Tuesday 24 February 2009

Photo Of JD Eggs - Tuesday Morning


As you can see from the difference in the photos, more white eggs are appearing?
Over 50% are none viable now, starting to question why?

Photo Of JD Eggs - Monday Night

Sunday 22 February 2009

Jack Dempsey Spawning!!

Exciting stuff!
Since my last post I have adding to the fish room. all tanks are in the room, and some have fish relocated into them. Namely guppies, Mollies, Kribs, Ancistrus and my newly acquired Jack Dempsey pair (Previously bred pair, expect their spawns kept getting eaten my other tank inhabitants (previous owner had very large fish, aworanas etc).
Reason for this post, and to explain why there are no photos this time is because..

The Jack Dempsey pair (named 'Jack' n 'Jill' by the girlfriend) has started spawning. She is currently laying eggs on a very large broken plant pot and he is circling behind he leaving his milt on the eggs. So far ive only managed to see 100+ eggs as i happened to disturb them whilst going into the fishroom to do the nightly feed.
Figuring ive just disturbed them in the act. Ive left them to it, and all the other fish in there can miss their feeding for tonight (ill feed in the morning)

Once the pair our 'finishing' ill try and get a photo or two.

Well, its late. time for bed.

Sunday 15 February 2009

Breeding Tanks Setup

Very Quick Update, New photos of the Breeding Rank & tanks fitted back into the room.
Insulation have been completed, tanks were ready to go back in. Which is good, as they were blocking half of the halfway.
400w Oil Filled Panel Heater has been fitted to the wall and is running on a ET05 Thermometer Plug Socket. Set at 25c.
Opening the door to the fish room, lets some cold air into the room. reducing the room temperature from a steady 25c to 24.9c. (even 24.8c if left open a bit longer.)

Each of the 8x 23L tanks have been filled & both of the 47L tanks are also full of water. Each has been pre-treated with Water-safe. To remove any metals and chlorine.
A Haliae 8 outlet airpump will power the 8x 23L tanks, however this has yet to be fitted.

Until next time...



Wednesday 11 February 2009

Insulation (Part 2)

Finished off fitting the remaining ThermoWrap Foil Insulation this afternoon.
Prior to stapling the rest, I checked the temperature of the room. Over night it drops below 10c and peaks at around 14c. However this is whilst a 60w standard incandescent light bulb is on. I can account a fair amount of the temperature increase to the heat given off from the 60w bulb in the day.
After completing the foil insulation earlier I left the thermometer in the room to gauge a stable temperature.
With the 60w light on & 2 people in the room, the temperature peaked to 20.7 (and shown signs of a still present gradual increase).
With the 60w on & just myself in the room, the temperature dropped to around 19.5.
With the 60w on & no one in the room, the temperature dropped again to 18.4.
Based on these results it clear to see the body heat from individuals in the room greatly effects the ambient temperature of the room.
As humans are warm blooded and fish are cold blooded, I do not envision the same temperature swing up/down to occur when the room is stocked.
As a final experiment, I left the 60w off and closed the room door (as I did with all experiments). Leaving the room for a good hour, the temperature dropped to 16.3c showing a good indication of further temperature reduction as time passed. I have clocked a minus 0.1 difference in as little as 10 minutes.
Hopefully the 400w panel heater will compensate for the low temperature drop in the evening. I'll update again once the heater is installed.
Some new photos are attached below; Walls have been finished, door and skirting boards. Also the wood work around the door frame to prevent any heat loss.





Sunday 8 February 2009

Insulation

Since my last blog entry, I have been hecticly searching the internet & fish breeding forums for advise or ideas on how to insulate the small cupboard(soon to be fully operational Fish Breeding Room).
Numberous searches yielded result stating I should install cavity wall insulation to the inside of the external walls. For this room, that type of insulation is not suitable, I need to ensure the room can be returned back to normal (if I move etc).
My first idea was cork tiles; place tiles on the walls, ceiling and floor to create a cork box, with the tanks inside the box. Then I thought about how i would return the room back to normal. The cork tiles require gluing to the wall/floor/ceiling and this would great a must larger and messy job if and when it came to removing them.. So back to the drawing board.
On a visit this weekend to get a panel heater(more on this later). I drive past a Homebase store in my town. I quickly changed across 2 lanes.. and when for a nose around.
After finding the correct panel heater I wanted, the Girlfriend noticed some ThermoWrap General Purpose Insulation going half price. They only had 8 rolls left and thats not enough to do normal size loft (so could be why going cheap). So anyway, came home did some researching on the net to find out if I could use this insulation in my fishroom.
Fantastic news, the insulation had been used in the past in USA on some guys Marine setup. He has a large 8x4x3ft display tank in his house, with all the water change tanksx2, and filtering done in a shed in his garden. Pipes where ran 6 meters from the shed to the house and he used ThermoWrap to insulate the pipes and shed.
If its good enough for an expensive marine setup... its good enough for me!

I purchased 4 rolls, which should be plenty to insulate the walls, ceiling and door leading into the room. Not decided about the floor yet..so open to suggestions if you have any?

Here are some photos of the work completed so far, I have stop work because I am have a new electrical board fitted and would prefer the work on installing the new board to be before the insulation is fitted.