People say practice makes perfect. I guess I would apply that to my situation here. After a long thought, before I embark my journey with my second aquarium project – creating a well planted aquarium, and before I start doing things on bigger size equipment, I would like to give it a try first at a smaller scale. This end up to be another shopping spree to me. How I love pay day!!!

3 stops for today. Carrefour & Pets Wonderland at Mid Valley Megamall (well, just down my office) and The Pet Safari at Ikano Power Centre.

And the shopping list for today….

Recently, I notice Carrefour starts selling aquarium as well. Has it become a trend? I’ve been seeing this mini aquarium, imported from Japan so many times everytime I visit Carrefour. Since I’ve made a decision of starting at smaller scale first, I just bought the following eScene Aquarium. Comes in 3 sizes, S, M and L. I go for L.

Next stop. Pets Wonderland. I’ve been browsing through this shop may times before during my lunch hour, to see what equipment that they have. It just happen to be that they have quite a number of drift wood to choose. I see drift wood is kinda a must in aquarium, where aqua plant will ground around and even on them, creating a very natural and beautiful aquascape. So I got this Ocean Free special treated drift wood there. Again, comes in 3 sizes, S, M and L. I just got the S one since it shouldn’t take most of the space in aquarium. Treated means that it has been treated so that it’s submerge into the water, and won’t change the chemistry of the water. I hope that the claims is true.

The next thing that I get from Pets Wonderland is this GEOsystem planting rock. It has a hole in the middle so you can put soil in and plant an aquatic plant on it. I;m trying to get the S size, but sold out. I got this M size instead. Hope that it fits in my mini aquarium. If not, I’ll save it for my bigger aquarium later.

Allrite. Next stop. The Pet Safari and Ikano Power Centre. Believe it or not I get this ADA Aqua Soil Africana. ADA soil is like a goddest soil / the best substrate to use for planted aquarium, and it costs, hhhmmm well… ridiculously expensive. ADA stands for Aqua Design Amano, the company that produce this soil. I think it has something to do with Takashi Amano (whoever he is). What makes it so special (thus so expensive). This is the article that I Google around titled The Magical Substrate Called Aqua Soil.

I also bought the smaller size Aqua soil, for the top layer. The above above one will act as the base substrate. The top layer no need to be that deep, so I just got the smaller packet (they they manually pack from the original packet of Aqua soil).

Next, is the light. Well, plants do need lights to do photosythesis, don’t they? It stated here this light has 6700k full spectrum illuminations, and is ideal for aquatic plant. Again, I hope the claim is true.

Lastly, I need the plants themselves. For a good aquascape, we should contrate to 3 layers of aquatic plant. Foreground plants that will never grow tall, midground plant that has a medium height, and background plant that is really tall. I jusk ask the person there to give me suggestion on which I should use and easy to plant and grow. I don’t even know their names. Hehehehe.

So my current fish. You all wait arr for the time being. Sooner or later, I will proceed with setting up the bigger aquarium, and you all can have bigger space to swim, in even more natural environment.

So, hang in there…..

Read the rest of the stories relating to this planted aquarium project:

1. Getting things for pilot try of planted aquarium
2. Setting up planted aquarium (phase 1)
3. Setting up planted aquarium (stranded)
4. Setting up planted aquarium (phase 2)
5. Final goods shopping for this aquarium
6. Experimenting with water temperature
7. Installing CO2 system
8. Fermentation started, CO2 bubbles start flowing in
9. More CO2 bubbles
10. Worrying about pH and excess CO2 over the night
11. Getting aquarium cleaners
12. Getting final fishes for the aquarium
13. Plants trimming

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This week concert back to Saturday, 8:30pm. That’s more like it. Feels kinda weird watching it during daytime. Enjoy the videos.

Song list:

• Velvet – Dikir Puteri
• Haziq – Buat Sang Puteri
• Zila – These Boots Are Made For Walking
• Diddy – Nusantara
• Amirul – Khatulistiwa
• Farhan – Tak Ingin Lagi
• Faizal – Wo!
• Salima – Senandung Hidup Berbudi
• Lotter – Bertemasya Desa Gemalai

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Been mentioning several time in the past that I have my karaoke amplifier ordered, and went to Pudu to survey the price of a speaker. Well, finally I received the thing last Monday.

I eagerly opened the box to see what’s inside. Ain’t she a beauty? This shall compliment my Sony TV and Sony Home Theatre System. I’m a Sony fan I’m supposed.

Went to Pasar Pudu again to do a new speaker shopping. This time, it’s no longer window shopping. Being a electronic gadget lover myself, I feel like in heaven. Feasting my eyes looking at those saliva slurping gadgets like mixer, mini wireless CCTV and many other electronic stuffs that I don’t know what is it for.

Back to the speaker, there are so many types and sizes, with varying prices from as cheap as RM80 to a whooping RM800. There’s this one 5 pieces speaker selling at RM195. Even though this karaoke amp supports 5.1 speaker configuration, but come to think of it, I have my home theatre already. This karaoke amp I will use solely for karaoke purposes only, and karaoke function only works in 2 channels mode.

After browsing a while, at last I decided just to get the following RM238 speaker. It’s compact, but the sound is quite powerful compared to other big tall speaker of at the same price as this one. Lets put the speaker on the test first before I buy it.

We cannot called those people salesman if they cannot persuade customer to buy things from their shop. And that what happened to me. I have been persuaded to buy speaker stand from them too.

They don’t have much choices for speaker stand, but this one looks ok I guess, and the price is also tempting.

But there’s another thing that I’m missing. VCD/DVD player. I already have VCD player, but I lost the remote. What about the DVD player? Well, it not a seperate system where the amplifier part has been built in inside the player itself and it’s only have audio input jack and no audio output jack. That’s no good. How can I hook that up the karaoke amp?

Well, went to carrefour after that and get a new, cheap DVD player. At first I only decided to get VCD player, but after talking to the salesman, he said that VCD player is no longer being produced nowadays. Is it??? Oh…. Yes indeed. DVD player now is at the price of what VCD player use to be priced at. You can even find RM90ish DVD player nowadays. So, what’s the point of producing VCD player then? Hhhhmmm. It is just a matter of time those costly plasma TV will be cheaper and cheaper when those HDTV takes the market. Hoping that to happen soon. Finger crossed ;)

So, hear are my shopping lists today.

• A pair of speaker
• Speaker stand
• DVD player
• Hifi Headphone – this thing is getting cheaper nowadays. This one is for my iPod, used when travelling.
• Jebo 838 canister filter. Early preparation for my next aquarium project. Started collecting all the equipments already

Got home, without further ado, I set the wiring for the karaoke amp with the speaker, hook the DVD player on, hook microphone in, load the karaoke CD, and walla. Look ma… I’m singing….

It’s getting late. I better stop singing or I will annoys my neighbours with my lovely voice. Bring out the speaker stand out of the box, and starts assembling it.

Tada…. Here’s the finished product.

Oh no. I have to mess around with the cabling that I have behind my TV rack again. It sound that I need another weekend to do this. Yes that’s right. Lets do that next weekend.

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It’s been a while since I didn’t release by weekend cat to the wild. So, it’s another long awaited weekend again. Going to “Pasar Pudu” again this weekend, to get new speaker for my new karaoke amplifier. Will definately blog about that.

So, let’s rock on with me. Yeaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

See my other weekend cats

• Cat playing Xbox
• Cat sleeping on tyre
• Three Cool Cats lying down
• Happy Orange Cat
• Lazy kitty
• Laughing Cat
• Smiling Cat

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It’s rather late I have this posted this time. Was away from KL, making me download this video rather late from the torrent site. My PC is behaving odd lately too. The USB problem that I faced last time happened again. Sigh!! Anyhow, enjoy the videos.

