Think Fish Keepers Daily News. [2016-2019]

What a morning.

It was time to do something with the 180 litre.

I finished adding WS3 at high dose on 26 June, and started eSHa Exit on 28 June. I emptied the bottle of Exit on 4 July. The first batch of carbon went in on 5 July, and it was changed on 7 July.

All that's in the tank at the moment is lots of wood with various plants attached and no substrate. The filters are an Eheim biopower 240 and a biopower 160 with the pump from an Eheim aquaball 2212. The aquaball is the first I had and as I'm not using that filter at the moment I used its pump when I got the smaller biopower.


Everything went well at first. I took all the wood out and put it in my fishkeeping dustbin (it is a dustbin, it's 60 litres and very useful for putting wet things in when I need to take them out of the tank). Then removed 64 litres water, hoovering the mess off the bottom of the tank, and replaced it with nice clean water. I threw away the carbon from the small filter I keep just for that, and replaced it with Polyfilter to remove the last of the meds. I cleaned the two biopowers, both media and impellers and wells. Then I turned the filters and heater back on. The smaller biopower didn't work.
A lot of messing about proved that the pump worked without the cover on but wouldn't work with the cover on. OK, I though, just swap the pump for the one that came with the filter and play with the old one in a bucket of water later.
That's not as easy as it sounds.
The 180 litre has glass bracer bars attached to all four sides right at the top of the tank. The front one overlaps the side bars but the back one doesn't; there is a square that is not covered at each rear corner. This is for the heater wire and external filter tubes to get into the tank. There are two holes in the back of the lid for these to go through. But my filters are internals, the wires from them need to go through these squares and lid cut outs. The filters themselves won't fit through so I have to push the plugs upwards through the squares and out through the lid holes. And I'd just filled the tank.
So I then had to remove 20 litres of water to drop the water level enough to get the plugs through, one in and one out.

I finally finished two after two and a half hours. The tank is filled again and all three filters are running. At least I don't have any fish in there or they'd have been cowering in a corner while I was trying to get the filter pump to work.

@Littlefish I hope you're ok. I found that a new tank isnt always the solution, a hospital or quarantine tank can hold a good number of fish that need nurturing. <3

  glad you're ok Donna

glad you're ok Donna

Ditto!

Great!

Not much different news to report here but, true to her namesake, S's tank-coverage skills and collection of trophies (ie food morsels) are unsurpassable. Slightly concerned that she's going to burst as she's so large - semi-tempting to move her out of the tank for a few days to give everyone else a chance to get fed and her a chance to slim down!

Cooler water does trigger behaviour changes. With cories it can get them to breed (it simulates melt water coming off the mountains in spring, I assume the same would apply to other fish).
I use more cold tap water in summer as it's not nearly as cold as in the middle of winter.

The tank will be fine for two weeks - I've often left mine that long.

The cats... either a cattery, or have you a neighbour who could pop in once a day and top up their crunchies?

Malaysia, eh? Sounds like a good hols.

Quote from: ColinB on July 11, 2016, 01:43:18 PM

The tank will be fine for two weeks - I've often left mine that long.

The cats... either a cattery, or have you a neighbour who could pop in once a day and top up their crunchies?

Malaysia, eh? Sounds like a good hols.

By cats i meant my CATFISH!

 

@apache6467  Is everyone in the family going? Do you have neighbours you would trust to go in your house?

If you can arrange someone to go in even a couple of times when you are away that would be enough. But measure out the food onto tubs and tell the person to just empty the tub in the tank. Hide the packs of food just in case they think you should be feeding more and over feed them.

If you do use an autofeeder, test it before you go. Some types drop all the food in at once, others let damp air in so the food clogs and won't go into the tank.