Author: Andy Pierce

Learning about planted freshwater aquaria and WordPress.

Week Aqua S-series light first impressions

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I have been using an Asta 20 nano LED light on the Shrimphaus, and that’s been fine but it’s a point source light so there’s not much illumination at either the back (shaded by the river) or the right side (furthest away).  Today I swapped that out for a new Week Aqua S400 Pro aquarium light.

What’s in the box?

Week Aqua S400pro
everything from the box

The S-series comes in three different light lengths:  321mm, 421mm or 471mm.  I went for the middle length S400 model.

You get the light itself with a solid yet lightweight aluminium shell powered through a generous length cord, voltage adaptor and your choice of plug ending.  You also get a milled aluminium mounting bracket with six polypropylene (?) screws to hold it all together.  The light mounts on an aluminium pole which comes with a silicone O-ring to hold the light in place.  Finishing up the package are two plastic zip ties for cord neatness, and a QC control certificate.

You do NOT get any form of instructions either for assembly, mounting or usage.  Fortunately it’s all pretty intuitive how to put it together.

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Planting Salvinia minima

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I have been considering floating plants for a while, but they always looked kind of big and dangly and nasty to me which has put me off.  Then the Aquatic Plant Society had a get together at Aquarium Gardens and I saw this pretty new (to me) much smaller floating plant from Tropica:  Salvinia minima. I picked up a pot to try it out in the Shrimphaus.

It’s a floating plant, so “planting” Salvinia minima is dead-easy.  Starting with an in vitro pot, you rinse off the media it came with and then I floated it in a bowl of clean water and forked it over into the Shrimphaus.

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Bigger disposable CO2 tanks

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I have been using 600 g disposable CO2 cylinders to provide CO2 gas to the Fireplace Aquarium and that has been pretty good.  One cylinder lasts two or three months and they are a reasonably unobtrusive size.  Recently though I have been going big.  Welder’s Warehouse has a two extra-large cylinders combo deal.  Each cylinder holds 1300 g of CO2.  Surprisingly, the larger cylinders are not much taller than the 600 g cylinders I have been using so they don’t take up massively more space.  The other nice feature is they come with a flat bottomed plastic collar base and stand stably upright on their own.  The smaller cylinders just have the round bottom and so need to lean up against something which is always a bit of a worry.

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Big rescape

Posted on by Andy Pierce

I like the look of the Cryptocoryne nevelli and the Schismatoglottis prietoi as well, but it seemed like they were on the wrong sides of the tank.  The C. nevelli got larger than I thought it would so blocked the view of the Alternanthera reineckii ‘Mini’ and the recently re-attempted Alternanthera reineckii ‘Rosanervig’.  (Must… get… Alternanthera… to work!)  Meanwhile the shorter S. Prietoi left a lot of empty vertical space on the right side.

A good amount of the original biOrb ceramic filter media was pulled out by the roots of the plants being extracted.  I replaced the lost volume with aquasoil.  Pulling up major amounts of plant mass like this always releases lots of fine debris and it took several large water changes and repeated cycles with the portable filter to get these particulates cleared up.

Shoaling ember tetras

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Ember tetras are a great little fish with lots of colour and activity.  They are a ‘shoaling’ fish which means they like to stay together in a loose group – this is different from ‘schooling’ fish which exhibit a tight formation with highly synchronised movements.  Filed under “there’s always one”, we have this one ember, named ‘Jerry’, who does not shoal with the other embers and instead hangs out by him(her?)self on the opposite side of the tank.  The shoaling embers are generally in the upper left of the Fireplace Aquarium, whilst Jerry is inevitably on the middle/upper right side.  Why Jerry doesn’t go along with the group is a mystery but it’s very consistent behaviour and always from the same fish, and if I’m honest, it’s not without its charm.

The embers replaced chili rasboras in the Fireplace Aquarium.  The embers are big enough not to get eaten by the rummys or the barbs – this was less true for the slightly smaller chilis. 

