Author Topic: Low budget tank (Read 5384 times)

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #30 on:** August 06, 2012, 10:05:32 pm »

With the filter cycled the next stage of the setting up of the aquarium begins. The guppies have been moved into a temporary home where I can get them used to the local water before taking them to school.

Currently they are in soft, pH6.6 water. Their new tank has pretty hard, pH 8 water. So that I do not need to spend many hours floating them when I take them to school, I am going to do lots of little w/c with the tap water so they slowly acclimatise to the new pH and hardness. That way they will not need to be floated so long when I take them to my school.

Also put some tights over the filter, it had pretty big holes in it that some of the adult fish could have fit it. There would have been no hope for the poor fry. It doesnt seem a very well design filter. I dont think I would recommend it to anyone. Very little room for bacteria to grow. It should keep up with the guppies. It supported 3 goldfish for a year before.

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jackiemcg34 · « **Reply #31 on:** August 07, 2012, 10:20:11 am »

wonder why the huge difference in pH though, surely your school is not that far from you? or it might be I suppose

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #32 on:** August 11, 2012, 12:24:08 pm »

I use RO water in my main tank 4L of RO for 1L of tap water. My tap water is the same as schools.

Guppy acclimatisation is going well. Their accclimatisation tank is keeping 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites unlike my quarantine tank.

Hardness and pH are slowly rising with each water change using tap water.

Last night I noticed the guppies had given birth again. Spotted a few new fry in the tank so I put a handful of pebbles and alfragrog in hoping to provide them with a few more spaces to hide to avoid being eaten.

Had a bit of a surprise when I work up this morning, found a huge cloud of guppy fry in the plants of the tank.

As soon as the tank has the same water parameters as the tap water the filter and guppies will be off to their new home. The fry can stay here for a bit longer until they are a bit bigger.
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yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #33 on:** August 12, 2012, 09:02:39 pm »

No more fry today. With todays water change the guppies are close to the tap water. KH in guppy acclimatisation tank is 12dH where as the tap water's KH is 15dH. Still a few water changes to go. Atleast it helping the older fry grow quickly. The adolescent guppyxendler is getting nice colours. Lots of blue and green with the black marking of an endler.

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #34 on:** August 13, 2012, 10:14:16 pm »

Tomorrow's the big day!

The guppies' water is pretty close to tap water so they are off to school tomorrow. It's 3 weeks until school starts

so they should be fine on the lack of food front. I would wait until September but their current tank is way too small for 6 guppies + fry. I will go in again this week to check water stats are stable, once next week for a water change and feed and then I will be in a few times during the last week to get things sorted for school (UCAS referencces to right etc.) so I can give them another water change and feed again. I will keep the few shrimp that will make the journey here until September incase the guppies decide as there is nothing better to eat so they will try shrimp instead. The alpha female is more than big enough.

They have had a week or so of fattening up, just dropped fry so there will not be any aborted fry on the journey and the next lot will be well timed for when my form group start back

I suspect the stress of their last journey made them do this as they dropped fry exactly 4 weeks after arriving and then exactly 4 weeks after the first batch or its just a coincidence

Will update on their progress tomorrow and add pics.

Hopfully the plants have filled out nicely. Will take some ferts and water tests with me.

Yay!

jackiemcg34 · « **Reply #35 on:** August 14, 2012, 02:07:35 pm »

our kids go back on Monday whoohoooooo

don't know that they will have anything to eat since they have never been fed in that tank, see plankton before you leave them to starve rofl

can you not do it in 2 drops, the adults in then the fry later?

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #36 on:** August 14, 2012, 04:21:51 pm »

Quote from: jackiemcg34 on August 14, 2012, 02:07:35 pm

our kids go back on Monday whoohoooooo

don't know that they will have anything to eat since they have never been fed in that tank, see plankton before you leave them to starve rofl
can you not do it in 2 drops, the adults in then the fry later?

Fry will stay here until September atleast.

