Kevyn
Wednesday 29 February 2012
New Macro Lens for Camera Phone!
Kevyn
Friday 24 February 2012
Recently Changed to a Canister
I have recently gotten a canister as I feel that the bio-load in my tank was getting too much for my HOB to handle. Hence I bought the canister 2211 Eheim which is widely recommended by many. To be honest, it was a hassle to start the 2211 the first time as they did not have the "kick start" function that the bigger models have.
Here are some parts of the filter when unpacked.
Of cause a filter is never complete without its Biofilter. I decided to choose Eheim substrate pro after choosing for awhile at the LFS.
Nevertheless I managed to get it going in... 2 hours.. YES, it took a whole 2 hours to position the outlet/inlet and get it working. And finally after fixing it together and managing to run the filter properly, I took a picture below.
Yes the whole thing look messy and my intake is at the front, but the whole idea is to let my canister run for two weeks minimum before I can remove my HOB. So that my canister will have properly formed bacteria.
I bought the filter on the 14 of Feb and today, I have decided that my canister is good to go solo. Hence I removed my HOB and decided to add a DIY chiller and at the same time, move my intake to the back and move my canister to the right. As you can see the Styrofoam box is not my completed project for my DIY chiller, but it is just to test a theory I have in mind. So far, I'm having a drop in 2 Deg for nearly 3 hours straight.
Below is a front view of my rearrange JAVA wall and my intake to the back right to replace my HOB
A closer look on the canister beside my Styrofoam box.
A different view of how my tank looks at the bottom left corner. My Tank is becoming the scape that I want.
The overall setup at the corner of my kitchen.
Hence after all the washing and changing of the filter, I'm glad that the inhabitants are doing good and happily enjoying their meal together.
Take care now!
Cheers
Kevyn
Sunday 19 February 2012
Shrimps Fav Food! Baby Spinach!
Shrimps loves baby spinach! be it cherry, CRS or CBS! as I have been fed them baby spinach before, I know how popular it is. I recently introduced this to theo and he had a massive food frenzy in his tank as well!
As I didn't have much time to get it from the supermarket, I managed to get some off Theo as the packet had a really huge quantity that it was quite impossible to finish during the expiry date.
Within 5 seconds of adding the spinach!
They are loving it~
Cheers!
[Kevyn]
Sunday 12 February 2012
New Arrival
Ordered 10 BDS and 10 CRS Grade A recently and guess who arrived!
Grage A BDS ^
Grade A Crystal Red Shrimp~
Upon closer examination, I had 11 Grade A BDS (Black Diamond Shrimp) and 9 Grade A Crystal Red Shrimp, 1 Grade S Crystal Red Mosura No Entry, Talk about luck!
They are feeding and swimming happily in my tank, most of the Grade A CRS are still juvenile, meaning they are only teenage about the size of 1cm. Whereas the BDS are slightly bigger to be about 1.5Cm.
Most of the BDS are tiger tooth pattern and they are my favorite pattern compared to the V-band.
I will post more pictures once they get into their tank :)
[Kevyn]
Wednesday 8 February 2012
Quarantining Shrimp
(contributed by Imke) Link Here
Ever have shrimps dying for no reason after awhile? Did you do a proper acclimation? or was it due to bacteria infection? Did you have a wipe of shrimps recently due to poor handling?
I read this on a forum and have decided to share this as I feel it is really important to learn and understand this. It will give you a better picture and offer a better preparation for shrimp keeping in the future.
Although most shrimp keepers think it is unnecessary, quarantine is a key to minimize losses. Within a few days or weeks after buying new shrimps and introducing them to existing breeding groups, some keepers moan about having fatal casualties every now and then. Shrimp have to not only acclimate to water parameters but to local bacterial colonies and other tank fauna, too. The bacterial count in tanks differs from 1,000-10,000,000/mL water while tap water should come with 10-100/mL (at temperature 22ºC). The unwanted increase of microbial count leads to pathogen bacteria.
So preparing the newly arrived shrimp to the bacterial count and composition is the most important intent of quarantine. It also protects old stock from parasites, diseases and fungal infections.
