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Thanks chaps. Troi, I started out using Waterlife Protozin which has always been effective in the past. 2 weeks of daily dosing didn't shift it, after which I did 9 days of Esha Exit. By this point things seemed to be getting better but that coincided with having already lost all the neons...

Right, so here's an update that I haven't been looking forward to writing. Things had been ticking along nicely for a long time... I'd added some really nice gold and ruby tetra and a group of orange Corydoras venezuelanus. The planting had been redone, mainly with Eichornia and everything was...

Shock content update! I'll try and get some full tank shots later, but here's my bruiser A. hoignei alpha male. Still the boss after all this time, despite sharing the tank with 3 other equal sized males. In the process of creating what I think is probably his fourth spawn...

Anything but that! I'm away at the moment but I'll do an update when I get back... Looking a little sparse at the moment because it's slowly growing back in after I pulled out a lot of the planting (got fed up trimming the ludwigia every week). Sent from my HUAWEI GRA-L09 using Tapatalk

Haha, thanks very much Martin, always nice to know that people enjoy the journals.

Haha, thanks for the review James! Really good to meet you, enthusiastic fish geeks always warmly received. Glad the holiday was a success. Posting from my mobile, please excuse brevity!

Does anyone else have to set up a drip to keep their Farlowella eggs wet during a water change?! Posting from my mobile, please excuse brevity!

Some better photos of the I. adujai - And I. geisleri - And today one of the baby Apistos broke cover for the first time - I wonder how many made it? Getting overrun with baby twigs! Batches 4 and 5 have all hatched now and the male is taking a break - he's lost a lot of condition...

Yeah it does sound like a lot of fish when you add it up! The large footprint means that it doesn't feel crowded though - lots of the fish have their own areas that they prefer to hang about it.

Ermmmm.... off the top of my head Guianacara stergiosi - 6 (2 adults, 4 subadult offspring) Apistogramma hoignei - 6 plus some juveniles Dicrossus filamentosus - 2 Chilodus punctatus - 6 Iguanodectes spilurus - 7 Iguanodectes adujai - 5 Iguanodectes geisleri - 6 Paracheirodon simulans - 50...

Had a bit of a find this week - ordered a few Iguanadectes spilurus at work, but were sent a rather tasty mix of both I. geisleri and I. adujai instead :) A little tatty and thin, but should turn into really lovely fish - Needless to say I've invested in a group of each.

5th Farlowella spawn... Are they ever going to stop? Posting from my mobile, please excuse brevity!

One of the juvenile Farlowella enjoying the flow form the wavemaker :)

They mainly just graze on all the biofilm to be honest, I also feed New Era catfish and cichlid pellets for the larger fish, which they seem to enjoy as well.

I just asked for that because I thought it would look nice :p It's supported on 3 sides and isn't very wide so not much sag to worry about.

Posting from my mobile, please excuse brevity!

Nice - I haven't seen the a160s in the flesh but we've got the a360s on the plant sales tank at work and they're lovely. The tank has a mini-lid at the front just to stop jumpers (I need to get one cut for the back corner too) - I had problems with the Iguanadectes jumping at night when they...

1 male and 3 females (adults). Make sure they have nice bellies on them and have been in a while and you should be OK I think. I lost 3 out of 4 from a previous group which were very skinny when I bought them and they all died within 24 hours. My water is soft and presumably fairly acidic...

Cheers Hoggie. I'm a big fan of the light the Kessils put out, and once modded the old a150s aren't too bad for noise - no more jet engine whine!

Fourth Farlowella spawn last night. They're machines. Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk

All the wood does generate a fair amount of 'soil', which collects in the back corners and the filter presponge. The bottom of the filter is also probably full of it but I never empty it because the efx600 weighs more than I care to lift when full! The headstanders and bandit cichlids turn the...

Yeah the corals in the marine nano next to it seem to enjoy it too!

Yeah just 2 old Kessil a150s. This time of year it gets a pretty strong shaft of direct sunlight for a few hours in the afternoon, although it sort of roams around the tank and doesn't settle for too long in one place. I have recently had a few tufts of BBA sprouting up on the wood where it...

