Time to move on …

We have come to the decision that it is time to move on from our property. We have had a great time on our hobby farm, but we now need to be closer to the big smoke.

We have bought a property just about 15 kilometres from where I was born … so we are downsizing from 6 bedrooms down to 3 and from 4 acres down to 700 square meters.

We are keeping the property and renting it out (the market is just too bad to sell). Sadly, we are getting rid of the chickens and the sheep.

We are selling loads of our stuff so that we can fit into our new home, including so much of my workshop tools.

Oh well.

Weekend Break

This weekend … a long weekend in Tasmania, we went away for three days to Strahan on Tasmania's West Coast. We rented a shack in Lette’s Bay. The shack was pretty rustic … but it had all of the amenities that you would need and there was a private jetty that we could fish from.

On Sunday, my daughter and I did a spot of fishing. My daughter caught the first fish of the day … but it escaped before she could land it. Later, we caught five more cockies (juvenile salmon) and then my daughter caught another cocky, it was the biggest of the day, but our lines got tangled and then the fish got away, oh well.

Later, we took a scenic flight on a sea-plane that took us up the Gordon River, the Franklin River (the site of the protest against the building of the dam by the Hydro).

The sea-plane touched down on the Gordon River, where we stopped off for a short while and we went in and had a look at a waterfall.

There is a platypus that lives around this area … but it was not anywhere to be seen at the time. Platypuses are crepuscular animals, and we were there at midday, so no real surprises there.

The rest of the day was spent just floating around. Anita found some friends at the shacks, so she spent a lot of time jumping into the water from the jetty.

All in all, we had a fantastic time. The drive was a pain, but it was worth it.

First cleanout of the cichlid filter

Today we gave the Interpet External Power Filter (EPF350) a cleanout for the first time. I was a bit pensive about cleaning out the filter canister as I was worried about backflow and flooding the lounge-room (mostly because I worry…).

We did the normal aqua-vac and syphon of the tank, taking out about 1/3rd of the water from the tank and removing the solid waste (fish poo) from the tank. For this we have a normal plastic aquarium vacuum syphon that we attach a 6m hose to (19mm hose). When the syphon starts to draw water from the tank, we water the plants on the balcony and store some of the waste water for later watering of the balcony plants.

The EPF350 hasn’t been functioning as well as I’d like because the aquarium cabinet outlet hole is not very well positioned and the pump hoses have a nasty kink. This reduces the water flow and makes the pump function diminished. I want to point out that this is NOT the fault of the pump! I need to cut a larger hole in the back of the cabinet so that the pipes have a better path to the pump. To get around this in the short term, I have applied a pair of pipe clamps to the pipe to squeeze the deformation of the pipe out at the kink. This seems to be working well so far.

The EPF350 has a very nice design, there is a cut-off valve integrated into the pipe clamp so that, when you detach the pipes from the pump, the water flow is cut-off … no flooding!

The EPF350 has 4 outer layers of filter medium (ceramic tubes, and three grades of foam from very coarse to medium) and 3 internal layers of medium (ceramic tubes, bio-balls and charcoal). The water pumps through the three internal layers of medium and then up through the outer four layers. There is also a filter pad between the charcoal and the bio-balls. This all works pretty well, but the tank still gets a little cloudy. This may well be a consequence of the poor water flow due to the kinks. I decided to add a filter pad between the bio-balls and the ceramic tubes in the internal stack to add another layer of water scrubbing.

After reconnecting the EPF350 to the tank and turning it back on again, I fell foul of the low water level problem. That is, there wasn’t enough water in the canister to complete the water circuit, simple enough … funnel some more water in to the canister through the priming hole and, presto!, it all works again.

While cleaning the filter I noticed that the outflow bar has a bit of a design fault. The plastic around the flow valve is brittle and, on mine, broken. This isn’t a big problem because the flow valve isn’t intended to do much more than slow the outflow … not stop it, I don;t really care about it so much because I can fix it if I really want to.

Overall, I am pretty impressed with the EPF350, I would be happy to recommend it to anyone with a 350l tank. My next job with the aquarium is to cut that hole so that the pump hoses are not as stressed.

Wildlife in the top paddock

The weather has been getting hotter and the grass is getting more and more brown. This has meant that the local wildlife is more desperate for food.