Planting Cryptocoryne nurii

Posted on by Andy Pierce
Crypt nurii in vitro plantlets
 in vitro plantlets

Sold by Tropica in a tissue culture cup as ‘Cryptocoryne nurii‘, this small crypt is doing very well in the Fireplace Aquarium.  Unlike the smaller bright green leaves in the tissue culture form, the new growth submersed form leaves are larger and have a very pretty mottled dark green and dusky rose colouration.  Sometimes this plant is sold under the name ‘Rose Maiden’ which does seem suitable.

I was hoping for a cryptocoryne with some red colouration but after the disappointment of pretty much no red at all on Cryptocoryne wendtii ‘flamingo’ , and a prominent striped light and dark green pattern but no actual pink on Cryptocoryne petchii pink confidence was not very high…

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Planting Riccardia chamedryfolia

Posted on by Andy Pierce
Riccardia chamedryfolia pieces
Riccardia tissue culture pieces

According to the British Bryological Society (naturally), Riccardia chamedryfolia, also known as ‘Jagged Germanderwort’ is a liverwort with a thalloid growth form and is naturally occurring in most parts of the world including commonly in the UK.  There is a lot more biology-talk about liverworts vs. mosses vs. hornworts that I don’t understand, but I did manage to pick up an in vitro pot grown by Dennerle from Aquarium Gardens and thought I’d give it a try growing on hardscape.  The secret hope is always to find something that will be able to grow in the Shrimphaus river even though many, many plants have failed there.  It turns out that always wet with flowing water slate chippings exposed to typically low humidity indoor air is a quite austere environment.  Still, hope springs eternal and I thought I could try out both the Shrimphaus river and also that wedged into cracks of the Fireplace Aquarium mountain would make a nice effect.

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Rummy-nosed tetras eat chili rasboras!

Posted on by Andy Pierce
rummy eating chili
caught in the act

Well crap!  I had high hopes for the chili rasboras.  When I purchased the initial 8 of them I specifically asked the person at the local fish store whether rummy nosed tetras would eat the chili rasboras and was assured that they would not.  Then I put the chilis in and only counted 7.  I picked up 6 more from Riverpark Aquatics (mail order from Scotland!) to boost up the numbers a bit, so 13 altogether, but then after a few more days, back down to 6.  No sign of any bodies anywhere.  Then after what seemed like a particularly frenzied fish flake feeding session a few days later, down to just 2 chilis and I see… hanging out of the face of one of the rummys… the back half of a chili!

After some struggles the rummy couldn’t seem to finish the job and barfed up the now-deceased chili.  That body also subsequently went missing.  As a desperation measure, I fished out the last two chilis and transferred them to the Shrimphaus.  One of the last two seemed poorly and now I only see the one left.

I also later discovered a deceased rummy… perhaps an over-sized chili meal did it in?  That body also subsequently disappeared – pretty sure torn apart and eaten.

To be fair, I think the juvenile chilis are just slightly larger than proper eating size and maybe if they had grown up together with juvenile rummys things could have worked out better.  Seems fully adult rummys and juvenile chilis together is not a good idea.  Peaceful community tank, my ass!  It’s a savage world in there.

Hopefully slightly larger alternative fish…

I’m trying ember tetras now as a replacement for the chilis.  The embers are quite a lot stouter than the chilis were and so far neither the rummys nor the barbs have gone after them in a food-like manner.  Fingers crossed…

Chili rasboras – great little fish!

Posted on by Andy Pierce

There’s a new addition to the Fireplace Aquarium – chili rasboras!  I’ve been thinking there’s room for some more fish residents and the chili rasboras at LFS seemed to tick all the right boxes.

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Tearing out the epiphytes

Posted on by Andy Pierce

Two months after the massive pruning of the Bucephalandra caterina and the Anubias nana ‘Pinto’ in an effort to control the black beard algae (BBA) that was colonising them, the battle is lost.  Further, inspection showed the BBA had thoroughly colonised the Cryptocoryne parva as well.

I have come around to thinking of BBA as a symptom rather than a problem – in other words the BBA indicates something is wrong that needs to be addressed.  In this case I believe it is a build-up of organic waste in the aquarium, and also perhaps the natural life cycle of some of the plants.  The caterina was planted 2.5 years ago and the parva 2 years ago where a gradual loss of fitness means they have a hard time fighting off algae.

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