Total rehash

[ClownLurch]

There are so many differences in this area. I used to work for a company called Wacker selling the rammers that compacted the earth back into trenches dug by the water boards. While not overly concerned with water quality I got to meet all the water board hierarchy. There was Northumbrian Water for large swathes of the area, then Sunderland and South Shields Water Board and Hartlepool Water Company in the immediate east coast areas. I went to school in Barnard Castle as it's mentioned but for the life of me I can't say anything about water from there although the River Tees flows through it and it's fed from the moors above it across to the Penrith area and including Cow Green Reservoir where I spent many a day fly fishing. High Force waterfall is a tourist attraction that I visited many times and I do remember that the water was pretty heavily stained so I guess the water locally would have been acidic.
I do know that the water for the Peterlee and immediate area is taken from underground lakes. Castle Eden Burn that flows between Peterlee and Castle Eden underneath the A19 and down into the sea at Horden is scarcely populated in plants. The burn actually has a footpath running alongside it for much of it's length and at the top end I know of one point where a "hole" exists in the limestone bed and water runs down into it to an underground cavern. At least I suppose there's a cavern but it is a fact that there are underground natural reservoirs. I sent a message years ago to a caving club to see if they would visit and perhaps open up the hole and take a shufti. Didn't get a response though.
Sunderland and South Shields Water Board took water from the Wear and Tyne and also some from Northumbria Water in the same area as Peterlee. No idea where the water from Hartlepool originated but I suspect it was drawn from similar underground reservoirs and perhaps the Tees.
I live alongside an offshoot from Castle Eden Burn down from the Apollo Pavilion and that burn is stuffed full of sticklebacks which is why I'm where I'm at now having had to catch some for my 4 year old grandson (now coming on 7). The water taken from there is high PH and with a very high PPM on my TDS meter. No good for me to use in my own tanks.
Oh, the pond at Apollo Pavilion is absolutely disgusting. It's changed drastically over the the years. All the bairns used to be able to play in it once over. I actually walked from one side to the other with my Rottweiler one extremely hot day just to cool us both off. It's only a little more than knee deep. The water was pretty clear, as is the burn that runs into and out of it, however when the Pavilion was under threat of being demolished the council did a makeover instead. The planted bullrushes at the point where the water enters the pond. It was supposed to be to control the algae build up in summer that overtook the pond and stunk to high heaven. I told them it was useless but they went a head anyway. The pond is no badly overgrown with bullrushes even creeping out onto the grassed areas running alongside and watercress is now spreading like wildfire right through the pond. I walked past the other day and saw a dead rat along with a shopping trolley, loads of floating bottles and beer cans, footballs, traffic cones etc and it's still full of algae. The sticklebacks are still there in thousands though as are many big black leaches.
So there you go with a potted history of my own area's water problems.
I'll just have to keep on with bottled water for now.

I often wonder now what the water in the now goneDurham coalfield ”pit pond” that we threw our excess guppy population into back in my early 70s school days into was like.
It was obviously fenced off for safety reasons but they could be thrown over the fence into the water easily. Winter would’ve seen them off. They couldn’t be given away as everyone had buckets of them to swap or get rid of. It was madness to be honest.
Mrs Lurch and the feller in my avatar would like to see females added to the four male guppy’s we’ve got but the numbers reqd would immediately take up too much stockage that I want to use for Long Fin White Clouds and Medakas......then there’d be no room for water in the tank a few months later.
Im now definitely testing parents water next time I’m up there. SR3. May even do the rounds and test a few other families in case we ever move back.

 

[Lynnzer]

I often wonder now what the water in the now goneDurham coalfield ”pit pond” that we threw our excess guppy population into back in my early 70s school days into was like.
It was obviously fenced off for safety reasons but they could be thrown over the fence into the water easily. Winter would’ve seen them off. They couldn’t be given away as everyone had buckets of them to swap or get rid of. It was madness to be honest.
Mrs Lurch and the feller in my avatar would like to see females added to the four male guppy’s we’ve got but the numbers reqd would immediately take up too much stockage that I want to use for Long Fin White Clouds and Medakas......then there’d be no room for water in the tank a few months later.
Im now definitely testing parents water next time I’m up there. SR3. May even do the rounds and test a few other families in case we ever move back.

