Well, it's almost there...
Another year is passing by, and this is a perfect moment to summarize things. Finacially, this 2011. was harder then recent years. On the other hand, some good things happend, I guess things are still in some balance. You've probably noticed I was absent from blog this entire year, my aquarium was pushed into second plan due obligations at university, new job and finally to admit, my laziness. Let me summarize the most important events:
Late 2010: Disaster
My aquarium suffered mysterious desease last year and in matter of days all my fish perished. The cause? As you know, I use(d) Spirulina rich food on ocasion those days, all in good faith, and trouble with it are tiny, microscopic leftovers which form a thick Spirogyra clouds in you aquarium in matter of weeks. If you leave them untreated, with good conditions like lighting and food you will come to this stage in matter of days. One day I finally found time and determination to clean that. As it turned out, that was a shock for my fish, since those algae, no matter how harmless and ugly at the same time, acctually had a huge (positive) impact on water chemistry! My fish started vanishing couple of days later, one by one, luckily I had only couple of them since I don't overcroud my tank. I tried to cure early survivors with Furanol, carefully read about correct amount of water I should put in smaller quarantene tank, but 1 tablet for 9 liters was too much. The medication acctualy killed all my Tiger Barbs! What a sad day it was... and a shocking experience when I got home later afternoon to meet disaster. After that time I got 10 Amano Shrimps and up to this day almost all of them are still fine. They are real positive force in any aquarium, they really keep things under control, of course, with my little help.
2011 First Half
The very end of 2010 and early 2011 will be remembered as an episode of my Amano Shrimp breeding trials. As it happend, I had 7-8 males and 2 female shrimp (1 male was lost in the start by a complete mistery), and one female was older and very active. One morning I got up and saw a wierd behaviour of my shrimps. They were jumping and moving like flashes in aquarium (there were no fish inhabitants since disaster, so they were the kings and queens of 130 Liter empire alone). By the time I took my camera, they've stopped. It lasted only a minute or two. Later on, I discovered that was a love game for them, when female releases pheromones and males get crazy :)
So, every 2-3 months my older female was pregnant and I tried to raise little shrimps, read scarce resources on the web, even developed a LED Ring Flash and old lens mod for my camera in order to capture microscopic creatures, but it turned out they require special green food to survive first month. Unfortunately, green phytoplankton culture it is not available here in Serbia, and to import it from United States would cost as high as 100 EUR. Too much for that adventure I'm afraid, so I gave my best with alternative food. I tried egg yolk, yeast, Spirulina food... but after 15 days at most, my population of small Amano Shrimps would perished. After 4th trial I simply gave up :(
2011 Second Half
One day I received a call from my younger cousin asking me for an aquarium advice. It was out of the blue, since I thought he would never be infected by aquarium hobby. Turned out everything began with his father getting small aquarium (around 15 liters) with pump and couple of fishes for just 2 EUR! And so, for couple of months fish survived, but eventually population was down to one. Then his son got an idea to build larger 80 liter aruarium and from there things rolled pretty fast. He had nicer tank in just 8 month in comparison to my almost 3 years old! On the other hand, he likes to overcroud his tanks, in my opinion, having way too much fish for such a small tank. But, good thing is, he cleans it and changes water frequently, so the fish can survive. Anyhow, can you beleive he had 7 Angel fishes at the time with doesen of other, smaller ones!? So, I said to him, listen, in couple of months you will get into trouble, those fish will grow and they will be unhappy. So, he called me after a month and said he wants to give me 3 Scalars and if I was fine with it. After a thought, I said yes, after all, Angel fish was THE REASON to get my aquarium in the first place, but since then I was pushed by friends that 35-37 cm water column is below the recommended limit. No, the oportunity arised, and I had no choice but to help :) At the moment he owns two tanks, one larger 100 Liter is for the Angels.
Back to my place. After a month, one of mine Angel fish got sick and didn't survived, but the others 2 are fine so far. Last month, one got wierd behaviour, pushed into the corner refusing food with pale white colors (it's a tiger Angel kind), so again I got pannicked from that deja vu, immediatelly tranfered her into quarantine, went to store and bought green/blue medication with "icht" in the name as a general cure. Apparently, the fish was simply stressed for some reason (the other Angel was pushing sometimes towards first), but everything was back into normal the very next day.
So, that's the situation in the moment, still no plants in my tank, the tank was "plant-free" for a full year now. Plants require proper conditions and are much harder to keep than fish and shrimps. I had a misfortune with my aquarium lighting which I forgot to mention, so I was developing an idea for a solid-state (so popular word these days...) DIY LED Aquarium lighting. Trouble with white LED's is that the cold white ones look a bit greenish to my eyes in comparison to ordinary white CFL tubes, but that could be simply because I tested only 60-70 5 mm LEDs with 12,000 Candela.
But, that's a story for another time, I wish you all a good 2012 and happy holidays!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
The Begining of Disaster
Algae in aquarium: good or bad neccesary evil?
In this entry I'll try to summarize all the events that occured since my last post related to my aquarium.