We now have a wallaby that is pretty much always hanging around.

Not too fantastic a video … I should have set up the tripod, sorry about the wobble.

Chicken Happenings

Over the past couple of days we have been feeding our chickens a mix of pollard, calcium carbonate, rolled oats, powdered milk and water. The mix is divided into two portions to feed both of the flocks.

Our mix is:

• 175 grams of pollard;
• 75 grams of rolled oats
• 1/2 cup of powdered milk;
• 1/4 teaspoon of calcium carbonate and
• 3 cups of water

The pollard mash is mixed up and then fed to the chickens twice a day. They have shown themselves to be VERY interested in this feed mix and don’t seem to miss their chicken pellets at all. In fact, the chickens are SO excited by their new feed that we are now having to teach Howard not to peck us. He has drawn blood on me once and has pecked my darling wife’s gumboots quite savagely. He is being taught by being booted up the cloaca (well pushed away vigorously, really).

Today our young rooster was sent to a new home out in Forcett and the hens were moved from their run into the larger run. It was sad to say goodbye to our little rooster, but it is a hell of a lot nicer than the alternative … a fight to the death with the dominant rooster.

My darling wife, gorgeous daughter and I had a great time catching the young pullets so that we could take them from their old run to the grown up chicken run. Ferrying the chickens from run to run wasn’t too hard, once the chickens were caught, they settled down very quickly and it was easy to carry them the 200 meters or so. The older chickens were a little bit put out, but Howard thought that it was another Christmas present … just for him. We gave the chickens an extra feed to distract them and that seemed to do the trick.

We will leave the door to the chicken run closed for a couple of days so that the pullets get used to their new coop and settle in to their new position in the pecking order. There is likely to be some disagreements over pecking order, but then, that’s nature.

I will post some pictures of the mega-flock tomorrow.

Goodbye Goats

Well, we have reached a very difficult and upsetting decision. We are no longer going to be keeping goats.

Due to a number of reasons, mainly:

• Accommodation on our property needs to be extended at a very high cost;
• Inability of keeping goats and being able to get any time away from the farm; and
• Health and wellbeing of the family

We have taken the hard decision to get rid of our goats. This will give us more time to focus on the family and will allow us to finally have a much overdue holiday.

I am very sad that this has happened, but we are still looking forward to having goats in our life (mainly by staying in the Tasmanian Dairy Goat Society, and through the friends that we have made with our goats).

The flock left the property last week and I miss their bleating and affection.

All of the other animals on our property can be either left to their own devices for long periods of time or left at kennels.

First proper actual egg from the chicks

It’s official … the chicks are now pullets. I found this egg in the nesting boxes in the chicks coop.

As you can see by the weight, it isn’t a particularly large egg, but it is perfectly formed. 43 grams is pretty small by the standard of our chickens, we usually run from 50 to 70 grams (one egg actually topped 89 grams).

And here is the egg in comparison with the eggs from the much older White Leghorn chickens. It is no surprise that the pullets first eggs are small. It is normal to get unusually shaped eggs while the chickens get their cycle into gear, so it is very good that this chick has laid a perfectly formed egg with no surface impurities or calcium deposits.

The White Leghorns are pretty much off the lay at the moment. I’ve had only four eggs with shells since the 2nd of January. Normally, I get between 3 and 5 eggs a day from the grown-up girls. I think that the heat has had a serious impact on their cycle. Since the 2nd, I’ve also had about four eggs without any calcium shell … just a weak and leathery skin. All but one of these shell-less eggs has been broken, so they have been fed to the dogs.

Also, I am very happy with the colour of the egg shell. It makes no difference to the taste of the egg, it is purely an aesthetic thing. White eggs come from chickens with yellow legs and white earlobes … brown eggs come from chickens with red earlobes. I think I can identify the chick that laid this egg, she is very dark in colour with reddish yellow legs. She is probably the most developed of the hens too. Anyway, we will see what we will see.

The Cichlid Tank

I’ve done a little reading on the best way to take photographs of the fish in our cichlid tank. Fortunately, for me, the cichlids are very photogenic fish.

So … here they are

Cichlids 2013 Jan 03 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Chicks First Egg

Today one of the chicks laid an egg. The egg was small and didn’t have enough calcium deposited on it for the shell to be hard, but it was the first egg.

