Aquariums, Flora, Fauna, Equipment and more...

  A massive trim was due for the Monte Carlo carpet. The last trim was done in Dec' 2020 and its been two months now. Another week or two and I am sure parts of the carpet would have lifted off the substrate.  The new pair of Viv Wave scissors was put to good use. Arjun and me have trimmed the carpet back to almost the substrate level. Some of the decorative dragon stones/ pieces in the foreground have now become visible.  The amount of yellow closer to the substrate is stark. It is very clear that the carpet was not doing well. In some of foreground areas where the carpet was completely done, trimmings were replanted. These show are green on the foreground area closer to the front glass.  A lot of debris and waste organics was trapped in the carpet area. All of this was vacuumed out in a water change. I will keep doing water changes twice a week till the carpet settles back.  Also the tank got a dose of Green Care and Flora Ace so make sure that enough of humic substances and othe

Threadfin rainbows, Spotted Blue eye/ Gertrude rainbows and Red Neon Blue eye/ Paskai rainbows.  All of them are dwarf rainbows 1.5 to max 2 inches of total length.  The males of the blue eyed (Psuedomugil) are incredibly cute with their breeding/ dominance displays  They are from the northern parts of Australia and the Papau New Guinea islands. 

Flooded Forest During the end of December we were out for 4-5 days and during this time the CO2 and Lights were both out with only the filter running. Not much damage, one of the Gertrudes had jumped to its death but the plants were mostly fine.  Degassed pH still is at 6.7-6.75 and CO2 is at 2 bps for the most part. At peak CO2 injection the pH drops to about 6 at max. The CO2 and Light schedules, Light intensity are unchanged from before.  Staghorn algae is almost completely gone, BBA is unconquerable but remains mostly inconspicuous.  Apart from that, the maintenance routine of weekly 50% water changes continue. Sometimes I scrub the glass sometimes I don't. The filter is due for maintenance, it had gone for 2 months now. The skimmer gets an occasional maintenance but the skimmer sponges are cleaned on a daily basis or they clog.  The stems are trimmed almost once every month and the carpet also needs a trim on a monthly basis. It is not very much work, but trimming maintenance

50% water change for the Drifthorn, regular glass pane scrubbing and water change.  It was time for the HOB filter deep clean, pulled everything out, rinsed the media. This filter has pumice stone and few ceramic rings for media and a some filter floss for mechanical filtration.  The filter chamber was scrubbed and the inlet parts were disassembled and cleaned. The motor was taken apart and the impeller and chamber were cleaned. The oring was greased and the impeller was lubricated with silicon oil.  All the parts were assembled back and lo we have brand new like filter. This filter had a bag of peat moss which was thrown away since I am using packaged drinking water and TDS is constant 50-60. 

 

Today discarded two existing cultures since one had gone bad and for the other one the bottle shape was not rounded and hence not easiest to scoop out the worm harvest for feeding.  However the not-gone-bad one that I had to discard - this one has seeded a new culture in a new rounded bottle.  New bottle You can observe the layers in the culture: bottom most layer of soaked oats,  a sprinkling of dry yeast on the bottom layer and  finally the seed (culture) on the very top.  Along side the bad one which was discarded, a new culture has been started in that container as well.  The new cultures would start yielding in 2-3 days, but the weather being very cold may take longer as well.  Re-seeded culture The on going cultures The cultures have tight fitting lids and need to be opened and closed once every day. I have a timer set to remind me at 8 am. This is about the same time that I do my routine checks on my tanks.  Tracking sheet on Google Drive