Vanish's MTS Journal

[Vanish]

On 10/21/2021 at 7:43 PM, Torrey said:

I would talk to your lfs and also to folx in the CAS, and see if anyone can help in exchange for some offspring.

This is a good idea. Unfortunately, so far I only know one person in CAS 😂. Their comms are all on Facebook and I deleted my account years ago. I will be working on finding some other contacts. I have yet to really find a place I identify as my LFS. There is one pretty good one around, but it is a 50 minute drive, so I don't get up there very often.

 

 

[Vanish]

In general, when I read a forum, I want to read it ( and see pics ). I don't mention the 150 very often but the other night in was watching the catfish so I took a video.

 

[Guppysnail]

How cool! High energy all kinds of zoomies  going on there 

[Vanish]

Wow, two whole weeks! Life has kicked in pretty hard here, so the tanks have been mostly autopiloting.

I took this cruddy photo of the angel babies before counting and upgrading their tank.

We currently have 86 babies. A friend of mine will be taking care of them while we are visiting the parents for T-Day. We'll see how that goes, but they are now old enough to start eating flake food.

I moved them into a half-full 10G today. A bit of a cobbled together setup, but I wanted them to have more room to grow and more water to live in while I am away not doing water changes.

[Vanish]

All the baby angelfish survived our Thanksgiving trip.

My 90g CO2 tank is looking kind rough. I think it might be time for a rescape.

[Vanish]

My wife found the tank stash, but she didn't say much about it. She did commandeer half the rack to store knitting stuff though.

[Vanish]

Behbies

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@Vanishcongratulations on the angels, they look great. Are they still in the 10 g or did you move them on again?

[Vanish]

On 12/20/2021 at 8:51 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@Vanishcongratulations on the angels, they look great. Are they still in the 10 g or did you move them on again?

They're in two of the 20g's on the rack above. Look closely on the left side on you will see them. They didn't need that much room yet, but I'd read the smaller ones will catch up in size if you put them in their own tank, so we are giving that a shot. 36 "small" and 40 "bigger"

 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Vanish

[Vanish]

Another look at the triple 20s. Teacup is in quarantine for Hexamita 😕

[Vanish]

I received a 48" 42watt hygger 24/7 for xmas. This will let me double up the lights on my 90g CO2 tank. I need to decide whether to run the hygger + Beamswork DA Fspec on there, or switch out the light on a different tank to double up the DA Fspecs.

Opinions?

[Vanish]

I haven't set up the second light yet, but yesterday I did a big trim/clean up and rearranged some plants. It is looking a bit flat at the moment as all the stem plants are around the same height but I like the direction it is headed. I need to kill off this BBA and I hit a bunch of it with a spray bottle of glut/h202.

The Hygro Arugaia (sp?) Is struggling sadly, as I need more smaller plants. I'm hoping the additional light will bring it out of its funk.

[Beardedbillygoat1975]

@VanishOnly you can tell that hygro is struggling. Overall I think it just looks like a trimmed up tank. The bolbitis is gorgeous and your stems look pretty compact. I am terribly jealous of anyone with fish I don't have the accommodations for which presently are angels and rainbows which this tank has in abundance! With the triple 20s are they fry/qt tanks? Those fry look so healthy! Great job and thanks for the updates, it is great to follow!

[Vanish]

On 1/3/2022 at 5:56 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@VanishOnly you can tell that hygro is struggling. Overall I think it just looks like a trimmed up tank. The bolbitis is gorgeous and your stems look pretty compact. I am terribly jealous of anyone with fish I don't have the accommodations for which presently are angels and rainbows which this tank has in abundance!

Three types of hygro in here. The Polysperma is doing great. I wish it was still 'sunset' but that seemed to fade out a few years ago. Difformis ( water wisteria ) is down to one stem. Mind blowing to me as at one point I had an entire tank of it. The one I am referring to is the Lancea 'Araguaia' in front (see photo). It was looking good for about a month, then after a couple trips out of town really melted back after being hit by BBA. I've almost got the BBA killed off via glut, just a few spot on the bottom of the cholla stump and the plants in front of it as seen in the photo below.

The good news though is since I came back from vacation and hit the BBA, I can already see pretty new leaves.

Thanks for the kind words, I really appreciate it! More updates to follow on all the other tanks.

Edited January 5, 2022 by Vanish

[Vanish]

On 1/3/2022 at 5:56 PM, Beardedbillygoat1975 said:

@VanishWith the triple 20s are they fry/qt tanks? Those fry look so healthy! Great job and thanks for the updates, it is great to follow!

Yeah, the 20s are for fry / growout / qt / sexing guppies / breeding rainbows. Whatever I need really. Planning to keep them bare bottom for now for easily switching things out.

On the left are the "smaller" angels (they're also hiding a bit as I just did a WC). In the middle are the "larger" angels. The right tank was a QT for the last couple weeks, but I'm considering moving my "cull" female guppies into there as the 75g is at about capacity and needs some thinning of the herd.

I had intended on documenting the whole rack project but I didn't even end up taking a single photo during the build. I needed a place to move the angels before going out of town and just made it happen. I did exactly what all the threads say not to do, and that's fill tanks on a rack before you are done planning everything, like drilling for automated WCs. Its working out fine though, as I have a sink nearby and drain in the floor, allowing me to fill one while siphoning the next.

The rack is designed to hold three more 20s on the bottom, and four 10s on the top, but I'm not sure life is going to support that at the moment. I need to sell / give away / donate some of my "old" stuff that is taking up space before I can even consider setting up those other tanks. I already own the four 10s.

