About to Kick off the 75.

[ree123]

Nice write up/follow up.
Keep us posted on all and especially how that sword responds to the nail idea.
I have implemented that idea recently and see a few new leaves coming on, all @ once, on several of my swords this past week. Maybe the rusty nail idea ain't such a bad idea after all.
I love Surpae Tetra's. They fill in a tank so well, even my Angel tanks.

[ree123]

You can spot treat algae growth on tank items or higher plants by drawing up some Hydrogen Peroxide into a syringe and squirting it directly onto the problem algae areas, under the water surface in the tank and it will retard and kill the algae in a day or so. Just do some at a time if there is a lot. Don't overdo it.
I can't say I know how much is an overkill, but I would bet one could research that on a plant forum and find out.
This idea does work as I have done it.

[spoot]

Yea I have turned this thread into a tank journal I guess. If you can and want, move it over to the my tanks forum.

I have never heard of using H2O2 for algae. I will definitely give it a try if it gets out of hand. Right now I am still trying to reckon out what the root cause is. I am thinking it may be problem with my water circ based on the places it is happening.... very front of the tank in the center on substrate and on the wood it is about 1" BEHIND my filter's output. So both areas would get minimal circulation. I am going to hook my eheim up to supplement the magnum tomorrow. My water has particles in it constantly from my salvinia roots being soft and nipped at. It is forcing me to do water changes to keep it clear when the #1 thing with a low tech tank is to avoid changes for CO2 to stabilize. This is also a contributing factor to my algae as well if I had to guess.

The thing that is worrying me more than the algae are the recent fish losses. The pearl gourami not so much as swim bladder and injuries fron bullying happen, but three emperor tetras in 8 hours is troublesome. I also lost a bandit cory today out of no where. I checked ammonia (0) and ph (7.4) to rule them out. Kind of at a loss with what the problem could be. I did a 60% WC Friday night after I found the dead emps so the water still should be fresh.

[ree123]

Not to say something isn't wrong with your fish or water parameters, but do remember fish are alive, and die of old age and/or for other unknown reasons just like humans do. So, it is not always something wrong that you can control or change the dynamics of. Sometimes live things just die for unknown etiology's.

[spoot]

Thanks Rick! Sometimes even us who have been keeping fish since we were kids forget small things like that.

I don't mean that sarcastically, even though it almost sounded that way when I read it.

[bamaplants]

sounds like your tank is in good shape... I (IMHO) would let the partials be forgotten .. use the peroxide or place some fast growing stems in the "algae spots" to out compete the algae and increase the water circulation

[spoot]

Wow, long time with no updates eh? Well let me run it down for ya. Not long after making my last post I woke up to a tanktastrophy. Somewhere between 4 and 8 of my fish keeled over within 12 hours. At that point I decided to go drastic. I completely broke the tank down removing all the fish, gravel, and dirt. I went to the local tractor supply and picked up 150lbs of black diamond sand as I could not get the gravel clean in the short amount of time I had. I filled the tank up 4 times with the gravel and every time it looked like a mudhole. Lemme tell ya though, washing that damn sand wasn't much better. Don't get me wrong, it looks great, and at $7 per 50lbs, you can't beat the price. Just get ready for a massive amount of work though. It took me about 3 hours using a 2 gallon bucket and a water hose to clean it enough that I was comfortable putting it in the tank. Even then the water was purple and had an oily film on the surface. Another hour with a micron filter and skimming the surface of the water with my python and I figured everything was OK.

I replanted all the plants, and used about 30 Seachem Root tabs under all the root systems for my crypts, swords, and lotus. Gave it another hour or so to settle and added the fish back.

I haven't lost a fish since. To me, that kind of confirms that I had some type of issue going on with my soil. I didn't have the space to do everything I needed to with the soil to start it correctly I think. I sifted it as best I could and dried it as much as my lights over an open tank would, but when my wife and I broke the tank down and took a hose we still had massive amounts of organics that somehow just didn't get sifted out. Tons of what looked to be wood fibers / bark floated to the surface. Little pieces of leaves. You name it.

Out of my initial stocking listed earlier, the survivors were (parentheses are original numbers):
4 Emperor Tetra (12)
9 Serpae Tetra (12)
4 Bandit Corys (10)
2 Clown Plecs (3)
10 Amano Shrimp (12)
2 Pearl Gouramis

After getting everything set back up. I counted 45 days w/out a death before I added more fish. I figured by getting rid of the gravel, and the massive cleaning I performed, I had killed most of my bacteria bed even though technically speaking you can fully stock when doing a planted tank, I wanted to make sure I was back in the aquarium gods good graces.

It's been nearly 2 months now and no losses. I still have all the stock listed above, and have added a school of 15 dime sized tiger barbs a little over a week ago. The only problems I have now are my male emperors are being pretty aggressive, and my serpaes are hiding constantly. Surprisingly the tigers are not bothering anyone. I have kept tigers before and had both types... super aggressive, and super peaceful. These are somewhere in between. They don't actively seek out trouble, but they don't back down, even from the Gouramis. The Serps have been shy since the breakdown, and the emperors I think just don't have enough of their own kind to split the aggression among themselves. I'm going to try to get both of those schools back up to 12 or 15 each and see if that helps. If not, then I'm going to remove the serps and replace them with either Cherry or Gold Barbs, or possibly Rasbora Hets... Cherrys I like the color. Same for Rasbora Hets. Gold Barbs I have kept before and enjoyed the amount of activity they had.

I never did get to try one of the Aquatop filters. I have had a few things come up other than the problems with the tank (namely taking up golf) so even with the relative low price, the money just hasn't been there. In the meantime to add a bit of filtration/movement I have added my old Eheim 2213. It's working pretty well, water isn't crystal, but it's clear, and judging by the movement of plant leaves, I don't have any dead areas that I can see.

Eventually I am going to get with Bama Plants and see about getting some of their mineralized soil and trying it again. I have to admit, I have never had plant growth like I did with soil. Flora-wise the experiment was a huge success, fauna-wise not so much. Maybe I should have gave the untreated soil more time to stabilize? Maybe I should have started with smaller schools? I dunno. I did everything I had read to the best of my ability and it just didn't work out.

[spoot]

Here's a pic of when I first set the tank back up. I haven't taken another one in a while. The crypts have spread like wildfire, and sadly the tiger lotus isn't handling the move very well. I put 2 tabs under it to try and help it when I first moved it, but it's still dieing off.



Also, remember that 20 Long I had sitting around? I finally gave Marty the Betta a dream home. Only kicker is he has to share it with 6 Black Skirt Tetra.



PS- finding suitable lighting for a 20 Long is a bitch.

30" Tank
24" Lights = Dark Edges
36" Lights = Over Hang

I wound up getting a 30" Fixture with a Single 24" Bulb T5NO. It does the job OK. Tank is dark enough not to stress the fish or grow algae, and the crypts are doing fine. To give an idea of how well the crypts in my 75 are doing, all of these came from it. With the exception of the one on the far left. I haven't ever had crypts to grow with long stems like that.

[davidtcb1]

Great looking setups!