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My garage "fish lab"


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A while back when a certain store has their tank sale I bought four tanks, did some cleaning out in the garage, and set up a mini rack.

There is always something else going on outside of the tanks themselves too. It's all powered by a dual channel air pump and a gang valve.

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Here's what I have going on from top to bottom, left to right:

- in the window there are a few infusoria, seed shrimp, and daphnia backup cultures

- on the top reach I have the most recent batch of Nothobranchius Guentheri fry that are only about a week old and two Fundulopanchax Gresensi fry that are about a month old now

- on bottom the first 10 gallon has Japan blue gold guppies (initially from @Patrick_G), in the second 10 gallon tank there are Nothobranchius Guentheri from my other journal, in the first 5 gallon there are young Nothobranchius Eggers, in the 5 gallon there are juvenile Nothobranchius Guentheri who will soon go in with the older ones

- on the side there is my son's Venus flytrap, a few jars with random stuff for infusoria/snails/random inverts, and a brine shrimp hatchery

- not pictured the two buckets on the floor one for dirty water and another with clown water for small changes. Also my workbench with live cultures of grindal worms, vinegar eels, and micro worms

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  • 3 weeks later...

Restarted some cultures because the garage was getting stinky...

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I got a new light for my birthday recently abd it's much bluer than those grow lights but it has a timer built in which is nice. Plus it feels less likely to fall apart.

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Turns out a coworker of mine keeps fish too. He gave me a grocery bag full of guppy grass. I'm using half of it to give the female nothobranchius Guentheri more hiding places.

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Here's a close up on the tank on the left. It's actually put together to look nice

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But it's a bit overgrown. A close up of a suspicious gathering...PXL_20230819_160152353.jpg.5663e8e67d87b8a85cf268ca6f3756ef.jpg

One of the nothobranchius Eggersi males watching over his spawning site

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On 8/25/2023 at 7:04 PM, Schuyler said:

A close up of a suspicious gathering...PXL_20230819_160152353.jpg.5663e8e67d87b8a85cf268ca6f3756ef.jpg

Turns out I was right to be suspicious. It was a dead guppy. Not sure what caused it. There was one acting off earlier

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  • 2 weeks later...

Added some gravel and played a bit of musical tanks.

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It may be a bit light colored for the killis who like things dimmer.

I didn't realize just how much moss was in my tanks but that should be handy once my Fundulopanchax Gresensi start actually spawning (they just replaced the lone N Guentheri male in the 10g).

Here's some pics of feeding grindal worms:

Nothobranchius Guentheri 

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Nothobranchius Eggersi 

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Fundulopanchax Gresensi Takwai

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Plus I have some botanicals (mainly coconut mulch) cycling for a future project...

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And my extra plant holding bins (mostly the extra guppy grass from my coworker):

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Introducing my new "Lid'l Tank"

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It's still curing so I won't know for sure that it worked until tomorrow night. It's roughly 2 gallons.

I was watching SerpeDesign videos to get ideas for the biotope I'm trying to do. On a bunch of his videos he'll just throw together an aquarium. I decided to give it a try with some old lids someone gave me. They were gross, the hinges were broken, and they didn't fit any of my aquariums.

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First the hinges needed to be removed

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Then they were cleaned with barkeeper's friend and two end pieces were cut

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Then making tape was added

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then silicone was added and it was assembledPXL_20230914_045908632.jpg.a6cf985d12db7701a89dab92cabc8773.jpg

I'm planning on using this for a fry grow out tank

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The new tank is all filled up. Honestly, I think it looks way cooler than should. Now just to see how it holds up

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On another note, there were baby Japan blue gold guppies born today

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Basically just little eyeballs on a wiggly stick 

My wife just pointed out the irony that the tank is made out of lids but doesn't have a lid itself

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Sad day. Something went wrong... all of the fry in the new tank are dead...

I'm going to totally tear it down, rinse thoroughly, rebuild it with a different type of silicone, let it cure for multiple days, and then test it with a snail before adding anything else.

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