The old pit ponds are long gone. In fact since my childhood even some larger lakes have disappeared. I mean those that would be around the size of a couple of football fields. What still remains though are the old pit workings which are flooded well underground and perhaps even deeper than the natural water underground reservoirs. Most pit workings still have the machinery in them and are heavily polluted with all sorts of nasty stuff including I believe, arsenic and oodles of oil. It's something no-one seems to want to bring to the notice of the Environment Agency or whoever it is that keeps tabs on these things. Another case of letting people suffer the consequences of lack of care and control. I can't figure out how anyone could actually fix the problem though, as some of these pit workings are miles under the sea.

 

[ClownLurch]

Yeah. It’s a can that’s been kicked down the road for years. A few of my mates worked at Wearmouth, Shields, Dawdon, Seaham etc I remember them saying it’d cost too much to bring stuff up so it was just left down there. I’m amazed the football ground was built on top of wearmouth. All those people jumping around when a goals scored I expect it to dissapeared into the ground! Not that there’s manny goals scored over there these days even before C19.

 

[Lynnzer]

Talking of goals, I believe I'm now somewhere near to achieving my own, as per the topic here.
I took all the "excess" fish to the LFS yesterday and in return I came back with a good number of plants to add to the tank. I can't remember the last time I went there without coming back with fish.

The Purple Emperors and Asian Rummynose are having the time of their lives. I'm a bit peeved though as all the Rummynose seem to be male. I really wanted to breed them. Seems as if the top of the chain suppliers don't want us to breed them to keep the market to themselves. I really must get a couple at least.
The Purple Emperors seem to be a mix of male/female. The way to check is by looking at eye colour but hey.... Such small and active fish doesn't give much hope of that. There are some that aren't as bright though and I believe they may be female.
Now, a question on plants. Those I came away with were just taken from a new delivery with no idea of what they were. No labels on them at all and the LFS checkout lass didn't know anything to help. The buyer wasn't in store.

What I need to know now is how best to keep them alive, supposing they are OK with my water. I got a couple of rooted ones but the rest are in a sponge wrapped round with a lead anchor to sink them. No roots, only clippings.
I have't done much with them yet as I think I might need more substrate, but the clipping ones must be able to get nutition from the water I suppose. How best to do that?
I guess root tabs won't do much as there aren't any roots. The Co2 bubble machine is switched off from previous advice and the fertiliser I was going to use isn't recommended.
So what now? I want a good growth to give the fish a home to breed in, in a community tank. I will of course also be using a small breeding tank later for some of them.
The attached picture shows the plants and a couple of artificial are still in there just to give some extra shelter until the live plants grow. The inside of the glass has some white filamentous stuff on it but this is going to cleaned in the morning to clear it off.

 

[AdoraBelle Dearheart]

Talking of goals, I believe I'm now somewhere near to achieving my own, as per the topic here.
I took all the "excess" fish to the LFS yesterday and in return I came back with a good number of plants to add to the tank. I can't remember the last time I went there without coming back with fish.

The Purple Emperors and Asian Rummynose are having the time of their lives. I'm a bit peeved though as all the Rummynose seem to be male. I really wanted to breed them. Seems as if the top of the chain suppliers don't want us to breed them to keep the market to themselves. I really must get a couple at least.
The Purple Emperors seem to be a mix of male/female. The way to check is by looking at eye colour but hey.... Such small and active fish doesn't give much hope of that. There are some that aren't as bright though and I believe they may be female.
Now, a question on plants. Those I came away with were just taken from a new delivery with no idea of what they were. No labels on them at all and the LFS checkout lass didn't know anything to help. The buyer wasn't in store.

What I need to know now is how best to keep them alive, supposing they are OK with my water. I got a couple of rooted ones but the rest are in a sponge wrapped round with a lead anchor to sink them. No roots, only clippings.
I have't done much with them yet as I think I might need more substrate, but the clipping ones must be able to get nutition from the water I suppose. How best to do that?
I guess root tabs won't do much as there aren't any roots. The Co2 bubble machine is switched off from previous advice and the fertiliser I was going to use isn't recommended.
So what now? I want a good growth to give the fish a home to breed in, in a community tank. I will of course also be using a small breeding tank later for some of them.
The attached picture shows the plants and a couple of artificial are still in there just to give some extra shelter until the live plants grow. The inside of the glass has some white filamentous stuff on it but this is going to cleaned in the morning to clear it off.

View attachment 117788

I think some of them do have roots, unwrap the plant weight and remove the white foam stuff before planting, and I'm pretty sure the swords and vallis will have roots at least. You don't want to leave that on when they're planted for sure. I can see a few amazon swords, the one on the left, tall long blades, is a valliseneria, you'll want to plant that at the back or side/back as it gets very tall, most of the swords get big too. Both vallis and swords are heavy root feeders, so they will need root tabs eventually in order to really thrive.

