I have returned to bare. Can't keep substrate clean enough for my liking. Miss the sand look but like being able to rearranging the plants at will. It happens automatically as I push the driftwood around while vacuuming the glass bottom. I do it almost daily to get the crap out before it can break down. +/-5 gals a day. All the crap gets hidden under the wood so you don't ever see it. Works for me.
The daily rearrangement of the environment makes the fish more interesting/interested. Some say goldfish don't care about plants in the tank. Ridiculous. All fish relate very strongly to the landscape and plants. Observation or Anyone who has sportfished with a fish finder can tell you that. Fish follow the landscape features, they don't float around aimlessly in open water. Exploring the new layout keeps 'em occupied and behaving differently all the time. it's still not much to look at, but i am still new at it.
Will need to fertilize now that the rich substrate is gone. C. Willisi suffering, C. crisp. balensae and all other plants fine. Probably using stored nutrients. One clump of hornwort pale. Adding K+, Cal/Mag, Fe. Will add traces and excel after a little observation. Am guessing I will need to add: 5~10ppm K+, 7 Fe, traces and standard dose excel. Could probably take the light up another 32 watts then to 2wpg.
Did you paint the bottom of the tank? That helps a lot with the "empty" look
I have used the 2.99 latex sample size from home depot with great results. the sample will cover the entire back of a 125 gal
I completely agree with your statement about fish and plants. I have been moving things around for a year+ in my tank and it is obvious the fish love having a new scene as they explore unkown canyons and caves. About once a month something is changed, and no matter how small a change the fish really dig it!
+1 on the speckle paint on the underside of the bottom. You would like it, and the fish might too. I bet they miss turning the substrate. My son had goldfish for a time, and they always would pick gravel up and suck it then spit it out. It was fun to watch.
Tried black paint underneath once. It was a bit better, but still a bit empty looking. Speckled sounds interesting. Am not draining this tank though. I am hoping for some brilliant epitome of the perfect solution to strike me. Waiting... Waiting...
They do miss turning the substrate. They get a certain amount of almost microscopic food from it. The varying "unknown canyons and caves" seem to more than make up for it though.
Foam bottom like a foam background, sculped ever so slightly to look realistic while still being easy to vac... could even make holes to put the plants in. That would still require draining the tank though it could look really awesome...
Ive seen Tiled bottoms too, they can look better than bare bottom. A nice slate tile would look natural with a few slate rocks in various places around the tank .
Would have to move all the slate pieces around to get at the daily poop fest below. It occured to me but I think it would be hard to deal with. Also, I think some food would slip between the pieces before it got eaten.
I plan to make a ~100 gallon tank. Perhaps I will do the slate bottom there. There's a great grey colored plumbers epoxy putty which sticks to anything and dries hard as rock and is safe for potable water systems. I'd silicone the slate down then fill the voids with the epoxy. It would add to the weight but a 100Gal is already heavy so what's the difference?
oops. No way I will need 7ppm of iron. Thats EI level. Will continue using Equilibrium at 1 tsp./week for cation replacement and some K+. Will start trace supplements with Flourish 5ml. 2x/week and Excel at 8ml./day. Will always wonder if I really have enough PO3 being produced....
Using the Equilibrium will only raise my hardness by 1 degree per month max, minus usage water changes and precipitation. I plan on doing a big water change a few times a year anyway. Maybe in the form of three consecutive 25% changes in three days. Gradual, just in case my tank gets further out of line with my tap than I think it will.
7 grams Equilibrium per week (4.55 ppm K+. .02 Fe and cal mag cations)
5 ml. Flourish per week (.05 ppm Fe and traces)
This will ensure a non limiting range/ratio for all nutrients even if my NO3 raises as high as 20ppm. without the need for EI sized reset WC's. I will start with excel every second day . When I double Excel (asap) I will double flourish. Water changes may even have to decrease or fast plants replaced with slow. Light may need upgrading.
The Hornwort which had yellowed seems to be recovering somewhat since the addition of K+. I have tons of it in there. 3-4x what it can use. Only traces remain missing. I see no need to delay adding them. Obsevrvation without them is moot. They are definitely needed.
My forms of iron, though theorhetically high enough in content, are not very stable at my pH. I will consider adding Flourish Iron which is even less stable but more available and safely overdosed. I will consider adding Flourish trace. I believe what they say about it, but it may well not apply at my growth rate.
These I will observe carefully to determine if they help.
Hornwort remains one of my favorite looking stem plants, but the rotala rotundifolia has been the fastest grower of all of my stems by a long shot. Stange that it was never reccomended as such. I found the original sprig in a ditch about a year ago. It was about an inch and a half tall with maybe ten leaves. Now it is a bunch of about 50 stems many around 16 inches tall. That's a lot of growth compared to anything else in my tank. It's a low light workhorse!