As you wish! Apologies for hit and miss white balance, I haven't the patience to balance room and tank consistently between shots... Looking slightly lopsided at the moment because I trimmed the right hand side pretty hard a couple of days ago. The stems and floaters need chopping back...

Third batch of eggs are now hatching. The adult male has been guarding this spot on the glass for exactly a month now, while the three females have taken it in turns to spawn with him. And at least some of the previous batches seem to be surviving - The female Apisto is still in parenting...

I would hope so Ed, but might remove some just in case. Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk

Hehe, little fatties.

Male with two batches of eggs - 5 days old on the left, 10 days old on the right... ...the latter of which began hatching overnight. ~9mm TL fry -

A second spawn now underway - these are definitely hybrids (compare scute patterns).

Heh. They're filmed on the kit lens of my E-M5, but with a Raynox macro adapter in place. Working distance is less than 2cm so it's a good job they're on the front glass! The eggs are roughly 3.5mm long, so quite large. Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk

Getting in some early swimming practice...

Haha I'll leave that to the vet I think...

Cheers James - got a little video uploading now to show the wriggling. Nice big eggs (~3.5mm across) right on the front glass, you can see loads.

Lost a few of the eggs to fungus, but three quarters of them have nice active wriggly embryos!

Definitely hybrids... both parents are on the eggs now and although I can't remember my previous IDs they definitely have obviously different scute patterns. Bit of a shame but still going to give them a chance. EDIT - maybe not. The third female I was never sure about an ID and she's hanging...

Water changes are a bit erratic to be honest, probably about 30 per cent every couple of weeks on average. Rain water in winter, tap in summer. The rain water is actually harder than out the tap down here in Cornwall! 3kh vs less than 1. I haven't checked the tank parameters in over 6 months...

Hah, just came down for my usual cup of tea in front of the tank before work and spotted my male Farlowella with a clutch of precisely 50 eggs on the front glass. Which is awesome, although I have a suspicion they might be hybrids as I rather thought I didn't have any females that were the same...

Nice, should look awesome. I've more or less for my head around nano marines now so shout if you run into any questions. Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk

Thanks! I'm hoping one or two of the surrounding stems will make it to the surface and grow emersed as well, which will really hlep the transition. It's uber basic. Everything is barerooted, just wedged into cracks in the wood or floating. The Myriophyllum has some sand as well filled in to...

Oh yeah, I haven't shown the emersed section yet - ferns, Pistia, Myriophyllum brasilliensis, Mayaca fluviatilis, Phyllanthus fluitans.

Fry are now free swimming and have left the cave. Amazingly they haven't all been instantly predated. The female is doing an incredible job keeping everything else away so far. She's looking pretty skinny but I've started pippeting a mix of bloodworm, microworm and 5 micron golden pearls on top...

I have to say, watching the Apistos in a large tank is brilliant fun. The male seems to have sussed that some of the eggs hatched successfully and has switched behaviour from trying to court other females to defending the area around the cave, without getting close enough to attract the ire of...

PS, just checked and the A. hoignei eggs made it to wrigglers :)

Click through to vimeo for HD!

Cheers chaps! Short video uploading atm...

Natural light semi-fisheye shot - Added a lot of hairgrass, Ludwigia peruviana, Pistia stratiotes and Myriophyllum brasiliensis.

Well the Apistos seem to be enjoying the changes - they've finally decided to give spawning a go :) (excuse the white balance inconsistency) Now if only the ones in the breeding tank would get the same idea! ...edit - haha, deed done and the male has immediately been evicted.

Yeah that's one of mine from Golitha Falls in Cornwall. Not quite Venezuela but will have to do for now. It's the same width as the tank so works quite nicely as a backdrop.

Yeah the fish cave is pretty ace! Plant plans... going to try and get the old hairgrass going again, a few choice floaters and loads more stems. Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk

I really should have done a before shot! Best I can do is this ( from 3 months ago, the palm grass had nigh on doubled in size again since then) - And after much faffing over the last 2 days - It still needs to clear and I need a lot more plants to replace the ones that didn't grow so well...

