Marc's fish room build

[bekateen]

Keep the thread going Marc. I enjoy learning from your progress.

Cheers, Eric

[Jobro]

Yes keep it up.

I was so close to buying a Vectron Energy MultiPlus (Inverter+Charger+Auto/On/Off) before and might now just go for it. Had a devastating 8hours power outage some years ago and am still very afraid of it happening again.

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric, I'll keep things updated as they progress, I think the next major update will be after the CSG convention, I'm hoping to add a few more fish over that weekend !

Jobro, I was very close to buying that exact unit, the multiplus looks really good, but as I already had the charger and inverter, I thought I'd just get the transfer switch. Eventually I'd like to get the multiplus, I'll see how things go for now, if you do get one let me know how you find it.

[Ruud109]

Do you have any pictures of your L260's in your tanks Marc?

[MarcW]

The lights have just gone off, I'll try to remember to get some pictures tomorrow. Don't get too excited though, normally it's just tails sticking out of caves!

[MarcW]

@Ruud109

Here are some pictures of the

L260

in their tank, the small one at the back by the sponge filter is one from their most recent spawn about 4 months ago.

[MarcW]

While I was away recently my inverter purchased from amazon, managed to drain my batteries completely in just over a week, just from being in standby. The charger couldn't overcome the parasitic drain from the inverter.

As I need this to be reliable and protect the investment I've made in the fish, I've ordered a Victron multiplus inverter/charger/transfer switch (https://www.victronenergy.com/inverters ... lti-500-va).

The manufacturer and reseller have assured me I won't get the same issues from this unit. There doesn't seem to be anything particularly wrong with the devices that I have now, but I guess the way I have put them together isn't the way they are intended to be used!

It arrives tomorrow, when I get some time to set it up I'll add some pictures. They'll also be pictures soon of the fish I'm picking up this weekend when I'm at the CSG convention.

[HenryCyday]

Thanks for sharing It will be really interesting to see the progression of the fish room youre building and the all plans you have, and how you do things, is there insulation behind the wood panels on the walls? Im only just getting prepared to start mine, clearing out the room, then painting it, then building all the racks. I started a new job at an LFS last week, and they are clearing the shop of some of their unwanted tanks, so far i have 3 3Г—1,5Г—1 and a 4Г—1Г—1, and obviously other tanks at home, more to follow, its seems the job came at the right time, also with an opportunity to learn even more and gain experience , I will obviously have a display tank also. Have you any particular fish in mind yet.

Good luck

[MarcW]

Hi Henry,

Welcome to Planet Catfish!

The wooden (ply) walls you see is a small room I built in the back of my garage to store and produce RO water, my battery backup system is also in there. It's a studwork wall with 75mm/3inches of foil covered foam board insulation, similar to Celotex.

In the fish room itself I use the same insulation in the walls, under the concrete slab floor and in the ceiling is 100mm or 4 inches of the same foil backed foam insulation. The walls and ceiling in the fish are plasterboard (or sheet rock depending on where you are from) over the insulation painted with a mould resistant wipe clean paint. Although as I run a dehumidifier in there it's actually much lower humidity than anywhere else in the house!

Good luck with your fish room, do as much research as you can before you start spending money, it really helped me to avoid some mistakes I surely would have made if I hadn't done the research!

The fish I have currently are listed in My Cats, you can see it if you click on my username I believe.

There will be some more after this weekend, I'll add pictures of them next week!

[MarcW]

Thought I'd leave a picture of some of the fish coming home from the CSG convention with me!

[Jools]

Oooft!

Jools

[MarcW]

It took a while, 6 pm to 11:30 pm! But the fish were all put into their new homes on Sunday night, a few pictures for you all below, as you can imagine, I was focused on getting the fish acclimated so the pictures won't win any awards, but will hopefully give you an idea of whats now in the fish room, there were some other fish brought home, but these are most of the catfish.

