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20H Low Tech - Broken Bones

9K views 68 replies 11 participants last post by  Hilde 
#1 · (Edited)
My Fluval Spec V was overtaken by algae I just couldn't defeat. Instead of nursing my wounds, I've decided to go bigger and start a 20-High.

Hardscape - Two pieces of Malaysian driftwood. No rocks, I don't think.
Plants - Java ferns, Cryptocorynes, and anubias, plus taiwan moss on the wood.
Livestock - 1 Half Moon male Betta, 5 Corydoras Julii, amano shrimp, nerite snails

Filtration - Aquaclear 50
Light - So far, 16" CurrentUSA Satellite Freshwater LED Plus (left over from the fluval)
Sunstrate - Fluval Plant and Shrimp Stratum
CO2 - Excel only

This should be a lightish bioload. I plan to eventually add some sort of color variant neocaridinia. There are some gorgeous black knights at the LFS from time to time that i have my eye on.

Current plan is to set it up and run it for a while without livestock, maybe even a couple months, to let the plants establish and fight any algae. I had such a problem with algae in the small tank and never felt comfortable going nuclear on the algae because of the livestock, which in hindsight was silly. Still, because of my bad experience I am also considering running a UV filter inside the tank.

Hey, it's fun to set up a new tank. Might as well nuke and pave and go big. :)

Hardscape staged:


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#2 ·
My Fluval Spec V was overtaken by algae I just couldn't defeat. Instead of nursing my wounds, I've decided to go bigger and start a 20-High.

Hardscape - Two pieces of Malaysian driftwood. No rocks, I don't think.
Plants - Java ferns, Cryptocorynes, and anubias, plus taiwan moss on the wood.
Livestock - 1 Half Moon male Betta, 5 Corydoras Julii, amano shrimp, nerite snails

Light - So far, 16" CurrentUSA Satellite Freshwater LED Plus (left over from the fluval)
Sunstrate - Fluval Plant and Shrimp Stratum
CO2 - Excel only
I have read that balancing an eco-system in a small tank is harder than in a large tank. So maybe this time things will go better. I have found to keep algae under to control to have a 3hr siesta light period and maintain good nitrate level helps. Also when algae appears more water changes.

Java ferns, anubias, taiwan moss, shrimp are sensitive to Excel. For sensitive plants some dose small doses of Excel till plants acclimate to it. Shrimp I don't anything about. Another Co2 additive would be Brighwell Aquatics FlorinAxis.
 
#3 ·
Thanks so much for your reply.

I've read the same about tank size, and despite having had great success with nano tanks in the past, I figured that was what was going on.

I've had all of those plants/moss do quite well with Excel, actually, as well as Amano shrimp, so I'm surprised to read that. Perhaps it's because I have kept dosage low in the beginning, only ramping up to deal with algae.
 
#6 ·
Last night I tested city water parameters. ~8.0 pH, 22dGH, 7dKH. That's some relatively hard water, and I want soft water species, but I also really want to use a Python to maintain the water in the tank, I know I'll do a better job of maintenance with its ease of use and lower cost over time compared to distilled or RO/DI. Not to mention I don't really have a lot of storage space at my home and keeping a couple 5g water containers on hand isn't really feasible.

I'll start the tank with a mix of distilled and tap water, and plan on using a mix of Seachem Acid Buffer and Seachem Alkaline Buffer to adjust the pH and KH to around 7.0/3. I'm going to try following some advice I found on the Seachem forums.

Reading around, it seems like many people feel you can let the hardness rise slowly over time to acclimate the livestock. I'm wondering if people have any experience with this, or if it's better to just have the tank at the city water parameters because it's stable and not try to doctor the chemistry.
 
#8 ·
Last night I tested city water parameters. ~8.0 pH, 22dGH, 7dKH.

I'll start the tank with a mix of distilled and tap water, and plan on using a mix of Seachem Acid Buffer and Seachem Alkaline Buffer to adjust the pH and KH to around 7.0/3. I'm going to try following some advice I found on the Seachem forums.
My tap water is 8.6. It decreases to 7.2. If you just let it to sit without fish in it the ph will go down. If the water from where they come from is 8.0ph there will be no problem.

Using buffers can get you into a yo yo, so I have read.
 
#7 · (Edited)
Ordered plants that should all come Thursday, some via LFS and some from the forums. Ordered Staurogyne repens, Brazilian Pennywort, Java Fern mats, Crypt parva, and the LFS has a good supply of Crypy undulata and lutea for sale as well as some good-looking Anubias and a couple Buce, plus Taiwan moss. A lot of the crypts seem pretty grungy in the tanks, I will need to clean them. Edit: Also ordered Bacopa caroliniana and Rotala rotundifolia via the forums

I intend to plant the tank Thursday and dose AlgaeFix to the tank right away to kill any unwanted hitchhiking algae.

