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First attempt -Ciano 58 litre

jamila169

Member
Joined
4 Mar 2021
Messages
170
Location
N Derbyshire
Day one for my daughter's tank, I'm pretty much in charge of the plant side because she's all about the fish. There's a heavy nod to tropica layout #1 while fitting in the wood and stones my daughter chose. Using the light that came with the kit , no CO2, substrate is John Innes no3 +peat with micro gravel covering it, using TNC and the frogbit index . Daughter wants a Betta fish, but we're starting off in a month or so with pygmy corys and ember tetras (which will clash horribly with the bright pink decorative gravel she wants to sprinkle in, but , whatever, it's hers). I'm looking for a 30cm cube for myself, so if she ends up with a tetra hating betta, I'll have somewhere to put them



tank day one.jpg
 
tested the water today , 0 ammonia, 7 nitrites, 70 nitrates, so I have some good bugs in there at least , did a 50% water change b/c the manzanita (really? I soaked you for a week you woody pain in the blahblahblahblah) is still staining the water and to dilute things a bit , plants are happy as clams though, new leaves coming on everything, limnophila has doubled in size so you can actually see it now and the frogbit is forming new leaves and runners
 
All the fish you've mentioned will enjoy the tannins the manzanita is leeching, but tannins and pink gravel might clash...
 
Wheee! 4 weeks in and... we're attacking BGA - not loads , but enough to crack out the Blue Exit and obsessively pick bits off the tiny crypts that it's focussing on , when the treatment's done, I'll be introducing some cheap CO2 to give the plants a boost as I'm not happy with how slow they are at getting established, I need them to be a lot more enthusiastic with the whole growing thing so they get the upper hand on the diatoms and algae that are still in evidence
 
You just need to be patient, Cryptocoryne, Java fern, Anubias are slow growers and take time. In my personal experience Amazon swords until they get a good root structure don't really do much. Agree with @PARAGUAY above about water changes and cleaning as much algae off as possible. Don't worry too much about the slime on the wood, it is unsightly but I think majority of us on here have experience it at some stage or another. From my experience it will go away in time, it can be scraped off but until it's gone through its phase can return.
 
I've been brushing the algae off daily and picking off bigger bits with tweezers, it's actually a lot better, but I don't want the BGA to get into the gravel. I learned my lesson with the white slime, I took the wood out and scrubbed it and it came back worse -not doing that again. The brown crypts are doing well, I cut the leaves off before planting so everything's new growth, but the tiny ones seem to have shrunk a bit and make a break for freedom if they can, though they have new roots appearing. The instructions on the blue exit say not to change the water until treatment is finished , so I'm just manually removing and will be siphoning the little bits out with airline rather than the gravel vac until I can do a proper change
 
I have just added some wood recently purchased from our sponsers its got mouldly white growth. Its normal and will go away after a time🙂
 
That's better - sat on my hands all week apart from slurping out loose bits of algae , also started some bio CO2 in the vain hope it'll help the C. Parva get better rooted. Tested today before and after a big water change and I reckon it's cooked , apart from a ludicrously high GH (21? it's supposed to come out of the tap at 12 german) I tested the tap water and that was the same according to the test kit (NTlabs) so I've ordered the API version to see if it's kosher, I'm thinking it's wrong or an anomaly B/C it's never been that high . There's new leaves popping out on just about everything, the frogbit is busy , every time I open the tank another tiny one has launched and my three midget Amazon Sword plantlets have got proper underwater leaves. I'm probably going to pick up some nerites this week to graze the wood and tidy it up a bit



IMG20210411230800.jpg
 
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Ha! spoke too soon , Ella decided to clean her rocks last night and also scraped most of the crud off the wood (weeps) anyhow , She's now the proud owner of a small fleet of Nerites, all named Gary and after a small sulk when they first went in (yep, did acclimate them) they've been doing snail zoomies all over the glass, rocks, gravel and hanging out near the CO2 diffuser for a quick jacuzzi, they all seem to know which way is up and have topped up their scuba tanks
 
small fleet of Nerites, all named Gary
Whilst the lack of individual names may at first seem to be a disadvantage, it does mean you can have endless hours of fun yelling "Gary!" at the top of your voice from one side of the tank, and just when they're all about to get there 30 mins later, sprinting round to the other side and yelling "Gary!" all over again.
 
looks like the little blighters brought snacks, got a large bloom of daphnia that's hatched in the last couple of days while I was otherwise occupied moving eldest offspring into his new place just had a 'mm, where's that debris from? nope, it's actually moving, yep, definitely moving and there's lots of them whips out phone zooms in , that's nice, daphnia, hope they like algae' moment
 
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