Everything begun last October with my obligations at the university. First algae incident (diatoms or Brown Algae) due to low light intensity and initial lack of equlibrium in my aquarium turned out to be only a temporary menace. In the middle of last October I introduced my first fish inhabitants, 7 fish in total during the 3rd week. 6th day was the last one for my Sailfin Pleco (Gibicebs). 10 days after introduction I had another fish desease followed by death in several days (Green Barbus Tetrazona). About the same time I also got first instance of hairy green algae, that I tried to combat ever since. This was all typical and expected for my newly established tank and looking closely at my Aquarium Log (at least I was regularly logging every major change or event), I clearly had something in my aquarium that attacked more sensitive fishes.
One particular problem I was aware of was the fact that I never had enough plants for a start and when I eventually added more I was never saticfied either with available plant species, or with their position, so, I changed that in week after week, trimming, re-arranging, trying to create professionally looking aquarium over night, eventually started adding fertilizer that in the end only favored hairy algae! What a typical begginer's mistakes, and I read so many books before I've got first aquarium. Well, it seems I couldn't resist temptations after all...
Picture 1: The Disaster
So, in spite all the knowledge prior gained, I thought I can go my way, instead of Mother Nature's. I tryed various startegies that only temporarely worked: complete light cut-off for several days, siesta period and drastic food reduction, but algae didn't care.
Plants obviously started loosing battle, so my last chance was CO2 addition. I've built a custom CO2 reactor/diffusor, and plants did respond, alas, so did algae! Eventually I got lazy at aquarium maintenance and week after week I ommited regular water changes, wich eventually reached 4 weeks in a row in between! From January till April this year I switched to 30-50% water change per month. Next 4 months (untill August this year) I virtually hadn't touched aquarium, so it become a complete ALGARIUM insted.
Eventually, I was desperate and forced to try chemical weapon: Copper Sulfate, poisonous thing for shrimp and fish in mild and high doses, but I was cautious with only half-dosage printed on the package. Ofcourse, this was only a temporary solution. Algae still managed to survive.
Picture 2: Syphoning Algae
In August 2010, following a sudden death of one of my 2 Tiger Barbs who were very cute, I finally made time, energy and will to reverse the situation and do it right. Complete vacuuming of algae from the gravel, stones and sides, followed by rapid water changes 3 days in a row resulted in a pretty clean aquarium. I was acctually amazed how easy this job was, since algae after many months now formed a tick biofilm. They became tightly inter-connected, thus very easy to clean. Complete vaccuming was done in under 10 minutes!
Picture 3: Syphoning Algae
Alas, this was only the begining of new things to come. Algae was a pretty disturbing sight for many months in my room for myself (eventually get used to) and to my friends and family visitors. But, they were virtually a heaven to my fish inhabitants, since algae drained all the poisons from the water and kept it extremely clean! Biofilm acted as a HUGE biological filter, where my actuall bio-mechanical filter couldn't manage. Several times I've tested water parameters in such unpleasent conditions for the eye, and yet everything was p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y fine! This is a miracle of Nature at it's best: a natural way of self-cleaning in the works.
Algae removal (Operation X) took place on August 9, 10 and 11. On the first day only changed 30% water, second day removed half the algae throughout siphoning with 50% water change, and repeated the same on the August 11; followed by immediate introduction of 10 Amano schrimps (Caridina japonica) as perfect algae eaters. The algae removal apparently did a huge shock to my 3 fish survivors (2 Rasbora Heteromorpha and 1 Tiger Barb). First, one Rasbora started behiving strange 6-7 days after the removal. This monday morning I found her stucked between filter and heater swimming upright. My first thought was that she got stucked and i thought that was funny. Didn't took much to release she was sick, eather from a shock due major environmental change last week, or from some bacterial infection.
Picture 4: Rasbora
I immediatelly run into local store with intention of buying small quarantine aquarium with filter and some medicine, but I got a double-sword advice from a salesperson, so I returned empty hands home, hoping it was a shock that Rasbora will survive. Next morning Rasbora was motionless. I went again into store, took 9 liters aquarium, adequate filter and JBL Furanol (5mg Nifurpirinol), set-up everything very quickly: washed quarantine aquarium with KMnO4 and lots of hot water, filled it with water from main aquarium, run the filter, dissolved 1 tablet of Furanol and put 2 only survivors Rasbora nad Tiger Barb in the antibiotic bath. I left to work for another 8 hours and when I got home I had a saddest moment in my life! My two dear little friends were gone, pale, without color, without a sign of life!
Picture 5: 9 Liter Quarantine Aquarium
Did medicine, that supposed to help, acctually killed them!?
Picture 6: Poisone or medicine?
I had only the best intentions, alas, it all turned upside down. Lucky enough, I knew this medicine could be harmfull to Amano shrimps, so I left them intact in main aquarium. Now Amano's are alone active 24/7 cleaning and solving my initial algae problem.
Plan: what next? To introduce huge amount of new plants, and after another week or so small amount of new fish. All in good time and with little luck.
In this entry I'll try to summarize all the events that occured since my last post related to my aquarium.