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #37 on:** August 14, 2012, 04:58:18 pm »

Guppies first Day at school

The guppies really didn't want to be caught this morning so much so that the little male that made me demolish my main tank to catch last time is still in with the fry now.

Out smarted by a fish...
Got 6/7 adult guppies into the bag. Bagged up the filter media just like the fish. Put fish in my fishy-freezer bag.

At school...

The tank was completely green. All of the glass and all of the rocks were covered in a layer of green algae. Tank was a nice 25^oC without a heater
Hornwort has continued to shoot up. Light isn't strong enough for it to grown nice and dense. Elodea crispa has started to turn brown in places. Sprigs of eledea densa have shot up. the assassin snails were hunting for the MTS. Lots of baby MTS so all seems well.
Few random plants I chucked in the tank after they arrive via internet order havent grown at all. They were meant for my main tank but I was disgusted with the condition they turned up in and was daft enough not to take pictures as they arrived...

With the nice warm water I added the fish bag to allow it to float and proceeded to plug in the cycled filter, heater and test the water.

Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrates: 20ppm

Parameters established, I did a 20% water change to freshen up the water. Added some easy balance to help lower the nitrates. They are 20ppm out of the tank so the water change will not help them. I removed the elodea crispa and tried to remove the broken bits of hornwort.

After wards I took just over a hour to acclimatise the guppies and let them out within 10 mins they were back to their usual colour and begging for food.

Fed them a pinch of flake, will prob bring them some defrosted bloodworm on Thursday when I go to check on them and test the water.

Left then 3 hours later still begging for food.

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #38 on:** August 14, 2012, 05:05:09 pm »

The whole tank. Pehaps not aquascaping Takashi Amano would be proud of but it has what the guppies need/want. Plant cover, cave to hide in and some open swimming space.

I Have more elodea densa that can go in and aill be keeping an eye on my main tank for anything that could be trimmed.

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #39 on:** August 14, 2012, 05:06:34 pm »

The gang settinling in as I left them

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #40 on:** August 14, 2012, 05:25:29 pm »

Quote from: jackiemcg34 on August 14, 2012, 02:07:35 pm

our kids go back on Monday whoohoooooo

don't know that they will have anything to eat since they have never been fed in that tank, see plankton before you leave them to starve rofl
can you not do it in 2 drops, the adults in then the fry later?

I have a tetra 14 day holiday block, not a chalky one but a jelly one. could this be better? It came with the tank, just in date still. I do intend to visit and feed them a few times with food and water changes.

jackiemcg34 · « **Reply #41 on:** August 15, 2012, 09:53:22 pm »

looks good so far

I wouldn't bother with any holiday block after reading so many horror stories to be honest, if you are going to feed them a couple of times and pwc that should be more than ample, I thought you were taking them and leaving them for weeks in basically a new tank (I know the filter is good but they had nothing to scavenge), sorry I misunderstood you

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #42 on:** August 16, 2012, 08:01:44 pm »

Checked in on the guppies today.
Managed to catch the little

Just wasnt quick enough today. He coloured up as soon as he realised he was back with his girlfriends.

Filter appears to be working well
Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
nitrate 20ppm

Another waterchange and fed then a good load of bloodworm. Nearly all were at the front begging. The Alpha female seems to be sulking still. She seems to think I will try and net her again and was hiding in the hornwort but she came out for some food.

yorkiemad00 · « **Reply #43 on:** August 20, 2012, 07:48:02 pm »

School tank update

Guppies were very happy to see me. All were begging for food including the alpha female. Guess I've been forgiven for netting her.

Checked the water. All perfect

Ammonia 0ppm
Nitrite 0ppm
Nitrate 20ppm

Completed a 20% water change. Gave the guppies a good feed on blood worm and added a few small-medium MTS.

jackiemcg34 · « **Reply #44 on:** August 20, 2012, 09:13:18 pm »

sounds like they are doing really well

no more fry yet?

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Author Topic: Low budget tank (Read 5384 times)