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Tigmon 80x40x35

Nikola

Member
Joined
9 May 2020
Messages
179
Location
Slovakia
I'm here again after four months out off the country.

Decided to give a second try to my self and aquarium.

Today I did a DIY background with some night light.

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Last time I was using dirt substrate for aquarium, this time I bought Tropica powder,.
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After around six hours (someone else would do it for two probably :) ) my hardscape is finally done.


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I'm satisfied with this for now, lets see when I wake up tomorrow :) I would like U to give me some suggestions if u have.

Tomorrow is a planting day. I'm planning to use this plants:

Java fern narrow, Java fern mini, Hygrophila Pinnatifida,
few species of Bucephalandra, Cryptocoryna sp red, a little bit off Montecarlo and dwarf Hairgrass,
Also a little bit off pogosteron helferi. And some Lymnophila Sessiliflora for fast growing for starting without algae hope so.

Now I'm done, and going to sleep.
Here are some pics with night light, but my cam is not so good for this.
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Looks good! Is that the Pogostemon down there in the far right corner?
Thanks Nico, no it's Lymnophila Sessiliflora.
Pogostemon is in far left corner right behind the root, and front right close to Montecarlo. For now there, until it gets in the shape, it was really bad when it came.

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I bought some German Blue Ramirezi, Corydoras and Otocinclus.
I had 6 Ramirezi's, and one pair formed already first day so I returned other 4 in the store.

They started making their nest two days ago, and today I saw that they already laid down their eggs :) ou what happiness :eek: And they are guarding it strongly. They are still young, so I hope they will succeed in their goal.
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Butt, it's not all, I saw couple Cryptocorine leaves with corydoras eggs too, it's a party here o_O Them I putted in small plastic box with holes on the corner off aquarium and putted an airstone in it. Hope that they are fertilized.

 
Jeez, not the usual start up problems then :D usually we're talking about diatoms and irregular bubble counts at this point not, "knocked up a great looking scape, spawned some Rams and cory's then went to bed" What did you do in the morning, find a cure for Covid then went for breakfast?

Nice looking scape mate, how did you do the DIY backlight?
 
@AverageWhiteBloke thanks mate,
Yes, I definitely have other problems on my mind Lol. Bubbles are good :D, stable 0.8 Ph drop during day, in few weeks will try to make it 1, or maybe not, let's see how plants will doo.

For backlight...better to throw in some pic...

diy background.png

diy background side.png


And glued this all together, triangles are there to make an angled board, light would reflect from it into aquarium.
On the bottom just glued RGB strip. And I have printed some gradient blue on photopaper and glued it on the board ( for this I will still need to find some color which I would like more ).
On back glass putted frosted foil and glued this panel to aquarium with silicon and that's it. It makes nice effects in the evening.
 
Really clean looking scape. Refreshingly uncomplicated and that backlight makes it pop.
 
Thanks mate, appreciate it a lot. Hope that it will grow in nicely.
 
Sad news today,
Was at work and when came home realised that light was off whole day, cable was somehow unplugged. And rams ate their fry, don't know was that a reason or they just had their first experience.
Next time better luck I hope.

From corydoras eggs were not fertilized, just one was brown color and that one hatched today. I have some infusoria and hope that will manage to rase it.

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Am I looking in some kind off deficiency on Pinnatifida? That white spine trough the leave?
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Was at work and when came home realised that light was off whole day, cable was somehow unplugged. And rams ate their fry, don't know was that a reason or they just had their first experience.
Next time better luck I hope.
I wouldn't worry about it they were probably going to eat the Fry regardless. I have been keeping fish for 30 years and believe it or not I have yet to find someone who has naturally spawned and raised Rams. I was going to say that earlier in the post but I thought no, I won't put a dampener on it, you never know maybe this time is the time ;)
It seems that in captivity although these fish are prolific breeders they have lost the ability to raise their own young, some say it is because they spook so easy, I suspect it's because they are commercially farmed to such a level that the eggs are removed from the parents as soon as spawning has finished and they are artificially raised in oxygenated containers with meth blue in. The downside to this is the young never got taught how to bring up their fry and the are susceptible to illness when they get moved from their sterile envionment into normal tanks (usually internal parasites)
 
You are right on this, I read about them loosing ability for raising their fry couse off way how they were bred. But I still had some hope, they were so calm, not afraid off me...when ever they see me they are coming to the glass searching for food.