Considering switching to Corydoras sterbai instead of julii mainly because they do better in higher temps and will be kept with a warmth-loving betta. Add to this the fact that my apartment isn't temperature controlled and gets hot in the summer which affects the tank despite my best intentions.

Added a prefilter to the Aquaclear 50 intake and picked up a Finnex Titanium 100w heater for the tank. Rearranged the driftwood in anticipation of adding a third piece based off feedback in the aquascaping forum.

Perhaps-boring update but I'm so excited to get plants in I can't contain myself and had to write something. :) Impatience is a terrible trait for an aquarist I know.

 
#9 ·
pH has dropped to around 6.5 with 3dKH, which is wayyyyy too low to cycle. I'll have to buffer up for cycling! The wood and soil did their jobs well.

Lots of plants came today, i affixed flame moss to one vertical driftwood piece, christmas moss to the other vertical piece, and Anubias nana and coffeefolia to the big piece, using a mix of glue and rubber bands.

To plant tomorrow (floating for now): Staurogyne repens, Crypt lutea, Crypt parva, java fern mats, and brazilian pennywort.
 

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#10 · (Edited)
Okay, I ended up staying up later than expected and planting the tank.



Four pots of Crypt parva translates to a lot of little crypts. I ordered some plants that don't come until next week that I no longer think i have room for - Bacopa carolinia and Rotala rotundifolia. I overestimated how much room was in the tank and underestimated how much room the parva would take up. (I love parva so I'm happy to have a tank full of it.) I just set the Java fern mats on the substrate, I assume they will root themselves without me having to dig up big holes for them. I dosed API AlgaeFix as well in case of unwanted guests, and did an initial large dose of Excel.

This is the most heavily planted tank i have ever had, though it's not super dense. I'm not very good at planting, it seems, and I had a lot of trouble. Hope it takes off.

Now I wait. I'm not even going to try to cycle the tank for a month, just let the plants establish. Around Christmas I'll dose ammonia and buffer the pH up for cycling. Until then, just time to enjoy the greenery and trim the inevitable crypt melt.

Feedback welcome.

Video of the tank:
https://youtu.be/ASsmbb7c9Gs
 
#13 ·
I tried breaking up one of the java fern mats yesterday, but found that the rhizome was not contiguous. I discarded the side that i had unthreaded, cut down the mat medium, and lightly buried it in the soil to get it some nutrients, taking care to not get the rhizome buried (I hope). I left the other mat intact, experimenting with the form for now. If it starts looking bad I'll try to get some small wood and glue the rhizome segments to it. Thanks for the feedback, will be interesting to see how it goes.

And yes, it's bigger than the parva I've had in the past. I had one "stem" of the parva melt completely away overnight, leaving the roots behind, we'll see if it resprouts. Otherwise just bits of crypt melt here and there over the past few days, trying to stay on top of it.

I'm trying not to disturb the Staurogyne repens cuttings, they are easy to dislodge if I root around too much. Just topping off the water dislodged one. I'm barely dosing the water column with nilocg's Thrive, 1/2 dose 1x a week he suggested, so hopefully don't need to do any water changes right away.

Also dosed API AlgaeFix one more time last night as a preventive measure. Tank is running a divided 8 hour light period, morning and night. More waiting ensues.
 
#14 · (Edited)
Okay, tested ammonia just to see and had 1ppm of ammonia, unexpectedly to be honest as I had read several times that the Fluval stratum doesn't leach ammonia. Maybe from the melting crypts? I dunno, either way I should get the cycle going so I dosed 2/3 tsp baking soda to get my KH/pH up so my cycle will succeed (in the past I had my cycle stall because the pH was too low for the bacteria to develop).

Found some snails in the tank, dang it. Hitchhikers from somewhere and so much for API AlgaeFix killing inverts. :)

Water has cleared nicely, crypts melting everywhere, Staurogyne repens growing fast:

 
#15 · (Edited)
10 days flooded and the ammonia is creeping slowly down, it's below 0.25 ppm currently. I added a bottle of Tetra SafeStart and it has done its business on the Nitrites as well (I have had success with TSS, your mileage may vary). Crypts are melting still, but also seeing some small shoots from melted crypts so that's a good sign. Staurogyne repens is growing in nicely. The Brazilian pennywort seems a bit stagnant but we'll see how it goes, with plans for a Betta I wonder if I shouldn't just float the pennywort. Christmas moss is growing well, the flame moss seems just to be surviving -- especially the flame moss in the outflow of the filter is looking a little pale. All in all, things seem to be going well. Slowly but surely my bio filter seems to be establishing so I anticipate adding ammonia tomorrow night. Added the weekly ferts today and have been keeping up with Excel daily.

