New Stuff

A bit has happened since the last post. Mumma Rusty has finally got her figure back and is eating like she has had a mouth full of babies for the last month...she has put them somewhere unknown like last time.

Up late one night I decide to remove the charcoal from the Heto filter, so I unhook it, take it into the bathroom to disgorge the contents only to find a dead cichlid in it and a just alive Pakistani Loach. Three days before my grandson (3) had been over and knocked off the inlet filter. The poor cichlid and the Pakistani had gone up there and got caught in the filter. Luckily there is space at the top of the filter or they both would have died. This is my first cichlid fatality out of more than 70 something cichlids and wasn't even bloat or anything, just bad luck on the part of the cichlid. Hard to tell what the poor thing had been since when it died it turned a nondescript grey colour but I think it was a Cobalt.

Fortunately for the Pakistani there had been something for it to eat during its stay in the filter. I got him out and though he was very pale and lethargic he has now made a full recovery and is back to being his intrusive self.

In the outside tanks my bristlenose brigade have finally made inroads into the algae problem...considering there are 13 of the little fellas you would think the tank would be sparkling by now but they were very small so I suppose I shouldn't expect them to work too hard with their tiny mouths. Mind you, the ones I have spotted have got so much bigger and have increased from being 25mm long to 35mm long in the short time they have been in there. The biggest one from the 4' tank indoors has grown to 60mm which is also good.

In the lower tank the Tropheus collection are in full energy and have taken to their changes really well. One of the little T.dubosi has started changing colour slightly and is this weird combo of spotty and barred. They are growing really well with all of them showing a good increase in size. The T. Bemba are the larger of the two types and the more aggressive with one being the definite Kingpin of the tank. The dubosi do seem to be catching up fast though in regards to size.

My Marbled Bristlenoses are getting very bristly which is awesome, not that I get to see much more than a couple of tails as they both have niches they hide in with only their tails hanging out. They popped out for a minute the other day before realising that they were being watched and scuttling back in to their hideouts. Mr Gibbi Rex hung out on the glass for a few minutes yesterday showing off his spots before magically disappearing which is interesting as he is by far the biggest thing in the 4' tank and yet is the best at hiding out even at 15cm, personally I think he has a dimensional warp he hides in...

Tank readings:
30L Community Tank
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 1 (probably owing to not having done water change yet)
Nitrate 40
pH 6.6 (not sure where acidity has come from)

200L Malawi Tank
Ammonia 0
Nitrite <0.5
Nitrate 80 (will put in Nitra-zorb to lower may have been caused by the addition of a small amount of Mala green treatment affecting bacteria and a dead fish in the filter)
pH 7.5

300L Malawi Tank with crushed coral substrate
Ammonia 0
Nitrite <0.5
Nitrate 40
pH 7.8
GH 14 (250.6ppm)
KH 9 (161.1ppm)

175L Tropheus Tank with plants and crushed coral substrate
Ammonia 0
Nitrite <0.5
Nitrate 20
pH 8.5
GH 15 (268.5ppm)
KH 10 (179ppm)

I needed to retest the pH on the 300 and 175L tanks as the pH looked to be too low for the hardness tests (they initially read 7.4 and 7.5 which I thought was wrong after doing the hardness- the above testing was after using a pH tester capable of reading higher than 7.6) results are too variable on the colour chart of a test that can only read up to 7.6

Nitrate levels higher in tanks than previous, possibly owing to slightly more feeding, will lower feeding rate in all tanks to compensate and perform additional water change tomorrow followed by regular change Sunday. I keep the water temperature at about 22-24C to accommodate possible fluctuations of Nitrogen.