After a 20% water change with cleaning one of the two hydro sponge filters and not feeding for 24 hours my NO3 has dropped to 5ppm. YAY!
Have sarted flourish 1 cap/week which is low dose and excel at 20 ml initial and 5ml. every second day which is low dose. Hopin my crypt wilisi will respond. Realised my light (4xt8) is probably well over par50. Not low light. Am surprised I don't have algae problems without CO2??? There will be no need to raise my light but i would not mind changing to T5.
T5HO is on hold due to seasonal cash flow issues. Am feeding a bit less and fast one day per week. Nitrate seems to stay under 10ppm with only wekly 15% WC and cleaning both filters simultaneously. Will siphon bottom (5%) during the week only if needed. Don't know if I like the tanin staining. May cut back on the darker wood. Still don't trust the nerite. Worse after reading about a disease which requires a snail intermidiary host. May use a quarantine replacement mulit faceted phrophlactic disease preventative blend such as seachem's Paraguard, and maybe even Polyguard too, with future new additions.
I didn't know that about the Nerite snails. Good to know! I have a huge piece of Mopani in my tank now and I agree with you about the tanin stained water. Someone who doesn't have fish saw the tank and thought one of the kids peed in it LOL! That's gross!
I have been doing water changes ever two days to keep the tannins down. The wood had been soaked and rinsed a ton thankfully, otherwise my water would probably be so stained ya couldn't see from front to back!
Hopefully your wood will slow up on releasing tannins soon. Hang in there! It's not suppose to be yellow forever.
This time a year definetely does effect the spendings on fish tank goodies!
Yeah. I think I don't trust snails because I'm a bit uptight when it comes to fish tanks. I like em clean. The worst thing about the nerites may be all the friggin white eggs which never hatch and take forever to disintegrate. Nother thing about tannins is they block more light than you would think, though they may have thereputic, buffering or even antiseptic qualities though. I might use rocks if I weren't afraid of droppin a big one and breaking my tank. Purigen would take the tannins out but might get some trace elements in the process... jury is out on that one.
Yeah I read that about them. That would be pretty gross. My blue Angel loves to "hunt" for the snail eggs in my tank. (I do too...I remove all I can...Before I knew how to properly check plants, I ended up with ramshorn and pond snails in my tank from plants from the LFS) So, perhaps s/he would eat the white eggs. I thought about adding a couple Nerites because they are pretty cool looking.
When I first put big rocks in my tank I used styrofoam as a weight buffer. It worked good. But, it took more rocks than the three I initially planned for to hold it down. Ended up with a rock garden LOL! When I removed them the styrofoam had proven to be a nasty mistake. Beneath it was a ton of dietrist just waiting to float up. Very gross and very shocking. With all the rocks on top of it I never imagined stuff would get under the styrafoam.
Anyway, a few huge rocks fell and hit the bottom of the tank because I was not careful enough to hold the styrafoam down as I removed the rocks. So, 4 rocks slid off when the strafoam bounced to the top of the water. Scared the crap out of me! I thought for sure it was going to crack. Thank goodness the thing is super strong because even with the 2lb, 5lb, 9lb and 10lb rocks (yeah, I weighed them just to see how much weight crashed to the bottom) hitting the glass, it didn't even so much as ding it!
Yeah, I'm with ya about adding "potions" to the tank. Stuff to remove something or stuff to increase things like pH just make me nervous. I know plenty of folks have success using "potions" but I still worry that I won't be so lucky. I love my fish too much to risk it.
On the other hand, the tannins remind me to change water and remind me that the water is constantly being filled with invisible waste too. I am lazy, but water changes are good.
I love water changes! I don't know why honestly, but I really seriously enjoy it. :tongue:
I was thinking about your tank. I have a few ideas that I would try if I had a bare bottom goldfish tank like you have. Not sure if your looking for suggestions so let me know if your interested :biggrin:
Ya know what though...I am curious why you had trouble with so much waste. When I had goldfish I had more than I should have in the tank (my husband just kept adding them :icon_roll) They cleaned the gravel constantly. There was also a juvenile spotted sailfin in the tank. The tank was always clear of algae and when I'd vaccuum the gravel once a week, hardly anything would come out of it. And I was aggressive with the vaccuum I tell ya! Perhaps it was because of the soil you used? What about using medium smooth gravel or even the Eco-Complete Planted (I love it!) and try that route? I had the water tested twice a week and always had healthy parameters with o ammonia. This tank is the one I mentioned earlier with the few plants in it.
On the other hand, the tannins remind me to change water and remind me that the water is constantly being filled with invisible waste too. I am lazy, but water changes are good.
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