Aquaria: Belter Style

[Woowala]

Anyone like The Expanse?

Anyway I figured I'd start a journal, mostly to share bad pics of things I'm excited about with people whose eyes won't glaze over like my friends' do when I talk about fish, or like mine do when people talk to me about video games and comic book movies.

Of the many things I'm not good at, photography is one, so don't get your hopes up. 🙂

Some of my emersed plants started flowering instead of dying.  Pretty cool, would definitely recommend.

S. repens

A. nana petite

 

And after what's felt like forever, my Pseudomugil gertrudae Aru II eggs started hatching about a week ago.  Many of the initial ones I collected just never hatched.  I can still see them in the tank I was throwing them into, fully developed and just sitting there like 3 weeks later.  Ultimately blowing into the jars with some airline to drop the pH worked great to force them.  Didn't think I'd have to do that cuz my water is pretty soft (gH 4, kH 4) but that's what worked. I think I've got around 30 or so fry.  The setup is a bare bottom 5.5 gal with a sponge filter, 2 males and 3 females, a big ol' potted crypt, java moss, and 2 mops on either end.  I get around 15-25 eggs whenever I check the mops, many of which fail to develop.  They're young fish though so hopefully that will improve.

 

[Woowala]

What's truly exciting though, is about 4 months ago I finished the first part of my water change system.  I've got about 20 small tanks ranging from 1-10 gallons and water changes were the bane of my existence, so I basically copied Jadren Aquatics' and Daku Aquatics' systems (many thanks to them if they ever see this) with one little tweak- I used a diaphragm pump for a water cooler instead of a way overpowered (for my needs) RO booster pump.  Around 30 bucks for the pump iirc. Whole thing cost about 150 bucks.  I still have to drain water manually with a siphon and bucket for the time being, planning out a Dean style sump bucket system to pump water outside, but filling the tanks is a dream.  Turn the valve for each tank, turn on the pump that's plugged into a smart plug with my phone, and enjoy my 6th cup of coffee for the day while I wait.  Takes about 3 min per gallon, which isn't fantastic but it's a good compromise as I don't like to add water back to shrimp and fry tanks too quickly.  The reservoir is in the laundry room and the pump handles the 8 ft of height and ~30 ft of RO tubing just fine.

I may make a separate thread just to get more eyeballs on this, but if you've got more than a couple tanks and hate water changes (who doesn't? crazy people, that's who) I can't recommend doing something like this enough.  It has saved me so much time in just 4 months which I have wasted gloriously. 

 

Edited August 7 by Woowala

[Schuyler]

Ay boss man those are some nice flowers you have there 

 

[Woowala]

Haha, thanks kopeng