Return of the SPACK - Tank Log

[SPACKlick]

Well, Decision made, 18 Neon Tetra's are now Drip Acclimating in the quarantine tank. In the end it came down to availability, cost and fears over the agression. I really like my tank at the moment and I don't want half the fish hiding because I add bothersome fish. So the hints of Blue on the neons will be my splash of colour.

When I got back off holiday the tank looked like it had been overrun with trumpet snails but after feeding and a water change they're hardly visible so I think it must be that the colony in the substrate were out and about hunting food.

Dr Spack (t'other half) bought me a selection of small samples of different foods from Heron Foods because she saw I was being indecisive about feeding and the local MH had free samples of TetraColour Tropical Crisps so no need for any decisions on food any time soon. Some Live artemia will be going in the main tank today.

Plantwise, the amazon frogbit had conquered a good portion of the tank in the few days I was away, and several of the limnophila stems were trying to emerge. But not too much overgrowth. I thinkthe Alternanthera is doing ok on some of the side stems so I'm leaving it as a wait and see plant.

[SPACKlick]

Was woken up by Dr Spack this morning (she leaves for work early) in a bit of a panic, it appeared that the CO2 spray bar was dumping huge loud volumes of gas into the tank. As it turned out it was some air getting in at the intake but the filter was far from full of water. Took the best part of an hour and topping up the water level to sort it out. It's because there's a lack of space where the two intakes hook over between the hole in the hood, the tank braces and the stick on background (I regret that immensley).

Am pretty close to cutting an extra hole in the left end of the hood to put the second intake through.

[SPACKlick]

Neons have settled in to the QT and are begging for food when feeding time comes along. All looking healthy and happy.

Sodium Hypochlorite and Hydrogen peroxide arrived and the replaced CO2 diffuser ceramic is now sparkling white. When it comes time to switch the purigen I'm now pretty confident in my ratios and procedures.

In the main tank, the new Heron Food is going down well. It's all a little more floaty than I'm used to but that seems to prolong feeding which is nice. The Barbs have been randy as all get out. The one with a small lump on his tail as much as any of them. He's still not showing any signs of discomfort or distress so I'm going light touch for now. As part of their canoodling they are going in and out of the hollow fake roots at the back left of the tank, which is unusual behaviour so I'll keep watch for them The barbs also seem to be liking the new density of plants. As do their offspring. The one female baby is now definitively fish sized and I think I've seen another in the weeds. I actually need to start thinking about how to thin things out for long term maintenance, at the moment I'm just trimming tops and throwing them on the veg patch. All in all, very happy with the tank at the moment. Cannot wait to get the neons in there.

Have decided this tank isn't really a place for two bristlenoses long term and I probably ought to think about moving one of them on before territory becomes too much of an issue. Whilst I think they're both female I wouldn't be keen for them to start breeding if I was wrong about one of them with them being siblings and all. That said I do like them both and they have quite different personalities so I'll probably dither on that for forever.

Now that my nitrates are fully under control and the tank has a healthy amount of plant matter circulating regularly I'm tempted to give Bamboo shrimp another go. I'm loath to put a species back in that didn't do well once before but my paramaters look right, my TDS looks good, the tank is better established. And I don't think Vampire Shrimp would be a good fit for this tank as they're quite protective of their home cave and I don't think the SFFs or Bars would respect that and one of the pleco's is likely to challenge them. I've also been looking at trying Neocaridina again. The increased cover should give them a good chance, but I need to see some examples of SFF's and Neocaridina co-existing before I tried it out.






Entirely unrelated to fish but I must mention somewhere, the aforementioned veg patch has taken up most of the bank holiday weekend because we decided to almost triple the size of it. We live on solid Clay, so damned near bottomed out the suspension on the car transporting the turf to the tip (Pile in photo 3), and then nearly bottomed out ourselves digging in a quarter ton of organics to improve the soil somewhat. It still needs a final hoe but we're dead proud of it. Big enough now that we're looking at doing proper crop rotation to maximise soil health (and minimise digging of bloody clay)

[SPACKlick]

Got the house to myself tonight which means I can do weekend maintenance in the evening rather than early in the morning which I prefer. Plans have had a really good trim because all my stems were reaching the surface. Decided to move the Starhorn because it was getting slightly shadowed by the Ambulia and Water Sprite. I put some Lobelia in the gap to grow, I've tried to mix the starhorn in with the shorter eel grass. The tank was pretty dusty after I did it, but the filters cleaned it up amazingly quickly today. I need to remind myself how to prune the Eel grass, some of it's very long.

