So this will be my first and a half, yes half attempt at doing a planted tank. My first was in New Jersey before I moved here to Indiana. My old tank there was a 20 gallon high that had just started to get going before I moved and had to tear it down. So, i'll call that my half attempt because I didn't get to see any real progress. Then I had flourite with some diy co2 and a hob filter. So here we go with the new one.
Also, I've started a blog dedicated to the story of this tank AND the hobby as a whole, still a work in progress as I get it caught up, but it's there and running, please visit!
High Tech Aquaria
Current: (New camera cables are lost, had to revert to old camera. So colors and quality are crap.)
Specs:
Filtration/Flow:
-Eheim ECCO 2234 with Eheim SubstratPro
-SunSun HW-302 with some SubstratPro and Polyfil
-Hydor Koralia Nano
Lighting: Current USA Nova Extreme T5 HO 48w (10,000k + Plant Bulb), Coralife NO Double Strip 36w T5 (10,000k + 6700k)
Heating: Hydor ETH 201 Inline
Substrate: 1 1/2 9 Liter Bags of ADA AS Amazonia I
Co2: Pressurized co2, 10# tank, Milwaukee MA957, Reg Grigg style reactor.
Flora:
Bacopa
Eleocharis acicularis (Dwarf Hairgrass)
Microsorium pteropus (Java Fern)
Alternanthera reineckii 'rosaefolia
Echinodorus 'vesuvius' (Echinodorus Angustifolia)
Cabomba (Unkown species yet)
Fauna:
1 Otocinclus
2 Corydoras Trilineatus
1 Corydoras Panda
30-50 Red Cherry Shrimp
-----------------
Anyway, on to the story. I bought the tank and stand nearly 3 months ago, so it's taken me a little while to round up the funds to get all the equipment going. All plants with the exception of the Sword and Bacopa were bought from Aquariumplants.com. They came very well protected and looked great. Will probably order from them again. The ADA AS pretty much killed me on cost, but I needed something to bring down my tap water parameters somewhat so I bit the bullet.
5-02-09: The aquasoil was added into the tank and filled
5-03-09: After a waterchange and a trip to my LFS the sword and Bacopa were added
5-06-09: My lights arrived via SnS (thanks to chris127) and plants ordered from Aquariumplants.com
5-08-09: Plants arrived and planted, Ludwigia won't stay down! Hairgrass is a PITA to take apart.
5-12-09: Purigen and 2 oto's added on the 10th, branch boiled and placed back in tank. Still cloudy, but i'm attributing that to bacterial bloom mostly.
5-17-09: Purigen taken out to recharge, it was nearly black so tannins are back. Sword is dying off.. is this acclimation die off or something else?
5-21-09: Purigen added back, so was more polyfil and SubstratPro. Found out i set up the filter wrong. Woops! Much clearer now.
5-28-09: Root tab under sword about a week ago, dry ferts ordered today as well as a shipment of 10 yellow shrimp. Tried to tie the Anubias to the driftwood as per suggestion, no matter what I did it didn't look right, on the other hand it has flowered.
6-07-09: Battling BGA at the moment, 3 day blackout, squirted with H202 and full strength dose of EM.
6-18-09: I've added a few plants: Alternanthera reineckii 'rosaefolia, Echinodorus 'vesuvius' (Echinodorus Angustifolia ), Blyxa Japonica. I've also gotten rid of the Yellow shrimp I had, replaced with cherry shrimp. Amazon sword removed a couple weeks ago. The bigger it got the more and more I hated it.
6-24-09: More cherry shrimp on the way, tank is finally truly clear. Result for the most part a very good.
9-24-09: Long time since I updated. All shrimp are gone, they died due to unknown causes. Been attempting to breed Kribensis, received a proven breeding pair via Will @ http://www.georgiacichlids.com (Gacichlids on Aquabid). Great guy to buy from, sent a great pair plus 2 extra juveniles. Been battling hair and BBA algaes, hair algae seems to be under control, BBA is yet to be determined. Pictures of inhabitants to come soon.
9-27-09: I hacked that crap out of the plants and did a little bit of a rescape, wanted to get rid of as much algae as possible, and I wanted a little bit of a different look
11-11-09: hair algae out of control, gsa rampant.. totally lost.. what the hell am i doing wrong.. pictures of kribs on page 3
12-24-09: 2 more cory's purchased as well as 3 dwarf neon rainbows, on 12-4-09 a male and female Apisto's were purchased
12-31-09: 4 panda cory's purchased, bloodfin tetra's are probably on their way out as they're their the odd group in the tank.
1-30-10: Cabomba was added on the 25th, don't know the species yet.. waiting for it to grow out a bit. Kribensis FINALLY spawned, good lord that took forever.
