final result i think is much nicer looking and still has hidey holes for the fish. i also prefer having a clearer area at the front where i can drop the big catfish wafers and observe mister plec when he eats.

site update

just a quick update. i've added a couple of new links in the blogs section on the left. phil's homepage - my younder older brother, and also chris dicker's blog - a lad who used to work with me but has since gone on to set up his own animation studio doing something for kids tele, which is nice... =)

thats all for now folks.

brine shrimp factory

from what i read on raising guppy fry (or any other fish fry for that matter). i gather the best source of protein for the little fellas is live baby brine shrimp. so off i popped down to my local pet shop and lo and behold, they had some in stock.

so, check this badboy out lol. its a coke bottle with the bottom cut off and screwed into the base with an air feed going in at the bottom to create a current in the water. there must be thousands of eggs in there as you can see the water just looks dirty brown but is in fact fully loaded with loads and loads of little eggs. now, obviously the name brine shrimp indicates that they are not a fresh water species at all, and you would be right in thinking that. before using the brine shrimp as food i need to sieve them out of the water and wash the salt off them (with correctly treated/aquarium water).

as always i look forward to the mass genocide that will ensue when i use live food. ;]

180 litre tank coming soon...

yeah, you read it right. for christmas santa bought me a 180 litre tank setup. grin!! its still sat in its box in my front room for now as i am planning on moving house in less than 4 weeks and setting it up at my current residence would be pointless. so, as frustrating as it is not being allowed to play with my new toy, i guess it is a blessing in disguise as it gives me plenty of time to decide just how i am going to set it up.

i've learnt a lot about setting up aquariums during and since setting up my current tanks. one of my favortie sources of information being the Age of Aquariums website.

what i do know is that i want to transplant at least the 3 clown loaches and the plec, these being the main reason for wanting a bigger tank in the first place as they're getting bigger all the time. well, thats one of my excuses anyway... ;p i also want to concentrate a little more on the planting and landscaping of the tank (otherwise known as aquascaping - oooh ;) ), especially as it is so much bigger (101cm). any suggestions and resources anyone can come up with will be greatfully recieved.

current set ups

well, seeing as it looks like a few people have started visiting this site, i thought i would stick up a picture of each of my tanks to give you an idea of what i have. thanks stu for giving me a plug from your blog site www.seafishingandwalking.co.uk .


20 litre


70 litre

new years day guppy fry

i woke up this morning and had a quick look at the fish as i was making coffee as usual and i noticed that the heavily pregnant female guppy was no longer heavily pregnant! as i looked around the tank with what were probably still bleary sleepy eyes i was beginning to resign myself to the fact that all the fry had been devoured by the rest of the tank-mates. :'-( then, much to my surprise i started to notice the small fry swimming close to the gravel, almost too small to see. in total, after what seemed like a rather skillful operation ( ;p ), i managed to rescue 8 guppy fry and put them in a suspended mesh box on the interior of the tank.

this is fantastic because i was beginning to think that my guppy population was faulty. i suspect one or two of the females have given birth already and the young fry eaten before i noticed. especially since until recently my atlus angel was still swimming around that tank happily terrorizing the neighbourhood...


tiny little guppies.... honest!