After my summer vacation i have not had any focus on my planted aquarium, it has been living on its own.
Yesterday i saw a spot of cyano and thought strange i have never had that before, some minutes passed, then i remembered that i have not filled the nutrition auto-dosing containers since we went on our vacation.
The containers was naturally empty, i think i will have to do a water change today and make some more nutrition liquid.
just wanted to show how my filter media looks, just because it has been some discussions about strange brown coating in the filter, I would call this normally brown.
I would also like to show where to lubricate the ProII series filters to get rid of the stuck starter button.
you should add the lubrication as far down as possible on the edge which the arrow points on (I used a cotton pin without cotton) and all the way around it with the button in it’s most upper position.
I have used silicone grease but in the instructions it says vaseline.
After the addition of grease you will have to push the button to get the grease transfered to the sealing, then you will also notice that the button gets easier to push and returns much better.
The pipe which exits from the round part is the pipe which has a junction which will not connect as it should when the button does not return as it should, it is easy to see if you look at this side when you push the button.
Here are a couple of pictures of the discus fries, they are about 13-15mm.
They are still with their parents but the parents are starting to look a bit worn out, so i will have to make some rearrangements for them.
My cleanup started with a cleaning of my ProII filter, mostly flushing the filter material and lubrication of the sealings. I noticed a pipe connection close to the pump which was not connected correctly, i pushed on it and it seemed OK and i did not think about that anymore.
When i was going to start the filter and pushed the big “starter button” (the large on top of the filter) i noticed that it was quite hard to push and did not return up as i should, i have always thought that it has been a bit sluggish, i checked the manual and found out that there was another oring to lubricate for that purpose, in other words easy to fix.
When i was going to lubricate the oring i noticed that the pipe connection I pushed into place was in fact a connection to the starter-button and the reason why it was not in place was because of the not returning button, after the lubrication it worked like a charm.
I would like to warn everyone with a ProII, check if the starter-button returns to it’s most upper position otherwise the filter will not work as it should, most certainly will it have reduced flow.
The flickering light over the small aquarium is now fixed, it was the fluorescent.
(the filter is of cause also cleaned and working as it should)
The only thing is that the easiest and quickest fluorescent i got a hold of was a warm white one and that is not the nicest light to have in a aquarium, everything is yellowish.
Edit: I think It looks quite OK even though it has been whiteout light for about two weeks (it is placed in the middle of our apartment so it will not have any light from the windows either).
It’s near the end of our summer vacation and we are back home again.
Hmmm, devastation is a fact, but it is fixable!
The Large Aquarium:
I had forgotten to plug in the magnetic valve for the CO2, this caused the floating plants to be OK but the submerged plants to die off, and the dying plants has left a lot of rutting plant parts in the water. All of this has made the oxygen level extremely low and caused 5 Angelfish their life, since i bought a bit to many when i got them i think it still is OK, but of cause it is sad for the fish that died.
The Mid Aquarium:
Before we left for Ireland the discus couple had placed some new roe, I was happily surprised that i now have about 50pcs 10mm fries lucky me!
The small Aquarium:
The filter was totally stuffed with debris and was not running at all, this caused the life of two zebra fish.
The fluorescent was just flickering, I have tried to change the lighter without luck so i will have to buy a new fluorescent and hope that will fix the flickering.
I will get back with some pictures of the devastation at a later point.
I found this contest while surfing around, I think it is finished for this year but it could give some inspiration:
http://www.forumaqua.com/jafa/
There is also a nice photo gallery on the same site:
http://www.forumaqua.com/galerie.html
The main page is of course:
