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90x30x30 low maintenance

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Have not updated in a long time. Have a tiny bit of downtime in the office so thought I would share a picture of the tank I took yesterday.

The plants have grown a lot. I did have to cut one of the Anubias coffeefolia down as I noticed that part of the rhizome had started to go mushy. Thankfully the top cut survived and is growing new leaves, although they are quite small. I will have to propagate another one soon as it has grown quite long and the leaves are pressing up against the glass. Will also need to thin out a lot of that java fern. They grow so slowly that I didn't even realise how overgrown things are at the moment.

In terms of fish, I lost the following:
1 Parotocinclus haroldoi, 2 Parotocinclus maculicauda, 1 Otocinclus cocama, 1 Otocinclus something (the normal ones, unsure as to species), 1 Corydoras CW51, 1 Trigonostigma somphongsi

I was away in Tokyo for 9 days last year and I lost the Otocinclus and Parotocinclus around that time. I think they didn't do very well from the lack of food during my absence.

I've recently added 5 Corydoras caudimaculatus and 2 Otocinclus cocama (decided to try again!). They are all eating well which is good.

My Corydoras CW51 are in bad shape. Very listless, the bigger one is always in the corner and their barbels seem to have eroded a bit. They aren't all gone yet so I think there is some hope that they will grow again. It has been very, very hot in Singapore in recent months so I think they are stressed out about the heat. I bought a used chill yesterday which is doing a fine job of cooling the water down so I hope they perk up soon.
 
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richardcunliffe said:
You may say it's primarily a fish tank, but this looks great!
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Thank you... it really is primarily for fish, which is why I haven't been trimming the plants as often as I should. It looks so overgrown compared to before and there is a lot of BBA everywhere! It's even growing on the glass.
 
richardcunliffe said:
I like things more this direction, and I'm sure fish do too. I'm embracing BBA as a moss substitute 😅 (though I admit it wasn't spoiling my marsilea minutia carpet)
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I like the overgrown look too! But I'll need to thin them out soon before they start to choke themselves out...
 
Hiya

I've fallen ill so taking sick leave at the moment. I feel like crap but it's the second day of sick leave so I'll have to go back to work tomorrow or see a doctor again. Gonna take it easy today so that I can be somewhat well by tomorrow.

I went to the fish store on Saturday. On hindsight, I probably should have stayed at home to rest. But I did buy two more Corydoras CW51s to keep my original two company. I'm certain they will do better with a larger group of conspecifics in the tank. The CW51s do seem to be rather sensitive so if I lose any of them I will probably give up on keeping them and not buy any more. I've already lost two of these, one to jumping out the tank at night (this one had a really nice dorsal so I was gutted when it jumped) and another smaller one a couple of months ago when I separated it to put in another tank (this one was breathing really fast all the time and appeared to have a lot of slime on its body).

I also bought a Ziss breeder box. All 4 of the CW51s are in the box at the moment and I will be keeping them there for a couple of months until the barbels on my original two start showing signs of recovery. The big one has been lethargic for weeks and would always stay in the same spot with his fins clamped down but I noticed yesterday that he is still eating and has stopped clamping his fins too.

Tank is in a bit of a mess. Would like to work on it today but I really ought to rest so will have to put it off till the weekend.

Random pictures:

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Pics!

One of the new CW51
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Corydoras sterbai. The first Corydoras I ever bought, in January 2018. I bought 3 of them then, this is the one one that's left of the original trio. I know it's one of the first three I ever bought because it's the biggest one in there!
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FTS! Still haven't done maintenance other than water change. Will get to it tomorrow.
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Hiya small update.

The chiller is working fine. How the chiller works is that it will cool the water until it reaches the target temperature and then go into standby once it reaches the target temperature. When the temperature goes up 1 degree greater than the target temp, the chiller kicks in to chill the water down to desired temperature again. I don't want the chiller to kick in constantly because it will result in my electricity bill skyrocketing so one night I decided to monitor it a little, not very closely but enough to give me an idea of how often it kicks in. This was at night and the lights were already dimming down ambient temperature would be cooler. I set it to 24 degrees Celsius. From 24 degrees Celsius, it would take around 34 minutes for the temperature to rise to 25 degrees. It would then kick in, and it would take around 15 minutes for it to cool the temperature down before it goes into standby again. I only timed it once and I haven't done this in the day when it would be hotter so i'm not very sure of the frequency of kick ins. For now, I've set the temperature to 25 degrees.

