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125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic heavy

Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

Hi Jason,
i love cory's too, and itll be great for them and you if you up their numbers. Theyre great fish and full of character! Sorry to hear about the ottos, they seem most vulnerable in the first few weeks after purchase, but if you get them through this they seem to go the distance.
Id also up your c02, i know its a little daunting and your looking out for the fish, but if you have it you may as well use it too its full potential. Just increase slowly daily to get a lime green dc at some point, then tweak it from there to get lime green for lights on...keep watching the fish for signs of distress, but youll probably be surprised how much more you can dose and it will then make a difference to plant growth. You may also need to then go on 2 hrs pre lights and off 2hrs before lights off for example to get the uptake/gas off/fish comfortability rate just right for your tank, but only trial and error will get it spot on.
I also used to lose water from the bubble counter, evaporation my explanation too, but i dont use one anymore as a bubble count to me seems so open to variation between brands that your better off watching the fish and drop checker.... the fish especially will let you know! Little changes every day is best. :thumbup:
Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

Monthly update, ottos and corys are doing great and had no issues with them so far. I am however trying to battle a case of either BBA or Staghorn, not too sure which 1. Either way though both have the same symptoms and both are due to poor water circulation or CO2. I don't think the problem is circulation as all the plants are gently swaying and the surface movement is good. I may need to up the CO2 but i think it's generally high anyway so i don't want to do that just yet.

For the past 4 or so weeks during every WC i've tried to pull off as much of the algae as possible without damaging the leaves of the plants. I then do a 40-50% WC and clean the filter media (all sponges apart from 1 and the ceramic basket) and empty the water in the filter and replace it. The filter holds 12L of water and the water is a light brown with quite a bit of detrius and mulm so it's at least doing a good job of filtering the muck out the tank. For one week i tried blitzing the tank with AquaCarbon and dosed 10ml per day to rid it. It didn't affect the fish thankfully (i was worried that over dosing 4x the recomended dose coupled with the addition of CO2 would harm the live stock). Unfortunately this didn't do anything and is quite expensive considering a 250ml bottle is around 10 quid; it also seemed to me the algae grew more with the AquaCarbon. I've now stopped dosing this and i've tried treating it with a solution instead. After yesterdays WC i used JBL's algol, i'll have to wait and see if this works. If not i have bought a JBL PhosEx media pad which ill try out http://www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/ ... -3099.html

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The second thing i'm quite unhappy about is one of my female gouramis is displaying very weird behaviour. I noticed it has been very lethargic overy the past 3-4 days, often staying in a fixed place for hours of a time under leaves or sitting on the substrate or even by the water surface. I noticed sometimes it would float diagonally and sometimes swim sideways. I found it pointing downwards and between a log, i thought it had died at first but when i touched it it slowly moved away and to the top of the tank. I saw the male gourami chase it away but it wasnt very aggressive, they moved slowly and it only chased it out of a plant. The other female then did the same, so may be it was being bullied and it was stressed? I decided to move it to the cube and add some stress coat but it displayed the same behaviour. I also added a flake of food which it didn't touch and was so lethargic it let me touch it in the tank without moving and the fish never do that. I went to work and when i came back in the morning it was still alive. As i write this now at 7pm though i've just found it in between the rotala head down towards the substrate, i believe it has sadly died. The gourami's are one of my favourites so it's not nice at all, such a shame! I did some research, if it wasn't stressed then it may have had swim bladder disease? http://www.fishdeals.com/fish_diseases/ ... r_disease/

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Thanks for looking

Jason
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

Hi Jason,
i had an outbreak of staghorn, and to eliminate it i did every 2 or 3 day water changes alongside flourish excel at 3x recommended dosage. Kept the filter clean and within a week it had all turned pink and died. I then continued with the excel dosing at recommended dose and reduced water changes down to every 3 or 4 day and then back to weekly.
I also increased my c02 a smidging. I cant remember 100% but think i may have reduced my photoperiod from 9 to 8hrs also.
I still get minor recurrences, but i think this is down to flow/distribution when my plant mass increases.
Hope you get it sorted,
cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

Thanks Ady, i've noticed a steady decrease and observed some of it go red/pink the other day so hopefully fingers crossed it's going!
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

Haven't posted in a while as i've been very busy with the olympics (working in excess of 60-80 hours in a week with only 1 or 2 days off). I decided a while ago now that i want to rescape the whole tank. Reason being it's been running now nearly a year and i feel i've learnt a great deal and i'm now ready to try my hand at a proper scape with more plants. I will be keeping the same fish but will probably increase the harlequins to around 12 from 6.

Scaping plan
My idea was to have a large stone which stood out on the left side of the tank, the face needed to be sloping and it had to be wider and the bottom than the top. I went to woodcote nurseries in Wallington and spent 20 minutes digging around the baskets (staff thought i was mad). Picked out a few large rocks of cambrian green, i believe it may be granite but not certain. The piece i really wanted had to be cut down as it was too big. My dad gave me a hand and managed to hack away at it, thankfully it only took 3 hits and it cut right in the place i wanted. I'm now left with a great piece of rock with 4 small pieces to put at the base of it. Surrounded by this would be valis asiatica and in front will be Cryptocoryne wendtii 'green'. I will carpet with eleocharis sp mini and have the barclaya longifolia bulb in the middle and rear of tank. On the right i've bought a lovely piece of redmoor root wood from TGM, this will be surrounded by small rocks and have mini christmas moss tied to the branches. I've written down 5 large plants to go at the back so i just need to choose 1 now. Lastly staurogyne repens will be planted at the base of the wood.

