Table top vivarium

This small version vivarium looks cute. I think the measurement is slightly more than 1 footer Length and height and it comes with cover for people who wished to keep frog inside this vivarium. I took this photos from Green Chapter for future reference, in case I needed a mini eco-system like this for my dining table.

Lisbon Oceanarium

Came across this youtube.  I hope there were many Takashi Amano in this world. His projects are always awesome.



Seeing the whole video makes my heart tickle and I just love the music too. Am I lured into starting a new tank soon?...hmmm

MY HIBERNATION

I nearly forgot my blog existed. Too many issues have cropped up over several months - personal issues, minor home renovations, rejected an overseas assignment, adjusting to new contract job, all of them put so much toll on me I actually - sold off my previous aquascape and shrimps and focus on what was at hand in life.   Here were some of the items I sold among many flora & fauna..

Huge bunch of African Bolbtis

Eheim 2213

Massive Fire Red Shrimps

Petite Nana

Parva

Many others...

I must say, many of my buyers walked away smiling with good bargain...especially my well grown and colorful Bucephalandra.

I guess, that is life. my losses is always another person gain. However, in aquarium hobby, we cannot be too calculative and hope whoever bought my items, took well care of them.

Female Betta

Christmas season is around the corner and I thought  red/bright color fishes might just bring out the festive mood into the earthly-toned Biotope sqaurium.  A couple of non-agressive colorful betta came to mind as an easy choice. They are easy fish, and I will add different color to this group if I spotted any in LFS.

This is lavender female betta, not blue in color.. 

Royal blue betta

Purple betta with red fins

Merry Christmas!

Hygrophila Pinnatifida (Part 2)

In August I bought this plant which I thought to be the real Hygrophila Pinnatifida.

May be I was wrong, the above plant could be non-aquatic in nature known as Dragon's Breath (Hemigraphis Reponda "Acanthus").  The following was how it turns out after 4 months being introduced into my tank. The leaves are narrower and not growing rapidly. The stem became a long sparse stick, leaves yellowed and dropped. Not much of a result.














Today, I saw something similar but greener. This could be the real Hygrophila Pinnatifida I was looking for instead of the above magenta color type.Almost the same price I paid for the purplish plant  but this huge green specimen is worth the buy.

 

Will keep an update on its growth months later. *keeping fingers crossed again*

Marina 360 Aquarium

The first time I ran my eyes on this Hagen's kit was at a pet shop in Thomson shopping mall. I fell in love with it instantly (for loving round/circular tank so much) but the rediculous high price was killing my interest. I than did a google search for the actual retail price, where this product was invented (in canada?). I went on a hunt in LFS during each visit. Fortunately, I managed to grab one at a LFS which I figured (with cheapest freight rate factored in) was close to the retail price sold internationally.  With this new aquisition, I can delete the exhorbitant BIORB, which never seems to go away, in my wish list.. Thus, I pampered myself with early christmas gift (my last christmas pressent was at least 5 years ago or even longer, too distant to remember what it was). Anyway, enough of self-pity whinning, let me briefly introduce this 360 Marina Aqaurium Kit,

INTRODUCTION
The cyclinder, made of cyrstal clear acrylic, measures 10 inches tall by 10 inches diameter and run on 9w Led light (and 4.8w moon light).The kit has a cover too!!!

Compare the size of this Marina 360 degree aquarium kit to my recent BOYU 180 degree aquarium, you can see their difference in size.

The aquarium has a movable internal filter cum lightings cum switch. Thus there is no messy wiring except a single cable that connects all electrical components together.   Let me pull out the actual pump from the white casing, it has two interchangeable bio pads which can be bought separately at LFS.

I tilt over the filter casing to review the lighting part. The black round socket is where the led lights are located. The base filter casing has tiny holes to prevent larger debris from getting sucked into filter.

Pump output is 150L/Hr (very quiet)

The whole plug-n-play  kit also came with each bottle of Cycling and Anti-Chlorine solutions, all well thought out by the manufacturer.

 












NOW THE PLANTING PART
Having seen how the  structure works and limitation of tank size. I have decided not to go for any form of substrate even though there was 2 inches gap, between the base of tank and filter, catered for this purpose. Reason being:- I wanted more space in the tank and also facilitate cleaning up dirts without messing with substrate.  However, this does not mean I cannot create a "heavily planted tank" out of limited choice - low tech and soil-less plants.

I took some plants from my other heavily planted tank to  create the followings:-

  .







Front row: Rock bridge covered with weeping moss, topped with petite nana. These were salvage items from my old broken tank.
Back row (leaning against the filter); Long wood tied with needle fern, weeping most, petite nana and a final touch of Bucephalandra. (think wabi-kusa style).  Flanked by two blocks of Windelov fern.

My planting style may look quite compact inside this small aquarium but it isn't.  Here is the top view of the tank and you will see there is actually more space for fishes (haven't decided yet) to manuever on top space, around the plants and under the "planted bridge".

Thus, this is the planted 10 inches nano tank looks like..

Fauna in mind are...:

Couple pieces of Amano and Malayan shrimps. Simply, this aquarium is going to be low maintenance for night light purpose..


Once again, enjoy!!!

Robber in my Shrimp tank

Shrimps happily feeding on Rummy Nose.

Suddently, two fat Kulih Loach came out to drag the dead fish into its cave.

The fish dissppeared deep into the "tunnel" under guard by loach.  No more sharing of food.