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"Seeking stability" Strolgen's tank

strolgen

Seedling
Joined
3 Mar 2009
Messages
20
First post here :D
I love this journal section so I thought I would participate.
I'm still a newby in growing plants (after a year ) and still doing the same errors over and over again ! :rolleyes:
Well it does not matter, I'm happy with the result. ;)

This set up was suppose to be low maintenance but end up to be quite difficult to maintain : meaning I found it hard to keep BBA at bay. :twisted:
I kept all filter media and substrate from the previous set up. Re-use most of the plants also.

Tank specs:
10us gallons all glass ( not into high optic glass tank with my skills )
filtration aquaclear 20 ( with sponge, active carbon and stuff for bacteria)
substrate mixed of pea gravel and coarse sand ... that's right no highly loaded fertilizer substrate :arrow: May be one day I will go this road.
Powerhead for extra flow
DIY CO2 ( sugar mixed ) , I removed this after awhile :arrow: get tired of changing the mix every couple weeks :rolleyes:
light 15w fluorescent tube (no reflector I think )

Plants I was thinking low maintenance so I went the way "slow" growing plants
Various Microsorum pteropus windelow, narrow leaf, "standard?"
Eleocharis parvula
Taxiphyllum sp. Peacock ( ?)
Various cryptocoryne sp.

Hardscape:
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Starting the planting
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First day with fish.
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Continued

I do realized that the fern attach up was kind of out of place. Luckily after a couple day it detach by itself .
Day after:
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One or two week later , BBA started to show up
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Later again ..
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Pics will only show if you're logged in to the PFK forum... not sure if PFK will like people 'borrowing' their bandwidth in that way... strolgen, could you not host the pictures elsewhere, like photobucket?
 
sorry about that. I deleted the links and replaced them.
Is there a way to upload pictures from computer ?
Or I have to use an URL only ?
 
aaronnorth said:
nice tank :D
Tanks.
I'm still trying to figure out how to get rid of the BBA.
In the following, I'm not using the DYI CO2 anymore.
I do understand that I need to cut down on my water change since they are the cause of the BBA but I found it difficult not to do water change :wideyed:

Here are one of my best shot. Sorry I did not take the time to removed all equipements :rolleyes: The sharp eye will see the BBA growing on the wood mostly.
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Tanks over a period of 3 months. I wish I will be more consistant in my photography skills ( either over exposed or under exposed)

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Since then I removed all fish from it. It's going to be a shrimp only tank.
 
I think that has grown in really nicley, I like the way you angled the heater to succesfully hide it behind the diagonal branch. Would look great with cherry shrimp, I like the red of the serpae tetras but their a little big for the set up. Nice work
 
TBRO said:
I think that has grown in really nicley, I like the way you angled the heater to succesfully hide it behind the diagonal branch. Would look great with cherry shrimp, I like the red of the serpae tetras but their a little big for the set up. Nice work.
Thank you. It was my thinking too with the red cherry shrimp and it is the reason why I moved all fish out ( the serpae are quite territorial and were nipping on the adult size shrimp). One of the female released her eggs yesterday, I can't wait to see all the babies crawling around :)

Tourney said:
Take a look at JamesC's website, it will help alot with you're algae problems ;) http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

I found some other sources but they gives the same answer to the problem. At least this is consistent .

Fertilizer dosing:
I realized last night that I've been doing something wrong. I do not dose the macro element in my tank, I mean I do not add nitrate for the plants to use ... :rolleyes: . I've been dosing ( if dosing means, put a couple of drip of liquid ferts in the tank when I fell like it ) the trace element only.
I remember tested the water and seen the nitrate to be very low (under 5, not sure what unit).
Anyway, tonight I will be getting Seachem Nitrogen that for the N. I have seen a lot of TPN? thread, what does the T and P stand for?
(I know that this looks stupid :D but there is so much too learn and english is not my mother tongue so I get confuse)

Cheers,
Strolgen
 
Tourney said:
TPN= Tropica Plant Nutrition ;) TPN+ has Nitrogen and Phosphorus added.

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1038

N has nothing to do with Nitrogen in TPN :lol:
oh ... I think messed up with the NPK acronyme! :oops:
Anyway, knowing that the tank is "fishless" ( at the exception of two otocinclus ), Is the TPN+ alone will add enough of Nitrogen and Phosphorus?
I don't feed that much the shrimps, I don't think I can count on nitrate created from their wastes which should minimal and it would also not be dosing ...

Cheers,
Strolgen
 
No water change ...

Hi guys,

So for the past 2 weeks and I did not do my weekly water change ( 40-45%). The reason being my issues with algae ( mostly BBA) after each water change !
Anyway, the hair grass is recovering slowly ... Used to have patches of BBA all over :mad: Well it is still there but not as thick

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I'm still far away from what I would like it to look like but I feel like I'm going toward the right direction . The BBA which was growing on all the bits and ends of the woods and ferns is slowly going away !

The tank did not improve much because...

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... of things happening in it :D

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Shrimplet at 2 days.
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A few days later . They are growing so fast, it is very impressive. Doubling size from one day to the other :wideyed:
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By the way, you can see in the pic above some bits of BBA .

Two weeks without WC, two weeks without fish in it ( except two otocinclus) . The "planaria" are feeling safe sliding around on the front glass. ( no macro lense :oops: so I took pictures with what I have : my magnified glass x4 ;) )
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I ordered some seachem nitrogen ( the store I browsed did not have it so I had to order it , but they had potassium), I should get it by next week. A week ago, I started to add potassium; the effect was immediate, plenty of new shots for the hair grass . I hoping with the nitrogen , it will be crazy growing. I planning to add more plants when the shrimps will be bigger, I don't want to mess around and kill them all ( I can barely see them ).

Comments and critics are always welcome.
 
TDI-line said:
Very nice journal, good to see it coming together.

thanks. appreciated.

Update:
Plants are doing fine but not the shrimps. I had a dead one that I noticed few days laters ... and so far lost all the adult shrimps except 1, not sure about the young shrimps.
I'll give the young shrimp 2-3 more weeks to grow , if I don't see them I will take it as an opportunity to re-set up the tank. ..
 
SteveUK said:
Thats a shame mate :( Any ideas on why the deaths?

Never too late to answer ....
I wonder if it has been cause by over dosing the fert ( micro elements) which contains copper ... Not sure though.

Anyway, it is time for a rescape ! Below are the last shot as well as the pictures of my home made canopy :) ( I 'm quite happy with the canopy so please be gentle )
Sorry about the very blurry pictures, I did not realized the new filter ( fluval 204) was moving things around so much !
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And canopy:
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Thank you for looking !
 
Very nice journal, shame that the set up wasn't working. Sounds like the copper may be the culprit, I had a similar experience with my only experiment with shrimps. Where I used to live,the house had copper pipes and the shrimp were killed in less than 24 hours. :rolleyes:
 
You cannot kill shrimp via the copper levels in TPN. That assumption is sheer fantasy. :rolleyes:
There are many EI or TPN dosed shrimp tanks out there that do fine. If you continue to blame nutrients for problems in your tank you will continue to suffer problems...

Cheers,
 
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