No, it's not full-time, but yes, it does take a lot of time. The beauty of my situation is that I can take the time when I need to, I'm not tied to a 9 to 5 job. I live in the Guest House that I manage, I organise my staff to allow me time when I want it, so it's an ideal situation.
At the moment the numbers are around 140ish, with new mollies, platties, guppies, pearls, danios and perhaps neons due soon. I am busy building another breeding tank unit to cope with the expectant mums and will hopefully be offering the new arrivals for sale in the next few months.
All the designing of new filters etc is to make the system more self-sufficient and if the aquaponics garden does work, then I can extend it to the other tanks and almost eliminate the need for water changing. The other thing I am in the process of doing, is adding under-gravel filtration to all tanks, as over the past few months I have had a lot more issues with cloudy water and mini-cycles in the tanks that don't have UG than the ones that do. Although many might disagree with me on this, I have always found that in the long term, UG is effective and simple. I can live with having to dig out the wet/dry vacuum once a year to clean the UG out, but I am having problems with continually changing and cleaning filters.
Everything has a place in this hobby, and powerhead filters are very good, but they are expensive when you have to buy more than one, and with the setup that I have here, they are just not viable. I really should have planned a sump into this lot and had all the water filtered in one large sump system. It would have saved me a lot of problems. However, I haven't got the room for one and having to build it outside would cause even more problems and involve taking all the tanks down at the same time, drilling glass and putting lots of plumbing in, so it's not gonna happen yet!
But I have still got things that I can do, and I am intending to do as much as I can to make this room the best I can.
I dont understand how your angels are going from one tank to another it looks like they're floating between the two. it doesnt even look like theyre in water* when theyre between the two because you can see where the bottom tank begins beneath the top one
also from how your saying how much is in the chinese 19 gallon tank it looks to be overstocked. 1 inch per gallon
The chinese tank is slightly overstocked on that scale, but the water perameters are fine and the fish are quite happy. I believe that if something works, then there's no nedd to change it, and this tank has been happy for months now. I do a regular weekly 20% water change and everyones quite comfortable.
The two tanks are now basically one, and the flute that goes into the lower tank connects the water and allows the fish free passage between the two. Looks like magic, but it's really quite simple!
No-one has ever said that they can't get on, just not been tried I guess. If you watch the videos you'll actually see that the angels rule, despite the size of the goldfish!
There are also 4 small sharks and two ancistrus in there, and it's fun watching when one of the angels takes it into his head to play with ugly, the female ancistrus. He will hover around her and peck at her fins, which she will ignore for so long, then when she's had enough, she'll charge at him and he runs! it's really quite fun to watch them all intermixing and socialising together.
the ancistrus also go up to the top tank and have a good old munch every so often. Even big ugly, who is around 4 years old now will go up and have his fill from all the glass and ornaments up there!
One of the rainbow sharks is boss of the sharks too. He'll take great pride in chasing the others round the tank, and they dive straight up the flute out of his way! (For some reason, he's never been up there)
Out of all my tanks, this one is my favorite. It gives us so much fun to watch them all, but this tank faces the sofa, so is the natural target for viewing.
The top tank, or water column as I call it has increased the capacity from 40 gallons to 62 gallons and the aquaponics garden is making great improvements to the water quality. I have never seen the water so clear and clean! I will reccommend the garden to anyone who has a mind to make one, the method is very simple and the effects already are very noticable. I have never had strong filtration in this tank and now I don't need it either.
The Fluval will be coming out as soon as I am ready to put it into another tank, as it's now dormant and unused. The air filters are starting to stay much cleaner and I really think that they may also be able to come out later, when the garden becomes fully grown.
If you haven't been watching the threads, check out the progress on the aquaponics garden, it really is amazing, although I say it myself! You can find the thread here.
BTW, I did until yesterday have danios in with this lot, but I was getting concerned that the goldfish are growing so quickly that the danios would soon become food, so I removed them last night and put them in the QT for now, until the Greek tank has settled with it's new filter. they will then go in there along with a few other fish, just not sure which yet!
Well, we are on the way towards 200 now! The angels laid eggs yesterday and they have been moved into one of the breeder tanks to hatch, the platty gave birth to at least 7 babies, (first time), the molly is just about to give birth again, one of the guppies is ready to birth for the first time, another of the angel pairs is preparing it's slate...... Things are working brilliantly! Must build some more breeding tanks quick!
Well, we are on the way towards 200 now! The angels laid eggs yesterday and they have been moved into one of the breeder tanks to hatch, the platty gave birth to at least 7 babies, (first time), the molly is just about to give birth again, one of the guppies is ready to birth for the first time, another of the angel pairs is preparing it's slate...... Things are working brilliantly! Must build some more breeding tanks quick!
naa.... can't be bothered with that, and haven't got time either, with all the DIY projects on the go!
BTW, the Aquaponics garden is now maturing very well and has successfully lowered the nitrates to almost 0. I have added more plants and brought the other side of the garden into play. The water in my 4' is now being used to top up and change the other tanks, their water is being re-cycled through the 4' to be cleaned and the circle is now complete. (Complicated, but it works!)
And, it doesn't stop there...... The second pair of angels laid today, and the molly finally decided that it was time to give birth to her next brood. (So far I have managed to count 28!). The guppy is still sitting on hers, but that has to be iminent now.....
NEW COUNT!!!!!!
Just transferred the Molly fry to the breeder tank and managed to catch 68 out of a total of 76. (Needed to move them before I put the male back into the livebearers tank) Not a bad brood for second batch.
At last, after 9 weeks, the 8' tank has finally arrived. It turned up yesterday and we put it outside on the yard so that we could get the back painted before bringing it into the house. I did the painting last night, after the sun went down and this morning, moved it onto the shelf.
Now we have to finish the lighting canopy, put the filtration, substrate and plants in and add the 100 or so gallons of water!
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