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New Beginning after years of absent

FishKeeper55

Member
Joined
20 May 2020
Messages
172
Location
UK
Recently daughter and me has decided to get a fish tank, due to agreement this should be her tank little does she now dad have another plans near future , looking at old photo book filled with memory she was all fired up, saved money for while as I was pointing out this is not a cheap hobby, I offer some help but most of this was purchased by her self, so I'm impressed been honest. Anyway here were are on day one after waiting for delivery of few items, nothing special compare to some on here but she loves it.

I had some plans for some sort of different scape but is not mine so will have to wait. I think it looks OK, tank it self hmmm is nothing special due to room decor she wanted white option which shows the silicon bit to much and been honest found some silicon residue inside glass that had to remove it, light is reasonable should work for them plants if not might change this at later day, light and filter can be removed, that white plastic in tank is a bit to much but house all the media and heater, pump is a bit noisy, for that price is OK.
I'm not expert on plants and after putting name tags in bin I forgot most of them
I was thinking the best way to secure the moss so it can grow on bed and reading around best option sound to put in isinde mesh/cage

If anyone see things wrong please point it out, I never had much success with plants in tank and don't know much about them.
Once water settles down might get better pictures.


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Last edited:
most of this was purchased by her self,
Well done :thumbup:

(maybe she will start adding her own posts too :))

Note that epiphyte plants such as Anubias, Microsorum (java ferns) should not be planted in substrate (I’m guessing some might be from photo)
 
Taken some advice on board and working on some re planting, is this how it should look?

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Thanks, wasn't sure so we didn't trim nothing, trying to deal with huge amount of tannis from that wood, looks like mopani to me, might be a while before this clears up a bit. Trying the boiling technique to see if at least will slow down a bit if not might have to look as other options.

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Boiling should speed up the process somewhat
Use a large pot (that is NOT anyone’s favourite cooking pot) and simmer until water turns dark
Pour off stained water and begin again

Sometimes what oozes out is tar like and can only be removed from the pot with 99% alcohol (or similar) but pot will usually retain some dark staining

Changing the water frequently is more efficient

Some mopani wood releases small amounts of tannins, other mopani wood just keep on giving (for years ... though it does slow down)
 
Boiled for 4 hours changing water, pot is only good for bin or another bits of wood, used old one anyway so is fine, i did hear there is some stuff called API Bio-chem Zorb that should help this is well in tank but is it safe with plants?

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It would be fine but not much room in your filter - depending on how much is leaching from the wood, may need a significant amount or product in the filter

I’d use Seachem Purigen instead as it can be regenerated- just read the product page carefully (use of water conditioners with aloe etc may permanently impact Purigen)

Good quality Carbon (most Marine has better activation and pore size than that sold for freshwater) will likely be the most efficient remover of tannins (but single use only)

(note same filter space considerable applies)
 
Will have a look at them options tomorrow, tank after 24h looked like that pot today, should give me indication how much is leaching now and if any of this boiling worked, smaller tanks always harder to manage due to volume of water, as for the filter unless you run external there isn't much room in any of them, if problem become to big and there is no changes that wood will be coming out.
 
Had a bit time to have a look around the tank today and notice on side of the mopani wood is covered with this stuff, is this white algae or something else?

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It look like you have the very common growth of fungus/mould. This will go away after a week or so. It is not harmful but will grow much thicker and is particularly ugly. Manual removal is possible with a siphon but it will pretty much just keep coming back till it’s done and then will go by itself. Not something to worry about :)
 
It look like you have the very common growth of fungus/mould. This will go away after a week or so. It is not harmful but will grow much thicker and is particularly ugly. Manual removal is possible with a siphon but it will pretty much just keep coming back till it’s done and then will go by itself. Not something to worry about :)
Thanks, will keep a eye out on this
 
Had to do a little bit of change in this tank due to mopani leaching so much, back end of tank is not completed as still waiting on couple of things to be delivered, no decent aquatic centre near by unfortunately so everything needs to ordered online, internal filter should be gone soon and most likely will have to remove the side plastic along with the light in near future to provide better lighting, something that I will try to work out over the next couple of weeks.

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Another week gone by, we had to trim the wood slightly to be able to access glass from sides for cleaning, JBL external filter does brilliant job but at this moment pipes are still visible, not the end of the world and will be sorted eventually, plants staying fairly healthy for now, fungus is still present but not as bad as week ago, also have couple nerite snails that are busy at work, she likes the tank more and more everyday and I get lot of joy from trying to stay on top of it. Hopping to add more plants again soon but awaiting for one of the more know place to open up so we can visit.

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Nice tank, and nice to set it up with your daughter. So good that you are both getting something from it, it’s a great hobby that way.
The fungus in the wood will go over time, your nerite snails may even have taken care of it by now?
Will certainly be good to visit stores for inspiration, many are reopening with guidelines so should be happening soon.
Cheerio,
 
Little update as another week gone by, been doing 50% water changes purely to keep the nitrite down for them snails, they doing well, I notice my snails don't like the white stuff to much and are poo masters :eek:, trying to stay away from adding more snails as this is little tank and she has her heart set on blue shrimps and some other life stock, due to tank size options are bit limited, hasn't decided yet and her mind keeps changing. I don't dose prime to tank and just treat water in bucket, white fungus is slowly going away, it looks like it turning brown and at first was thinking is algae but is not, looks strange is like just drying out sort of thing. Hopping another week or maybe two will just go away and we can attach some moss on them lovely sticks. I could see in my daughter that she was ready to give up end of last week as there was not much change but patience is virtue and some just don't have it at young age. I could see there was only 2 leaves that melted on Crypts and been honest I was expecting lot more from reading around also don't want to jinx it but I'm sure I can see new leaf or two showing up on them, unfortunately not much change to monte carlo, no grow but at least no melt, anubias doing much better now they have been moved to back, maybe they doing lot better in less light, still sticking with the Colombo fert, 1 pump per day = 1ml after checking and 6h light, as today is also start of new week will try to reduce water change to every 2 days and see how we get on. I was hoping to see the nitrite to calm down a bit after 2 weeks but it looks like the bacteria hasn't established yet in filter to deal with this.

Also would like to say Thanks for all the kind comments on here and all the help this community offers 👍
 
I would say most of the fungus gone now so we can have a look at attaching some moss, also need to do something with the left hand side of that tank just not sure what, there is few new crypts leaves that sprung up and even one of the anubia has grown new leaf, unfortunately the little anubias we had placed on wood didn't do to well and decided to remove them now, opened the JBLe402 and wanted to check the prefilter as I run floss for now mainly due to when I was scrubbing the fungus some of it was entering filter so wanted to capture as much as possible. Need some bushy low light plants so if anyone can recommend something preferably planted in substrate please let me know.

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