13 January, 2015
Update
The arowana is growing nicely but seems to have developed a protruding lower jaw. Was told by Gan of Gan Aquarium that a shrimp diet will cause this due to the calcium in their shells. I am not feeding shrimp, but I was dosing Seachem Equilibrium for Calcium and Magnesium for a while for the plants. That might have been the cause in this case. I've stopped that, so I hope the condition will resolve itself.
The plants are growing nicely although the tank suffered an algae bloom a few weeks ago. CO2 injection rate had dropped and I hadn't noticed despite having a drop checker in tank. BGA, Hair Algae and Brown Algae all struck at the same time. Adusted CO2 back up and started a anti-biotic (Erythromycin) course on the tank. Brown algae stopped spreading, BGA died and Hair Algae slowed down.
However, the Hair Algae was still growing back too fast. I stopped Nitrates and Phosphate dosing, started on Potassium dosing since I've stopped Seachem Equilibrium and dropped lights down to 2 rows of T5HO throughout the lighting period. Plants are still growing happily, the Hair Algae is much slower now.
Bolbitis heudelotii - Part 2
In my previous post, I wrote about my hopes for this plant in my tank. It has not disappointed and grown back lushly. Now I'm wondering where to reposition it in the future for best effect. Perhaps I should tie some on the exposed wood over the open sand areas.
29 October, 2014
Bolbitis heudelotii
This plant has failed to survive in my tanks over and over again. And this time, the start wasn't encouraging... the mature plant had come from a fellow hobbyist's chilled tank and within a week in my un-chilled tank, all the existing leaves started to die off.
Nevertheless, the rhizomes were still green and it could possibly spring back once it adjusts to my tank conditions. Lo and behold, 3 weeks later, some of the surviving un-opened fronds have put out new leaves! I took out the plant to trim shorter the leftover stalks that I had trimmed earlier and was rewarded with new fronds budding last week.
The plant 2 weeks ago with the new leaves. Hope the plant keeps this up.
The current tank is cooled with two 120mm PC case fans running 24/7, blowing over the water surface. Temperatures range from mid-27°c to high-28°c. For fertilisation details, see the top menu for the link to tank details.
Nevertheless, the rhizomes were still green and it could possibly spring back once it adjusts to my tank conditions. Lo and behold, 3 weeks later, some of the surviving un-opened fronds have put out new leaves! I took out the plant to trim shorter the leftover stalks that I had trimmed earlier and was rewarded with new fronds budding last week.
The plant 2 weeks ago with the new leaves. Hope the plant keeps this up.
24 October, 2014
Sump Noise vs Hofer Gurgle Buster
When I first filled the tank and ran the sump return pump to test for leaks and to test the sump, the noise from the drain pipe was too loud for our (me and the wife) sanity.
Tweaking the ball valve at the drain pipe didn't help much. It reduced some sound but there was various side effects:
So I started looking up solutions on the net. The findings:
Tweaking the ball valve at the drain pipe didn't help much. It reduced some sound but there was various side effects:
- The water level fluctuated, resulting intermittent draining noises.
- Small bubbles coming out of the bottom of the drain pipe. Not a good thing for maintaining CO2 levels in the water.
- Large pockets of air would be blasted out of the bottom of the drain pipe occasionally, causing lots of splashing and occasional noise.
So I started looking up solutions on the net. The findings:
- Bean Animal's Silent & Fail-Safe Aquarium Overflow System
- Maggie Muffler
- Durso Standpipe
- Stockman Standpipe
- Hofer Gurgle Buster
Except for the Maggie Muffler, all require DIY.
The Bean Animal's System requires extensive modifications and was simply not feasible in terms of space, location, and work/tools required.
The Maggie Muffler is a commercial product that is fairly affordable and easy to install, but I could not find any shops selling this in Singapore nor any online seller that ships to Singapore. The original manufacturer did not respond to my emails.
The Durso Standpipe is easy to make, but I do not have enough space inside the overflow box to fit one.
The Stockman Standpipe is a little harder to make then the Durso, but doable.
The Hofer Gurgle Buster (HGB) is a variation of the Stockman. The instructions are pretty much the same. The main difference being the way the air pipe is installed and utilised.
The final candidate was the HGB as most sites say its quieter then the Stockman. Here's the photos of the build:
I won't repeat the detailed parts and instructions here. Just follow the link above and you should be able to figure out the differences from my photos above. You will need a drill, a saw and a half-round file.
Make sure you drill enough holes to match the inner cross section of the drain pipe to ensure you get the same flow rate. For simplicity, if the inner diameter is X, then you need to drill 4 holes with half X diameter. For example, if the inner diameter of the pipe is 25mm, then drill 4 holes with 12.5mm diameter. Slightly larger is fine. In my case, instead of round holes, I made slots instead. If you don't have a big enough drill bit, just calculate the cross section of the hole your biggest drill bit will make and figure out how many of these holes you need so that their total cross section exceeds the inner cross section of your drain pipe.
You need the half-round file to file down the inside of the reducer (the piece that looks like a funnel) so that it can slide up and down the pipe. It should be able to slide easily without too much effort but stay in place once adjusted.
I secured 2 zip-ties to the black hose, 1 inside the end cap and 1 outside, to prevent the black hose from being pulled up or pushed down too far.
