Marc's fish room build

[MarcW]

Although I'm away, I'm keeping an eye on the fish, using my IR camera, I'm hoping the L095 are settling well, a few screen grabs below.

[CoryWally]

Hi Marc, Good idea with the camera. I'm planning to do the same for when I'm away. My CCTV company suggested I just get a cheap doorbell camera for the fish house off Ebay. What kind have you used?

[MarcW]

Hi Mark,

I just use a cheap WiFi night vision camera from Amazon. It took a bit of fiddling to setup, but works well for the cost. It's currently on sale at £30.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sricam-Wireles ... Fi+&sr=8-4

I was considering upgrading to a better camera but this works fine for the price.

Just make sure you have WiFi coverage in your fish room, the foil backed insulation made the signal very weak in my fish room so I had to find a place to put it with a reliable signal.

[bekateen]

Congrats on the first spawn Marc! That's a good way to christen the room.

So are the

L095

and

Otocinclus cocama

tankmates? (Just kidding )

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric! Did you see the oto in the picture, it's on the really tiny piece of zucchini

I figured if the rainbows were spawning I'd leave them to it, any eggs/fry can be a snack for them while I'm away!

When I have time I'll try to raise some up.

[CoryWally]

Hi Marc,
re the camera - Good point about the network connection in the fish house, mine is like a faraday cage when it comes to signals. I should be able to get a network cable in though, so I've ordered one to see how I get on.

Cheers,
Mark.

[MarcW]

I’m a little concerned that my L095 aren’t eating enough, a single 4 inch L128 will eat many times more courgette/zucchini overnight compared to 8, 12 inch long L095! I’m only seeing very small amounts of waste in the tank, in a week, if it were all joined together maybe 4-6 inches of waste in total.

I’ve tried:
Courgette
Mango
Sweet potato
Papaya
Frozen mussel & bloodworm
About a dozen different pellets/sticks/tablets
3 different kinds of Repasy gel foods
I plan to try Squash in the next day or two

They don’t swim around at all during the day, just hide between the wood and the back of the tank. At night they do move around and show some interest in the food, so far I’ve only witnessed them having a small nibble on Courgette, Repashy, and last night a bit of Papaya but nowhere near as much as I would expect, and I can’t be sure it’s more than one fish eating as so little food is being consumed.

One has had slightly sunken eyes for 3 weeks or so now, and the rest look ok.

I have Flubendazole, and am tempted to treat the tank in case worms or other parasites are causing an issue, however I’m wary of doing that as they seem ok, other than not eating much.

They came into the country on 22nd February, the shop held them for 3 weeks, and they have been with me for about 5 weeks, would a 12 inch chunky fish die in 2 months with no food? I don't suppose they would have eaten a whole lot at the exporters either.

Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated, thanks!

[MarcW]

I'm feeling better about the L095's eating now. One more night of offering them papaya and they went crazy for it. They stripped the flesh completely just the skin was left! That seemed to trigger them to eat more of the other foods too, specifically sweet potatoes and courgette.

I have performed about an 80% water change this week, 50% one day then 30% the following day, maybe that encouraged them to eat!

There is plenty of waste in the tank now! Just in case someone with a similar issue is reading this, I didn't worm them, and won't now unless there are obvious signs of them needing it.

Something strange I did notice is that in the areas of sweet potato they have eaten, the flesh was very broken down, almost rotting but not as gooey, however the rest of the potato was still firm. It could be that the shredded bits of potato broke down in the warm water quicker, but I was wondering if they had some sort of enzyme/saliva which accelerated the breaking down of plant matter? Unlikely I guess but it seemed interesting, I've not seen part of food decay like that while the unchewed part remains firm!

One nights consumption

Before and after 2

Before and after

[MarcW]

They seem to be getting bolder now, the photo was with the lights on, a few hours before they were due to go off. I'm still concerned about the sunken eyes on one (to the right in the picture) , but at least I've seen that fish eat!

[Viktor Jarikov]

Couldn't help you any, Marc but I enjoy reading your developing story. Larger fish may take longer time to adjust to new and significantly different water, diet, etc. Plus the stress of changing homes and shipment can have unpredictable consequences. So the delay you witnessed might have had rather trivial causes.

