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64L of rock, wood and plants

Janci

Member
Joined
4 Sep 2019
Messages
92
Location
Dubai
As I am still slowly building the bigger tank, I decided to upgrade my 45cm tank to a 60cm one.
As I did not want to spent money on ADA finish and a sticker, I asked a local shop to make a 60P tank which turned out great for 1/2 of the price.

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After that i started on the stand. I wanted to use solid wood, but in Dubai such a panels are not readily available so went with plywood and veneer instead.

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I brought a Twinstar 600E from Europe last week and will be using the Oase Filtosmart 100 and CO2 setup from the previous tank. That one has established biomedia which will help to get over the cycle.
 
Did a 75% water change yesterday and cleaned some glass.
The tank stands as this now.

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As you can see, I added some glowlight danios and blue tetras to the livestock list.
They eat dry food already, but I started hatching brine as well. It is lovely to see how fast they are hunting these.

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A spray bar was also added to have a more uniform flow. The one diameter outlet was bothering the Rotala Macandra on the other side.

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Stil continuing wit the 2 times 50% water change on weekly basis.
On Saturday I cleaned the glass and filter, trimmed the moss a little.
The eliocharis has runners all over so the carpet will be filling up nice in the next weeks.

I adjusted the out flow pipe and CO2 diffuser position again to get a better CO2 distribution. In such small tanks, it is tricky to find a good balance between the 2. I think I got it right this time.
The plants are doing well.
The fish on the other hand are doing well too, but are jumpers. Even the blue tetras jump. There are now 5 glowlight danios and 4 blue tetras left, together with the killifish pair and 3 otos.
I added some nerite snails (banded and spotted).

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Can somebody point me in the right direction on how to trim H. Pinnatifida to maintain its bushy form?

Some stems go straight up.
Do I have to cut the leaves and stem to maintain it?

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This weekend was used for a water change and upgrade of the filter to an Oase Biomaster 250 + inline CO2 diffuser.
I see that my moss is not really happy so I lowered the light period to only 6 hour and might lower it more if there is no improvement.

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I got some algae on the lower leave of the Althernantera Reineckii so I trimmed those. The new leave do not show any algae.
The tops runners of the Hygrophila Pinnatifida were also trimmed and some runners were placed back on the rock.

I got an order coming in for some Pseudogumil Gertrudae. I hope these will do fine in the tank.

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This weekend was used for a water change and upgrade of the filter to an Oase Biomaster 250 + inline CO2 diffuser.
I see that my moss is not really happy so I lowered the light period to only 6 hour and might lower it more if there is no improvement.

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I got some algae on the lower leave of the Althernantera Reineckii so I trimmed those. The new leave do not show any algae.
The tops runners of the Hygrophila Pinnatifida were also trimmed and some runners were placed back on the rock.

I got an order coming in for some Pseudogumil Gertrudae. I hope these will do fine in the tank.

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Be careful they jump! You’ll need to make sure you have some form of cover.

cheers

conor
 
It has been a while for an update on the tank.
Since last post, I had to leave for work for a 1 week job. This turned out to become 3 weeks.
After that i came back for half a day, in order to leave again for X-mas and new year to Belgium.

So for the first week, the tank was prepared... the rest was taken care for by my wife by adding some water once or twice a week, feeding the fish and keeping an eye on the filter.

Around Dec 20th, the damage was not that big.
Overall plant growth and some algae on the glass and some leaves.

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And then today I managed to do some more maintenance, clean the filter, do some trimming, take out loose leaves.

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These are the algae that are currently visible in the tank.
I hope that with some more attention and water changes, I can remove these.



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When visiting the fish shop, I saw these Apistogrammas Hongsloi and bought a couple male/female.

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The female was hiding at the moment of taking the picture (due to the maintenance done recently)
 
I hope someone can help here.
I use the Oase Biomaster 250 without heater. This is connected to some stainless steel lily pipes for output. Input is stainless aswell, with skimmer tube.

When I clean the filter, it takes about 3 days before the flow drops and it seems like a lot of air is inside the filter bucket.

I read the Oase Biomaster thread, but I did not find any real source of this air with other users.

If someone has an idea about how to avoid this, please let me know.
 
During the day, the female Apistogramma is mostly in hiding.
Only during feeding time she comes out, biting all who comes too close to her, to grab a piece of food and show off.

This is how she looked when she was first introduced.

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And this is how she looks 10 days later.
What a beauty.

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Hi all,
And this is how she looks 10 days later. .What a beauty.
Quick work. She has laid eggs (at the back of the cave?).
but I started hatching brine as well. It is lovely to see how fast they are hunting these.
Perfect, the fry need live food to stimulate the feeding response.

Female Apistogramma are usually really good parent, but you may find the Tetras and Danios are too quick for her and that could lead to conflict. I've not kept A. hongsloi, but I've kept a few other species and they vary in how fierce they are in defence of their fry.

cheers Darrel
 
Quick work. She has laid eggs (at the back of the cave?).
cheers Darrel

It is possible that she laid eggs somewhere in the back under a piece of rock.
My hatching method is failing right now. The first batches came out pretty well hatched, but lately I hardly get fry.
Will be tinkering with that this weekend I hope.

I added 2 blue dwarf gouramis as well for now.
That will be the last fish.

If everything goes well and I do not have to move out this house by June, I might set up the 280L tank.
I pratically have all the gear (tank, stand, sump, lights, return pump).
This will have to discussed with the master of the house of course, but as she said that she misses the reef tank, I hope this will not be any problem.
 
Lovely apistogramma!

Never tried them yet, do they need some cave? Will they dig in the substrate? What´s the min temp to maintain them (I don't have an heater)?

Thanks!
 
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