Notropis' 20 gallon tall---Updated!

[notropis]

Hi all,

I've been taking photos of various quality for some time now and thought I'd share. The tank has been up for a couple of years but I only started with plants in April 2005. Added red cherry shrimp in Sept 2005 and DIY co2 in Oct 2006. I would not have been able to do any of it without the advice and help of the members here including my first plants and co2 ladder which were both very generous random acts.

So I'll start with Nov 2005...I had all of the fish in my sig except for tiger barbs in place of the pencilfish (since my signature has changed: at this point I had tiger barbs, 2 cories, 1 CAE, 1 loach)

[notropis]

In April 2005 I had received water sprite, java fern and java moss. I also added the 36 watt coralife light at this time. Then in November I bought some plants off ebay which included more java fern (narrow and wide), chain swords, rotala, val, pearl grass and hygro. I had also picked up some dwarf sagg along the way at some point.

[notropis]

Here it is in January.

For those of you who are wondering, I did have red cherry shrimp survive the wrath of the tiger barbs but I do credit that to the rock pile on the left side of the tank and heavy veg.

[notropis]

In January I picked up weeping moss and e. triandra.
So I did some pruning and rearranging..notice the e. triandra on the right and just barely the moss rubberband to the driftwood.


I also forgot to mention the duckweed......

[notropis]

Between Feb and May I switched out the tiger barbs with pencilfish as I got tired of never seeing the shrimp and needed the rock pile area for plants.

Yes the dang tank is too small but I started "experimenting" because I had no room for a larger one. If I had a larger tank I may never had gotten into plants which would be a shame.

It should be fairly obvious the e. triandra did not work out for me. I've also pruned a lot back although I do have a lot floating. That is partially because I just transferred 3 of my baby beckfordi, which surprisingly showed up in the Qt once I pulled all the adults out. I am still raising 10 more fry in the QT. I do have a huge population issue with the red cherries and may need to set up my 10 gallon for a nice showpiece fish that will also munch on red cherries...so please throw some suggestions my way. Thanks!

[Nospherith]

Very nice tank, very green. It looks good. If there's population issues w/ the cherries, then why don't you trade the extra shrimp for store credit? They're really nice shrimp and your lfs would probably like to add them to inventory.

[notropis]

Thanks for the nice comments Nospherith. My local lfs isn't one I would buy fish from so I'm not certain I want to trade my cherries in there either. The not-so-local fish stores up in Eugene are where I tend to go (although not frequently) and the one I am most impressed with seems to have their own cherry tank. Although I should give them a call next time I head up that way just to check.

Can anyone id the lime green plant on the right side of the tank in the midground? The pencilfish is directly in front of it and it is sandwiched between the pearlweed and the java fern.

After I introduce all or most of my young pencilfish into the 20G tank, I plan on weeding. I'm going to pull some val, some java ferns, some rotala (?), and lots of the floating pearlweed. I'm also thing of upgrading to 65W PC light (and moving the 36 W to a 10 gallon I'm considering setting up for a pair of A. cacatoides (assuming I can find them)). What would folks suggest for moving existing plants around or new plant acquisitions? The substrate in this tank is strictly gravel (although I think I'll be trying schultz's aquatic soil in the 10 gallon).

[notropis]

I haven't kept this link updated very much, trying to growout plants, battling algae, etc. and these July photos show that. I think the tank looks very poor here. It's embarrassing to post, but most folks go through these poor stages when new to planted tanks. That's what a journal is all about, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lots of algae, the driftwood has been grown over and is melting fast, just very poor. The duckweed sticking to the outside of the glass doesnt't help much either. The shrimp are looking pretty good though.

I have just recently added a second 2L to the DIY CO2 to battle the BBA. I will take some new photos and post soon. I haven't taken any photos since July

[notropis]

I forgot to take a photo before starting to tear stuff out, but suffice to say it was a jungle! I removed dwarf hygro, vals, moss, bolbitis, narrow leaf java fern, and HC. One of the photos shows some of the plants I removed.

I had some hollow driftwood that melted since July. I added red temple, rotala and lysimachia and moved some other plants around. This tamk has not had this much open space in a long time! (I couldn't bear to compost all the plants so I've put some in the fridge for now!) I'll need to rim the HC in front next water change.

One thing I've learned is that gravel does not make a great substrate for planted tanks.