I have a glass thermometer in my tank, I don't know how accurate it is but it is generally 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than indicated on my chiller. However, I have read that the reason for the difference and for the high frequency of kick ins it has to do with the location of the temperature probe in the chiller and the flow rate of the filter (or whatever is driving water through the chiller). The temperature probe is located in the chiller itself. If the flow rate is too low, the cold water in the chiller reaches temp faster than it can leave the chiller and go back into the tank, and so it kicks out prematurely. Then warmer water from the tank enters the chiller and causing the temperature to rise quickly, resulting in the chiller kicking in again. If I could modify the chiller so that the temperature probe is in the tank itself, it should result in fewer kick in and longer periods of standby. I could also use a filter with a higher flow rate.

I did want a bigger filter anyway, so I acquired a used Biomaster 600 yesterday night from a friend of mine. Would have gone for the 850, but the 600 is the biggest I can physically fit under my tank stand. I'll hook it up this weekend and see if it makes a difference. Even if it doesn't change much in terms of cooling, I would at least have a filter which can house more media in it.
 
Happy planting in there!

So what happened to the fan idea? A fan could take some pressure off the chiller and its power consumption.
 
chickennublet said:
If I could modify the chiller so that the temperature probe is in the tank itself, it should result in fewer kick in and longer periods of standby. I could also use a filter with a higher flow rate.
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What about plugging the chiller intro an Inkbird thermostat with sensor in the water, and the stat on the chiller right down, ie always on. That way the Inkbird stat takes over and controls the temperature,
 
hydrophyte said:
Happy planting in there!

So what happened to the fan idea? A fan could take some pressure off the chiller and its power consumption.
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Ah, the fan wasn't chilling the water as efficiently any more. The weather here got really hot recently. When i started using the chiller I removed the fan. Yeah if I used both the chiller wouldn't have to work so hard but I was also rather tired of dealing with the evaporation.
 
hypnogogia said:
What about plugging the chiller intro an Inkbird thermostat with sensor in the water, and the stat on the chiller right down, ie always on. That way the Inkbird stat takes over and controls the temperature,
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Mmmm I've not used a thermostat before so i'm not quite familiar with them. Buildings in Singapore are generally not heated since it's so bloody hot already but I guess they are in air-conditioning units to keep us cool.

With the Inkbird, is the suggestion that I plug the chiller into the thermostat and set the chiller to like a really low temperature, and then set my actual desired temperature on the thermostat itself? Then the thermostat will only supply power to the chiller when it reaches a certain temperature. Is that how it works? Because if so, it sounds a heck of a lot easier than opening my chiller up and messing with the wiring. The only problem is i'll have to acquire one. Not sure if I could get one in Singapore unless I have it shipped from wherever they are located.
 
chickennublet said:
Not sure if I could get one in Singapore unless I have it shipped from wherever they are located.
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I'm sure there would be similar branded with the same function thermostats available to you, a little Google work should do the trick. I'm not sure without researching again (getting old) but I think there's a basic model which has one socket and variable high/low temp setting, but the one I have has 2 sockets which are powered for 1 raising the temp (heater) and one for lowering the temp (cooling fan) with a window of a couple of degrees between, if that makes sense.
chickennublet said:
With the Inkbird, is the suggestion that I plug the chiller into the thermostat and set the chiller to like a really low temperature, and then set my actual desired temperature on the thermostat itself? Then the thermostat will only supply power to the chiller when it reaches a certain temperature. Is that how it works?
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I haven't got a chiller but use external thermostats for a fan on one tank for summer cooling and general heating in the other tank having the heater set to 1 or 2 degrees higher than thermostat leaving it to do all the work.
 
chickennublet said:
Mmmm I've not used a thermostat before so i'm not quite familiar with them. Buildings in Singapore are generally not heated since it's so bloody hot already but I guess they are in air-conditioning units to keep us cool.

With the Inkbird, is the suggestion that I plug the chiller into the thermostat and set the chiller to like a really low temperature, and then set my actual desired temperature on the thermostat itself? Then the thermostat will only supply power to the chiller when it reaches a certain temperature. Is that how it works? Because if so, it sounds a heck of a lot easier than opening my chiller up and messing with the wiring. The only problem is i'll have to acquire one. Not sure if I could get one in Singapore unless I have it shipped from wherever they are located.
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That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.

 
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