Tag Archives: juwel

Our freshwater aquarium, 19.6.2011

Posted by on June 19, 2011 No comments

Our Juwel RIO 180 tank is now 8 months old and has grown from what only had content from our old 100 liters aquarium such as one stump (or rhizome?) and just a few plants. Now the plants have grown so much and I need to cut them at every water change. I really try to take care of our Amazon sword plants (Echinodorus bleheri) which there are multiple of in our aquarium. As you can see from the picture, I have some Amazon sword plant sprouts growing which is an indication of healthy water. Plants are in general very important to me, so as you can see in the upper left corner of the picture, I also have a CO2 dispenser that makes the plants grow really well.

The aquarium in the pictures below has had water changes every three weeks and to me this is the perfect cycle. All the important metrics (NO2, NO3, pH) are still within good numbers and I can keep the bottom clean as well.

In case you have any questions related to the tank, what I do with it or what I have in it, just leave a comment and I will get back to you. You can also send me an email with your question. You’ll find the email in the About section above.

Juwel automatic feeder with a red flashing light

Posted by on January 8, 2011 21 comments

We had to buy a Juwel automatic feeder for our Juwel RIO tank. The feeder is very simple to setup and use. When I turned the feeder on for the first time, I got a the red LED indicating that the device was on as described in manual. But after some ten seconds the red LED started flashing. I was surprised to find out that there was no mentioning about a red flashing indicator in the instructions manual, so I searched for a while on Google and found this forum and thread.

It turns out that the red flashing indicator on the feeder means that the drum is in the wrong position for it to be able to spin. Let me just say that the drum was in this position when I took it out from the package.

If you have this red blinking indicator on the Juwel feeder, gently spin the drum manually some degrees towards you or so that the text “Juwel aquarium” is pointing towards you. Then you can try by pressing the ‘M’ button to manually spin the drum. And for example test the amount of food it will dispense.

This is absolutely something that Juwel should have included in the instructions, but I hope this blog post will help you with the issue.

Our freshwater aquarium – 3.10.2010

Posted by on October 3, 2010 No comments

Juwel RIO 180 Freshwater Aquarium

This is our a bit over a month old aquarium, Juwel RIO 180. As you can see from the picture, I would like to get some more plant growth, although I am more than confident that the plants are well in the ecosystem. As we migrated from a 100 liters thank to this 180 liters tank, we are still a bit short on plants. But I think I will wait for the current plants to grow a bit more to see how many still are needed.

The main fish in the tank are guppy, with some platy and tetra fish. Their is also a single female Dwarf Gourami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_gourami) so we would need to get her some company and get a male one. Unfortunately already two of the male Dwarf Gouramis deceased in this new tank… But I think the water conditions are now stable and without nitrites, so we’ll probably get a new one pretty soon.

High temperature and Juwel’s light tubes

Posted by on September 20, 2010 4 comments

I have set the heater at 24-25C which should be the safe fallback temperature in case the temperature inside the aquarium drops. If you have an open aquarium with the light tubes on top of the tank you might wonder what I am talking about. You see – the Juwel tank is closed tank which means that the light tubes are inside the tank right next to the water.

The light tubes also emit heat and since the tubes are right next to the water it has a significant effect on the heating of the eco system. Despite that I have set the temperature to be 24-25C in the heater, I constantly measure water temperatures of 27-28C. I haven’t found an easy way to cool down the tank since our apartment temperature is anyway quite high too, even if not 27C. I have and air diffuser plugged in to the Juwel Bioflow pump which creates extra air flow to the water. This is recommended in any case, but necessary with high temperatures.

Do you think my water temperature is too high for normal fish like guppies or platys?

I have also been wondering if the temperature has a negative effect to any plants? I guess not since they look pretty healthy, but somehow this temperature makes me nervous. I hope in vain?

From amateur tank to pro tank

Posted by on September 19, 2010 2 comments

For the past six years I had a 100 liters aquarium tank, which I would like to call an amateur tank. You know – it’s one of those kits they sell you at the local pet store with everything included and really one of those you normally may recall as a “normal” tank. Still, a 100 liters tank is big enough to really get excited and get enough plants and fish to appreciate this hobby. And it was a high quality tank made in Finland. So it was a great way to get started. As you can see from the picture, there were quite a few plants which in my opinion did well. And the fish as well.

My primary principle for this hobby is that everything costs, and if you are about to take this seriously it’s worth spending an extra 10 euros or so to get the best items you can. As you can see from the picture, I had a bigger filter than required. It was graded for 120 liters to 150 liters. This kept the water clear and the water flow high enough. I also use Easy-life ProFito as plant fertilizer and Easy-Life Carbo for extra carbon.
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