The call of the deworming is a gamble either way. If these fish came from the wild, especially already that large, I'd personally be on the watch for any parasitic symptoms for a long time, perhaps long enough to have become tired of it and just doing a prophylactic treatment anyway.

[MarcW]

Thanks Victor, these are the biggest fish I've kept by far, so hopefully they are just taking a while longer to adjust than smaller fish I have bought before. These are wild caught and were only in the country 3 weeks before I took them home.

I'll give them a few more weeks to see how they get on and may deworm them if any of them still have sunken eyes or look like they may be struggling.

[bekateen]

They look pretty good for me after all.

Good luck, Marc.

Eric

[MarcW]

I'm having a bit of an issue with the sump filtration under my large tank.

All the L095 are eating still is fruit/veg, their favourite is papaya, which unfortunately appears to create a slimy film on the weir comb, blocking it within 24hrs. Luckily it overflows the comb and doesn't stop flow to the sump.

Within the sump, I have 3 sheets of 3 inch thick 10ppi poret foam, then some bio media, followed by another 3 sheets of 3 inch thick 20ppi poret foam.

The first 3 sheets of foam also clog quickly, within 4-5 days, the force of water pushing against/over them causes them to slip over slightly, then within a couple more days the last 3 sheets of foam clog and water just flows over the top!

I am using a filter media bag as a sump sock on the intakes, again this clogs in 24 hours or so and just overflows. Not so good when I'm away for a week with work!

Any ideas? I'm reluctant to try and convert the fish to pellets, etc. by starving them as they are still fairly new and I'm keen to get them well fed and settled.

[Jools]

Is there room to flow across a horizontal surface as a pre-filter? Add shrimp or Ancistrus or re-design?

Jools

[MarcW]

I hadn't thought of a horizontal surface, it's something to try, maybe plastic or stainless mesh of some kind. Maybe I'll try one inside the weir and one at the entry to the sump.

Unfortunately shrimp don't like me, or my water chemistry, I bought 10 cherry shrimp about 2 months ago and have 1 left!

Thanks for the ideas.

[Viktor Jarikov]

The only two things that come to my mind are coarser mats (these are your mechanical filters, if I understand it correctly, the last trio of the more dense ones a polisher?) and/or force the water to go down in the middle of the sump by creating a solid or matted wall for the top half and the egg crate diffuser for the bottom half. The half wall will fight the water just skipping the whole sump over the top and increase your filtration perhaps just enough until you come back and clean and restore.

[MarcW]

Thanks Victor, I've been considering redesigning the sump with some sort of settling chamber or coarser media at the beginning. Not sure I'm ready to do that though, but I suspect at some point I'll need to find the time.

I think it's the papaya which is causing the issue and over time I'll try to phase it out so long as they start to take to other foods.

Thanks again for the ideas, it all helps!

[Jools]

I hadn't thought of a horizontal surface, it's something to try, maybe plastic or stainless mesh of some kind. Maybe I'll try one inside the weir and one at the entry to the sump.

I used a plastic garden riddle with large ceramics in it. Water poured through it and it did clog in the middle but it took ages (months) for it to seriously clog. This took out a lot of the large stuff and provided a good mechanical pre-filter. From time to time I added filter wool on top for a week or so to polish the water.

Jools

[MarcW]

Good idea I'll try that.

Might need to modify the pipework though, as my pipes into the sump have the outlet underwater to try and cut down on noise.

[MarcW]

Just a few quick updates:

I've stopped feeding papaya and the foam mats are no longer clogging.

Unfortunately I came back from a short trip of only 3 nights away, and found a L095 dead with no obvious external signs of illness. They had all seemed to settle in and eat well so I was disappointed by that. I've frozen the fish, and am planning to dissect it to look for parasites in future, and use the results as a guide for treating the rest of the group, if needed.

I've found some free swimming rainbowfish fry, they are so tiny I'm amazed the parents didn't eat them, so I've put them in a separate tank to raise up.

Today I also visited @ridout and his fishroom, to pick up some f1 L082s, they are really stunning fish and I'm looking forward to them growing and hopefully spawning in a few years.

[MarcW]

Unfortunately I've noticed one of the L095 isn't looking too good, it seems to have some sort of plaque in patches and the fin rays are becoming exposed on one of the pelvic fins.