Song list:

• Salima – Obsesi
• Amirul – Yesterday
• Rich – Mustika
• Zila – Tak Tercapai Akalmu
• Farhan – Still Got The Blues
• Haziq – Cinta Nusantara
• Lotter – Iris
• Velvet – Teman Tapi Mesra
• Diddy – Memori Luka
• Faizal – Blues Terengganu Kita

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“Rojak Tonggek”. Rojak is a malay word that refers to the type of food, usually salads or fruits that are mixed together and taken with sauce. Tonggek on the other is the word that describe the act of making your butt looks pointy. How these 2 words relate shall be revealed when you read further.

Coming back from CTY, one of my friend suggested that we should go and eat “Rojak Tonggek”. He asked me whether I eat that before. I said nop, and I don’t even heard of it before. So there we go.

So we reached there. There are several booths there. Seem this place is known for Rojak Tonggek. But all I can see is just fruits on stick. To that point, I still can’t see the relationship between rojak and tonggek.

The price is 300 cents per stick.

This is my friend, taking a stick of pineapple, and dip it the sauce.

But before you can eat it, you have to lean your body forward, fearing the sauce will drop on your cloth. This forward leaning is actually make your butt looks pointy.

Ahhh… Now I know why it’s called “rojak tonggek”

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Happened to be in Penang again for this weekend. So let’s check out a little about fish shop in Penang. I went to this Chew Thean Yeang (CTY) fish shop at Jalan Burma.

This shop is quite huge, 3 floors, all selling fishes, aquatic plants and aquarium related products.

First floor mainly selling fishes, and there’s section for other pet too.

Second floor selling aquarium related products – filter, test kits, air pump, fish food, lamp – to name a few.

And the third floor is dedicated for aquarium showroom. So many nicely decorated aquarium. Walk around a little to get an idea on how to design my next aquarium.

I also checking the price of aquarium chiller here. Damn. RM1000++. There’s RM750 one, but out of stock. Sign. This aquarium chiller / temperature of water in aquarium is the only thing that is still in the way between me and starting up my next aquarium project. It’s quite a lot of money to invest.

Anyhow, don’t want to come here for nothing. So I bougth the following water surface skimmer. Guess I better starts collecting the equipment needed for my next aquarium project.

Actually, I just recently read about this surface skimmer. If you have a low flow of water into the aquarium, organic film will build at the surface of water. This will give poor gas exchange at the surface of water, i.e. less oxygen dissolved in the water and less carbon dioxide released from the water. So, this surface skimmer will actually remove this from the surface of water.

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Before going to office today, as what I usually did in every other morning, I just stared at my fish in aquarium. Don’t know why, I feel like opening the cover of the filter today. Once opened, I peep inside my dirty filter, and I saw something tiny swimming at the spot below.

It’s a fry. A tiny newly born fry. It must have been the fry has been sucked by the filter as newly born fry might not have strong fin yet to swin away from the water flow into the filter. Rather scary to think. And I rather not to think also how many other newly born fry has gone the same fate, and maybe there are some trap between the filter sponge.

Quickly I went to the kitchen, the a small spoon, and scoop the fry from the trapped water on top of the filter sponge, and I release it back to the tank. It seems that the fin has developed, and the fry can swim now.

Below is the photo of the fry that I just saved, where the 2-week-old sibling is also in the picture, as well as neon tetra. See. How guppy can grow rapidly in 2 weeks time. Just compare the size of the two-week-old fry and newly born fry.

I still have one pregnant guppy. See the gravid spot behind the anus? This female guppy is bearing live fry inside.

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Finally, managed to cut, edit ad convert the concert video that I downloaded last Sunday (right after Konsert 2). Oh man. I love this torrent thingy.

Song list:

• Lotter – Ibu Kota Cinta
• Karen – Kerna Terpaksa
• Haziq – Kian
• Velvet – Langit Ke-7
• Faizal – Semalam Yang Hangat
• Farhan – Sayang Di Sayang
• Diddy – Lonely No More
• Zila – Jika Kau Kekasih
• Amirul – Fiona
• Salima – Kush Yon Aur Gham
• Rich – Dendang Remaja

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Believe it or not, before I ever started my own aquarium, when it comes to cleaning the aquarium, I have the thinking that I should scoop out all the fished from my aquarium, throw away the water, remove everything from aquarium, give it a good scrub and wash, assemble everything back, put the water in back, and lastly, put the fish back. And believe it or not, this thing is actually the thing that put me off when I have a thought of setting up my own aquarium, since it looks so troublesome.