The egg was laid next to the chicks roost, so it looks like it caught the hen by surprised … I suppose I can’t really call them chicks anymore, the babies have grown up.

When the chicks arrived, they were 8 weeks old … it is now another 12 weeks since then, so they are about 20 weeks of age. That’s just about spot on for development from chick to pullet.

The cock has grown into a magnificent young rooster and he struts around the coop just like he is supposed to. His development has been good, developing his comb and wattles early and then his height and greater size.

The hens are all gorgeous young chickens indeed.

I expect that the first hen to lay will be a bit inconsistent in her laying initially but her body and behaviour will adjust to the new stage of her life.

Our older chickens, the White Leghorns are now pretty much off lay, they seem to have reached the end of their laying life, so it’s retirement for them. I intend to allow the chickens a graceful and peaceful retirement. Although the hens will not produce many eggs in their retirement, they will provide the pullets with the wisdom of their age.

I now just need to find a new home for the new rooster.

Least favourite job of all

Cleaning out the chicken coop and getting rid of the bird mite (red mite or Dermanyssus gallinae). The chickens have been spending as much time as possible out of their coop … the weather has been getting warmer and warmer … all of this means mites!

When fishing the eggs out of the coop, occasionally, some of these little blighters are crawling over the shell.

Honestly, I hate them. I have to get into the coop and shovel all of the straw and nesting material out, then give it a thorough brushing over. Then it’s spray over with malathon (an insecticide that kills the mites). When the malathon has dried, I put in new straw and nesting material and then powder the lot with a lice and mite powder.

I also cleaned out the chicks run and gave them a new load of straw and some nesting material. The chicks aren’t nesting yet, but they are pretty close to it, so they might as well have some clean nesting material.

After the clean out … it was into the shower for a thorough cleaning … twice! Also, off with the cleaning clothes and into a tub of hot water for them!

Aulonocara Fry Development

I will post a new video of the fry as they develop. At the moment I am taking a video every day … dunno if that’s going to last. Come back to this page to see them grow.

19th of December 2012

 

20th of December 2o12

 

21st of December 2012

 

22nd of December 2012

 

23rd of December 2012

 

24th of December 2012

 

25th of December

 

26th of December

 

27th of December

 

28th of December

The mother Flame Peacock cichlid has now been moved to a recovery tank so that she can recover before moving back into the community tank again.

29th of December

 

30th of December

 

31st of December

 

1st of January 2013

 

2nd of January 2013

 

3rd of January 2013

 

4th of January 2013

 

5th of January 2013

 

6th of January 2013

 

7th of January 2013

Some of the fry are getting a lot larger than the others.

8th of January 2013

 

9th of January 2013

 

10th of January 2013

Well, that’s probably enough of that!

Chicken Nightclub?

One of our chickens (the lowest in the pecking order) has taken to sleeping out overnight.

Tuesday, when I went to feed the chooks, she was outside the coop and wanting to get back in for breakfast. I figured that she had missed the lockup time and had spent the night in the trees near our property.

Last night, she was not in bed for role call either. I walked around our property trying to find her and thought that, perhaps, she had suffered the same mysterious fate as our rooster, Raj. I left the coop open until well after dark and then closed the hatch so that no nasty visitors invaded the rest of the chickens while they slept.

This morning, however, she was outside the coop waiting to be let back in again.

Maybe she has found herself a chicken night-club and is staying out all hours partying it up with her chooky mates. When she returns in the morning, she looks rather dishevelled.

She has obviously found somewhere else to sleep for the night and, apparently, is beginning to form a habit. I need to stop this habit before it becomes ingrained as the coop is the safest place for her to sleep. Today, and for the next few days, the chickens will be in lock-down. No chickens in or out! There is plenty of room in the coop for all of the chickens, so it isn’t likely to be a problem of crowding.

Peacock Cichlid Fry

One of our peacock cichlids (Aulonocara sp.) was looking a bit odd a few days ago. It was not opening it’s mouth and it’s mouth was quite full. After observing the fish for a while, we decided that the most probable reason was that the fish was a “she” and that she was mouth-brooding.

We moved her into our rehabilitation tank so that she could brood without being hassled by the other fish.

