chrishaigh82

I'm surprised dragon bloods seem to slip through comments on hybrids.  

I liked our dragon bloods right up until I compared them to a similar looking, homogenous species that were consistently true to type. 

I'd spent some time looking into it a couple years ago and seeing it again on the television in the last week has rekindled some interest.  Has any one had experience with a natural pool (using fresh water and a large plant filled pond with media on the side for biological control).  

Kids would love having a pool that has turtles in it, I'd love not having to deal with toxic chemicals and it seems to be managed no different to a large aquarium.

You'll like this one Chris. I was at the chiro's and he asked me what I did on the weekend.....

 

Me: "Well, I spent a few hours doing water changes, then I rescaped my large planted tank, and then went to Aquotix, Pet Magic, and Vebas. Oh, and did I tell you about the fry?"

Chiro: "What do you mean fry"

In our clinic we are more likely to make you wait while the water is being switched off finishing up a water change or discussing with a kid as to if our plecco is alive or dead  

at least I'm not on meth right?

#FISH....CHEAPERTHANMETH

sometimes...  

I get the story from my wife, the kids were at the barber shop and my oldest (7) was asked what pets he has.  

The answer was Jack our dog and some fish....  

The barber said I have A gold fish what colour are yours...

My lad said well at home there is some orangey red ones, maybe 30 of them, and some black ones, about thirty of them too.  At dads work there is a couple hundred different fish wiht some massive ones that eat the smaller and crappier of the fish, in his office 50 or so babies.  Barber stops cutting and looks at my lad like there is a problem there...

The grazers are the bomb  I find although the tropheus are quick they don't get a good go at the flakes unless I turn off my pump to stop them ending up in the sump.  It's also a good time to take a picture of them and try and count how many you have.

Man the Rossmonts are awesome when teamed with a controller.  They rossmonts throw a nice turbulent stream out of them rather than a laminar stream (not reading the box, from experience).  Between my tanks I've a couple 15200's hooked to a waver and 2x9800's and 2x5800's.

In our big tank the biggest 15200's are aimed at lower margins of the tank for detritus and general current and it doesnt strip the substrate in the same way power heads do in our other tanks.  The laminar flow and mixing up the intensity with the waver keep the tank clean crystal clear.  Our experience is alternating the currents is the most important factor to keep detritus from accumulating and the water clear, when we had the large pumps flat out the tank still carried a lot of detritus in the water body and got cloudy on feeding and didn't clear quickly.  The large tank uses the inflow from the sump pump to agitate the surface for O2.

In our smaller tanks we have a little rossmonts aimed at the surface for agitation and higher powered ones for circulation, with out the controller to vary the flow i don't believe they are any better than a cheap power heads however we are going to add wavers when $$ can afford it as the variety of tank flow seems to be more important to stopping dead spots.  Id stick some over powered wave makers on a controller and a cheap power head for surface agitation. 

My home tropheus tank now has 3 rossmonts circulating the tank and a power head with the air pipe into it (sprays bubbles) on a timer to run during the day when I'm at work.

Disclaimer (fan of the rossmonts)

Agree with the above, lately I've started seeing real small stuff up for sale 1-2cm. IMO that's way too small.

Couple of the lots I got at the last auction were the 4cm mark but one was sub 2cm.  Happy little fish but actually a worry that they will be eaten by the fire fish fry in my grow out tank.

I'm feeling quite unwell today after eating the plants Mattia was recommending to be used in cooking at the auction  

Thanks for running the auction this evening.  Hope every one's new friends are settling in well.

BTW Mac, the white lips and the protomelas are beautiful already as fry, can't wait to see them mature.

Very quick and easy, means i can cull my test kit to ammonia  

 Screen Shot 2017-04-22 at 9.25.31 pm.png   372.73KB   118 downloads

 Screen Shot 2017-04-22 at 9.25.47 pm.png   1021.17KB   124 downloads

Definitely going to buy a bunch of these test kits, I've looked at aquarium and professional chemistry monitoring set ups in all price ranges and none give the range and specificity this set gives.  My preference would be a digital monitor per tank that lets you know when its sad but this give the easiest monitoring on the market.

Well you have approximately 4x2x2 of space to play with underneath  If my sums are right the 4x2x2 is 1220x60x60

I like the idea of a grow out tank not necessarily to grow out fry (which you will do in it) but to increase the volume of water you are dealing with in the system, its a cheap way to increase the water volume (but a bit more $$ to run power wise) and if you put a hose with an adjustable tap you can run it off your sump pump.  

In our 8 footer we had a moderate sump (two chambers) and a grow out tank but have moved the grow out tank under the 4 footer and put a bigger sump in the 8 footer (three chambers) and honestly the larger three chamber set up is filtering better and keeping levels stable.  

Under the 4 footer with a two chamber sump and a grow out tank I  took the opportunity to put more media in the system by loading ceramic tubes in the grow out tank to increase the efficiency of the system however the waste produced by the fry may end up blocking up the ceramic media and making them inefficient eventually any hows?  

I think the best set up is where the grow out tank is a clean based tank and is part of the system but overflows into the fine filter material to catch the waste and to have gentle flow not normal tank turn over.  If built in a single sump tank still have the grow out tank as gravity fed back to the fine filter material so you don't funk up your other media but have the level set slightly high for the grow out tank so it flows.

All our LFS will do a great job at helping with the glass for your sump, personally Aquotix have done our three sumped tanks.  

this is our big tank   Screen Shot 2017-04-21 at 9.25.59 pm.png   834.4KB   4 downloads

The smaller tank 4foot with the grow out.

 Screen Shot 2017-04-21 at 9.22.49 pm copy.jpg   88.89KB   3 downloads

Fine sand is the bomb, we have three with a mouth full so hopefully they remember their maternal instincts this time round.

 mouth.jpg   140.52KB   9 downloads

 IMG_1861.jpg   168.52KB   9 downloads