Thanks for looking.

 
#16 ·
I ended up pulling the pennywort out of the substrate (where they had rooted rapidly) and floated them. I'm going to want something floating in the tank and Pennywort seems like a good choice to me. We'll see how it grows in -- I ordered a couple veg-clips to pin it to the side until it develops mass. Tank is definitely cycled and I did a 75% water change yesterday to lower the nitrates, but the bioload it can handle isn't high, yet. It takes 24 hours to consume 1ppm of ammonia, and I should really wait to stock the tank until it consumes 3ppm in 24 hours. But I also found the perfect half moon betta, so I bought a small betta tank from Walmart and picked up the fish from the LFS. I named him Watson. I'll add him to the main tank when it's ready and will keep the small tank for a hospital.

 
#17 ·
Well, the tank is fully cycled, so I did a nearly-full water change yesterday in the morning and added the Betta at night. He immediately started exploring the plants, which was nice to see. I drip acclimated him but had the drip too fast I'm afraid, so I hope he will do okay, it was only about 40 minutes before the box was almost full of water.

Photos of the Betta in the plants:



 
#20 ·
Thanks! I'll get a full tank shot tonight or tomorrow, I was too lazy to get the tripod out last night.

I prefer Aquatic Warehouse for no particular reason, but Pet Kingdom is also good. My 3-year-old son prefers Pet Kingdom, though, because of all the "creatures" as he calls them -- he's particularly enamored with the snakes.
 
#21 ·
Aquatic Warehouse has some really nice display tanks, especially the SW ones. I completely understand why your soon likes them more. Pet Kingdom is much closer to me but I've been happy with both locations so far. I actually went to AW many years ago when I had a reef tank.
 
#22 ·
Alrighty, took a long lunch early and picked up five Corydoras julii and two red cherry shrimp, then took them home and got them in the tank after a good drip. The Betta picked at a shrimp once and then harassed a couple of the cories. I'm hoping he settles down and doesn't make a pest of himself. The shrimp are a trial balloon to see if the Betta will try to eat them or not, fingers crossed but the behavior I saw after adding the fish and shrimp makes me worry he is too aggressive for a community: time will have to tell.

Betta has been hanging around in the plants which surprises me, I thought he'd spend more time high in the tank.

Took a full tank pic as requested, too, no tripod so it's not the best photo but it gives the general idea. :)



 
#23 ·
After the introduction, so far it looks like the Betta will largely ignore the Cories unless they start hanging around in the Java ferns, which the Betta has claimed for himself. Shrimp were hiding in the wood last night (I saw one of them peek out of a crack) but one of the shrimp was exploring the tank this morning. If the shrimp survive the next few days I'll buy a bunch more.
 
#25 · (Edited)
Thanks, man! Looking forward to it growing in more: lots of growth going on in the tank. Staurogyne repens looks like it's trying to spread from a few of the stems already. I ordered a couple more crypts and some red root floaters from Bartohog.

I got home yesterday and three of the Cories had died. I noticed that some of them seemed listless at first when I got them, now I'm worried that I introduced some sick fish to the tank. I'll have to keep an eye on everything. The last two seem better, but one of them is less active than the other. Betta seems to be doing well so far. Everything was drip acclimated. Water parameters are all good -- 0ppm Ammonia, 0ppm Nitrites, 10ppm Nitrates, 6.4 pH, 4 dKH, didn't check GH.

One of the Cories that died had crawled under the driftwood, I had to use a flashlight to find him, then move the driftwood to get him out. Poor guy.

Time to fret. Wonder what I'll find when I get home.
 
#29 ·
Yeah, I got them at Aquatic Warehouse. I don't think they could have gotten ammonia poisoning. I brought them straight home, put them in the acclimation box with a good amount of water, and ran a drip for an hour at a decent rate. I got the last few they had from the shipment, maybe I just got the duds? Hope it's nothing catching, I'd hate to lose the Betta too. Should have quarantined them, I guess. Live and learn.
 
#34 ·
Well, I lost a fourth cory after another day. The last remaining one seems really healthy and happy though. So as an experiment, I added the last two julii they had at the store. I figured it was worth a shot. They were very vigorous in the store tank and were strongly exploring the tank when I brought them home. I didn't quarantine them because if they have added something to the tank, they have done so already with the first batch so might as well go for broke and not risk a double acclimation. I drip acclimated them for over an hour and put them in the tank and left it dark for hours.

