Hello all, I signed up to this forum awhile ago at the suggestion of someone from another fish forum, but due to a mix of busyness and pure laziness, I've not managed to post :?
I have quite a few different questions about my tank, which I'm sure belong in seperate subsections of the forum, but rather then spamming 1/2 of the forum, I thought I'd try condensing it into 1 post and see how things go.
This is my tank
Bit of a mess I know, as hard as it is to believe, this was done after my week maintence of trimming and pulling out algea.
Tanks been up and running since May 5th 2009
Water stats
Equitpement
Fish
Plants
Daily, I feed them once a daily, normal tropical flakes with some sinking pellets, , though I have been feeding more pellets lately since the Gourami have developed a taste for them. I dose 2.5ml of Tropical TPN+.
Weekly, I try to get as much algea out as possible with a tooth brush, have a general trim and do a 50% water change. For the water change, I use water from the cold tape, heated up with water from the kettle and then treat it with Seachem Prime.
So finally, here are my problems and questions :?:
Algea
My main problem at the moment if algea, I've been fighting a long battle with it and have been steadily losing, it's claimed and destroyed my glosso and is firmly established in my moss on the bog wood
I've pretty much had to rip out my glosso, since the algea was so bad. I was originally running 4x24W lights, but was told to remove 1 tube since it was too much light.
CO2
I'm having trouble getting my CO2 right, I have 2 drop checker in the tank, but when ever I turn the CO2 up, my fish appear to breath rapidly and hide, in some cases I've seen the Gourami gulping at the surface, even at these levels it hasn't been enough to turn the drop checkers green, so at the moment I keep my CO2 low and the drop checkers blue to make sure I don't endanger my fish and shrimp.
I did try pointing my powerhead at the surface to cause a bit more turbulance, bit as strange as it sounds, it looked like it did my harm then good, I had to keep my CO2 even lower.
Plants
This is my 1st attempt at a planted tank and while I did my research, it's been 1 hell of a learning experience and I was a little ambitious.
The glosso has been my main casualty, at 1st it spread well all across the front of the tank but as it grew it become very long and stringy heading towards the surface. Most of my glosso has gone now, being ripped out as I was pulling on the clumps of algea in it, I would still like to know what went wrong and what would be a nice carpet plant for the future once I get my problems under control.
The Monosolenium Tenerum has been another oddball, it started of it's life in my tank, tired down to the rock with cotten thread, but it didn't do too well, lots of dead patchs and the male gourami used to love picking at it and pulling bits off. In the end I pulled most of it out since It was dead, however it looks like I missed a bit and it grown enormously at the front of the tank. While it isn't very tidy, I know, I've left it there since it's flourishing, is using up nutrients that the algea might use otherwise and it's become the female Gouramis favourite chill out place to get away from the male, she's made a cave of sorts. I'm unsure of what to do with it on the future, try tieing it back on the rock or try something else.
The Vallis is really making a bid of tank domination, it's runners seem to be everywhere!
I'm cutting off what I can find but it's getting hard to control, especially in amongst the Hygrophllia.
Fish
Not a problem, but a question, I would like to make some small additions to the tank, 1 or 2 Otto's and some ammano shrimp, to help with cleaning, is there room in my tank for more? Will there be any hostilities between the cherrys and the ammano?
Sorry about the long post, if need be I'll cut this down and post it in the seperate subsections.
I greatly appreciate any and all opinions, suggestions and criticisms.
I have quite a few different questions about my tank, which I'm sure belong in seperate subsections of the forum, but rather then spamming 1/2 of the forum, I thought I'd try condensing it into 1 post and see how things go.
This is my tank
Bit of a mess I know, as hard as it is to believe, this was done after my week maintence of trimming and pulling out algea.
Tanks been up and running since May 5th 2009
Water stats
- Ammonia = 0
- Nitrite = 0
- Nitrate = 10
- GH & KH = About 18-20, sorry it's an old reading, can't find my test kits
- PH 7.4
Equitpement
- Juwel Rio 125 tank
- Using the internal filter
- 3 x 24W Plant pro grow T5 lights (was 4), running time 2PM-9PM
- Pressurised CO2 with Japanese style plate diffuser, running time 1PM-8PM
Fish
- 2 x Blue Dwarf Gourami
- 6 x Cardinal Tetra
- 6 x Cories (their name escapes me at the moment)
- 9 x Red Cherry Shimp
Plants
- Alternanthera Reineckii 'Pink' (Roseafolia)
- Ceratophyllum Demersum (Foxtail)
- Hygrophila Polysperma (Rosanervig)
- Glossostigma Elatinoides
- Monosolenium Tenerum
- Taxiphyllum Barbieri (Vasicularia)
- Vallisneria Nana
- Vallisneria Spiralis
Daily, I feed them once a daily, normal tropical flakes with some sinking pellets, , though I have been feeding more pellets lately since the Gourami have developed a taste for them. I dose 2.5ml of Tropical TPN+.
Weekly, I try to get as much algea out as possible with a tooth brush, have a general trim and do a 50% water change. For the water change, I use water from the cold tape, heated up with water from the kettle and then treat it with Seachem Prime.
So finally, here are my problems and questions :?:
Algea
My main problem at the moment if algea, I've been fighting a long battle with it and have been steadily losing, it's claimed and destroyed my glosso and is firmly established in my moss on the bog wood
I've pretty much had to rip out my glosso, since the algea was so bad. I was originally running 4x24W lights, but was told to remove 1 tube since it was too much light.
CO2
I'm having trouble getting my CO2 right, I have 2 drop checker in the tank, but when ever I turn the CO2 up, my fish appear to breath rapidly and hide, in some cases I've seen the Gourami gulping at the surface, even at these levels it hasn't been enough to turn the drop checkers green, so at the moment I keep my CO2 low and the drop checkers blue to make sure I don't endanger my fish and shrimp.
I did try pointing my powerhead at the surface to cause a bit more turbulance, bit as strange as it sounds, it looked like it did my harm then good, I had to keep my CO2 even lower.
Plants
This is my 1st attempt at a planted tank and while I did my research, it's been 1 hell of a learning experience and I was a little ambitious.
The glosso has been my main casualty, at 1st it spread well all across the front of the tank but as it grew it become very long and stringy heading towards the surface. Most of my glosso has gone now, being ripped out as I was pulling on the clumps of algea in it, I would still like to know what went wrong and what would be a nice carpet plant for the future once I get my problems under control.
The Monosolenium Tenerum has been another oddball, it started of it's life in my tank, tired down to the rock with cotten thread, but it didn't do too well, lots of dead patchs and the male gourami used to love picking at it and pulling bits off. In the end I pulled most of it out since It was dead, however it looks like I missed a bit and it grown enormously at the front of the tank. While it isn't very tidy, I know, I've left it there since it's flourishing, is using up nutrients that the algea might use otherwise and it's become the female Gouramis favourite chill out place to get away from the male, she's made a cave of sorts. I'm unsure of what to do with it on the future, try tieing it back on the rock or try something else.
The Vallis is really making a bid of tank domination, it's runners seem to be everywhere!
I'm cutting off what I can find but it's getting hard to control, especially in amongst the Hygrophllia.
Fish
Not a problem, but a question, I would like to make some small additions to the tank, 1 or 2 Otto's and some ammano shrimp, to help with cleaning, is there room in my tank for more? Will there be any hostilities between the cherrys and the ammano?
Sorry about the long post, if need be I'll cut this down and post it in the seperate subsections.
I greatly appreciate any and all opinions, suggestions and criticisms.