[Vanish]

The 29g has had some good growth. The crypts are really beginning to establish. So has algae! 😄 Its pretty wicked. I think the decomposing leaf litter really brought it on. I don't think I will do leaf litter again, or if I do, its got to be different leaves.

This tank is really a bit of a low tech experiment. It may hard as I am not dosing it and I also don't have an active substrate. I'm also intentionally leaving the algae on the back and sidewalls, which may not help with having it not grow on the plants. I am spot treating the BBA and reduced the light intensity 10%. I'd really like to get the sunset dwarf rainbows to spawn in here. I should probably get some sort of cleaning crew added.

[Vanish]

The 20g under the 29 was supposed to be my QT tank, but it has become my cull / growout for male endlers and a hopeful breeding tank for 'Super Red' Bristlenose Plecos . They're really hard to photo on my phone.

Thanks to this forum for the plant spike cave idea. As you can see one is already claimed and I just put them in yesterday. Looking at them, I think I have 3 females and 1 male in here, but I'm not entirely sure. I've never had a definite male of any bristlenose before. The one in the cave is the one I think is the male, so I can't photo his head. 😄

[Vanish]

While the 150g should be a centerpiece, it is kind of a pain to work in due to the height, and thus it can be a bit neglected. The fish keep knocking the java ferns off the cholla, so its looking a bit sparse. The crypts are very happy, though. TBH while it isn't what I had envisioned originally, it is pretty good for fish watching.

I should really move more of the rainbows in, especially the turquoise from the 90g, but I get scared of losing them. It seems like if they make it two days they'll be fine, but I've lost quite a few fish in their first 48 hours in this tank.

 

One thing I don't think I've ever talked about on this forum is the filtration. I took this next photo while doing a water change last night. The sump is an old 55g aquarium divided into three sections and mostly covered.

From left to right:

Input is the 3 lines coming from the Beananimal overflow system. First chamber is mostly polyfill with some bagged ceramic media underneath. Flow goes under the baffle and into the second chamber which has random media ( rings, lava rocks, sponges, extra sponge filters etc ) and dual heaters. Flow then spills into the third chamber through slits to the pump, which has a splitter to allow some of the flow to return back to the second chamber. The incoming tube was just me pumping water in for the WC.

There is a USB rechargable motion detection light inside the stand ( awesome, recommend ). Besides the front being removable, the right side is also removable so the entire sump can be slid out. Below the tank, the bottom of the stand is sealed and there is a small lip around the inside bottom of the stand, so any leaks are contained, with a water alarm inside the lip to alert in such a case.

[Vanish]

The guppies in the living room 75g have been doing well. As mentioned earlier, I think I need to thin out the females a bit. Despite having a heater in it, I am still getting 10 to 1 females. I couldn't guess how many guppies are in here. Only two of the make offspring have been interesting enough for me to keep them in here. One is kind of yellow snakeskin looking, and the other is a neat blue/orange with a triple tail. Obviously some endler genes in there, but he's the size of the male guppies. They move so much though, I don't know how to photo them. Probably should steal my wife's iPhone.

I recently added the under trim lights, which I am enjoying, but they really highlight the lack of filtration in this tank are there is a lot of organics in the water column. The plants seem to be happy, though. No sign of spawning from the cories yet, though I think they are still maturing. Same with the plecos.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Vanish

[Vanish]

The endler / red cherry shrimp 10g has been doing great with the new light. I just cut back the intensity 10% as I am seeing a little GDA. Cherry shrimp population is definitely up, with all the moss certainly helping, though I will probably need to pull some out here soon. I've never removed any females from this tank, but I will need to as there are now too many fish in here.

[Vanish]

The 4g shrimp riparium is chugging along. Anubias might be happier in here than any other tank I have. Its kind of hard to photo due to the bright light hitting the ferns and the water being slightly tannin stained. There are definitely shrimp in here, but it is hard to say how many. I haven't seen babies yet. There are a bunch of ramshorn snails that I am assuming came in as eggs on the subwassertang, as I don't have them anywhere else.I see no reason to remove them.

The above water right side looks a little rough as there is no dripwall there, but there are signs of life, so I am going to leave it for now. The creepers on the drip wall are slowly making their way across. Same with the moss at the waterline.

[Vanish]

I decided to put the Hygger 24/7 on the 150g so as to not much with the lighting schedule on the 90g. I now have double DA FSPECs on the 90g and am curious to find out whether that leads to better plant growth or more algae. 🤞 There was a bunch of pearling last night, so I have high hopes.

Had to do some errands yesterday which took me right by a fish store, so I brought home 4 otos for the 29g - paid for by selling some plants from the 90g (from trimming before above update). They had peacock gudgeons which were very tempting, but I am trying to keep mostly the stock I have for the moment.

[Torrey]

On 1/5/2022 at 4:18 PM, Vanish said:

One is kind of yellow snakeskin looking, and the other is a neat blue/orange with a triple tail. Obviously some endler genes in there, but he's the size of the male guppies. They move so much though, I don't know how to photo them.

If you have a Co-op specimen container, that's one of the easiest ways to focus the camera and get a good picture. 

..

 

 

[Vanish]

Yay, I have my first points in the CAS BAP for breeding of angelfish.

I need to figure out how to submit cherry shrimp and guppies next, because I've bred plenty of them. However, I've never done it in a controlled environment and been able to count them 😂

[Vanish]

My battle with hexamita was lost. Now that Teacup has moved on, two of the other angels immediately spawned. Theyve got wrigglers on a fern leaf atm. I won't be trying to grow these out, not enough room.

Edited January 11, 2022 by Vanish