Saturday, December 10, 2011

C02 Explained

So I've been researching how to do co2 and have just found it hard to wrap my brain around certain bits.

In my research digging, I found this and wanted to put the link in a place that I could find it again easily and hey - maybe others will find it helpful as well!

A Treatise on DIY CO2 Systems for Freshwater-Planted Aquaria

I think it really covers the subject pretty thoroughly really, and I wish that I had found it months ago, lol!

Enjoy! :)

Thursday, December 1, 2011

30 gallon ... MTS with sand cap

Well we finally got the cap for our MTS tank and got it all put in and planted!

Here it is right after we added the sand cap!



And here it is right after we planted it and filled it up!



Here is a close of the tank starting from the left side ...



And then the middle ...



And then the right side!



Can't wait to see it start to fill in! :)

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Scored a Fluval Ebi setup, w00t!

Yeeehah! Looks like I just got a hold of a Fluval Ebi setup, might wind up being my dedicated shrimp tank for my office!

The fry are doing good after their move, feeding well as far as I can tell, doesn't seem like I've lost any - yay!

Going to try to score some micro worm and vinegar eel cultures I think, not sure. Might be a little too late for this batch of fry to get a colony established.

Think I'm going to redo my yellow shrimp tank soon, and switch out the Fluval shrimp substrate and add in the natural large grain sand instead. I just throw plants in willy nilly and the shrimps don't seem to mind so I left it/ The plants are doing well as they are, but I'd prefer it to look a lot better.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

In their new tank!

So the fry are in their tank and doing well so far!

Thought I'd take a few pics of them getting the hang of their new tank to share with ya'll! :)


M. Splendida Splendida fry

M. Splendida Splendida fry

Friday, November 11, 2011

Moving, moving, moving ...

All of the M. Splendida Splendida fry have hatched (pretty sure anyway!) and when I tested the water in their hatching tray today, OMG! The ammonia test bottomed out!

So I quickly tested the water of the planted tank that they'd been floating in, which had been set up for about a month now and the parameters were almost perfect (although the ammonia was at .25, so I'll be watching that like a hawk!) and then scooped them all in.

The count so far of hatched fry were 60 + 4 that if they don't die or straighten out will need to be culled. I just thought that since they were such strong swimmers, that *maybe* the water being so horrid was making it hard for them to get their tails fully free of the egg so now they have a shot and if they die, well, best to do it in a planted tank rather than some other method.

But so far, 60 strong babies! Already planning for getting the larger grow out tank set up ... I have a brand new 25 gallon that I could easily setup, and I'm going to need to - this 2.5 gallon might at the most last me 2 weeks ... if that if they all stay healthy!

Thank goodness payday is next week so I can make sure I have everything to upgrade them quickly.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Video of rainbows in my office tank

Finally put up this video I took in mid-October of my tank in my office. I absolutely love watching them swim when the sunlight is dabbling through the water, they are so pretty when the sun hits them!

Monday, November 7, 2011

4 little fishies ....

Okay and now we have four successful hatchings and four cute little fry! A lot of these eggs still appear viable, but I expected more of them to be hatched by now, unless the first four were just super early developers.

One fry (#5) is on the bottom with a curled tail - not sure if it was injured or poorly developed or the tail just hasn't fully escaped the egg casing ... it's alive, but only time will tell although in my experience, that doesn't bode well for the little guy.

So far, only a few eggs have "gone bad" so just hoping for a bit more to hatch in the next day or so!

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Melanotaenia Splendida Splendida Deepwater Creek eggs - I got some!

OMG tonight we scored one of Gary Lange's egg kits for Melanotaenia Splendida Splendida Deepwater Creek at the SAS meeting!

Two had already hatched in the vial and most of the eggs appear viable! Yay! And such a pretty fish too! <3 Plopped them into the 2.5 gallon grow out tank for small plant clippings in a floating tupperware dish until they all hatch, and gave them a little airstone set on uber low for some gentle circulation. They are soooo cute! (but then they always are!) Sadly there were three small blue fry and a few eggs that just didn't make it ... but rainbows tend to be hardy fish and they always seem to do very well for me, so hoping we get most of the batch as hungry healthy fry! Was a great meeting, the presentation Gary gave was really cool - as someone that has loved rainbows intensely for at least a decade or more, it was neat to hear a little about where some of the fish that I used to breed so long ago came from! Even better, I think R enjoyed it and actually got interested in rainbows too (YAY!), turns out that he really liked the colors (natch!) and he even got very interested in a few species (w00t!). He really liked the gertrudes and the splendidas - and I am thrilled that we were able to get the ONLY egg kit of M. Splendida Splendida being offered to have him really see how to raise these guys first hand. We've now dedicated his planter tank to these fry once they get big enough - which is great! And if we need to, we can always yank out the 55g or one of the 100s to use as a breeding/display tank for the adults.

Also won some free Leaf Zone - which we TOTALLY needed for the water column as one of my anubis is just yellowing out hardcore and scored some Water Sprite to suck up some nitrates in the tanks. I really love the clubs that we have joined so far, and even better, R seems to really like them so far too!

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Great SAPS meeting!

Another wonderful meeting tonight, but a low turnout sadly!

Matt gave a wonderful presentation on backgrounds and back lighting, to be honest I just never gave any of that much thought, but ... after seeing the effect it had on the demo tank he used, wow! Really got my attention and changed my mind I think!

I was able to donate my riccia mat that I had been growing out (yay!) as I had finally decided that yeahhhh not interested so much in that plant. Hope the new owner likes it!

