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My first adventure into aquascaping - Aquael 125L Walstad

Hi all,
Katharine said:
I'm feeding them bacter ae, soilent green & mulberry leaves,
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Mine always showed more enthusiasm for vegetables and leaves than algal wafers.
Katharine said:
Secondly - I've noticed a few tiny fry. They are way too small for my phone photography skills but I think they must be CPD fry.
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Well done. The are likely to be CPD fry.
Katharine said:
Would some moss help?
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It would. Moss is just the <"best thing for fry">.
Katharine said:
Any tips for giving the fry the best chance at success (either these guys or future fry)?
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Get a culture of <"Micro / Banana Worms"> (or Vinegar Eels). They are incredibly low maintenance to keep. I feed my Corydoras pygmaeus <"with them"> even when they don't have fry.

cheers Darrel
 
I'd put the fry in a Tupperware floating in the tank. Add an alder cone, an almond leaf, or some oak leaves, some moss, some floating plants, and give them a chance. Just change the water each day, or most of it. Add an airstone if you can, gentle circulation. And always do what Darrell says.
 
I'd add a bit of wood, some of your floaters and a wee bit of tripartita from your tank, and tank water, as that mix should contain some micro-organisms. Personally I always found fry boxes finicky but I expect that's just me. A floating Tupperware works just as well. There's an interesting discussion to be had whether to add fresh tank water, or clean water each day. Others will have suggestions, but I now tend to think the organisms are important, so a mix could work well. I always have leaves in my tank so I use those. The fry like to shelter under them. I've used ground up fish food, if you can't get the worm culture going in time. I always had a smaller shrimp tank I'd transfer the fry into after a week or so.
 
Very sad news today - we found a pygmy cory struggling in the hair algae. :( We got them free and they swam up to the surface for air then went back down and got tangled up again at an odd angle. We've gently fished them out into a jug of water to quarantine them but it's not looking good - they're not moving and they're upside down. :(

I noticed earlier a Cory was swimming up and down a little oddly but assumed they were just being derpy. The only other thing I've noticed is they often swim into the filter flow and get buffeted around so it's possible they got injured doing that.

Any ideas?

Edit: ammonia, nitrite & nitrate are all zero with my test kit.
 
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The poor thing seems to be mostly floating stationary on the surface but occasionally swims around the jug upside down.
 
aec34 said:
I can’t really help, but my pygmies are definitely very derpy. Once one of them was being rolled over by some shrimp and not moving so I assumed the worst. Turns out he/she was fine.
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Yeah they do seem to like lying motionless sometimes!

This morning they were swimming around in a way which seemed reasonably normal so I was feeling quite hopeful but now they're just lying on the floor motionless. The other corys all still seem fine.
 
aec34 said:
Mine do this. They do a lot of resting on leaves too. Then they will snuffle about for food, and occasionally do a dash to the surface for a gulp of air. I absolutely love them.
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Yeah it's possible it's fine now, but having watched it for an hour or two it hardly moved so I'm really not sure. :/

They are lovely little characters!
 
They've mostly been hiding and not really eating but I've decided to leave them to it and see if they pull through.

Fry update: I've got a floating fry box with moss and 3-4 fry which we're now feeding with liquifry. :) The fry seem to be gradually getting larger hopefully!

I'm also really motivated to try out new ways to get rid of the hair algae so it doesn't hurt any more fish! I've started adding iron and magnesium daily again to encourage the plants so will see how that goes for a week or so.

And my partner and I think we may have more than one species of oto. 🤔
 
We found a dead cory today, presumably the one who was sick. :( The others all seem okay, will keep an eye on them.

More positively, really happy to report the otocinclus have started eating algae wafers (in addition to mulberry leaves, bacter ae and soilent green), and we still have three fry in the fry box getting gradually bigger. <3
 
Tank looks really good, and a shame about the Cory. I’d suggest (if the fry aren’t alive) getting your hand into the tank and stirring up the dirt to get as much out as you can. That mulm is a great source of food for fry.

Mulm is good, but also may or may not promote algae, but definitely does increase the biochemical oxygen demand which can have an ill effect on inhabitants.
 
castle said:
Tank looks really good, and a shame about the Cory. I’d suggest (if the fry aren’t alive) getting your hand into the tank and stirring up the dirt to get as much out as you can. That mulm is a great source of food for fry.

Mulm is good, but also may or may not promote algae, but definitely does increase the biochemical oxygen demand which can have an ill effect on inhabitants.
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Thanks. :) The fry are still alive but they're in a fry box. Is low oxygen likely given there's reasonable water flow and plants in the tank?
 
Unfortunately we noticed another sick corydora today - it's under the wood in the front right on its side (still alive as I saw it move) (first photo). And there's a third cory who isn't super active and appears to be hiding like the one who died, who looks darker than the others (second photo).

Starting to get pretty worried - does anyone have any ideas?

I've not noticed any issues with the otos or CPDs so far thank goodness.

Edit - ammonia and nitrite are zero.
 

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Updates!

My pygmy corys seem to be okay now (I had 12 but am now down to 9) and I now have 4 honey gourami - two gold honey gourami and two red/sunset(?) gourami. I also now have 2 additional "black panther"snails, though one has a more rounded shell so I'm wondering if it's a different species.

I've still got 3 celestial pearl danio fry in a fry box with moss and a few floating plants - they're gradually getting bigger. I've been feeding them with liquifry and decapsulated brine shrimp but I suspect they're supplementing that with creatures they find in the moss.

I think that completes the stocking for the tank, unless I decide to swap out some plants!

I still have a bit of a problem with hair algae but maybe less than before? I've been adding iron and magnesium sporadically for a while now but not noticed any improvement in plant growth.

With the honey gourami - I originally had two but they were becoming increasingly aggressive with one another so I've got another two to hopefully spread the aggression out and make it harder for them to maintain large territories.
 
I guess I jinxed myself - I woke up this morning to find an oto dead. :( I really thought I'd been doing right by them as I hadn't lost any and I've had half of them since November. One had been looking a bit pale a couple of weeks ago though.

There is another oto looking slightly pale (with a shiny/iridescent patch on its tail), which I'll keep an eye on. Others all seem normal.

Water quality seems fine though nitrates are no longer zero (they're ~5).

So now I'm back to where I was with the pygmy corys (the remaining 9 of which still seem fine, though they were swimming around the tank together a lot today) - was it a freak incident? Starvation? Parasites? Or an infection?

I've reviewed what I'm feeding them and have decided I should be feeding approx 1g/day (for all inhabitants) and that 40% of the food should be targeted at the otos, so my revised daily plan is:

  • 2 soilent green cubes (0.3g dry weight)
  • 1/5 scoop bacterAE (0.1g)
  • 6 hikari wafers (0.3g)
  • 1/2 scoop artemia (0.3g)
  • 2-3 pinches of microcrumb (0.1g)

+ 1/2 mulberry leaf every few days/when the previous one is gone.

That's pretty much what I was feeding them already, apart from the soilent green and mulberry leaves, which I'd been inconsistent with. Hopefully this feeding schedule will eliminate the risk of starvation.

I do have eSHa exit and eSHa 2000 but am still reluctant to medicate blindly.
 
You added Otos a short time ago, right? Any oto that dies within the month of purchase is usually due to the whole catching-selling-traveling thing. They come into stores absolutely wrecked.

Other than that, the tank looks great. With any walstad, in my limited experience, less is usually more. When it comes to plants, avoid at all costs cutting or trimming large amounts at a time. It's the equivalent to squeezing a filter sponge too much, they keep the thing healthy. Your fish are breeding, si it's a healthy environment for sure!
 
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