Just a few boxes to sort through

Pair of

Hypancistrus inspector

Group of eleven

Entomocorus gameroi

Ten young

Corydoras parallelus

Six

Acestridium dichromum

, which are housed with some fascinating Ammocryptocharax elegans

[MarcW]

Now the main event, eight

L095

they range from about 26 to 30 cm TL.

[MarcW]

Plus a couple more:

Ten

Otocinclus cocama

Three

Sturisoma festivum

Five small

Panaqolus sp(l397)

, which I haven't been able to get a decent picture of yet, they disappeared into the crevaces in the bogwood!

Hopefully in the next few months they will all settle in and be eating well, then I can begin a few breeding attempts.

Jools, I also got ten cherry shrimp to graze on the mattenfilters, hopefully it goes well, they multiply, and I can put a few in each tank.

[Iamfish]

Awesome builds, thank's for sharing the journey with us. Amazing new pickups I love those l095s.

[MarcW]

So I've had the first spawn in my fish room!

Only had the fish since Sunday night, put a spawning mop in last night and this morning there were rainbow fish eggs!

Not particularly impressive but nice to see some eggs!

[MarcW]

I have my new power backup installed.

Although I'm having an issue with the charger built into the device, I connected my PC to the unit and programmed the charging stages to match the ampage and voltages recommended by the battery manufacturer. However immediately after turning the device on I heard bubbling in the batteries, so turned the charger off a few seconds later. I'll contact the place I got the Victron multi from in the morning as they are closed at weekends. Given my last charger was only capable of 3.5amps but the battery manufacturer suggested 12.5amps when charging I suspect reducing the ampage of charging will be the way to go. I also suspect that the charger treats the batteries as if they are empty when first connected, even though they are fully charged, I hope this isn't the case, it would be disappointing for a relatively expensive device.

[kvnbyl]

If it's like the units i have used the charger should sense what level the battery (ies) is at and charge accordingly.
Having to program the charger is new to me, but hey, why shouldn't it connect to a pc, everything else does.
Might have something to do with the batteries, the ones i used were marine deep cycle ($325 a pop, good for 500 cycles) but i suspect not
When my inverter has has been used for anywhere from 2 to 24 hours, so when it goes from producing 120v ac back to charge, the built in charger and fan howl for 15 min to an hour and then gradually winds down until the batteries are back up to full charge.
I've never heard about having to set the charge stage but maybe things are different over there
If you have the option I would try to switch to an automatic charger, one that can sense the level of the batteries, charge accordingly and then float to keep the batteries charged up
Be really careful!
Batteries are nothing to fool around with the acid is very strong and batteries can explode if something is really wrong (i would guess you know this but i had to put it in anyway)
Good Luck

[MarcW]

Thanks for the feedback.

The company I purchased it from have the configuration file I sent them, pictures of the setup, the technical specifications of the batteries, and said it all looks fine. They are getting a second opinion from the manufacturer at the moment.

The batteries I'm using are Yuasa REC50-12I, which are deep cycle, good quality batteries as far as I can make out. I do have a smart charger which works fine, but having this all in one device eliminates a parasitic load from the separate inverter I was using, which the smart charger couldn't overcome.

Hopefully there is a simple mistake in the configuration and an easy fix! Yes, everything is currently disconnected as i don't want the batteries overheating or exploding!

[pointpleco]

Now the main event, eight

L095

they range from about 26 to 30 cm TL.

L095_1.jpg
L095_2.jpg
L095_3.jpg
L095_4.jpg

Wow !!! mate that's an amazing setup. And those L095's are so nice.
Great effort with everything.

Macrae

[MarcW]

Although I'm away, I'm keeping an eye on the fish, using my IR camera, I'm hoping the L095 are settling well, a few screen grabs below.

[CoryWally]

Hi Marc, Good idea with the camera. I'm planning to do the same for when I'm away. My CCTV company suggested I just get a cheap doorbell camera for the fish house off Ebay. What kind have you used?