Now, this evening, about six hours later, and one of them is acting listless already, and the other is being a bit frantic. The remaining one from the first batch is happy as a pig in mud, though. I honestly am not sure what is going on. If I didn't have one left I would just go with another species, both fish stores I visit have lots of Sterbai at the moment for example. I don't want to mix and match if I don't have to, but I might have to. Not sure what that will do.

The Betta seems totally healthy and happy, FWIW. Having trouble getting him to understand when I am feeding him, he usually gets one or two pellets and the rest escape him. He is master and commander of the tank, though, constantly on patrol and poking into every corner.

Also added five more cherry red shrimp and they seem happy with their environment so far. I have very very little to no visible algae in the tank, though, after my double algaefix treatment before I introduced livestock, so we will see how they do on shrimp pellets and leftover food.

Anyhow, we will see how the cories do. This time of year and shipping isn't reliable so both fish stores say they will have less livestock arriving until after Christmas so I'll have to make do. The one store expects a shipment of julii on Tuesday and maybe I'll be able to stock up from a new group. Puzzled indeed. Not wanting to throw money away either, but I do love these guys. Sterbai are nice too I suppose...

Anyhow, as always, thanks for looking. Here's a few shots for fun.



 
#38 ·
Okay, update. I lost a further Corydoras, leaving me with two alive, now, out of seven total added to the tank, but these two seem healthy enough. I sought advice on planetcatfish and the response was that the fish looked scrawny to begin with and that what I had was trilineatus, not julii. Which is a cooler water fish. I'm considering taking these two back and getting some sterbai instead, even though I enjoy watching these two. Not sure what to do. The sterbai at the LFS look pretty healthy, though. I intend to go get some Harlequin Rasborae to fill out the tank in the next few days and might wait for the tank to mature before putting in any more Cories. I suspended Excel for the moment while the livestock gets more established.

The Betta has figured out that the cories' wafers are food and so he chases them off once he realizes the wafer is there and takes some good chunks out of it. The Cories usually find the wafer first, though, and get at least some to eat, and the snails and a shrimp or two finish off the leftovers within a few hours. Lots and lots of little tiny baby pond snail dots in the tank now. Might get an assassin at some point.

I have added 7 red cherry shrimp to the tank but never have seen more than three at a time, and only usually see one at a time. Not sure if I have had die-off with no visible corpses or if they are just shy: when I see them, they often are poking their heads out of holes in the driftwood. They seem really skittish around the Betta, too. I might add some more and try to buff up the population.

I got some new plants from Bartohog here via the forums. I got two Crypt lucens and a baggie of red root floaters. The root systems on the lucens were crazy robust, which made planting them difficult and I'm not happy with their position yet: I'm going to have to move them tonight. I also am not so sure about the red root floaters, as they darken the tank quite a bit and they end up getting sent deep into the tank by the outflow of the HOB filter, which means going in every day to pick a few out of the plants and moss where they end up stuck sometimes. I'll give them a bit and see how I feel about them. The Betta seems to like the coverage, though.

New growth on all the established Crypts -- both lutea and parva -- and the Anubias coffeefolia has a brand new leaf that grew out very quickly; the Anubias nana are not showing any new growth, yet, but I expect they will eventually. Staurogyne repens is behaving in strange ways, with some stems growing up, some stems growing shoots, and some stems not doing anything, much. But they all look healthy at least.

I'll post a new picture once I have the Crypt lucens in better position.
 
#41 ·
Thanks, the Betta is doing well, he patrols the substrate a lot, which surprised me, often poking his head out behind the driftwood and then gliding away, or sometimes surfing the filter outflow repeatedly. He's fun to watch with a lot of great behaviors. He's dumb as a post at feeding time, though, I drop the pellets in front of him a good ways and he grabs one or two and the rest sail past him and he never finds them. I'm sure the Cories get their revenge on his thievery by eating the pellets when they find them on the tank floor later.

Looking forward to seeing the pictures. I also ordered plants from Bartohog and I'm very pleased.
Yeah, really pleased with the quality of the plants. They were delayed by the post office, taking five days to arrive (through no fault of Bartohog, it's a tough time of the year for shipping)*, and were still in really good shape. The roots on the Crypt lucens were really long and thick and hardy, close to as much plant mass below the substrate as above, really.

* By the way, Pet Kingdom says they stop ordering fish this time of year because of unreliable shipping -- if you were looking to add livestock from them, be aware.
 
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