Any ideas? I'm starting to think I should treat them all for parasites, I have been doing 2 water changes per week on this tank, one of 20-25% (what I have left in the IBC after doing a 50% change on the other tanks in the fish room), and the other is a big 50% water change a couple days after.

Thanks for any suggestions/comments.

[MarcW]

I found that fish dead today, apart from the crud on it, it looked healthy ish, I'm surprised it died so quickly.

I have a feeling some may have more parasites than others as a few others are starting to get sunken eyes.

Not wanting to lose any more I have dosed the tank with Flubendazole after 4 days I'll do a 50% water change and dose again.

Pictures attached in case any causes jump out at people.

Yesterday the dorsal membranes looked intact and fine, does this give a clue to the issue, some other fins were eroded in this way before it died, not to this extent though.

[MarcW]

Firstly the remaining 3 L095 are doing well, what I believe to be the female is looking especially chunky!

I've been putting in a rain water collection system, to reduce my reliance on RO, I now have a 1000 liter container with two stages of filtration, mesh on the down pipe, and then some 30ppi poret foam just before the water enters the container. I spent a while thinking about a first flush system, but didn't bother in the end, I'm planning on just disconnecting the down pipe and hosing down the roof after long periods of dry weather.

This system is then connected through the garage wall and into the water room, where I can pump it into an IBC to warm up if needed in the winter, then from there into the tanks.

Slabs laid ready for container, slabs on the right are for my small preformed pond.

Mesh filter on the down pipe.

Poret foam as a last barrier before water enters container.

Return through the wall to water room, and overflow.

I just diverted the whole drain pipe to ensure maximum water collection, then added an overflow for excess water, I don't mind a bit of overflow onto the path, as 1 inch pvc was the biggest I could easily fit, hopefully it will suffice most of the time!

[Jools]

Looks great, what's an IBC?

Cheers,

Jools

[MarcW]

Thanks Jools it's just started to rain here so hopefully I'll wake up to something in there.

The Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC) also ~1000 litres is in the water room at the back of my garage, they are standardised palletised storage, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caged_IBC_tote.

Reasonably priced for such a large container, probably because they are so commonly used/mass produced. Brand new they can be picked up for £130 to £150, and reconditioned (cleaned/serviced) can be had for £70+.

To put it in perspective the black potable 1000 litre tank I have to store rainwater cost over 2 times what an IBC does. Presumably because its not produced in such quantities.

[dw1305]

Hi all,

I've been putting in a rain water collection system, to reduce my reliance on RO, I now have a 1000 liter container with two stages of filtration, mesh on the down pipe, and then some 30ppi poret foam just before the water enters the container. I spent a while thinking about a first flush system, but didn't bother in the end, I'm planning on just disconnecting the down pipe and hosing down the roof after long periods of dry weather.

Quality job.

cheers Darrel

[naturalart]

Thanks for the share. Love the build, especially the move to a linear air pump.

[MarcW]

We had a very long power cut today I'm glad I have the battery back up but today it wasn't enough.

From 07:50 to 17:35 we had no power, the battery bank lasted until 14:30, at which point the eta for restoration had changed a few times but was currently 15:00, so in the meantime I rigged up a 'temporary' solution, I do not recommend anyone try connecting their fish room to their car though . The wood is propping the bonnet up to shelter the battery as it was raining at the time!

After about 45 minutes of my car sitting idling on the drive hooked up to an inverter and a big extension cord the eta changed to 18:00.

I'd had enough by then so went out and bought a small generator, after I'd sorted fuel and oil, then setup the generator it was only running for just over an hour. But at least I have one if needed in future.

The power is only restored by hooking up our sub station to a generator! Although a little larger than mine!

[MarcW]

Last night wasn't much fun, the power went out just after midnight, apparently someone forgot that the generator supplying power to the whole street might need some more fuel! The helpline informed me that the fuel was coming from 65 miles away .

So I got to use my generator again, from about 00:30 to 03:20, as the battery bank hadn't had much chance to charge and only lasted just over 30 minutes, unfortunately I didn't get much sleep, but the fish are doing well .

[Yams]

Haha you seem to be pretty resourceful when it comes to power outages, luckily. Those little L082 are really cute. Love those polka dots.