Now, about 7 days later, there are little cichlid fry swimming around in the tank. Some of them are not doing so well (one is curled and wriggles around the tank without much control) and the rest hang around the filter. In all, I have counted eight fry and she looks like her mouth is still full.

The filter in the rehab tank is probably not the best for the tank. I’d like to get a trickle filter for this tank so that the fry are at lower risk.

Aulonocara sp. fry with mother

We now have another peacock in the tank that is looking a bit full mouthed too. It looks like we’ll have to move another fish into the rehab tank too … or set up another one.

We have set up another tank for the second mouth brooding peacock cichlid. The tank has almost no tank furniture in it. Just a filter, a heater, some gravel and a pot. We got the tank water up to the same temperature as the main tank (added hot water and then cooled it down with some ice-packs). Then we set about catching the broody mother. She wasn’t that hard to catch once we removed the furniture from the main tank.

When we released the mother cichlid into the new tank, she was very stressed and so she spat out most of her eggs and hid. She was still carrying several eggs in her mouth at this stage, so we put a cover on the tank and let things settle down.

This morning, the mother cichlid has collected all but about 7 of her eggs and is hiding behind the pot in her tank. The 7 or so eggs that are still in the tank are looking a bit cloudy, so I’d say that they have perished.

In the other brooder tank, there are now about 15 peacock cichlid fry. About half of them are solid yellow in colour, whereas the remainder are banded. I suppose that, because this species is a hybrid, that they are going to reflect the genetics of the parent as well as the grandparent species, so it will be hard to predict the mature colour and patterning.

I will transfer the fry into the first brooder tank and the mothers into the second brooder tank in about a week. This will give the fry somewhere to mature while giving the mother cichlids somewhere to recover. If I put the females back into the main tank straight away, they will mate again.

Because the broody mother does not eat for the duration of the hatching, and for some time after the fry emerge, I need to give them some recovery time so that they don’t starve themselves to death. Also, for mating and brooding, the females need some energy reserves and they won’t do that while looking after their young.

So far, so good. Only two of our mouth brooders have mated, so we only need two brooder tanks. Hopefully, the cycle of brooder tank to rehabilitation tank for the mother will work out well. Although, I’d like to get a bigger tank for the fry and set that tank up with a better filter. I would also start out with no substrate (no gravel) in the tank and slowly add rocks for hiding places for the fry as they mature. Well, we live and learn.

A pleasant walk on the beach

We have been meaning to do more walking after work to improve our health. For the last couple of days, we have been going to Howrah beach and walking it’s length. First day, we three walked the beach … day two, it was the three of us and my darling wife’s cardigan corgi, Fiona. Today, we took my Staffordshire bull terrier, Salome (Sally). Sally was very excited to be on the beach with all of the waves and other dogs and stuff.

As soon as Sally gets onto the beach, she starts to yip and yodel, telling everyone how excited she is. When we let her off lead she takes off like a bullet.

Fiona isn’t terribly happy about going into the water, Sally is an entirely different story. Sally likes to bite the waves and run up the beach.

Here are the three of them … this is the only kind of photograph of my daughter that I will post online, a silhouette. Unfortunately, the web is a dangerous place and images can haunt you for a long time.

The dogs really enjoyed their outing and Sally was very well behaved.

Vet Visit

Today the vet, Scott, from Montrose Veterinary Clinic visited the farm. Our old wether sheep, Gary, has been scratching his neck furiously and he has caused himself some nasty cuts.

Last year, Gary had the same thing. It was caused by lice then … and it looks like he has lice again.

When Gary was sheared, he was given a spray on lice treatment and a drench for parasites. I don’t think that the spray is up to the job on our Gary. Scott gave Gary a shot of Ivermectin to make him less palatable to the lice. The wiltipols’ are pretty impervious to lice as they shed their hair at the time that lice affect the sheep. Because lice have to live further up the follicle than the length of the wiltis’  hair, it isn’t an attractive habitat for the nasty little creatures.

I had made some improvements to the sheep pen so that the wiltis’ wouldn’t escape. However, one of  the sheep got itself stuck in the gate. After giving the sheep it’s OJD injection, the vet and I had to try to push the stuck sheep back into the pen. The next sheep was very spooked by it’s adventure and tried to leg it over the top of the pen. I was able to catch her in the air and bring her safely back to earth for her OJD injection.

They don’t like the vet’s waiting room.

