Apistogramma Agassizii

[TuvaM]

I know, I am not too good at being patient..
I never thought of adding live food.. That's a good idea!
If I had the space I woukd definitley get another small one, but I am currently living in a 15 m2 room and share livingroom and all that with 4 others. So it will be when I get my own place I have some more space on my shelf where I keep the 60L, but I don't know if I dare to put more weight on it.

 

[TuvaM]

Can I just ask where you get the live food cultures from?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Can I just ask where you get the live food cultures from?

I mainly collected them myself, but <"most are available commercially in the UK">. Asellus, Lumbriculus, Daphnia, Copepods, Naididae and Ostracods are all European natives, Crangonyx pseudogracilis is N. American, but naturalised in the UK.

I bought Vinegar Eel (Turbatrix aceti), Microworm (Panagrellus redivivus) and Grindal worm (Enchytraeus buchholzi) cultures originally, but I've continually re-cultured them (from those original starting cultures) over the last ~10 years.

I was sent some Calfornia Blackworms from the USA, which I helped me to identify them (in the wild) in the UK. I've distributed a lot of Blackworm cultures in the UK, and I would imagine that at least some of those now being re-sold originated with me.

I'm not sure about in Norway, or sending cultures to Norway. Killifish keepers are usually a good source for live food, there is the <"SKS">.

cheers Darrel

 

[TuvaM]

Alright, I will look around and see if someone has any of those. I like the idea of live food, but I don't know if I want to cultivate them and have them in my room though

 

[TuvaM]

Ok, so now I have added KHCO3 to the water. I couldn't get the kitchenscale to work properly, so I added ca. 3g. Does anyone know how fast the KH will rise?

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Ok, so now I have added KHCO3 to the water. I couldn't get the kitchenscale to work properly, so I added ca. 3g. Does anyone know how fast the KH will rise?

Should go up pretty quickly as the potassium bicarbonate is extremely soluble (about 330g per litre). Three grams KHCO3 in 60 litres will give you ~4dKH in the tank water.

cheers Darrel

 

[TuvaM]

Really? James planted tank said 1.8g KHCO3 would give 2dKH in 25 liters. I haven't seen any changes yet. Measured after about 1 hour

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Really? James planted tank said 1.8g KHCO3 would give 2dKH in 25 liters. I haven't seen any changes yet. Measured after about 1 hour

Yes, you are right, that should have been about 2 dKH in 60 litres.

Try adding some KHCO3 to your tap water (just add a known weight to a litre of water), and then seeing if it changes the colour on the dKH test, that will show you whether the test kit is still OK. The test kit really measures total alkalinity rather than just carbonates (it is a modified acid base titration).

I wouldn't get to hung up on water testing, <"even with lab. grade analytical kit"> it isn't always straight forward.

cheers Darrel

 

[TuvaM]

So I did what you said, I added KHCO3 to 1 litre, and the test showed >20dkH, so it measures kh. But I think that it might not be as sensitive with lower values. I added a little more KHCO3 to the tank, and still no change in kh, but pH has gone up from 7,0 til 7,5. So clearly something is happening. I just added some oak extract to see what happens. Luckily I have no fish in yet so they won't be bothered by me goofing around.
I know I shouldn't stress too much with testing, but I do want my fish to live in a stable enviroment

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I know I shouldn't stress too much with testing, but I do want my fish to live in a stable environment

I like a complex environment for the fish, have a look at Bob Wiltshire's <"Aquarium care"> pages.

Soft water is never going to be a stable in terms of pH. You can stabilise pH with carbonate buffering, but you no longer have soft water. Fish that come from soft water are used to pH changes, because they happen in their natural environment.

In hard carbonate buffered water (like the ocean or Lake Tanganyika) it needs huge changes in water chemistry to change the pH, but in vegetated soft water the pH can swing from <"pH5 to pH8 during a diurnal cycle">, purely because of changes in the ratio of CO2 (an acid) and oxygen (a base).

In soft water small changes in chemistry cause large changes in pH.

cheers Darrel

 

[TuvaM]

Ok, so I shouldn't really do anything with the water then. I will probably add some oak extract when doing water changes though, as my tap water's pH is at 8.0.
I measured kh again btw, and now the test said 1,5dKH. pH is still 7,5.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Ok, so I shouldn't really do anything with the water then. I will probably add some oak extract when doing water changes though, as my tap water's pH is at 8.0.
I measured kh again btw, and now the test said 1,5dKH. pH is still 7,5.

Because you don't have much carbonate buffering the pH may fall when you've added the Oak leaves.

cheers Darrel

 

[Siggi]

Hi, all.
@TuvaM: This 'goofing around' wirhout fish will be an invaluable experience later. It will be a hands on experience I water chemistry that you can use later to better interpret the parameters in your measurements.
The fact you don't have fish in, yet will be good, as your environment will be mose stable with regard to bacteria/microorganisms and chemical properties - that will be good for your fish, and you will appreciate that later.

 

[TuvaM]

Good to hear that I'm atleast doing something right.
pH is now down to 7,0 and the water is turning more and more dark yellow/brown. I guess it is a combination of the roots, oak extract and catappa-leaves which I just added.
I'm just wondering. Would it be better if I just made a huge waterchange, like 80%, and "start over again"? Since I have catappaleaves and roots I suspect those will bring pH down without me adding anything to the water. And when I do the change, I don't add anything to the water. I just let the pH sink naturally.
The reason I wanted to add buffering to the water in the first place was because I saw the pH just sink lower and lower, at 6.0 at one point. But since Darell mentions that the fish will be okay with it, it will probably not be a problem.
I just suspect that the enviroment in the tank will be "safer" without me adding stuff to it as I read in the article written by Bob Wiltshire.

 

[TuvaM]

Well, I went ahead and changed 30 litres of water. No additives in the new water. Then I will see what happens over the next couple of days.

 

[Siggi]

Well...?
How did it go?

Post a pic.

 

[TuvaM]

It went well. As expected.
Yesterday I went to my LFS to get some inhabitants to my tank. I ended up with one male A.Borellii. They had just males left, so I asked if they could order some more for me. They were also out of the ember tetras, so my guy is alone at the moment. But (hopefully) next friday he will get a lady and some tetras.
He seems to be thriving very well. He started looking for food almost immediately after I put him in the tank, and today he ate his first meal of frozen blackworms. He is not a great fan of my camera though, so I haven't got the best picture. I didn't want to scare him too much either.
So this is how the tank looks now, and a quite bad picture of my new arrival.

 

[Siggi]

How's it going?
Got the ladies in? Tetras?

 

[TuvaM]

It's going well. They haven't got my order in the store yet, so he is still alone. He seems to thrive, though I think he would like some company. I took some pictures of him today. Still a little shy for the camera, I see his black stripe appear when I get close.

 

[Phile]

That's a really nice borellii. I really enjoyed mine when I had them. My LFS had some, but they weren't sexed out yet. I'm surprised that anyone would send any to market that were unsexable. I'd rather pay a few bucks more and know that I had a pair, rather than have to pay a lot more for a school of fish just to get a pair.