FrozenFins Aqaurium Journey

[FrozenFins]

On 8/11/2021 at 5:10 PM, Patrick_G said:

The bowl is very cool. I bet you could grow some plants on the exposed part of the wood. There are a bunch of great epiphytes that wood (🤭) look nice. 
My wife grows these. 

Orchids would work too

or some pothos rooted in the bowl

I hope to get at least some java moss on the wood. When setting it up i though about pothos as well.

[Patrick_G]

Wait, that’s $25CAD right? Only $19USD a great deal! 

[FrozenFins]

@Patrick_G my lfs was having a garage sale with a bunch of old equitment the week before. I went and almost got it but held my self off it. A week later they still had it, and i couldnt not buy it.

All the plants/ substrate i managed to scavange from different tanks or left overs from other aquarium builds. I did buy the driftwood (once again only 25$)

[Patrick_G]

On 8/11/2021 at 5:29 PM, James Black said:

@Patrick_G my lfs was having a garage sale with a bunch of old equitment the week before. I went and almost got it but held my self off it. A week later they still had it, and i couldnt not buy it.

All the plants/ substrate i managed to scavange from different tanks or left overs from other aquarium builds. I did buy the driftwood (once again only 25$)

I’m a little salty about the price of aquarium driftwood. A piece like that might be $50 at one of my LFS.

[Hobbit]

I’m falling in love with all these beautiful bowls on the forum!

[FrozenFins]

I boiled the wood for around 30minutes - 1hour. That was able to release most of the tannins. However i woke up today, and look at the TANNINS!

[lefty o]

thicker chunks of wood can leech out color for a long time.

[FrozenFins]

The new bowl has been leaching tannins, and I LOVE IT!!! I just need some tiny shrimpies to start running around! 

I'm not on facebook at all really. I simply only have it to join my local fish clubs facebook group. Were not having any meetings yet due to COVID, so that group helps me stay in touch. However, I found a canadian shrimp breeding on facebook, I started talking to him and he is willing to ship me some orange pumpkin shrimp at the end of the month! I'm going away tommorrow for about two weeks to work at a camp, once I'm home the plan is to get some shrimp for this tank.

I also think this needs more plants, here are my thoughts for more plants:

• Dwarf Sag in the front
• Some moss for the wood (what kind do yall reccemend, java moss?)
• Lilly Bulb for the back of the tank

I wanna add a pothos as what @Patrick_G reccemended to this tank one day as well.

I tested the water of this tank:

Nitrates: 5

Nitrites 0

Amonia: 0.25

I'm assuming that the reason why the nitrates are so low is because I'm not feeding it nor are there any inhabitants. 

I'm excited to come back home and see all the pant growth!

Its hard to get a good picture of this tank without the glare. Due to the fact that its a natural lit tank, and the ambient lighting in the room isn't very good.

 

My angelfish was very active today posing for some pictures:

Penny is still too small for the community tank. I was going to start feeding him BBS at least every other day to get him to grow faster. However, I accidently left my brine shrimp eggs out so now they are bad, and wont hatch. Gonna pick some up after I leave. 

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by James Black

[Jungle Fan]

@James Black your pictures of the fishbowl are not  bad. It's hard to take pictures of a fishbowl with the flash. Most of the time these days I'm using just my phone for quick tank pictures as well., but if you are interested in more here are some easy tips for aquarium photography:

https://aquariuminfo.org/photographs.html

[FrozenFins]

thanks @Jungle Fan, all though it may look like im using flash, I'm not. What you may be thinking is the flash, is simply the sunlight thats lighting the tank through the window.

Gonna go check out that link 🙂!

[FrozenFins]

After returning from a 2 week trip my tanks look messy, and also amazing. 

My rescues betta tank is full of this weird floating green algae, gross. I'm doing a waterchange despite it being a walstad tank, there isn't enough plants in the aquarium. The hornwort is not taking off like I expected, but rapidly turning for the worst. I am not a big fan of the light at all. I may just invest in a fluval 3.0 for this thing, and sell the old light.

The new walstad bowl is defentley ready for some shrimp! I'm gonna order some soon. But the tannins make it very hard to see, how can I control this so that I can have some tannins but not to the extreme? A light would probably help. I'm gonna start getting new plants for this thing. Ordering the shrimp from a canadian breeder within the next day or two. Will update when they arrive.

The community tank has only experianced great growth in plants! Ever since adding the easy root tabs all the plants have been taking off, and its wonderful to see. 

The 10 guppy tank has some wonderful growth as well. Doing a waterchange today. The crypts have new sprouts from its recent melt back. Penny has grown a bit but he's not big enough for the community tank. 

I had to remove some of the hornwort in hugos tank. Some of it was getting all slimy, and brown looking. I suspect the reason behind this is the light that is right above the hornwort. Looks a lot empty now. I'm gonna move Dobby to the shrimp bowl, just gotta find him. 