That is fairly accurate! Sent from my Lenovo K50-t5 using Tapatalk

Sorry for the lack of updates here folks. Real life has been a bit busy and the tanks have been largely neglected. The palm grass totally overgrew everything such that nothing else was getting any light at all, so it's become a bit of a monoculture. I have exacted my revenge today by removing...

Behold the miniature glory of N. anduzei - about 1cm TL and not far off fully grown! I suspect these will have to be my next breeding project.

Well, some good and bad news on the fish front. Bad news is, all my Biotodoma died. They looked like they were doing OK, then the two skinniest ones suddenly went downhill very fast and I lost both within a couple of days. I decided that the supplier probably hadn't wormed them properly and put...

Heh yeah, they got a good response on the BCA Facebook page. I've PM'ed Mark a couple of times about guttata but he never replies.

Yeah I wasn't expecting too much to be honest when I saw they were coming in, but as soon as I saw the big male I had to have them. The 'beta' male is pictured in my post from this afternoon and is colouring up rapidly as well. Reasonably sure I got 3m:3f as well, which is nice. Still want some...

Tank is looking amazing. Very interested to see how that pitcher does. I have to admit I'm also not a great fan of mixed colour LEDs that show obvious colour seperation like that. Are your emergent stems planted in anything?

Some fish -

Thanks Wendal. Yes, the riparians are all bare rooted - I wash all the compost off and then just wedge them into the hardscape. Most of the roots are submerged, but I keep the crown of the plant out of the water. They generally take a couple of weeks to adjust (and some seem to go through a root...

Evening viewing, with just the spots on - Added some 'giant' hairgrass and some Ludwigia arcuata.

Heh, not that dissimilar.

Kind of old news, but I just spotted another 1cm long hockeystick pencilfish. I'm very impressed that some of these little guys are making it with 150 fish in the tank (including numerous hungry medium sized cichlids).

Well I couldn't exactly let someone else buy them could I?!

This is the pair of hoignei that forced me to buy them all, although they're in their own tank for now.

Thanks Mark.

Drew a straight line the length of the tube with a marker pen (used a spare second tube pushed against the first as a ruler). Then marked off where each hole would be and just went for it free hand with a 3mm drill bit. There's probably a little bit of variation but it's fairly uniform all in...

It's an Aquamanta EFX600 (max 2200lph), so 3-4x turnover.

Clive would probably have a fit, but I can't see any obvious dead spots. There's quite a funky thing going on on the right hand side where the flow in the upper and lower part of the tank is in an almost perfectly opposite direction. That area was very much a dead spot with the normal spraybar...

I'll do a flow diagram with my awesome paint skills.

Pure UKAPS geekout time - I made a 1m long acrylic spraybar to replace the short, ugly, grey effort that came with my efx600. Obviously in a 4' wide tank you can't really bounce the flow off the front glass as you would in a normal rectangular tank, so I pointed the angle of every second hole...

Heh I just checked my message history - 22nd of October I let you know that Silksworth Aquatics had some. You snooze you lose! :lol: I think they get them in now and again, worth keeping an eye on their FB page.

Did I not PM you to say there were some available? Anyway, they arrived at 5cm and are definitely growing, so I'm expecting 10cm.

Me too! Pretty much fully stocked now I think, barring special additions if they crop up. 2 adult Guianacara plus 40 juveniles which I really, really should get around to rehoming. 5 Biotodoma wavrini 4 Apistogramma hoignei 3 Dicrossus filamentosus 9 Iguanadectes spilurus 10 Chilodus...

I'd been managing to resist buying any Apistos until today... we got six A. hoignei in at work and I just couldn't say no (thank God for staff discount!). I've risked the 'best' pair in a 30cm cube with a few half-grown hockeysticks to see if they'll breed, the other 4 (one definite male, one...

Unfortunately not. The males spent a lot of time displaying to the female but she's utterly disinterested. I bought the males and female from different shops (all I could find locally) and to be honest I wonder if they're from sufficiently different populations to make breeding difficult.