The following quarantine procedure relies on experiences from Kurt Mack, who has been breeding fish and shrimp for many years as a professional. The assumption is to get the shrimp used to local water parameter and to bacterial fauna step-by-step before introducing them into the target tank. A small tank (12-25 L) is sufficient as quarantine container; it should have no gravel but some hiding places and filtration.
Day 1
Introduce the shrimp into the quarantine tank. If the transport water isn’t contaminated by dead shrimp, you should use as much as possible for the first charge of the quarantine tank. Top off with suitable water which has similar parameter as the origin water. Use the drip method for acclimating if you have no suitable water. The parameters of the quarantine tank should match the transport water – whenever possible.
Days 3-14
Do water changes (30-50%) with aged tap water (dechlorinate, if necessary) every third day; shrimp gets acclimated to local water parameter.
Days 15-30
After the first step of acclimating to water parameter is successfully finished, go on and add water of the target tank to the quarantine tank daily. It should be an amount of 2% of the quarantine tank volume. Do it vice versa and add water from the quarantine tank to the target tank. Like this, every shrimp colony gets used to the unknown bacteria populations from the other.
Ever have shrimps dying for no reason after awhile? Did you do a proper acclimation? or was it due to bacteria infection? Did you have a wipe of shrimps recently due to poor handling?
I read this on a forum and have decided to share this as I feel it is really important to learn and understand this. It will give you a better picture and offer a better preparation for shrimp keeping in the future.
Although most shrimp keepers think it is unnecessary, quarantine is a key to minimize losses. Within a few days or weeks after buying new shrimps and introducing them to existing breeding groups, some keepers moan about having fatal casualties every now and then. Shrimp have to not only acclimate to water parameters but to local bacterial colonies and other tank fauna, too. The bacterial count in tanks differs from 1,000-10,000,000/mL water while tap water should come with 10-100/mL (at temperature 22ºC). The unwanted increase of microbial count leads to pathogen bacteria.
So preparing the newly arrived shrimp to the bacterial count and composition is the most important intent of quarantine. It also protects old stock from parasites, diseases and fungal infections.
The following quarantine procedure relies on experiences from Kurt Mack, who has been breeding fish and shrimp for many years as a professional. The assumption is to get the shrimp used to local water parameter and to bacterial fauna step-by-step before introducing them into the target tank. A small tank (12-25 L) is sufficient as quarantine container; it should have no gravel but some hiding places and filtration.
Day 1
Introduce the shrimp into the quarantine tank. If the transport water isn’t contaminated by dead shrimp, you should use as much as possible for the first charge of the quarantine tank. Top off with suitable water which has similar parameter as the origin water. Use the drip method for acclimating if you have no suitable water. The parameters of the quarantine tank should match the transport water – whenever possible.
Days 3-14
Do water changes (30-50%) with aged tap water (dechlorinate, if necessary) every third day; shrimp gets acclimated to local water parameter.
Days 15-30
After the first step of acclimating to water parameter is successfully finished, go on and add water of the target tank to the quarantine tank daily. It should be an amount of 2% of the quarantine tank volume. Do it vice versa and add water from the quarantine tank to the target tank. Like this, every shrimp colony gets used to the unknown bacteria populations from the other.
Tuesday 7 February 2012
Worm Cluster on Cherry's head
Recently, I noticed something on 1 of my cherry's head. At first I though it was some food that was caught between it's eye, but on closer examination, I realized it was a cluster of worms! EWWW!
A very blurry picture I got off the web that resembled what I encountered. After searching the web for a bit, apparently these are parasites known as "scutariella japonica"
After reading on how to save my cherry, I decided to catch the little guy and give him a salt bath!
I started of with a low concentration of salt, I waited about 10 seconds and the worm did not swim off, hence I added a high dosage, about 1 teaspoon for 1 cup of water. This time, the worms start to wriggle off the shrimp and die.
There were no noticeable ill effect on the cherry shrimp (maybe due to their hardy nature).
It has been 2 weeks now and my shrimp is swimming around healthily with no more worms between its eyes.
What I read was these parasites usually occur on adult shrimps only. Reason was that they don't mold as often due to their max size, resulting in parasites!
At least there was a quick and easy way to get rid of these nasty worms.
Cheers!
[Kevyn]
Friday 3 February 2012
The babies have grown!
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