The one at the back centre with huge round-ish leaves looks like a really nice anubius, which if I'm right and it is anubius, mustn't be planted in the substrate, but needs to be attached to decor, it takes its nutrients from the water column, and the rhizome will rot if it's buried. Anubius will tend to grow algae if it's under bright light since it's so slow growing, it will do better if it's shaded, so consider adding some floating plants like amazon frogbit, water lettuce or salvinia (fish love these too) and putting the anubius under the floating plant, or underneath the vallis once that has grown in and begins to trail across the surface.

The swords look as though they might have been grown emersed, which means they'll die back a bit as they switch over to their submersed form. So don't panic if the leaves turn brown and it looks like the plant is dying, this is normal as they change over, and they'll come back. Both vallis and swords can take a few months to settle in a new place, so be patient with them and give it time before assuming they've failed.

For proper, positive ID's and better guidance, if you could move them all to the front and take closer photos of each one, then make a thread in the plant ID section of the forum, more people will see it and be able to ID them for sure for you, and probably tell you the exact species too! Nice selection of plants though, really healthy looking!

 

[Wills]

Tricky to ID all of them like that you might need to photograph them one by one to get a good idea of them Some plants when you buy them dont have roots they are just stems but thats ok as they will grow roots over time. These kind of plants you can take clippings of and replant them so you can fill an area out over time with them.

Now you have plants in there I would recommend getting root tab fertilisers and a liquid fertiliser and work out how much you need to dose on a daily or weekly basis (the root tabs will last longer).

Now you have cut back the stocking figures you could consider restarting the Co2 injection. You could go down the route of root tabs in the substrate with the sand you have or you could change it for an active substrate like Tropica Aquarium Soil. And also look at a higher output light unit?

But I dont think you have any plants I can see there that will specifically need Co2 so you could do well with a low energy set up and just use the fertilisers and your current lighting.

Wills

 

[Lynnzer]

Thanks guys.
I added a FEMALE Asian Rummynose in there today. The LFS had a single one when I called in. I have a bottle of Easy-Life Profito fertiliser (UK spelling) now so will give it a go with that. Perhaps a very low Co2 bubble count as well for 6 hours a day. Maybe a bubble every 2 seconds.

 

[Lynnzer]

How about these gorgeous little fish then. Red Neon Blue-eye Rainbowfish. I think they will complete my stock. I have 20 coming BUT as eggs. I have a spare 12 litre tank to use to hatch them in and get them to a large enough size before moving them in with the other fish. I'll be splitting them into 2 groups if they all hatch, one for my tank in this topic and another for my nano fish tank to go with the CPD's etc.
Now the thing is, this is a new venture that I need guidance on. Eggs don't need a 12 litre tank so I'm going to hang a breeding net inside to keep them in one spot. Even then I'm wondering if that's going to be too much. Then after hatching they'll need infusoria but it seems stupid to add it to the whole tank or even into the breeding net as it'll just seep through.
Likewise in the nest step up in size I have both baby brine shrimp and vinegar eels on the go to feed them but again dropping them into the tank would seem wasteful as the fry would be unlikely to find them all. So what I need now are suggestions on how to do this.
I do intend to breed these when they become of age but getting that far is my immediate priority so if someone has experience of a similar project it would be great to hear about it


View attachment 117538

Well that little adventure didn't go well. The padded package of eggs arrived with a split end on the bag and a soggy end. The inside had two packets supposedly with 10 eggs in each but none were apparent however I had no idea how small they would be and whether or not they would be transparent so I just soaked the packets in my breeding net. I also have a usb microscope that was used and for the life of me I couldn't see anything that may be an egg. I gave it over a week and contacted the buyer who saw the pictures of the delivered package and agreed to send more eggs. Hopefully they'll be delivered today. The photo of the packet has little black dots around the soggy tear that must have been the eggs that were somehow squeezed out.
So today will another start with hatching these.

Now, my purchase of a PH meter is showing some interesting things. I have it fully calibrated now and my tapwater shows at 7.00 bang in line with normal expectations. The funny thing is that rainwater in a clean jug left out overnight is at 9.1. It has a ppm of 68 for GH which is sort of expected for water from the heavens.
9.1 PH though? Those people who advocate using rainwater can't have tested it.