We were able to pick up a few more free plants for our tank as well, got a bit more java fern, some stem plant that I don't know what it is, a wispy needle leafed plant that I was told what it was but have now promptly forgotten what the heck it is called, a few unidentified little tony stemlings that had stowed away in the leaves of some other plant (no idea what they are either, but they looked cool, LOL) and a super tiny little green gecko crypt! Should be interesting to see what they all turn into! lol

But always fun to hang out with other tankers and talk shop and compare notes on stores and whatnot. Hoping that we will be able to donate more things at the meetings in the future!

Shrimplets! ::::squeeeeee!::::

OMG! I found babies in the yellow tank! How cooool! And they are all soooo tiny! And soooo CUTE! watching them jump is just the most adorable thing, lol.

Sooo I guess they are liking their setup! But damn - that is one hell of an ugly ass tank. Now I can't redo it and make it pretty cuz now I'm scared I'll hurt the babies. ARGH.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Yayy got my yellow shrimps!!!

The yellows came today and they are all PERFECT! every single one survived and so many of the females are berried! They are soooo vibrant and vividly yellow, they are just GORGEOUS!

I put them into the 10 gallon setup for them, but it'[s not remotely setup fully yet ... I ran out of substrate and so can't successfully plant anything and have it stay down ... so it's all floating for now. :\

Ah well - the important thing is that the shrimps like it right? lol.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

OMG! My shrimps might be mating ... he he he!

Well I *thought* I saw a molt in the back of my 2g nano yesterday and today the majority of the shrimps are going NUTS flying around the tank! I am thinking that might be a good sign! :)

I took a few plants out of this tank and added them to the 7g bowfront and then took the poor crypt that looked like it didn't like as much light as it was getting to the "dark tank" at work. I did plant it where the sun hits the water during the day ... and hope it will like living there better.

I am also getting some shrimps next week that I am SOOO excited about! I will be getting a small bunch of the orange eyed blue tiger shrimps and a small bunch of yellow shrimp next week so trying to get their tanks all ready for them!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

2 gallon nano planted!

So still no idea what to do in terms of a scape design, but this is where the tank is at now.

The guppies are to help cycle the tank and will not be permanent tenants.

Sunday, September 25, 2011

2g nano initial set up (not planted)

So I rinsed out the Fluval Shrimp Stratum substrate and set up the Slim S10 filter, and put in the first dose of Cycle last night and then let it run overnight - and this is how she looks this afternoon!



Looking promising! :)

I will start planting it today - I just wanted to get an idea of how it would look and pan out once I got the substrate in!

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Filters, filters .... (for the 2g nano)

Well, I guess I wound up with three choices ... the UGF and these two that looked promising that were immediately available ...



I will likely wind up getting a Tom's mini filter too but for now, it's between the three.

But turns out that the height of my older tank (I think I got this in the late 90's or possibly the early 00's ... it's been a while so not exactly sure. lol)might be playing against me as I think it's shorter than the tanks today - and the rim is very old school, so it has a width issue that the filters today for smaller do not seem to take into account.

I'm not willing to de-rim this tank, I don't think that look would work well for this one, and I like the retro look for it to be honest. I can just buy a modern de-rimmed tank later on for that style fix, after all! LOL!

So due to the height and rim issue, it ruled out the i25 for this tank (no worries though, I'm sure that I will wind up using it in some other tank someday in the future knowing me LOL) and I guess that I will try the Slim S10 and see how that fares.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Got 'er all cleaned up!!

Well got the nano cleaned up some ... she looks much prettier now!



Now to choose the substrate ... part of me wants to do it the old way that I've always done it, but I have never had tanks as gorgeous as the ones that are doing it in ways I've never tried before. So I am thinking of taking the plunge!

But where to start? I'm thinking a commercially packaged substrate to dip my toes into this new way of doing things might be best for me. Decisions, decisions! :)

Sunday, September 18, 2011

2 gallon nano planted shrimp tank

So thought I'd dig out my 2 gallon setup from the garage and see about setting that up for my first stab at getting back into the hobby and my first try at aquascaping!

Here she is ... definitely needing a little attention, LOL!



And then with it all together ...

Friday, September 16, 2011

Ooo tanks tanks tanks, I know I have a tank I can use...

OKay so I collect tanks. Yes. I COLLECT them. Not even remotely kidding.

I think I've had like 12-15 different tanks with me since I was like 17. I've love having them because well, I'm the kind of chick that will bring home critters or have critters just show up. lol.

I've had just about every critter you can shake a stick at, I've gone through the evolutionary chain. Started with bacteria - yes bacteria, lol, then to molds, then to bugs, then to fish, then to amphibians, then birds and reptiles and mammals. I went through a large aggressive bird/reptile/fish/amphibian/bug stage and then swung off to explore the other end of the size scale - little ones! Then we went through a venomous stage, then an exotic stage, then a native stage, and then a rare phase.

As a result, I've kept and bred obnoxious amounts of animals and bugs since I was about 2 - I've just always had tanks and critters. I can remember my first fish tank (guppies and platys!) that my mom set up in a roo I shared with my brother - they put a bookshelf in the middle of the room to kind of make it into two rooms and put the fish on a shelf so we could both enjoy and I've been in love with tanks ever since.

So I've sadly put my tanks away for almost 6 years and now it's times for them to come BACK!

So I started digging through half of my tank collection (the other half is still in storage) and took some pics, lol of my cluttered garage.

A couple of 20s ...


My 100 gallon and a 30 and a 20 gallon...



The 30 gallon and 20 gallon



Aha! The 2 gallon tank I was looking for is in my 100 gallon! w00t! And underneath it is the 7 gallon bowfront! Sweeet! I think I might be all set!

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Tank Blog Launches

Well, I guess I finally figured out what i wanted to blog about with this account ... my tanks! :)

Just recently got re-bitten by the tank bug and thought it might be fun to blog about it as I re-enter a hobby that has been a life-long passion for me.