[MarcW]

Hi Mark,

I just use a cheap WiFi night vision camera from Amazon. It took a bit of fiddling to setup, but works well for the cost. It's currently on sale at £30.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sricam-Wireles ... Fi+&sr=8-4

I was considering upgrading to a better camera but this works fine for the price.

Just make sure you have WiFi coverage in your fish room, the foil backed insulation made the signal very weak in my fish room so I had to find a place to put it with a reliable signal.

[bekateen]

Congrats on the first spawn Marc! That's a good way to christen the room.

So are the

L095

and

Otocinclus cocama

tankmates? (Just kidding )

Cheers, Eric

[MarcW]

Thanks Eric! Did you see the oto in the picture, it's on the really tiny piece of zucchini

I figured if the rainbows were spawning I'd leave them to it, any eggs/fry can be a snack for them while I'm away!

When I have time I'll try to raise some up.

[CoryWally]

Hi Marc,
re the camera - Good point about the network connection in the fish house, mine is like a faraday cage when it comes to signals. I should be able to get a network cable in though, so I've ordered one to see how I get on.

Cheers,
Mark.

[MarcW]

I’m a little concerned that my L095 aren’t eating enough, a single 4 inch L128 will eat many times more courgette/zucchini overnight compared to 8, 12 inch long L095! I’m only seeing very small amounts of waste in the tank, in a week, if it were all joined together maybe 4-6 inches of waste in total.

I’ve tried:
Courgette
Mango
Sweet potato
Papaya
Frozen mussel & bloodworm
About a dozen different pellets/sticks/tablets
3 different kinds of Repasy gel foods
I plan to try Squash in the next day or two

They don’t swim around at all during the day, just hide between the wood and the back of the tank. At night they do move around and show some interest in the food, so far I’ve only witnessed them having a small nibble on Courgette, Repashy, and last night a bit of Papaya but nowhere near as much as I would expect, and I can’t be sure it’s more than one fish eating as so little food is being consumed.

One has had slightly sunken eyes for 3 weeks or so now, and the rest look ok.

I have Flubendazole, and am tempted to treat the tank in case worms or other parasites are causing an issue, however I’m wary of doing that as they seem ok, other than not eating much.

They came into the country on 22nd February, the shop held them for 3 weeks, and they have been with me for about 5 weeks, would a 12 inch chunky fish die in 2 months with no food? I don't suppose they would have eaten a whole lot at the exporters either.

Any ideas or thoughts are appreciated, thanks!

[MarcW]

I'm feeling better about the L095's eating now. One more night of offering them papaya and they went crazy for it. They stripped the flesh completely just the skin was left! That seemed to trigger them to eat more of the other foods too, specifically sweet potatoes and courgette.

I have performed about an 80% water change this week, 50% one day then 30% the following day, maybe that encouraged them to eat!

There is plenty of waste in the tank now! Just in case someone with a similar issue is reading this, I didn't worm them, and won't now unless there are obvious signs of them needing it.

Something strange I did notice is that in the areas of sweet potato they have eaten, the flesh was very broken down, almost rotting but not as gooey, however the rest of the potato was still firm. It could be that the shredded bits of potato broke down in the warm water quicker, but I was wondering if they had some sort of enzyme/saliva which accelerated the breaking down of plant matter? Unlikely I guess but it seemed interesting, I've not seen part of food decay like that while the unchewed part remains firm!

One nights consumption

Before and after 2

Before and after

[MarcW]

They seem to be getting bolder now, the photo was with the lights on, a few hours before they were due to go off. I'm still concerned about the sunken eyes on one (to the right in the picture) , but at least I've seen that fish eat!

[Viktor Jarikov]

Couldn't help you any, Marc but I enjoy reading your developing story. Larger fish may take longer time to adjust to new and significantly different water, diet, etc. Plus the stress of changing homes and shipment can have unpredictable consequences. So the delay you witnessed might have had rather trivial causes.

The call of the deworming is a gamble either way. If these fish came from the wild, especially already that large, I'd personally be on the watch for any parasitic symptoms for a long time, perhaps long enough to have become tired of it and just doing a prophylactic treatment anyway.