No magazines, no piped music … just sunshine and dirt. Still, job done and I gave them an extra feed of sheep pellets so that their bad experience in the pen isn’t their only experience in the pen. We feed the sheep in the pen every morning, so they know that the pen means food … it is just unfortunate that it also occasionally means being manhandled and injected. Still, it’s a sheep’s life.

After their latest adventure in the pen, I have more repairs and improvements to make … joy.

Campbelltown–Branch Show

Today was the annual branch show for the Tasmanian Dairy Goat Society. My youngest and I got up early and headed off at 7am to arrive in Campbelltown at about 8:50am.

The studs that were represented at the show had some awesome goats at the show. There were two Anglo-Nubian studs, two British Alpine, a Toggenberg and a Saanen stud. The two British Alpine breeders also had Saanen, Australian Melaan and Australian Brown goats, so there was a very good representation of Australian goat breeds. This was also the first show that I attended that had bucks. There was one buck > 24 months and several bucklings.

My daughter and I were both enlisted in the showing of the goats as there were many more goats being shown than there were handlers. I was a little daunted when I was showing the buck, he is a big animal and I didn’t have a lead … just a collar to grip. Still, he was very pleasant and quite gentle. I felt very pleased with myself that the bucks owner trusted me with him.

My daughter did a lot of showing, she was the “little helper” of one of the studs, and she got to play with about six kids (one, just 3 weeks old).

I felt very proud of my daughter, she got in and helped and hardly lost her energy for it at all. At the end of the day, she was awarded a ribbon for “Best Junior Handler” she was well pleased with her ribbon. All of the breeders were very supportive of her and were very impressed with her care and attention.

I didn’t take any photos of the event, but there were many photos taken by the society, I will post some pictures when I get them.

New filter in the fish tank

Over the past couple of weeks we have seen our large fish tank get more and more murky. The filter was getting gummed up with fish waste and algae. I also had to do some cleaning out of the motor of the filter on the tank and this was getting to be a more and more regular occurrence. The tank came with an internal filter, basically the filter sucked water up from the tank and trickled it over four cartridges that had bio-balls and filter wool. This arrangement would be fine for just a few fish, but we were having to do more and more frequent cleaning and water exchange in the tank.

I started looking around for a better solution to the aquarium filtration problem and the more I read, the more I thought that an external canister system would be a better option.

Here are some of the things that I learned while reading about aquarium filters.

Why filter at all?

An aquarium is a closed system that you keep introducing new food to the occupants. The fish eat the food and then excrete the waste. The waste is broken down by bacteria that extract what they can from it and then in turn excrete ammonia, which is toxic to the fish. Natural bacteria in the water (anaerobic bacteria) converts the ammonia into nitrites, these are still toxic to fish in high quantities. The goal is to remove as much of the excreta and decomposing matter in the fish tank as possible and reduce the ammonia and nitrites so that the closed system remains non-toxic to the fish.

There are three different forms of filtration.

Mechanical

Mechanical filtration is simply passing the water through a medium (such as sponge) to remove the debris. Usually this is done by pumping the water out of the tank and into a reservoir that contains the filtration media. When the water trickles down to the bottom of the media, the bulk of the debris has been trapped in the cavities in the media. It is necessary to clean or replace the media on a regular basis.

Biological

Biological filtration uses another kind of bacteria (aerobic) to convert the nitrites into more benign compounds (nitrates). Usually, the biological agent is cultured in a filter by providing an ideal environment for the bacteria to form and grow. There are a number of very clever ways that this is done, but most often bio-balls are used. These are simply plastic objects with a large surface (often by creating lots of internal structures).

Chemical

Chemical filtration is the use of filter media such as activated charcoal to chemically scrub the water. Activated charcoal attracts chemicals and removes them from the system. When charcoal is overloaded, it must be replaced.

There are other kinds of filtration, but these are the most common types.

What do I need to know before I choose a filter?

The main things that you need to know are:

• What filters work best for the types of fish that I am keeping;
• What filters work best for the size of tank that I have; and
• What can I afford.

I keep, mostly, Lake Malawi Cichlids so I need a filter that works well for fresh water tanks. I don’t need to worry about salt water.