Everything begun last October with my obligations at the university. First algae incident (diatoms or Brown Algae) due to low light intensity and initial lack of equlibrium in my aquarium turned out to be only a temporary menace. In the middle of last October I introduced my first fish inhabitants, 7 fish in total during the 3rd week. 6th day was the last one for my Sailfin Pleco (Gibicebs). 10 days after introduction I had another fish desease followed by death in several days (Green Barbus Tetrazona). About the same time I also got first instance of hairy green algae, that I tried to combat ever since. This was all typical and expected for my newly established tank and looking closely at my Aquarium Log (at least I was regularly logging every major change or event), I clearly had something in my aquarium that attacked more sensitive fishes.
One particular problem I was aware of was the fact that I never had enough plants for a start and when I eventually added more I was never saticfied either with available plant species, or with their position, so, I changed that in week after week, trimming, re-arranging, trying to create professionally looking aquarium over night, eventually started adding fertilizer that in the end only favored hairy algae! What a typical begginer's mistakes, and I read so many books before I've got first aquarium. Well, it seems I couldn't resist temptations after all...
Picture 1: The Disaster
So, in spite all the knowledge prior gained, I thought I can go my way, instead of Mother Nature's. I tryed various startegies that only temporarely worked: complete light cut-off for several days, siesta period and drastic food reduction, but algae didn't care.
Plants obviously started loosing battle, so my last chance was CO2 addition. I've built a custom CO2 reactor/diffusor, and plants did respond, alas, so did algae! Eventually I got lazy at aquarium maintenance and week after week I ommited regular water changes, wich eventually reached 4 weeks in a row in between! From January till April this year I switched to 30-50% water change per month. Next 4 months (untill August this year) I virtually hadn't touched aquarium, so it become a complete ALGARIUM insted.
Eventually, I was desperate and forced to try chemical weapon: Copper Sulfate, poisonous thing for shrimp and fish in mild and high doses, but I was cautious with only half-dosage printed on the package. Ofcourse, this was only a temporary solution. Algae still managed to survive.
Picture 2: Syphoning Algae
In August 2010, following a sudden death of one of my 2 Tiger Barbs who were very cute, I finally made time, energy and will to reverse the situation and do it right. Complete vacuuming of algae from the gravel, stones and sides, followed by rapid water changes 3 days in a row resulted in a pretty clean aquarium. I was acctually amazed how easy this job was, since algae after many months now formed a tick biofilm. They became tightly inter-connected, thus very easy to clean. Complete vaccuming was done in under 10 minutes!
Picture 3: Syphoning Algae
Alas, this was only the begining of new things to come. Algae was a pretty disturbing sight for many months in my room for myself (eventually get used to) and to my friends and family visitors. But, they were virtually a heaven to my fish inhabitants, since algae drained all the poisons from the water and kept it extremely clean! Biofilm acted as a HUGE biological filter, where my actuall bio-mechanical filter couldn't manage. Several times I've tested water parameters in such unpleasent conditions for the eye, and yet everything was p-e-r-f-e-c-t-l-y fine! This is a miracle of Nature at it's best: a natural way of self-cleaning in the works.
Algae removal (Operation X) took place on August 9, 10 and 11. On the first day only changed 30% water, second day removed half the algae throughout siphoning with 50% water change, and repeated the same on the August 11; followed by immediate introduction of 10 Amano schrimps (Caridina japonica) as perfect algae eaters. The algae removal apparently did a huge shock to my 3 fish survivors (2 Rasbora Heteromorpha and 1 Tiger Barb). First, one Rasbora started behiving strange 6-7 days after the removal. This monday morning I found her stucked between filter and heater swimming upright. My first thought was that she got stucked and i thought that was funny. Didn't took much to release she was sick, eather from a shock due major environmental change last week, or from some bacterial infection.
Picture 4: Rasbora
I immediatelly run into local store with intention of buying small quarantine aquarium with filter and some medicine, but I got a double-sword advice from a salesperson, so I returned empty hands home, hoping it was a shock that Rasbora will survive. Next morning Rasbora was motionless. I went again into store, took 9 liters aquarium, adequate filter and JBL Furanol (5mg Nifurpirinol), set-up everything very quickly: washed quarantine aquarium with KMnO4 and lots of hot water, filled it with water from main aquarium, run the filter, dissolved 1 tablet of Furanol and put 2 only survivors Rasbora nad Tiger Barb in the antibiotic bath. I left to work for another 8 hours and when I got home I had a saddest moment in my life! My two dear little friends were gone, pale, without color, without a sign of life!
Picture 5: 9 Liter Quarantine Aquarium
Did medicine, that supposed to help, acctually killed them!?
Picture 6: Poisone or medicine?
I had only the best intentions, alas, it all turned upside down. Lucky enough, I knew this medicine could be harmfull to Amano shrimps, so I left them intact in main aquarium. Now Amano's are alone active 24/7 cleaning and solving my initial algae problem.
Plan: what next? To introduce huge amount of new plants, and after another week or so small amount of new fish. All in good time and with little luck.
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