I ordered some 60 liter aquarium to prepair it for the next time. Do u think I should remove parents immediately after laying eggs or maybe wait until they will be hatched? Or to try again without separating them, they are young, it was their first try

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You could go holy grail and leave them a few times you could be the one who finally does it! However more realistically you would need to remove the eggs and not the parents. That's if they lay them somewhere accessible and you can keep the parents away while you remove the eggs or they will eat the eggs. Most people I've seen do this put some well positioned spawning sites in the tank like stones or clay pots. When the fish have finished spawning the remove them into a small container containing the same tank water or suck them out with a turkey baster. They need to be in a small container so you can put an airline near the eggs causing a small current to imitate the fanning of the parents, people also usually add a dilute bit of meth blue to the container to prevent fungus another job the parents would usually do. As the fry grow on small water changes eventually dilute the meth blue further.

Rams don't pair like say a Discus would, a male will service any females around and hops from partner to partner. You tend to find that he is loyal to which ever female is ready. When young they spawn a lot which tails off. I would find it was boom and bust with one pair in a tank. They would spawn wait until they hatch then one or the other or both ate them, they seemed to fall out for a couple of week then rinse and repeat. Raising them artificially is probably the only option really but then we are just continuing the problem. Would be interesting find out if wild Rams have the same issue.
 
Didn't know that male will serve multiple females...bummer, I returned other females to the shop when saw this twoo paired.
Okay I will take your advice about placing some nice flat stone and take it out next time. Do I need to doo waterchanges while they are still not hatched? And after they are, how meny times per week should water be changed and which percentage?
I tried now for the first time cultivating infusoria, and had luck that after three days already was good cloud off them inside moving constantly. Is it a good idea feeding the fry with it or it's too small for them?
 
Didn't know that male will serve multiple females...bummer, I returned other females to the shop when saw this twoo paired.
I didn't like to mention that earlier either :D To be fair though mate you need a good size tank with plenty of areas the females can call their own otherwise you'd be watching all out war all night rather than that lovely scape. I'm no expert btw, it's been many moons since I was trying to raise these fish wish I eventually gave up on...naturally anyway.

If I was you I would just have the fish looking the part in the scape, if having a shot at spawning them and raising the Fry interests you I would run that as a separate project. Best place to research would probably be youtube. You'll find though generally breeders have a large tank with no substrate and spawning areas, plant pots and stones with a few pairs in. They remove the eggs and put into smaller containers for hatching but then you have the issue of growing on tanks, the fry are very small and you need to move them into increasingly larger tanks until they hit the point they won't fit in another fish mouth which takes a looooonnng time. Which is why I didn't go down that route.
 
Well worth a watch, will answer most of your questions.
 
@AverageWhiteBloke thanks mate, I will think doo I need all the trouble...but hard to resist. Yesterday I bought school of Espei Rasboras, was reading that it is hard to breed them, and guess what...today they did it, but rams ate already all eggs.
Now I have some different problem about ferts probably, or light...will write post about it, just finishing PHP profile off my water today.
Cheers
 
Aquarium is now 16 days old, still immature.

Some problems occurred.
I'm using Tropica specialised fertiliser. By their instructions I should add 13ml once per week for my aquarium. I started with 2ml per day, which on the week level would be 14ml. For last week I doubled it, so 4ml per day.
Here are my plants
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Bucephalandra's new leaf is yellow and with green veins.
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Pinnatifida also look kind yellowish to me.

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Like this steam plants too. All this looks like iron deficiency to me.
On one Bucephalandra there is one pinhole (Potassium )
On one bucephalandra I started seeing green spot algae (Potassium), but just on one leaf. On another leaf small black beard algae started :facepalm::meh: Don't know should I remove those leaves already?
Everything else is without algae (for now).

On rotalabutterfly calculator recommendation for Tropica specialised for my aquarium size is 16ml/3-4 times per week for EI dosing(which is not my goal).
I saw that George Farmer is using 1ml per 10 liters for his aquarium, which would be 10ml per day for mine. That is my goal, butt I don't think that I should use that dose right away. Or I can? I would appreciate your advice.

Next...CO2. I took some time today to do PH profile. Here the result


phProfile.jpg


My aquarium water when sits in the glass with air pump over night is 7,9PH. In aquarium just before CO2 starts is 7,6PH. Stable drop is 1,2 from that glass water. But that stable drop starts little late as u can see on the chart.
So my plan is to move the time for starting CO2 injection to 6:30h that at 11:00h when light is on PH level would be already on stable 6,7 PH and stay like that till ramping down the light. I don't trust in PH/KH chart but still when check data on 6,7PH and 5KH(which is mine) it is 29,9 ppm of CO2 which should be good. Circulation is good I think, it has 11 time turnover and micro bubbles are all over the place.
Any opinion here?

Light... I'm using cheep but strong Chihiros A series 80cm. I keep it on 5th dim level from 7 levels. Today I raised it up to 20cm above water level (it was on 10cm).

If u have some advice for me I would be happy to hear it cause I want to doo this right. My biggest dilemma is about ferts, how much tropica should dose?
 

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