Was getting bored with Ifrit's tank, so I decided to rescape it! Also bought one bamboo shrimp for each tank, but they're very hard to get good pics of cuz they're hardly ever out

Click/tap for higher quality :3

Relaxing bubble vibes

Credit to Anderson Paak. For the music.

Vaccuuhack

I Got tired of slow draining during simple water changes, I have been using the normal Vac that has a limited flow and needed a larger outflow.

Upgraded to a larger tube but the small baby fish could get sucked up which is no fun.

3D print an easy flow filter to prevent the tiny fish from getting vacuumed up while allowing full flow.

Gyroid infill with no walls makes a great high flow filter

warlock playin with and then swallowing an entire hikari crab cuisine sinking pellet. any suggestions on how to prevent this would be appreciated hahaha xx

☠️🐟🦐

Light refraction (is that what it's called?) in aquariums especially at the corners is super cool.

warlock explorin his new crib xoxo

API nitrate test kit P.S.A.

For anyone using API liquid nitrate test kit

If you are not shaking the bottle vigorously for 30 seconds to a few minutes before testing you are doing the test wrong. I admit I fell into this trap by not heeding the warning of step 4 in the paper instructions, its not listed on the bottle.

Bottle #2 will solidify at the bottom, you absolutely need to shake that bottle up and even slam it on your hand some to get it mixed. Every time.

If you get 0ppm readings make sure you are doing this step to get an accurate nitrate reading.

That is all.

shrimp shack update!!!!!!! (april 15th, 2021)

welcome home, warlock!!!!!!!! 💚

140 L project tank improvement: it is improving! New Growth!

Lol, it may not be super-duper impressive, but I’m happy nevertheless. The new light is doing the trick and the dreaded algae infestation didn’t come. Yet.

The substrate and other stuff I ordered arrived today.

Except the stuff that didn’t. And won’t. Oh well. Stay tuned for more half-functioning DIY sh... stuff!

Luckily I got the water tests I wanted, pH (JBL Pro 3-10) and NO3 (Salifert).

My nitrates seem to be somewhere around 2.5 and 5 ppm. Oops.

I probably should order some new ferts. But I somewhat like the NO3 test itself, assuming it’s not giving ridiculously incorrect values. The low concentration reading procedure is kind of nice, although I can’t understand why they made the test in a way there is nothing between 10 and 25. I imagine many like to have their nitrates above 10 for plants and below 25 for fishes, so it’d be be great to have 17 or something between these two, so it’d be easier to guess if the nitrates are going up or down in the long run. Also the gap between 25 and 50 ppm is pretty huge. And who has use for 100 ppm nitrate reading?

But it is how it is.

Instead, I’m not too impressed by the pH test. I don’t mind if I can’t tell 6.5 and 7 apart, or any two adjacent readings separated by 0.5 for that matter, but turns out the color of is soooo horribly pale I can’t tell apart 6.5 and 8, or anything in between... Which is a bit too much room for “lol it’s somewhere in here”, imho. The paleness isn’t great for colored water either.

I even did the test twice, thinking I surely had misread something and dosed in the wrong amount of drops or whatnot, but nope. I think I can live with this, as I’m mostly interested in if the pH starts to drop like a stone of attempt to climb Mount Everest for who-knows-why.

deathwish playing king of the skull & wee gizmo posing with a fresh molt xx

These lil mans have colored up a lot!

They are almost ready to go into the 80 gallon tank!

Arlow and his buddy

The boys are fighting over a pellet that isn’t even theirs

shrimp shack update! (10th april, 2021)

during and after a wee trim and waterchange xxx

new double sponge filter installed, gonna leave both filters running for a month and then I'll remove the old one, I found a live shrimp in it during the last waterchange, and can't have the wee guys get sucked up in there.

gonna get a betta fish in the next few days, very exciting!! xxx

Petrified wood in the back yard!

Found while digging up a spot for a raised bed garden. I think it's really neat! And now its a fish chair!

Petrification happens underground, wood becomes buried in water-saturated sediment. The presence of water reduces the availability of Oxygen which inhibits aerobic decomposition by bacteria and fungi. Mineral-laden water flowing through the sediments may lead to permineralization, which occurs when minerals precipitate out of solution filling the interiors of cells and other empty spaces.

I like to think it may be millions of years old however mineralization can happen in short periods of time too. I ignore that fact and present my dinosaur aged wood.

Mega angel loves the wyze camera

My angelfish hangs out by the camera now that it's mounted by a hanging 3d print mount.

It figured out that if it's close enough it can toggle the night vision on and off to make the camera "click"

My bedroom tank is a simple little paradise - nothing rare or overly exotic, it’s a peaceful spot for me and offers my cat some enrichment.

Guppies, neon tetras, leopard coryadoras, 2 tiger snails, 2 freshwater clams and one very lazy betta. The fish love the piece of wood in there and it’s not unusual to catch the betta, Kraken, having a nap on one of the plant leaves. I’m super proud of how I’m managing to get a couple of plants (including my ludwigia) to grow through the branches.

140 L project tank improvement Step 4: Buy, again, more plants. (A.k.a: “Plants! More plants! Mwahaha!”)

I’ve been battling myself with substrate choices. I’ve made a purchase for it and some other stuff (set me back two *cough* hundred *cough* euros) but that’s a story for another time.

Meanwhile, I bought some plants: Chinese ivy and limnophilia sessiliflora. 

(I am, in fact, not buying plants randomly. I’ve been planning. With pen and paper.)

I actually got a third plant, too. some of the sessiliflora didn’t seem to be sessiliflora. I think the third is hornworth... It looks like hornwort, but shed hardly any leaves despite travelling in really harsh conditions. The plants came in a letter (I bought from a fellow hobbyist) and the moisture in the packages was pretty much freezing my fingers, so I’m actually surprised the plants survived. Even more surprised they weren’t damaged much. They’ve been in the tank… two weeks now?

Anyway, there’s a pic under the cut. Please feel free to comment if it is or isn’t hornworth!

So it’s going nicely. The new light has slightly increased algae on the glass (green dust, I think) but it could be the sunlight hitting the tank in increased amount as well. It’s not enough to be a problem - yet -  but perhaps I’ll start scraping the glass every now and then.

The unexpected bonus was that Power-Glo made the cardinal tetras look really colorful! The dwarf gourami Rannanjarvi looks good too when the light hits it right, but I’m a bit worried about him. I think he’s had a couple seizures during the last month or so, gets exited by bloodworm (or something else), swims in extremely uncontrolled manner, hitting things and all, and then falls at the bottom and breathes heavily. He comes to within a couple minutes and acts normally after a brief recovery (goes after food and all  if there is any left). So I don’t think it affects his quality of life too much yet, but I can hardly feed him anticonvulsants... So if he gets worse, it’s bye Rannanjarvi.

Some slo-mo bubble vibes