Yeah they're ace. They look brilliant when they all school together, although they don't do it all the time (generally after water changes and feeding).

Neons! I added some cheap extra lighting by repositioning the room lights above the tank :p Using four fairly cheap ebay 15w GU10 LED spotlights. Beam angle is narrower than I was expecting and the output isn't exactly mind boggling but they're useful for spotlighting some of the wood and...

And the male Guianacara, who still never shows his spot but is otherwise pretty handsome.

They're quite young (about 2") and pretty skinny (wild caught) so not much to look at yet, but give them a year and hopefully they should be stunners.

Erm, mainly a mix of about half a dozen different dried foods from TA Aquaculture and the odd cube of mixed frozen food. Normally there'd be a fair amount of live as well but I don't have much on the go at the moment.

New fish day! Added 30 more green neons and *drumroll* 5 Biotodoma wavrini. Photos once they've settled in.

Aha, I see this got moved to where it belongs!

I think Tuncalik tried a pair of A. borelli in his 'biotope in my study' and decided they needed supplemental feeding, but it probably just comes down to tank size. I reckon it'd be doable in something the size of the Bucket with the right microfauna. Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk

Read all right to me Thrills! Although I'm still amazed how much interest the Bucket generated. Yeah I started off planning only one or two plant species, but I might give in to temptation once I've upgraded the lighting and throw a few more into the mix. We'll see. Emersed shadowing can be a...

Just an Eheim 2324. I'm probably not even getting 1x turnover at the moment. The palm grass probably does most of the ammonia removal! It does need more flow and more light really, I'm hoping to upgrade both in a couple of months. Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk

New video! Think I need to do some hoovering as the hairgrass is collecting a lot of detritus.

Hah! Yeah sadly I had a protracted house move last year and had to start over again - the tank, fish and plants all went to good homes, albeit separately. If you enjoyed the TPT thread then the UKAPS journal (link in my signature) has a fair amount of extra content.

You could be right Darrel - I had read that it tends to die back in winter even inside. It does seem really humid in the little outside studio it's in however - loads of condensation on the windows, doors and floor each morning (thank you 19 square feet of open topped tanks!). That said I have...

I think it's safe to say that Setaria palmifolia makes a pretty robust riparian plant! The leaves extend another couple of feet up into the skylight and are flowering like mad. Getting a few brown tips so I probably need to ramp up the ferts to keep it happy. As you can see I also got a...

I doubt it Ben. That would have required forethought! Plus there were so many re-arrangements and rescapes and big gaps between updates that it'd be pretty hectic.

Pics fixed! (bar one which I couldn't find) Got me all nostalgic viewing the stuff from the first year again.

Pencilfish patrol avec arty lens flare -

Hey Ben. Yup living it up in Carnon Downs, for the moment at least. Feel free to pop by, tickets are issued in return for rehoming juvenile Guianacara, haha.

Turns out that Iguanadectes are not easy to photograph without flash! AF wasn't cutting it because they wouldn't sit still long enough, but weirdly just using room lights gave better contrast and allowed faster locks, so a couple of keepers. White balance all over the place! I also beefed...

Had a bit of a re-arrange, plus my Iguanadectes arrived this afternoon! They're lovely fish but I'll be interested to see how big they get - some sources say 5-6cm, others 10cm. Guianacara juvies will be rehomed soon, they're growing on nicely now -

Yup that's one of the Guianacara fry. They're about 1cm long now and I'm just starting to find homes for them. Sent from my LT30p using Tapatalk

Time for a wee update I guess. All the L. sediodes finally died :(. Not enough light I guess (stems got longer and longer whilst the leaves got smaller and smaller and eventually vanished). Have replaced it with L. inclinata var. 'verticillata', will have to see how that does. Also had an...

Heh. I do have three 25l nanos myself, but they're all terrible neglected and mainly used for growing on fry. If you're going to upgrade I reckon aim for 400l+, that's when you can really play around with the sense of scale.

Lovely jubbly. One of my favourite tanks on here I think - lots of nice textures and attention to detail.