Tank set up
Tank
Juwel Rio 125 without internal filter

Substrate
Tropica Plant Growth Substrate 2.5 Litre
ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia 9 Litres

Hardscape
Cambrian Green rock
Redmoor root wood
ADA Yamaya Stone

Lighting
Juwel High Lite Light Unit 80cm T5 2x28 Watt

Filtration
JBL Cristalprofi e1500

Heating
None

CO2
FE in-line

Fertilisation
Not decided but most probably TPN+ daily, with a weekly water change

Plants
Eleocharis sp. 'mini' - http://www.tropica.com/en/plants/plantd ... x?pid=132B
Vallisneria sp. 'asiatica' - http://www.tropica.com/en/plants/plantd ... x?pid=056A
Vesicularia dubyana 'christmas' - http://www.tropica.com/en/plants/plantd ... x?pid=003A
Cryptocoryne wendtii 'green' - http://www.tropica.com/en/plants/plantd ... px?pid=109
Staurogyne repens - http://www.tropica.com/en/plants/plantd ... x?pid=049G
Barclaya Longifolia
Nymphae Lotus
1 more undecided

I had to go to IKEA and buy a suitable box to keep the fish whilst i cleaned the tank. I managed to get an 80 litre perspex box which so far has held out fine and the fish seem undisturbed. Will probably plant within the next week work permitting.

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Tank filled and the barclaya longifolia is in place along with the nymphae lotus, rear left, behind the stone and the driftwood with xmas moss attached to it. The stones on the barclaya and driftwood are temporary to hold both down as they establish.

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2 days after planting and i'm pleased with my planting plan. The crypts will hopefully lower their leaves to drape over the substrate instead of sticking upright. The echinodorus red diamond is in the middle and i received a free plant due to the delay, i think this is also an echinodorus red diamond but im not too sure, this is to the far right of the tank. I had trouble keeping both in the substrate, the last 2 days i came home from work both were floating so ive used stones and rocks to place either side of them and gently against the leaves to stop them from floating until the roots take hold. At the moment i've got a small filter which is only 450L p/h as the big 1200l p/h is in the ikea box with the fish :D I reckon another week or two and i can put the fish into the tank again after the substrate has leaked its amonia. The parvula sp mini was a little fiddley to plant as like any carpeting plant it wanted to float. I've managed to plant them but a lot of the leaves are covered by substrate to keep them down, im hoping it wont affect the growth too much.


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Thanks for looking

Jason
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

I'd have been more inclined to have all the rocks together, to make them all look joined up beneath the substrate, though as the hair grass spreads it should fill all the gaps in :)
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

All fish are now in apart from the cories so they dont dig up and uproot the eleocharis. Also added 6 ottos which are doing great and much better than my last batch, they are even schoaling with the harlequins from left to right which is quite funny to watch. I now have:

6 harlequins (will be boosted to 12 over the following months)
6 Ottos
2 Golden Honey Gourami's
2 Asian Rummynose rasboras
5 Cories (3 adolfoi and 2 sterbai)

I'm having problems with the eleocharis at the moment, most of it is doing ok and slowly spreading but ive noticed at least 3 or 4 patches turning brown and dying off. I've had to remove 2 as they were all brown. I don't know why this is happening as everything is doing fine, i can only guess it's because i didn't hook up the CO2 until yesterday so they've gone 2 weeks without it.

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The barclaya longifolia lost the leaves and roots (must have died being moved twice in the last few months, i've read they don't like being moved). I've left the bulb on the substrate hoping it'll re root. Christmas moss is doing fantastic!
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

New iphone so new camera at last! Here are some pics from about 3 weeks ago:

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During a water change something very weird happened. I usually siphon out 4-5 buckets of water which is roughly 35-45% of the water. After i siphoned out the 5th bucket 3 out of the 6 harlequins immediately and simultaneously turned upside down and laid on the substrate. I've never seen this happen before and it's the weirdest thing to watch. The other 3 stayed schoaling while these 3 laid on the bottom and were moving slightly. After about 1-2 minutes they 1 by 1 gradually turned the right way up. 2 re joined the schoal and 1 stayed by itself for a while. Since then i haven't seen any other weird behaviour. Any ideas what the hell this is?

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Thanks for looking

Jason
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

I really like that big stone you have in the corner but I think it would have looked nicer stood further out into the tank with lots of large plants behind and around the sides with smaller plants in front. It looks a bit crammed in there but this is only my opinion...Plants look nice and healthy.

Cheers, l
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

im waiting for the crypt to lower its leaves as it is advertised to lay its leaves on the substrate, also the valis should hopefully fill out in time creating the effect you described :) eleocharis still not doing well though
 
Re: 125L First tank, low turned high tech, plant and pic hea

Sorry, my point was that there doesn't look to be much space behind the rock so not much room for plants to bush out, there won't be much depth to the plants behind, damn, maybe I'm just no good at explaining my random thoughts! lol, sure it will look great.
 
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