4-05-10: Don't know what happened these past couple months. My female Krib out of the pair suddenly died over night one night about 3 weeks ago, along with some neons and other things. Not exactly sure what happened at all, gassed them maybe from an EOTD? Honestly no idea. Did a major trim, cut out the biggest Alternanthera reineckii, it was big and bushy at the top, but the bottom had lost all leaves and the aerial roots were driving me absolutely nuts. Cut down a bunch of the Bacopa as well, so there's a huge empty spot in the middle of the tank. Honestly i'd like to redo the whole tank, other than the dwarf hairgrass, but the money just isn't there for new plants. Everything else has been good. Bought a new Current USA T5 HO fixture, as one of the Coralife's went dead on me. Sooo, that's what it is, i'll try and keep it updated more often. Should note, the Krib pair did have a second batch of babies, but NONE of them made it, not sure what happened there either. Bought 2 new females and a male, they're still young however. Hoping for a pair up, if not.. maybe I'll move to some other Dwarf Cichlid for breeding, which is something I truly enjoy, but again.. money issue, so we'll see.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
5-09-09 FTS
5-09-09 Left Side Shot
5-12-09 FTS (Getting better on clarity, thank you purigen)
5-12-09 Left Side Shot
5-17-09 FTS
5-17-09 Side
5-21-09 FTS
5-21-09 Side
5-21-09 L. Repens Aerial Root Growth
5-28-09 FTS
5-28-09 Side
6-23-09 FTS - Clarity
7-29-09 FTS - Growth
9-24-09
9-27-09 - 2 Days after major trim and rescape
11-02-09 - Minor trim done
11-11-09 - Hair Algae =(
1-7-10 - Reineckki Melt, due to accidental overdose of peroxide? (i think) Trim was done about a week ago as well, looks like crap =(
1-19-10 - Major trim, waiting to grow in
1-30-10 -
4-01-10
4-05-10 - Chopped out most of the Alternanthera, it was bare on the bottom, aerial roots everywhere, couldn't stand it any longer. Looks like crap now, but it'll grow back.
6-11-10 - Tank has gone through a move.. a massive die off of inhabitants and lack of Co2 for a week and a half. Things weren't looking well. Co2 has been filled.. and upgraded to a 10 lb tank for ease. All inhabitants are gone except an Oto, Albino Bristle Nose and 3 cory's. Added have been a total of 50 or so cherry shrimp, although at most I've only been able to count 24, so who knows how many are truly there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, i'm open to suggestions, criticism and ideas or any other feedback of any kind. So have at it and let loose and tell me what to do or what you think . Thanks.
Also, I've started a blog dedicated to the story of this tank AND the hobby as a whole, still a work in progress as I get it caught up, but it's there and running, please visit!
High Tech Aquaria
Current: (New camera cables are lost, had to revert to old camera. So colors and quality are crap.)
Specs:
Filtration/Flow:
-Eheim ECCO 2234 with Eheim SubstratPro
-SunSun HW-302 with some SubstratPro and Polyfil
-Hydor Koralia Nano
Lighting: Current USA Nova Extreme T5 HO 48w (10,000k + Plant Bulb), Coralife NO Double Strip 36w T5 (10,000k + 6700k)
Heating: Hydor ETH 201 Inline
Substrate: 1 1/2 9 Liter Bags of ADA AS Amazonia I
Co2: Pressurized co2, 10# tank, Milwaukee MA957, Reg Grigg style reactor.
Flora:
Bacopa
Eleocharis acicularis (Dwarf Hairgrass)
Microsorium pteropus (Java Fern)
Alternanthera reineckii 'rosaefolia
Echinodorus 'vesuvius' (Echinodorus Angustifolia)
Cabomba (Unkown species yet)
Fauna:
1 Otocinclus
2 Corydoras Trilineatus
1 Corydoras Panda
30-50 Red Cherry Shrimp
-----------------
Anyway, on to the story. I bought the tank and stand nearly 3 months ago, so it's taken me a little while to round up the funds to get all the equipment going. All plants with the exception of the Sword and Bacopa were bought from Aquariumplants.com. They came very well protected and looked great. Will probably order from them again. The ADA AS pretty much killed me on cost, but I needed something to bring down my tap water parameters somewhat so I bit the bullet.
5-02-09: The aquasoil was added into the tank and filled
5-03-09: After a waterchange and a trip to my LFS the sword and Bacopa were added
5-06-09: My lights arrived via SnS (thanks to chris127) and plants ordered from Aquariumplants.com
5-08-09: Plants arrived and planted, Ludwigia won't stay down! Hairgrass is a PITA to take apart.
5-12-09: Purigen and 2 oto's added on the 10th, branch boiled and placed back in tank. Still cloudy, but i'm attributing that to bacterial bloom mostly.