Despite everything being stable and the new fish almost ready to go in I'm feeling the itch to get a bigger tank. The space this tank is in could accomodate a 6ft x 2-2.5ft base if I could accomodate the UPS in the cabinet. It would mean I need to use a smaller CO2 bottle. Would also have to be sump filtered because accessing hoses and so on would be very very difficult. I don't think I'm in a position to do that at the moment and I'm definitely not in a position to convince Dr Spack that we need to do that but I'm slowly planning for 2029. Above the sump I could probably accomodate a decent horizontal reactor to reduce the sprite effect of the CO2.

I also have a new phone from work which has a much better camera than my old phone. Hopefully I'll get some post grooming shots before bed.

[SPACKlick]

So Tomorrow marks 4 weeks of quarantine with no signs of illness or odd behaviour so I'll be adding the Neons to the main tank. I've avoided pruning the floating plants to make the dark end as dark as possible, I'll be turning off the CO2 tonight to minimise the pH difference between the two tanks during acclimation. And I've got out the old sheet to cover the tank for darkness for a day.

I have just spotted that my second net is broken (packed badly in a crate and shredded by tank decorations) so It'll be a single net catch of 18 fish...Not looking forward to that.

I've put off doing a lot of work on the plants today to avoid causing debris in the tank for new fish tomorrow but the water sprite is dominating the ambulia in the large stem wall in the back so I think I want to uproot it all, trim the healthiest tops and replant in a slightly different arrangement. They're growing so fast it'll be back to overgrown in no time.

[SPACKlick]

Despite the single net, catching a tightly shoaling fish like neons wsa actually very easy however there was a little BBA in the quarantine tank so I'm a little concerned about introducing that back into the main tank via the net so it's currently being sterilised in H2O2 and then will be thoroughly rinsed. Hopefully if I miss any the SFF's will stop it propagating.

Here are some pictures of the drip acclimation set up I use between tanks




The water is pretty similar between tanks apart from pH, although I've had the CO2 off all morning to try and make the main tank closer in pH to the quarantine so I'm running at about 2 drips per second and don't think I'll need more than an hour or so.

I did realise yesterday that the largest surviving baby barb is now bigger than the neons so that's given me more confidence they won't be bullied on entry. As long as they learn not to bother the BN's reasonably quickly.

[SPACKlick]

Well, they're in. It all went well, no initial argy bargy with the barbs. Tank is all wrapped up to keep it dark (the room is also darker than it appears in this photo, modern cameras really are liars).



I hate this bit, there are new fish in the tank and I want nothing more than to look at them and admire them and watch them and instead my living room looks like a bad washroom and my fish are invisible. Thankfully this is a bank holiday weekend so I get a day to watch them tomorrow...

[SPACKlick]

Well the tank is now uncovered. On checking after 1 hour the tetras immediately flocked to the small amount of light in the tightest shoal they've been in since I bought them pursued by curious female cherry barbs. In the light corner the barbs were clearly just curious but in the darker centre of the tank I think the barbs were being more aggressive in their curiosity. So I was tempted to uncover then and there.

What actually triggered the uncovering was one of the female barbs had very tightly clamped fins and wash flashing and gasping. So I quickly sterilised and refilled the quarantine tank and adjusted it for a med tank rather than new introduction tank. Although it's made me realise, having not had any medical issues on this tank I don't own any meds. With one barb clamping and flashing and another with a lump on his tail I think I probably ought to have some anti-parasite medication on hand...

Having watced her for half an hour or so she now seems to be showing no signs of distress whatsoever and is peacefully swimming around the tank. The Neons have also in that time explored the full volume of the tank, whilst the female barbs are curious but not agressive. The neons are staying in a loose school (one of them did lose the school for a bit but didn't seem to panic) but generally seem to be settling in well. They look fantastic against the black background and against the wood. At the tops of the plants where they're very bright green they disappear due to their size. There will be pictures this evening for certain.

[SPACKlick]

A pleasant afternoon watching the neons. They were a little confused at feeding time but soon worked out how to nip in and get a good amount of food. Will need to make sure I add some floating food to keep the barbs distracted because they seem to go for that more than the neons do. Have made a decision on the final additions to the tank. 15 Lemon Tetra will be my final fishy addition to complete the community. I am going to try bamboo shrimp and Yellow Neocaridina now that the tank is more stable and that should be a 100% complete tank. I'm still 50:50 whether or not I'll move one of the two Bristlenoses on. And if I come across an attractive Clithon snail I might not say no.

As promised here are pictures. I have a better camera now but I am no better at taking the pictures. I could do with spending some time rebalancing the colours but nothing will help my inability to focus on the fish I'm trying to capture.

A fulll width shot, despite their size they are much more visible in real life.




























Post feeding they're now barely schooling at all and just doing their own thing. Which is nice to see. And no further issues seen in the barbs. Happy tank and happy day.

[Munchy2007]

Looks stunning