It looks like the FishApp is already providing me with some really neat and useful insights into my aquarium. I recently added the ability to overlay and toggle multiple series on the graphs it displays, to make it easy to see if one parameter has an effect on another. Take a look at this snapshot I took today:
Water age & nitrate levels over time
This chart shows the average age (in days) of the water in my tank compared with the levels of Nitrate I measure using an aquarium test kit. I compute the water age using information I record about water changes I do to my tank (a more detailed explanation can be found in the original FishApp post), and Nitrate is a mildly-bad chemical the can build up in your tank over time. It’s the end-product of the Nitrogen Cycle in most fish tanks, and can only be removed by water changes or chemical absorption (which some plants and special filter media can do).
At least that’s the theory. What this chart is showing me is that the theory seems to actually work out in practice, and that my tests are precise enough to actually be useful – always a good thing. Even though I only have five data points for the nitrate series (because I don’t always test as much as I should), it is easy to see the nitrate curve following the water age curve. They actually track pretty well, I think. You can see an ugly spike in the water age when I wasn’t paying enough attention to the tank, and the resulting high nitrate levels, which backed down after a series of regular water changes. When the water age started creeping back up again, so did Nitrate levels, and then both went down again after we moved from Tennessee to North Carolina (and changed out about 2/3 of the tank water for fresh in the process). Very cool.
Since nitrate is the last state that fish poo reaches in the nitrogen cycle, it would not surprise me if there were a delay between water age and its effects on nitrate levels. I don’t really have the data to support that right now, but I will try to be more diligent in my testing, and perhaps we can figure that out soon.
If there are any aquarium owners out there who are interested in the FishApp, you can sign up free and track your own fish tank in a similar fashion. Here’s a link to sign up.
I got tired of staring at the one barf-colored wall left in my cubicle – so I used Rasterbator to create a large elephant image from a picture I took at the Nashville Zoo.
Note the copy of “From the Earth to the Moon” in there, next to the CSS Pocket Reference and my Firefox mascot. I wish I knew which of Nashville Zoo’s elephants this was. Here’s the original:
I like my little workspace.
Caught my German Blue Rams spawning:
Check out what happens when one of the Cory’s gets too close. They are so oblivious to their surroundings sometimes… We had heard horror stories about Rams getting aggressive when mating and corys losing their eyes… Luckily none of that here.
I also got some stills.
Kristin and I were finally able to track down more tetras on the other side of the city tonight, so after getting lost and turning around several times, we finally cleaned out the cardinal tetra stock at the 2nd petsmart in nashville. Now there are none in like a 30 mile radius. jeeeezz they are hard to find sometimes. But they are cool little suckers.
Fish are very sensitive to their water conditions, and these fish are kinda sensitive in particular. Sudden changes in things like ph, chemical composition, temperature, hardness, and cleanliness can stress fish out, even if its a change “for the better.” So its best to slowly adjust the fish to their new water.
The most commonly-suggested way to do this is to float the bag that the fish come in at the top of your aquarium for about 15 minutes and then add the fish. The theory here is that the temperatures will be equalized and that is the most important part. That may be true, but it is a much less than perfect method. The water can be heated by the florescent lamps and this method does nothing to adjust for chemical differences which can really freak fish out. If they aren’t used to the water chemically, they can have a hard time breathing (through their gills, ya know?) and that’s not good for anybody.
We did this last time with our cardinal tetras and the fish had a rough time making the transition. A couple of them actually were belly-up for a few seconds before they came to. Not what you like to see.
We found a better way of doing it. You put the fish in a small quarantine container and slowly take out some of the old water and replace it with the new water. Badda-bing, badda-boom, your fish are a WHOLE LOT LESS FREAKED when you add em.
After we added the new guys, they immediately started schooling with the old guys. They’re super-cute. There’s one guy, we call him “Lemon,” he’s the littles of the bunch and when we added him, his dorsal was clamped down a bit, and he had like no red or blue/green color – he was all pale yellow. In like three minutes though, he started getting some color back and perking up. He’ll always be little Lemon, though.
Oh, and here’s some more pictures of the corys feeding.
See the one in the front here?
That one’s ol’ blackeyes. Or blackie. He seems to be the smartest, least psycho of the bunch. All the other corys will be freaking out, swimming up and down the side of the tank, and blackie will be eating excess food off the log. Good ol’ blackeyes. What a good fish
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That’s all I got for now. The [submersible] fish cam will be coming soon[-ish].
We added four more fish to our tank… slowly, we’ll have it fully stocked. The four new guys are cute little Corydoras (C.trilineatus). They are little catfish-like schooling dudes that come from peru and ecuador. Here’s what one looks like:
The pet store had them incorrectly labeled as Corydoras Julli, but they are apparently commonly mislabled this way. When we first put them in, for the first few days, all they did was swim up and down and up and down along the right side of the tank, like a dog chasing its tail. They were acting all crazy.
They’ve calmed down a bit now, and spend most of their time looking for food along the bottom, or on the driftwood, or on plants.
They scurry about very cutely. And when they get spooked (which happens easily, sensitive little dudes), they kinda play dead.. they just go real still along the bottom of the tank and wait it out for a bit. kinda neat i guess.
Anyway, for those of you who are actually nice enough to have read this far, i’ve got a little treat for you, i think. Assuming it works, I’ve posted a video of me feeding our tetras. They zip and zoop like crazies when there’s food in the water… its pretty cool. Check it out.