5-17-09: Purigen taken out to recharge, it was nearly black so tannins are back. Sword is dying off.. is this acclimation die off or something else?
5-21-09: Purigen added back, so was more polyfil and SubstratPro. Found out i set up the filter wrong. Woops! Much clearer now.
5-28-09: Root tab under sword about a week ago, dry ferts ordered today as well as a shipment of 10 yellow shrimp. Tried to tie the Anubias to the driftwood as per suggestion, no matter what I did it didn't look right, on the other hand it has flowered.
6-07-09: Battling BGA at the moment, 3 day blackout, squirted with H202 and full strength dose of EM.
6-18-09: I've added a few plants: Alternanthera reineckii 'rosaefolia, Echinodorus 'vesuvius' (Echinodorus Angustifolia ), Blyxa Japonica. I've also gotten rid of the Yellow shrimp I had, replaced with cherry shrimp. Amazon sword removed a couple weeks ago. The bigger it got the more and more I hated it.
6-24-09: More cherry shrimp on the way, tank is finally truly clear. Result for the most part a very good.
9-24-09: Long time since I updated. All shrimp are gone, they died due to unknown causes. Been attempting to breed Kribensis, received a proven breeding pair via Will @ http://www.georgiacichlids.com (Gacichlids on Aquabid). Great guy to buy from, sent a great pair plus 2 extra juveniles. Been battling hair and BBA algaes, hair algae seems to be under control, BBA is yet to be determined. Pictures of inhabitants to come soon.
9-27-09: I hacked that crap out of the plants and did a little bit of a rescape, wanted to get rid of as much algae as possible, and I wanted a little bit of a different look
11-11-09: hair algae out of control, gsa rampant.. totally lost.. what the hell am i doing wrong.. pictures of kribs on page 3
12-24-09: 2 more cory's purchased as well as 3 dwarf neon rainbows, on 12-4-09 a male and female Apisto's were purchased
12-31-09: 4 panda cory's purchased, bloodfin tetra's are probably on their way out as they're their the odd group in the tank.
1-30-10: Cabomba was added on the 25th, don't know the species yet.. waiting for it to grow out a bit. Kribensis FINALLY spawned, good lord that took forever.
4-05-10: Don't know what happened these past couple months. My female Krib out of the pair suddenly died over night one night about 3 weeks ago, along with some neons and other things. Not exactly sure what happened at all, gassed them maybe from an EOTD? Honestly no idea. Did a major trim, cut out the biggest Alternanthera reineckii, it was big and bushy at the top, but the bottom had lost all leaves and the aerial roots were driving me absolutely nuts. Cut down a bunch of the Bacopa as well, so there's a huge empty spot in the middle of the tank. Honestly i'd like to redo the whole tank, other than the dwarf hairgrass, but the money just isn't there for new plants. Everything else has been good. Bought a new Current USA T5 HO fixture, as one of the Coralife's went dead on me. Sooo, that's what it is, i'll try and keep it updated more often. Should note, the Krib pair did have a second batch of babies, but NONE of them made it, not sure what happened there either. Bought 2 new females and a male, they're still young however. Hoping for a pair up, if not.. maybe I'll move to some other Dwarf Cichlid for breeding, which is something I truly enjoy, but again.. money issue, so we'll see.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
5-09-09 FTS
5-09-09 Left Side Shot
5-12-09 FTS (Getting better on clarity, thank you purigen)
5-12-09 Left Side Shot
5-17-09 FTS
5-17-09 Side
5-21-09 FTS
5-21-09 Side
5-21-09 L. Repens Aerial Root Growth
5-28-09 FTS
5-28-09 Side
6-23-09 FTS - Clarity
7-29-09 FTS - Growth
9-24-09
9-27-09 - 2 Days after major trim and rescape
11-02-09 - Minor trim done
11-11-09 - Hair Algae =(
1-7-10 - Reineckki Melt, due to accidental overdose of peroxide? (i think) Trim was done about a week ago as well, looks like crap =(
1-19-10 - Major trim, waiting to grow in
1-30-10 -
4-01-10
4-05-10 - Chopped out most of the Alternanthera, it was bare on the bottom, aerial roots everywhere, couldn't stand it any longer. Looks like crap now, but it'll grow back.
6-11-10 - Tank has gone through a move.. a massive die off of inhabitants and lack of Co2 for a week and a half. Things weren't looking well. Co2 has been filled.. and upgraded to a 10 lb tank for ease. All inhabitants are gone except an Oto, Albino Bristle Nose and 3 cory's. Added have been a total of 50 or so cherry shrimp, although at most I've only been able to count 24, so who knows how many are truly there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, i'm open to suggestions, criticism and ideas or any other feedback of any kind. So have at it and let loose and tell me what to do or what you think . Thanks.