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The CHI(LL)

Day 70 - :(

I did something really really stupid yesterday... Note to self: don't ever EVER (EVER!) adjust CO2 before leaving home for half a day!

I came home to realise that a huge amount of CO2 was being injected to the tank... both my snails were smart enough to climb out of water into safety, but the shrimp I was able to see, seemed dead!

I ripped everything apart to try to get all the shrimps out into a small cup of water from the tank that I shook like a coke bottle when you want to make a prank on someone...

Did a 90% water change, replanted the whole tank, acclimatised the shrimps and hopped they would make it... 5 seem to have recovered, the rest, including the biggest and most beautiful of them all didn't resist my neglect... :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :mad: :rage:
 
@kadoxu , you are traversing the steep learning curve like a champion.

Sorry for your losses.
 
I made that mistake too coincidentally but my Amano shrimps recovered. It was not a pretty sight though, all my Amanos were upside down twitching so I instantly scooped them up, turned on air filter and put them above/close to it and they recovered after a few hours thank god. My drop checker was way yellow...


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DAY 73 - The aftermath

Well, this is the result of me trying to save the RCSs
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I'm still waiting for a glass inlet pipe to arrive and I've been thinking about getting a white background, just to hide the wires and tubes as much as possible.
 
Dude, those plants don't look the best. I think they are deficient in something. Are you dosing properly?
 
Thank you @Manisha and @rebel.

I picked up another dozen of Red Cherries yesterday and made an acclimatization for almost 4 hours. I didn't loose any so far. Last time I lost 2 on the first 3 days, hopefully it won't happen this time around.
When you do acclimatisation, dose the whole tank of prime first. This, in my naive belief, could prevent ammonia toxicity if the fish shop water is acidic, but by chance becomes more basic, hence making ammonium > ammonia... etc.
 
Dude, those plants don't look the best. I think they are deficient in something. Are you dosing properly?
I had an outbreak of Green Spot Algae recently and I've been trying to find a better source of Micros. Most plants you can see now were also being shaded by the Japanese Cress, so that and the crappy photo quality is probably why.

When you do acclimatisation, dose the whole tank of prime first. This, in my naive belief, could prevent ammonia toxicity if the fish shop water is acidic, but by chance becomes more basic, hence making ammonium > ammonia... etc.
Never though of that before. My PH can rise above 8 with CO2 off, so that's something I actually need to pay attention to.
 
DAY 91 - Update

Plants are still slowly recovering from the BBA outbreak. I was worried about having few Phosphates, but before going out and spend money in new ferts I bought a Phosphates test kit. Apparently I had more than enough, same going for Iron...

So I reduced to half EI dosage and skipped a couple of Micro days to see if this is the result of Micro toxicity. Tomorrow is water change day, so I'll only run some more tests tomorrow so see the results of the reduced regime.

I believe most of the plants are showing stunted growth, but I'm waiting until tomorrow to make my conclusions...

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Note: I have never touched the white pebbles since the critters were added.
 
Wow... it's been a while! I've been a bit busy moving home and getting everything ready for the baby boy (coming really soon)...

This tank has been through a lot in the meantime...
  • The plants were in such a bad state after the move, that I decided to remove almost all of them and use the ones I had in a propagator to replant the tank. I also moved the statue a bit more to the back of the tank.
  • Moved all the Moss Balls back into the aquarium! :twisted:
  • The original filter was removed
  • The filter's plastic inlet and outlet (spray bar) were replaced by a glass lilly pipe set
  • New Chihiros A-Series LED lights
  • Changed fertilizer recipe
  • Built a perspex lid
  • Lost some shrimp on the way... :(
  • Still dealing with some algae issues
  • and more importantly... GOT SOME NEW FISH! :angelic:
So here's a couple of tank pics (sorry about the diffuser's position, but I didn't want to wet my hands! :what:)
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FTS
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I'm still letting the plants grow so they can get some advantage over the algae by getting CO2 from the surface. I want to cut them and plant the cuttings soon.

As I said, I'm fighting some algae, it's been slowly getting better, so I hope that I'm on the righ track now. Most of the affected plant leaves are emersed grown, the plants didn't melt after bein imersed, and I want to believe the newest leaves won't be affected...
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My DIY lid was just cut from a 25x25cm perspex sheet. I cut a couple of corners for the filter and CO2 tubings and 36 breathing holes
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Now, the new babies... about a month ago, I got a dozen of Black Bar Endlers from Ebay. They were about 1 month old at the time, so they were quite little and still colorless. One of them jumped out of the tank and died just after a week or so (and hence the new lid).

I have to say I'm loving these guys... specially when they get a bit of food that doesn't fit their mouths right away... they bite it and swim around with it... just like a puppy with a bone! :lol:

This week I got all excited when I noticed that at least one of them started to get some colors!

The pics are a bit crappy, but was the best I could do...
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And here are 2 ninjas hidding in the shadows (1 Red Cherry & 1 Zebra Nerite)
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So... I think that's enough for the next few months! :lol:
 
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