A Jewel of a Tank

[andrewss]

haha

[Silmarwen]

Aahh, this tank is so incredibly beautiful.

[davrx]

Originally Posted by Silmarwen

Aahh, this tank is so incredibly beautiful.

Thank you

[davrx]

I didn't like the looks of the first light so I made some changes. Got better sockets and a strain relief that I should have had on the original.

[davrx]

I recently obtained this very rare antique aquarium microscope attributed to Collins of London and made c1860. I had never seen one outside of a museum and I got this from the collection of one of the world's foremost authorities on antique microscopes, Professor Yuval Goren, of the Tel Aviv University in Israel so I'm confident that it is an aquarium microscope.

[Silmarwen]

Oh, it's beautiful! I'm so incredibly jealous. How amazing is it that you can find these things...!

[Rob in Puyallup]

Whoa! Awesome tank/tanks and occupants
If only I had the time and money!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S III using Tapatalk 2

[davrx]

Originally Posted by Rob in Puyallup

Whoa! Awesome tank/tanks and occupants
If only I had the time and money!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S III using Tapatalk 2

Thanks, my wife has commented on both and she doesn't like the time or money spent on my current passion. She thinks I should do more mundane chores around the house. When I tell her that I can't let the forum subscribers down she's unconcerned, how rude! Although the saving money, paying off debts part she's probably right but then where's the fun in life if you don't have something that you enjoy doing?

[Rob in Puyallup]

Originally Posted by davrx

Thanks, my wife has commented on both and she doesn't like the time or money spent on my current passion. She thinks I should do more mundane chores around the house. When I tell her that I can't let the forum subscribers down she's unconcerned, how rude! Although the saving money, paying off debts part she's probably right but then where's the fun in life if you don't have something that you enjoy doing?

Exactly... Seven tanks and counting. When I face and "defeat" one challenge, it opens me to a new one.

Have managed to keep and breed cherries,chocolates, tigers, crystals. Working on opae ula, then maybe some Sulawesi species of shrimp. And that's after growing orchids for many years getting many of those to grow and bloom successfully under lights.

Facing and conquering the challenges that our hobbies give us. If it wasn't for them, what would we live for? LOL!

[davrx]

Originally Posted by Rob in Puyallup

Exactly... Seven tanks and counting. When I face and "defeat" one challenge, it opens me to a new one.

Have managed to keep and breed cherries,chocolates, tigers, crystals. Working on opae ula, then maybe some Sulawesi species of shrimp. And that's after growing orchids for many years getting many of those to grow and bloom successfully under lights.

Facing and conquering the challenges that our hobbies give us. If it wasn't for them, what would we live for? LOL!

How true. I've been into plants since I was a little kid. I have old world succulents and terrariums with terrestrial orchids, micro sinningias, etc.. I've had some super rare succulents over the years but sold them all years ago to get into another hobby, collecting and restoring antique radios. I even had one of my plants end up in the Atlanta conservatory. I got to be on the local TV news out of Columbus, Ohio at the Franklin Park Conservatory years ago with my plants and I got one of my radios on the cover of a book and I authored one of the chapters in the book. I'm no longer into the radios and had my collection auctioned off but I got back into the succulents a little bit with a few rarities. I just wish I had a greenhouse, maybe someday. I still have several terrariums but they're becoming overgrown and need some attention. I was also into aquariums as a kid and got back into them a few years ago. I'm a lifelong hobbyist, without them I wouldn't be who I am. My ebay name is even serialhobbyist. I've tried to help my wife understand this but since she has no hobbies other than reading I won't ever be able to get her approval of them. My son is like his Mom but my daughter is into hobbies like me. She has a couple of dart frogs which I helped her get into with one as a Christmas present last year and I set her up with an Opae Ula bowl just like mine. But she lives in Maine so I don't get to see her as often as I'd like.

[davrx]

Well my Cardinals were doing pretty well and reproducing until I rescaped the tank back in Oct. I added two large Seiryu stones and a moss wall. The moss wall didn't do well even though I tried several different varieties of moss. I think the higher temps that Cardinals like, 82-83, in this tank and the alkaline pH aren't the best for moss. It was however, great for some kind of dark green slimy looking growth that started on the moss wall and started spreading to the rocks. The shrimp wouldn't touch it. Over the course of the 4 months after rescaping my Cardinals were all but gone.
So I decided that the stones and moss wall weren't helping them and I rescaped again. This time I used the smaller Seiryu stones like I originally had and also made a little cave for them out of the rocks and added a couple pieces of Mopani wood to the tank. I also added an Anubias nana variegata and decided to only run the Vuppa when necessary (when I notice a film on the surface) as the shrimp seem to be more active when it's off and the water is calm.
I only had three adult Cardinals and two babies up until this week when I added 12 more that I got from Liam.
I just noticed today that I have one female with either very mature eggs under her tail or babies before their release. So I'm hopeful I can rebuild the colony.
I also noticed within the last couple of weeks that I have planaria. I didn't have them before the rescape so I'm guessing they came with some of the moss I bought. I'm going to try using one of the Gush Catch Pens tonight to see if I can get rid of them. I don't want to use any chemicals because I have a nice colony of Tylomelanias with several babies in with the Cardinals and White Orchids (Starry Nights). I'm not sure if planaria are actually harmful to the shrimp but if they attack the babies then they definately need to go. It's hard enough to keep these shrimp and they're expensive enough that I'm not going to allow some flatworms to harm them.

[davrx]

Here's some photos of the latest rescape: