Upgrading to a new 2ft Tank (Day 1)

Been a long time since I updated the blog. I'm finally doing so because I will be upgrading my tank to a new 2ft tank below!

Setup getting ready for the rest of my equipments to arrive.

8 Lt of ADA Amazonia waiting to give it a go. This is my favourite soil at the moment as I have great success with it in my office tank.

Of course the tank will take a minimum 4 weeks for the bacteria to fully develop. To help with the development, I will be adding a full bottle of Old sea mud powder and re-use my old canister filter.

After applying the powder in the tank.

Always add a plastic bag before you start filling up water so that you won't mess up your tank.

I will start adding my canister the next day after everything stabilize. Stay Tuned! 

Colony of Ramshorn Snail

http://instagr.am/p/M9zmMpFySX/

Tonight we DINE! 

Building my own Aquarium Ceramic Shrimp Breeding cave

And so you may have seen something a Shrimp breeding cave at your local fish shop and always wanted to buy one. But wait, what is the price again? $9? for something like that? I wouldn't want to pay that amount of money for something that can be made easily!

First of all, you will need some pvc pipes or clear plastic tubes, I got some clear plastic tubes as they were available from the under gravel filter that I didn't use.

Next, you will need a piece of net, the same one which I have been using for all my java moss wall.

First, I tried to tie the pipes together with a tie wrap. It didn't really work out well as the nudge of the tie wrap makes tying the Java moss on pretty difficult. What I did was used fishing line to secure the pipes together.

You will then need some Java moss, I had plenty in my tank so this was also "Free"

Next apply some Java moss onto the "tied pipes"

Then I wrapped the Net onto the java moss and apply another round of fishing line to securely fasten everything together. Remember to trim the excess net/java away to make it look neater

And the End product below. I have also tried this with Pelia and it works pretty well!

New Play ground for my shrimps, YAY!

Android with Instagram!

And so Instagram decided to venture into the Android market as they realized the potential this OS is capable of. As soon as it is launched, I couldn't miss the opportunity to take a few shorts.

rili on Java moss

Frogbits.

Can't wait to exploit the advance technology to capture more pretty pictures.

Stay tune!

Hello Rili Mama!

Photo Shoot for the Mama !

And so there I was saying the brownie is always hiding, a very candid shy shrimp and BAM~ there she is, at the front of the tank waiting for me to picture her in this album. 

Ran to my room to get my macro lens and took a few shots of her, only 2 of the lot turn out well before she went back into the hiding.

You can really see that she is really small in size and not very colorful like the others.

Talk about luck, lady Yellow fire shrimp came along as well for a photo shoot. Only a brief moment but more then enough for me to capture a shot of her. A little blurry but that is all I have, only 1 shot. If you look closely you can see the little eyes on the eggs under her belly! CUTE!

And guess who decides to play as well!

Bat man mode Berried Rili.

Drip Method for Acclimatization

As I have spoken a few times about the drip method for Acclimatization, I don't think I have ever posted any pictures on how I do it. Heres how;

1) First of all, you will need 1 of this air tube valves, a very simple mechanism that allows you to control the flow of the air bubbles from your air pump.

2)However, instead of controlling the flow of air, we will be controlling the flow of water here.

3)Next you will have to connect to a long enough air tube that can reach 1 end of your tank to your Acclimatization "cup". Below is a picture of how I connect them.

4) Next step will be to siphon water into the tube so that you can create a flow from a higher end to a lower end. In this case, my tank to the "cup".

5) Finally, you turn the little knob on control valve till you get approximately 1 drop of water for 2-3 secs and viola, you have just achieved the Acclimatization technique.

cheers!

New Batch of Shrimps

As I have casualties from my CRS batch, I have decided to venture out on a different project this round. So lets see what we have today. 

I'm wondering what will be the name of the plant that are accompanying the shrimps? Anyone care to enlighten me on that?

 Can you make a guess of what is in there?

If you look really closely, there is a berried shrimp in there :)

Okay, enough guess, there are 3 species in my acclimatization squad. They are YFS, Rili and Orange Shrimps (I'm hoping to call them Sunkist) The berried shrimp is a Rili and her eggs color are really cool, seems almost like luminous green.

They are doing their drip bath now and should be ready to venture into the tank in 30mins.

cheers!

Disaster Strikes on CRS

Something really bad happen and most of my CRS are wiped out over the period of 1 week. I suspect it is the maturation of the canister being insufficient. Looks like I will have to start from scratch again.

On a lighter note, one of my brownies (I have decided to name the mix shrimps brownies for easier reference) is berried.. YES BERRIED! it is only about 1 cm in size! I will try to get a picture of her but she is too shy for a photo shoot.

Stay tuned!

Java Trimming time!

As we can see, as the shrimps have grown, so have the Crazy Java/Xmas Moss.

Look at the mess before trimming.

Casualties of Moss

Much brighter now.

still a Mess, but neater it has been!

2 Weeks of Outstation and I'm back!

Been 2 weeks since I seen my shrimps! and boy, have they grown! 

This is a mix of YFS and Cherry, look at how big they are now, couldn't get a side view yet and I will try to get one later. Their brown pigment have intensified and look a lot better than before.

Grade B CRS strolling by the garden.

This Male Cherry have been in my tank for a really long time. Chilling on top a Mineral rock.

Grade A CRS by the filter mash, I guess the best foods are all found on the intakes :)

And lastly 1 of my bigger BDS. Just love the awesome brown color on them.

I will do more updates once I get organized and I will take more pictures of the new happenings around my tank. Including another berried YFS. Stay tuned!

[Kevyn]

New Macro Lens for Camera Phone!

And so the new lens have arrived after 1 week of order online. Look at how sharp my camera phone became.. haha

Kevyn

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