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Making do

Ajm200

Member
Joined
19 Feb 2010
Messages
531
Location
London
My last tank was 500l and I had a big budget, no experience and no clue. Too big, too deep and hard to maintain. I’d like to say I’ve improved but not sure

Anyway, it’s going and being replaced with a smaller no budget alternative

Tank: 120l second hand tank that arrived witha broken lid and downright dangerous equipment
Filter: FX4 from the old tank
Substrate: John Innes no 3 (from the greenhouse)
Gravel: Pale aquarium gravel saved from an old setup
CO2: None
Light: 40w cheap LED RGB tank light set to 20% initially 10 hours
Hardscape: Dragon stone (from the old tank) mix of old and new spiderwood

Awful photo. Planting still underway. Grey stones and some of the dragon stone will be removed when the wood sinks
 

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I last bought otos about 5 years ago. I only ever bought 5 or 6 at a time. Haven’t seen any in years but the tank was heavily planted so they always had plenty of hiding places. After 5 years I believed they were gone and I was debating whether I should add any to the new tank as (as far as I know) they are still wild caught. I’m sure someone will correct me if I’m wrong

As we have been stripping down the plants and hard scape in the old tank we keep finding otos. 12 so far. Can’t believe they bred given my low maintenance attitude to the tank in recent years. I thought there were only about 20 fish in 500l with a lot of plants, light feeding, limited added ferts, low lights and infrequent water changes. We had an FX4 and FX6 running on the tank with little going on so filter maintenance was minimal on alternate filters every 3 months.

I thought otos were a bit fragile and prone to dying off so I’m so happy that they were secretly thriving.
 
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Well this must be the secret to breeding ottos then! ;) how did you collect them and get them into the tank? Some kind of diffusor?

I'm sorry, I just loved that typo :) great to hear they did so well! Hope they will thrive in their next home just as well.
😂😂. Got to love autocorrect
 
Each time i see that wood in peoples tanks it gets covered in a white fungi. Is it the wood? It seems quiet popular, and i see containers full of it at my local maidenhead aquatics.
 
Each time i see that wood in peoples tanks it gets covered in a white fungi. Is it the wood?
Hi @Jaseon

My guess is that the fungus spores are actually in the water column. And, as the wood leaches nutrients into the water, this feeds the fungus spores. Of course, I may well be way off the mark. The fungus on the wood usually disappears after a couple of weeks or so.

JPC
 
Each time i see that wood in peoples tanks it gets covered in a white fungi. Is it the wood? It seems quiet popular, and i see containers full of it at my local maidenhead aquatics.
'Fresher' wood like beach that I take from woods also gets covered. Its only wood that comes from bogs or very hard wood etc that dont get fungus I think. And even those can get some patches ive noticed.
 
@Jaseon

I had quite a collection of wood fungus but went from this

FB43F22F-B5DE-4C8F-96DA-37E9B4911525.jpeg

To this

0BDFF0C9-FC43-4A6A-BBCF-A7B443D7AF2E.jpeg

In 7 weeks or so with pretty much no intervention.

This was the worst spot and was on a ‘cut end’ so I’m guessing has leached more of whatever the fungus is living off.

Once it’s fully cleared, I’ll be adding moss to that ugly end piece.
 
Each time i see that wood in peoples tanks it gets covered in a white fungi. Is it the wood? It seems quiet popular, and i see containers full of it at my local maidenhead aquatics.
I believe it’s spider wood. Might be wrong. Had more of it in my old tank for years and it had a bit of green algae on it at the start. No white fungi.
 
I believe it’s spider wood. Might be wrong. Had more of it in my old tank for years and it had a bit of green algae on it at the start. No white fungi.
This stuff yeah,

Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F06%2Fspider-wood-md.jpg


I like how it twists, and turns for some interesting ideas, but not sure about the colour.
 
Soaked mine for 3 weeks before adding to tank and still got the fungus (although that’s a pretty chunky piece) You can see the colour though on my pics and I’m pretty sure that’s the same wood. Mine was easily that light when dry.
 
This is how it looks atm with fish as we moved the filter and fish across

Old tank still running just in xasr but no ammonia or nitrite yet
 

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