TANK: ADA 60-P (17 gallon) SUBSTRATE: Flourite mix - original, black, onyx sand FILTRATION: Eheim Ecco 2234 w/ knockoff Lily pipes LIGHTS: 12 3w Cree XPG LEDs, cool white, dimmable, 8 hrs a day on a dawn/dusk cycle
Scape will be very lush and natural, lots of leaves, texture, mostly green with a splash of red. Spider wood hardscape. Dosing EI light twice a week. Excel when I remember to. Some Osmocote+ capsules in there too.
One week later - still looking good! Did a minor trim, and also replanted some of the HC I had salvaged from before. Some had actually sprouted up from underneath the AquaSoil, so I'm really hoping it roots in nice, even if it spreads slowly in low tech
Stems! Stems! 4 kinds of stems. 6 bunches. I got em for $20. Manager gave me a discount. Cool!
Nothing too fancy scape-wise, kinda want to wait for everything to open up and grow flat before I start trying to move it around - not a lot of room in there!
Pulled out the little piece of driftwood and also the big Java fern.
If you have any arrangement/scape ideas please tell me!
I am not 100% sure what plants they are exactly - I know I got heteranthera zosterifolia (stargrass) and ammania gracilis, I want to say the other 2 are Hygrophila polysperma 'Rosanervig'
(sunset hygro), and hygrophila salicifolia
Some excellent growth already - especially the stargrass (bottom left)! Due for a WC today and a minor rescape... I get soooo much tank evaporation... need a RO/DI water system for topoffs
Also got a stowaway Ramshorn snail on a bunch of L. repens (back center)... I decided to keep it
Today after a WC Not much to report, most things are growing great, a bit of melting on the salicifolia's (?) lower leaves, but new green growth on top so I'm confident it will bounce back, even if I have to trim the tops and replant em. Still hoping to get my CO2 back up and running in the future.
Oh yeah... my tank... lol. I started a new job recently and haven't done ANY maintenance other than topoffs on the tank in about 3 weeks. It looks just fine, but I had about a MILLION guppy fry... lol!
Here's what I set up to take care of the guppy fry (for now)... just a spare 5 gallon tank
I like I like, you can try some easy carpeting plants now. I did HC Cuba as my starter carpet and it was a very very unforgiving plant for starters. I'm glad you got the whole tank looking great now, maybe try some Dwarf Hair Grass? Plant and grow, that the way to go.
Wow... again, been about a month since a WC and cleanup. Some plants are getting leggy at the bottoms and there is a large amount of staghorn algae... but otherwise, things look pretty ok considering how badly I've been neglecting the tank lately.
Looks good from afar...
But up close... uh oh!
One of these days I will do a trim + replant. I want desperately to rescape it and get my CO2 going but I just have no energy to get ANYTHING done lately. Blah.
I did a massive trim and replant a while back. Good news/bad news... good is that the staghorn is gone, bad is that i have cyano again. Not so bad, but I need to mix up a new batch of ferts and I have no potassium left. Fish are all good, ramshorn snail died, plants are leggy and growing slow but alive - even the HC. There's proof that HC is a fairly hardy plant and can do just fine in low tech environments, even covered in cyano
No signs of staghorn since that explosion. Cyano is a bit crazy, but other than that, not much algae going on at all. I did a big cleanup and some trimming tonight, hopefully that will help my plants outgrow the cyano again. I really would love to get a scape down but I don't have a clue what I can do with such a limited plant selection.
Sorry for the bubbles, did a WC a few hours ago.
One of these days I really want to get to Petsmart and pick up some new fish... I need something like ottos or some kind of small pleco.
my fish have ich. i moved them into a quarantine tank. water is at 84, added a tablespoon of salt per 5 gallons. crossing my fingers and hoping for the best :x
after my latest rescape my aquasoil was SO powdery/dusty on top. since my fish were in quarantine, i decided to drain and empty the ENTIRE tank and wash the Aquasoil. I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out... at the worst i'd have to replace my substrate, but it worked well. no more powdery crap on top
Nice and clean. Is that HC Cuba in the corner right side? I had an easier time growing HC Cuba carpets with emersed growth.
We have very similar equipment, mind me giving you some tips? I feel your pain with the cyano, I battle that monster myself and had to redo some scapes. So yeah, I want to see if what I learned from my tanks can translate into another.
yup it's HC. I let it grow emersed for a few months before I filled the tank and had a pretty awesome carpet going, but I treated the tank with H2O2 and most of it died It's done pretty well in low tech, though I wasn't too excited to pull it all up and replant it.
So far I wonder if a filter with higher flow would help with the cyano issue. Maybe a classic 2217. Maybe a spraybar... or some big lily pipes? I'm clumsy so I need to find someone who makes acrylic ones. I am struggling with light, too... LEDs are so deceiving, I don't know if I have too much light or not enough... that and I wish my regulator wasn't broken.
Cyano's a tough one, though. P deficiency seemed to be causing mine. When I started dosing it frequently it literally disappeared. My biggest tip would be don't get lazy... I had finally found a good balance in my tank but have lost it now due to lack of routine maintenance, trimming and replanting, filter cleaning, etc. The cyano's come back with a vengeance
sadly it seems my fish are more sick than i thought, ive already lost one rasbora and another rasbora and one cardinal are looking sick as well. this just might be the last nail in the coffin for me and this tank.
I would love to restart it and do CO2 right off the bat... I've got a great regulator and a full cylinder but the damn safety valve on the reg is either just screwy and needs replaced, or the whole regulator is damaged. It's something really hard to get fixed, and the thought of messing with potentially damaged, high pressure gear just scares me, so I've been putting it in the back of my mind...
The tank is currently fishless and biomedia-less - just an empty aquaclear to keep the water flowing. If all my fish don't die from columnaris they will go back in the tank, but I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea of having to replace all my livestock soon.
You replied in my other thread but here's photos of it from the seller
And on my own tank, while it was working briefly...
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