I also went to the LFS today to purchase 10 rummy nose tetra. I was able to use up my 20$ gift card, and then had to pay only $10. 

 

 

 

[Hobbit]

Hornwort is so picky and sensitive. Once it gets used to your water, hopefully it will do better.

In terms of the tannins, I think the only way to get rid of them is to change water. (Well, I know some filters will clear tannins, too.) Perhaps do a big water change before adding shrimp to the bowl to try to clear out as many tannins as possible.

Everything’s looking great!

Edited September 4, 2021 by Hobbit

[ChemBob]

On 9/4/2021 at 12:15 AM, Hobbit said:

n terms of the tannins, I think the only way to get rid of them is to change water

This is the best if you want to keep some. The only way to eliminate them is to eliminate the source, then water change it away. Usually it is coming from wood or leaves. As the botanical age, they will release less tannins as well. I think maybe carbon will remove some?

[FrozenFins]

I thought I would share some update photos.

The 10 rummy nose tetra that I got earlier this week were starting to dissapear. I suspect the angelfish was taking a snack on them because there not fully grown. So I put them in Hugos tank for them to grow out. Hugo didn't like the company and started chasing them. So I moved Hugo into the shrimp bowl until I can move the rummy nose back into the community tank. I'll have to wait on my shrimp order.

Hugos loving life in the bowl though. I dont think he's ever been this happy since his finrot treatment😪. The water is a little chilli because it doesn't have a heater since it was setup for shrimp. It sits at a solid 72F, temporarily I beleive this to be fine.

 

[Guppysnail]

Playing musical fish is always a downer but on the bright side Hugo likes the bowl 😁

[Hobbit]

Ohh now you have a dilemma! Is Hugo going to stay in the bowl?

[Streetwise]

Is Hugo getting assists from Gretzky?

[FrozenFins]

@Streetwise thats probably why he likes the bowl so much🤣

[FrozenFins]

I have been quite absent on the forum, as well as not very present with my aquariums. I haven't sat down and really enjoyed them. Often forget to feed, etc. The motivation just hasn't been there lately. I feel like this is because of my work load. I have been working almost every day, and on top of that have a bunch of school papers due. However today I don't work, and I told my self to take a day off and enjoy the fish. Do some waterchanges, and really get my hands wet.

I wanna move Penny to the community tank soon, and change up the stocking in the 10 gallon. I want platys (I think...), and then perhaps in the future upgrade it to a 20 long. The rummynose are able to move back, but I will wait till penny is ready to move them. Once everyone moved, its time for shrimp!!! I have been really wanting some pumpkin shrimp for that shrimp bowl soon.

I honestly miss my fish, and I wanna get excited about this hobby again. Perhaps I will head to the LFS soon. 

Its hard to find hugo in his bowl from afar due to the plants and the tannins. But I pulled out my phone and I see him race through the plants from the back of the bowl up to the front. It was a challenge because he decided he wanted to find a way above the floating hornwort, and not below. When he eats his food sometimes half his body will be out of the water due to the hornwort, he has 0 patience. Often I will move the pellets to wear he can grab them easily, but he doesn't want to wait the 2 seconds it takes to do so.

Weird story about my angelfish. A few weeks I spotted some ick on him. I didnt have a spare tank for him, and all I had was leftover ich medicine from my last treatment, I also adjusted the heat. I didnt do much, and within days it dissapeared. none of the other fish appeared to have ick either.

 

[Guppysnail]

Glad to see Hugo still enjoys his bowl 🥰

[Just a Pygmy Corydora]

It's good to see you back into the fish keeping hobby!

[FlyingFishKeeper]

As another student I can safely say that homework and other life stuff has really taken a toll on the amount of free time I have (and my energy). Glad to hear that you still have plans for this hobby!

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@James Blackdon’t beat yourself up . When you’re out of school you’ll have a whole other set of obstacles to maintaining your tanks. The struggle is real. 
Your bowl looks great. Oxygenation in a unfiltered bowl can be an issue so your choice of a betta or shrimps is good. 
Angels are notorious tetra snackers. Always go with fish larger in diameter then their mouths. 

[Patrick_G]

@James Black my daughter is probably close to your age and working almost full time at a supposed part time job. My advice to her is make sure the boss knows you’re essentially working double time with school and work and don’t let them take advantage! 

[FrozenFins]

On 9/29/2021 at 8:24 PM, Patrick_G said:

@James Black my daughter is probably close to your age and working almost full time at a supposed part time job. My advice to her is make sure the boss knows you’re essentially working double time with school and work and don’t let them take advantage! 

I work at mcdonalds, there pretty understanding of school being prioritized. Probably because all the managers are still in school, or just graduated.