Fixed UP by Alpy

Original sad looking 3 foot attempt at a planted tank 

 Fixed up by the man Alp Tas

So i had a really sad looking planted tank i keep to house spare fish....Alp being the iron chef of aquariums he is decided he would fix up the tank with the limited plant material available i.e. 3 left over plants and a bunch of driftwood + about ten pieces of black slate. this man is a genius. The before picture isn't the original sad layout it was actually worse but you get the idea when you see the new version.... the bag in the corner is just some carbon. To make it look more authentic he scraped off the paint on the back of the tank and, it also gave it the illusion of a bigger aquarium. 

Planted Nano tank - picture tutorial done by Alp Tas

 Bare 30 liter tank

 Small Layer of Aqua Soil

 Chosen Plants

 Removed from bag followed by removal of all wool/cardboard surrounding hair grass rots

                                      

 Alp thinking about the layout

 Close-up shot of rocky layout

 Addition of some Cryptocoryne's

 Paper toweling to keep plants from drying out

Tank Set-up without water

Done with the addition of water, a small UP-Aqua CO2 system and a ORCA hang on filter Looks pretty good for a planted tank. Planned in habitants I have been told will be crystal red shrimp, otoclinclus, rasboras and possibly glass cats. Will post further updates

Goniopora

Many aquarist's  I know have tried to keep Goniopora species without success - However, it seems there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. From my research including speaking to coral exporters, reading articles and through my own experience a key to keeping these types of corals alive has to do with feeding. From what I have read these particular corals come from areas which are high in nutrients therefore, the demise of these corals in captivity may be linked to low nutrient levels. Apparently different species of gonioporas may require different types of food - therefore, it is best to try feeding a variety of different types of food i.e frozen foods, or micro diets which you can normally find at your local fish store.. If you have good quality water i.e. low nitrates, KH 8 - 12 and good calcium levels you might want to try feeding your coral 3 - 4 times per week.





This a really cool article:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/10/aafeature2

for another spin:

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/r_toonen20.html

more randoms + progress

Truly Unusual - a crochet coral reef

doing some random googling and came across this website - it is a crocheted coral reef - kinda like corals obviously with an arty interpretation.. Being that I like all thing coral/fish/aquatic I rate it but, unfortunately I don't think my reef tank would mesh well with any of those pieces ....

http://sydneyreef.blogspot.com/

new pics - a customers tank

so this tank is running without a protein skimmer what so ever and has loads of coralline algae (which has recently been removed from the back wall. A chiller and a over the top trickle filter - i would say without the fancy equipment this tank is doing great. Loads of corrallimorphs which help suck up the wastes like nitrate - and no measurable phosphate at all.

random pictures

Ehiem Quick Vac PRO - Automatic gravel cleaner

So my previous post I didn't rate the Ehiem Quick Vac Pro very highly however thanks to a great suggestion from one of my fishy friends I do believe that it can be modified. OK so as I said the middle piece where the waste collects doesn't seem to be able to trap fine bits of waste or mulm. So the suggestion was to place some filter wool into the collection bag and bingo you can go ahead and use this for small tanks no problem. Actually this would be a great problem if you for instance had a small fish bowl and didn't want to get your hands dirty by removing all the gravel etc etc. You might need to replace the filter wool every couple of cleans but at least you clean the gravel without having to totally remove everything in the bowl.

So there is hope after all... I will post pictures soon

Dan

Ehiem Quick Vac PRO - Automatic gravel cleaner

So i got suckered into purchasing a Ehiem Quick Vac PRO - to be 100% honest  I have been curious to trial it out especially since I was experimenting on how to speed up cleaning/filtering detritus off a glass tank bottom which didn't contain any gravel. I have to say for picking up the small pieces it does seem to work rather well however, keep in mind if you have a large amount of detritus it will get clogged rather easily.

It works by sucking up water through the siphon part at the bottom then pushes it up into the clear bag portion (between the handle and siphon - which I think is semi porous) which traps the detritus and lets the water back in the tank. Don't shake it to hard or the detritus will follow the water back into the tank especially the smaller particles.

So the first unit i opened up was faulty .... so I sent that one back and got another - this seemed to have way more suction however, nothing major i.e. it isn't even strong enough to lift one tiny piece of gravel off the aquarium floor however, lighter bits of detritus gets sucked up easily enough. Operation is rather simple and assembly is as easy as pie. To turn the unit on/off there is one button on top of the handle - you don't need to hold it - it just stays on and then press again to turn it off. It doesn't function well if you take it out of the water whilst still on and then plonk it back in the water as it seems to get air locked therefore you need to turn it off and on again to get it going.

I used it on a area that had a small build up of detritus and, it seemed to function well and, to clean it I just took the bag out and rinsed under tap water. However, in the tank with large amounts of detritus I just found it useless as it kept getting full really quick and I spent more time going back to the sink to to clean it.

OK so I rate this device a 6/10 - the concept is great however, the suction power isn't..... and the bags can't handle much detritus.... seems to trap larger particles well  but, no so good with the smaller ones.... Also tried it on a gravel based tank and to be honest the traditional gravity feed gravel vacuum works 100 times better. 4 hours battery time - so make sure you use rechargeable ones :)
So save your money for when they bring out a automatic gravel vac with some real vacuum power.

Aquarium toilet