The tank that I keep cichlids in is about 350 litres. The rule of thumb for adequate tank filtration is that you want to be able to filter the entire contents of the tank three times an hour. So that means that the filter that I choose needs to be able to filter about 1050 litres per hour (350 x 3).

I don’t have a huge budget, so I am not going to choose a filter that has all of the bells and whistles. If I can get something cheap and reliable … then I will go for that.

I did a lot of reading of stuff on the Internet in aquarium fora, blogs, reviews and vendors sites. I found that there are a couple of common themes out there. Mostly to do with some of the major brands of canister filter. I also had a pretty good idea of the price range for the features that I wanted and so I could then go off to a reputable and reliable shop and get what I wanted (within the limitations of what a shop can and will stock). I explained my requirements to the chap at the shop and he happened to have pretty much what I was asking for, and on special. The original price was over $300 but he was able to sell it to me for $165. The filter included all of the media and was pretty easy to set up (according to the manual).

I ended up buying an INTERPET External Power Filter (EPF) 350. The filter is made in the UK and has a 1 year warranty. Honestly, I don’t care where it was made so long as it is made well.

The clips on the side that hold the power head down on the canister are well designed and don’t look like they will break. The taps and pipes are also well made and don’t look like they will break easily. Many people who reviewed canister filters complained that the clips on their canisters looked flimsy and like they would break. There were also complaints that it is difficult to get spare parts for some of these when/if they break. Well, I think that the manufacture and design of the EPF350 is pretty good.

I got my new filter home and had it set up in about 30 minutes. My main problem in connecting it was that the old basket system didn’t leave much room for other pipes, so I had some juggling to do. Also, the baskets are fixed and cannot be removed without breaking them or taking the hood to pieces (I don’t want to do either).

The gotchas with this filter are:

• The filter comes with a large o-ring and no mention of where it goes in the manual or in the installation guide. Fortunately, I worked out that it goes around the power head; and
• The box says that if is self priming “Priming made easy with leak-free lock-fill system – just fill and go”. That doesn’t sound like self priming … unless they mean “do it your-self”. Anyway, fill the canister through the little port as indicated until the water is almost to the top of the spout and then turn it on.

I also had some trouble with the hoses … but that was really a problem with the design of the tank stand, not the filter.

Now that it is on and running, it is much more quiet than the old filter and the fish are enjoying the exciting new currents in the tank. Also, the pipes for the external filter are much less obtrusive than the quintet of down pipes and highly visible pump of the internal filter.

I will see how the EPF350 performs, I am looking forward to a cleaner fish tank!

Cichlid Photo-shoot

I couldn’t resist taking some photographs of our cichlids and put them here on my blog. There is still a bit of algae in the tank, but then the algae eaters haven’t had much impact yet. We gave the tank a good clean out yesterday.

Here are a bunch of our cichlids Pseudotropheus (tropheops?) x 3, Aulonocara nyssae (in the middle).

A general community shot.

This is a Dragons Blood Peacock cichlid (Aulonocara sturtgarti). The scales on the face are an iridescent blue when it hits the light.

This one of the Pseudotropheus sp. that was in the first photograph.

“Speedy” is a Melanachromis auratus, there are two of them in the tank … they enjoy a frank exchange of views (both males).

Here is “Patch” is a Cyrtocara moorii and is a lovely friendly fish.

These are our red jewel cichlids (Hemichromis bimaculatus), they were the first cichlids that we had in our 450l tank.

Here are “Tempest” and “Storm” they are Aulonocara nyassae. We haven’t seen anything like Tempest on the Interweb. The body colour changes from orange to brown and olive green. Tempest’s face is the most amazing metallic blue.

Storm and Tempest are usually found together … they spend a lot of time together, reading, walks in the park, scrap-booking together … the usual things that couples do.

Above is “Tigger” he is a Metriaclima lombardoi (Kenyi) … when we bought him he was the most amazing blue colour, then he turned yellow, so we know he is a boy.

You can see in the picture above, Tigger also has some blue iridescence in his face.

These are Jack (above) and Duke (below) they are Nimbochromis venustus. There was another venustus in the tank (Rex), but it had a disease and the other fish attacked it. We put Rex in a casualty tank to try to help him recover … but he died.

We also have some clown loaches, a khuli loach, a pair of algae eaters and a pair of hypostamus plecostomus … I will get around to posting pictures of them at some other time.