The results? Better than I expected. The tank is now almost completely silent. So silent that if you didn't listen for it, you wouldn't even notice any noise from the tank filtration. The water drainage is much more stable. I've managed to tweak the ball valve so that no bubbles are exiting the bottom of the drain pipe at all.
Parts bought from Hai Cheong Plastics Pte. Ltd. Just walk through to the office at the back and tell the office workers you want to buy some parts. Friendly, allows walk-in small purchases and (I think) charge at wholesale prices (or at least, lower than retail price at small hardware shops). Some of the older worker uncles in front may be a little grouchy, but you can ignore them. I'm not sure whether they will sell short lengths of PVC pipes as I reused my drain pipe. I recommend that you bring your drain pipe if possible. If not, measure the external and internal diameters of your pipe before going. PVC manufacturers use the internal diameter to categorise parts, and Hai Cheong supplies the JIS standard PVC pipes (check your PVC piping, the standard is usually printed on the somewhere on them).
The Bean Animal's System requires extensive modifications and was simply not feasible in terms of space, location, and work/tools required.
The Maggie Muffler is a commercial product that is fairly affordable and easy to install, but I could not find any shops selling this in Singapore nor any online seller that ships to Singapore. The original manufacturer did not respond to my emails.
The Durso Standpipe is easy to make, but I do not have enough space inside the overflow box to fit one.
The Stockman Standpipe is a little harder to make then the Durso, but doable.
The Hofer Gurgle Buster (HGB) is a variation of the Stockman. The instructions are pretty much the same. The main difference being the way the air pipe is installed and utilised.
The final candidate was the HGB as most sites say its quieter then the Stockman. Here's the photos of the build:
I won't repeat the detailed parts and instructions here. Just follow the link above and you should be able to figure out the differences from my photos above. You will need a drill, a saw and a half-round file.
Make sure you drill enough holes to match the inner cross section of the drain pipe to ensure you get the same flow rate. For simplicity, if the inner diameter is X, then you need to drill 4 holes with half X diameter. For example, if the inner diameter of the pipe is 25mm, then drill 4 holes with 12.5mm diameter. Slightly larger is fine. In my case, instead of round holes, I made slots instead. If you don't have a big enough drill bit, just calculate the cross section of the hole your biggest drill bit will make and figure out how many of these holes you need so that their total cross section exceeds the inner cross section of your drain pipe.
You need the half-round file to file down the inside of the reducer (the piece that looks like a funnel) so that it can slide up and down the pipe. It should be able to slide easily without too much effort but stay in place once adjusted.
I secured 2 zip-ties to the black hose, 1 inside the end cap and 1 outside, to prevent the black hose from being pulled up or pushed down too far.
The results? Better than I expected. The tank is now almost completely silent. So silent that if you didn't listen for it, you wouldn't even notice any noise from the tank filtration. The water drainage is much more stable. I've managed to tweak the ball valve so that no bubbles are exiting the bottom of the drain pipe at all.
Parts bought from Hai Cheong Plastics Pte. Ltd. Just walk through to the office at the back and tell the office workers you want to buy some parts. Friendly, allows walk-in small purchases and (I think) charge at wholesale prices (or at least, lower than retail price at small hardware shops). Some of the older worker uncles in front may be a little grouchy, but you can ignore them. I'm not sure whether they will sell short lengths of PVC pipes as I reused my drain pipe. I recommend that you bring your drain pipe if possible. If not, measure the external and internal diameters of your pipe before going. PVC manufacturers use the internal diameter to categorise parts, and Hai Cheong supplies the JIS standard PVC pipes (check your PVC piping, the standard is usually printed on the somewhere on them).
Hai Cheong Plastics Pte LtdNow the only noise I hear from the tank are the two PC cooling fans. Next step, replace those fans with quieter ones.
11 Kallang Pl
#01-11
Dragon Forest II
Finally planted the new Arowana Planted Tank about 6 weeks ago. Here are the photos of the current state.
The water turned cloudy around the 3rd or 4th week and finally cleared enough to look relatively clear from the front view (above). From the side view, the cloudiness is still evident. Hopefully, it will completely clear up in the next few days.
The SAEs are still enjoying the run of the tank, before the king of the tank arrives. The 20 juvenile SAEs did a fantastic job of clearing the BBA, Hair Algae and Thread Algae that started appearing in the 2nd week. They did such a good job that actually ran out of food. Going to start feeding them algae wafers sparingly to keep them alive but hungry enough to continue foraging for algae.
More posts to come
The water turned cloudy around the 3rd or 4th week and finally cleared enough to look relatively clear from the front view (above). From the side view, the cloudiness is still evident. Hopefully, it will completely clear up in the next few days.
The SAEs are still enjoying the run of the tank, before the king of the tank arrives. The 20 juvenile SAEs did a fantastic job of clearing the BBA, Hair Algae and Thread Algae that started appearing in the 2nd week. They did such a good job that actually ran out of food. Going to start feeding them algae wafers sparingly to keep them alive but hungry enough to continue foraging for algae.
More posts to come
26 August, 2014
Dragon Forest I
The Asian Arowana is a beautiful fish, but is often kept in bare tanks. I always felt it would look so much better in a lush planted tank, especially the red variant. About 10 years ago, I had the opportunity to start a large planted tank and it became The Dragon's Forest I.
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| Hidden Dragon |
However, the dream to set up another Arowana Planted Tank was ever burning and I finally have the opportunity to set up another one. In this blog, I will document the progress on the set up and life of the new tank: The Dragon's Forest II.
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