And again, I found this completely wrong under normal circumstances. Why?

• Scooping out fish – this will stress the fish a lot. Poor fish!
• Pouring out all water – you are throwing the water that the chemistry is in balance with the fish, where the fish is already comfortable in
• Scrub and wash all ornaments in the aquarium – you are actually scrubbing out the beneficial bacteria that has developed on the surface, and also most likely you will be doing the wash under tap water, which contain chlorine, and will kill all of our beneficial bacteria
• Assemble everything back, put the water in back – you have killed all benefical bacteria before, and your aquarium has to go the cycling process again.
• Put the fish back in – poor fish again. It is just another stressful moment adjusting itself to the new water chemistry, and exposed to ammonia and nitrite before the cycle process finished

Doing aquarium maintenance actually is not that hard. The hard thing is to make it as part of your habit. For that reason, I’ve created a reminder in my O2 Mini Calendar, to remind me when to do maintenance to my aquarium.

I’ve read a few suggestions of how weekly maintenance should be done. There are come websites telling to change 10% of water every week. There are also some telling to change 20% of water every week. And there is also one website telling to do 20% water change every 2 weeks. In my case, since I have small number of small fish, with live plant inside (that will use nitrate from the final phase of nitrification process), I choose to do 20% water change every 2 weeks, and I choose Friday since the next day is public holiday to me.

Got the above reminder last night while I was about to go out. I have visitors coming from Penang, and I guess I can’t do water change last night, so I postponed it for today.

The first thing that I do for my aquarium maintenance is to vacuum the substrate. Vacuuming the substrate is done using a special tube that can be bought at any aquarium shop that works on siphon principle.

Siphoning the debris will also remove water from the aquarium, and this will be part of the 20% water change. Why this water change is needed? From my previous post, nitrification process will produce nitrate at the last stage. Nitrate is also dangerous to fish in large quantity. So the 20% water change will lower down the quantitiy of nitrate in the water. And it also will lower any other trace element that is harmful to the fish (from the excess food decaying)

And how much 20% is? Well. It depends on your aquarium volume. If your aquarium shape is rectangular, it is easy to find out how my 20% is. Just measure the depth of the water. 20% water change is removing the water so that its depth is 20% lower than the previous depth.

My aquarium water depth is 43cm. So 20% from 43cm is 8.6cm. So I will siphon out the water until is has the depth of 34.4cm.

Then I replace the water that I siphon out with the tap water that I treat with anti-chlorine. From my reading, it is suggested to get a bit higher grade anti-chlorine that will remove chloramines as well. Normal anti-chlorine only removes chlorine gas from the tap water, but not chloramines. I’m using Wardley Chlor Out for this purpose.

And I never believe any guarantee that the product will instantly remove chlorine from the water. If it’s not, you are putting the risk of killing all the beneficial bacteria that has already established in the aquarium.

What I usually do is to put the water in the bucket, put a few drop of Chlor Out, and do water aeration – i.e. passing the air to the water using air stone. The air bubble that rise to the surface will also release chlorine gas from the water, and the water movement that the bubble will oxygenate the water at the same time. I let the aeration to go for 1 day. And I usually do this several days before the water change. Just to make sure all chlorine is out from the water.

Next step is to add 5ml of Bio-Booster to the water. This solution will actually boost the population of beneficial bacteria in the water, that is part of biological filter.

I pour it right into my external filter, where my bio rings are.

And lastly, I put 1 drop and plant food. It contains all the trace elements that plants need. Be carefull with this one. Not to overdose, and it will introduce too many trace elements inside the water that is harmful to fish. But my bi-weekly water change will handle any unused trace elements that keep increasing in the water.

As you can see, I didn’t really do the filter maintenance during my bi-weekly maintenance. I only clean the filter once a month, since it is not advisable to regularly clean the filter, as it will interrupt the bio filter process. I will blog about this when the time has come for me to clean the filter and filter media.

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