Nano Fluval Chi 5 Gal.

[philemon716]

A bit off-topic, but would you be willing to sell me some of your aureas?

[Chizpa305]

That HC is looking very good! I wish mine would grow in that well. If you want the shrimps to survive you should put a prefilter sponge on your intake or they will just get sucked up and eaten by your filter.

JMex: I followed your advice and placed a little piece of sponge inside the tip of the outflow tube. It's not like I want every single one to survive, but just to keep the shrimp generations flowing.

Tank is looking good! I really like it so far. Can't wait to see what it looks like when it gets all grown in.

Thanks Red, I appreciate the positive feedback keep it up. I'm glad you like it!

A bit off-topic, but would you be willing to sell me some of your aureas?

Philemon: I would be glad to, but unfortunately the cutting I made yesterday were discarded right after, But if you want, once the plant grows back again I'll let you know. If you can, send me a PM with the plants you have. Maybe we can exchange.

[Chizpa305]

Here is an update:
- I already painted the background glass in black. Let me know what do you think. Does it look better now or before??

- I've noticed that the Didiplis Diandra (the tall one in the middle) grows a lot faster than its neighbor. For this reason I will be changing the Diandra to the corner and the Aurea to the middle once they both grow tall enough.

- I see the baby shrimps everywhere. they are getting a little larger and redder. The fish swim near them but don't seem to care.

- Algae is slowly dissapearing! If this rate keeps like that I'll have no algae in no time.

[2in10]

Looking good, I have always liked a dark background to make the plants and fish stand out.

[Mablisboa]

Love it... I have the same tank, but i'm still trying to work around the light stock ... Lets see for how much longer :/ lol... Mine just finish cycling 4 days ago and i was having some algae problems too... Went to my lfs and got me some Otos ( Otocinclus sp.) they cleaned my whole tank in 3 house... They are pretty awesome and it only grow to about 1" so is perfect for our tank. I'm thinking on getting some shrimps for it today too. My neon tetras are not eating very good... they don't come to the surface and the flakes end up sinking any tricks for feeding the tetras??

[Mablisboa]

Oh BTW... Love the black background!!

[Chizpa305]

Looking good, I have always liked a dark background to make the plants and fish stand out.

Thanks 2in10. yeah the black background does help to bring out the color on the plants, and at the same time it helps to hide some cables and things behind the glass.

Love it... I have the same tank, but i'm still trying to work around the light stock ... Lets see for how much longer :/ lol... Mine just finish cycling 4 days ago and i was having some algae problems too... Went to my lfs and got me some Otos ( Otocinclus sp.) they cleaned my whole tank in 3 house... They are pretty awesome and it only grow to about 1" so is perfect for our tank. I'm thinking on getting some shrimps for it today too. My neon tetras are not eating very good... they don't come to the surface and the flakes end up sinking any tricks for feeding the tetras??

Hey Mablisboa, my neons were shy at the beginning. They are naturally afraid of the light so they would not go to the surface. However what I did is I left them without any food for two entire days. after that I just dropped a very small amount of flakes on the surface and at that point they started to loose the fear and come up. Nowadays they are not scared of anything they would go right away to the surface and eat whatever I give them. Try that and see what happens.

[alfalfa]

I love your tank. I did something very similar my wife's Chi. A couple of more things you can do to totally deChi it:

• The white logo in the front is a sticker. It comes off a lot easier than you might think.
• That black filter mount thing on the back is held on by a piece of adhesive foam. It will come off with a little bit of effort. You just need something long and flat to slice through the foam. A hotwire would probably work great.

[Mablisboa]

Originally Posted by Chizpa305

Thanks 2in10. yeah the black background does help to bring out the color on the plants, and at the same time it helps to hide some cables and things behind the glass.



Hey Mablisboa, my neons were shy at the beginning. They are naturally afraid of the light so they would not go to the surface. However what I did is I left them without any food for two entire days. after that I just dropped a very small amount of flakes on the surface and at that point they started to loose the fear and come up. Nowadays they are not scared of anything they would go right away to the surface and eat whatever I give them. Try that and see what happens.

Thanks.. I'll deff try that

[Chizpa305]

Originally Posted by alfalfa

I love your tank. I did something very similar my wife's Chi. A couple of more things you can do to totally deChi it:

• The white logo in the front is a sticker. It comes off a lot easier than you might think.
• That black filter mount thing on the back is held on by a piece of adhesive foam. It will come off with a little bit of effort. You just need something long and flat to slice through the foam. A hotwire would probably work great.

Haha, I liked the expression 'To DeChi it' Classic!! Lol. I'll remove the white sticker in the front, but I'll leave the filter holder piece because I don't know if I'll need it in the future. The good thing is that since I painted the background with black, that piece is hardly noticeable (That was one of the reasons why I painted it in the first place).

[alfalfa]

Originally Posted by Chizpa305

but I'll leave the filter holder piece because I don't know if I'll need it in the future.

I took it off permanently knowing I'd never use that filter on it again. Besides discovering the trick to restarting the filter (do the "maybe this will work" thing for 20 minutes), fish swim up into the open C-shaped part of the filter arm that slides on that mount. They die because they can't turn around. After it happened to us, we decided to deChi it.

The good thing is that since I painted the background with black, that piece is hardly noticeable (That was one of the reasons why I painted it in the first place).

That background looks really great! I have black posterboard on mine at the moment.

[Chizpa305]

Update:
* The algae is persistent. I mean it is not expanding any more, but it isn't going away either. I am looking for Nerite snails. If someone is willing and able to sell me a few of those snails LMK please.
* I bought some Ludwigia (don't know which kind). I am planning in redoing the background plant configuration. I think I will plant them in this order from left to right: Ludwigia, D Diandra, and Lysimachia aurea. For now this will be my next step, but I will wait until the plants grow taller.
* One last thing, I've been noticing my neon tetras are attacking each other and acting a little territorial. I don't know if this is natural. I thought that neons were passive schooling fish.

[Mablisboa]

Originally Posted by Chizpa305

Attachment 47451Attachment 47452
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Update:
* The algae is persistent. I mean it is not expanding any more, but it isn't going away either. I am looking for Nerite snails. If someone is willing and able to sell me a few of those snails LMK please.
* I bought some Ludwigia (don't know which kind). I am planning in redoing the background plant configuration. I think I will plant them in this order from left to right: Ludwigia, D Diandra, and Lysimachia aurea. For now this will be my next step, but I will wait until the plants grow taller.
* One last thing, I've been noticing my neon tetras are attacking each other and acting a little territorial. I don't know if this is natural. I thought that neons were passive schooling fish.

What kind of algae you been having?
My Neon Tetras were doing that too, I did a little research and as long as they are not hurting each other is perfectly normal.

[Chizpa305]

Mablisboa: I have Green Dust Algae in my tank. I have had it since almost the beginning and probably came along with the stem plants that I currently have in the tank. But there is also like a light brown dusty algae looking thing on the glass too. It is hard to see from a picture, but it is there and it is extremely hard to remove physically. I took a clean toothbrush and scraped it for several minutes and nothing!!!. I tried using different tools, my hand and whatever came to mind but it is just very very hard to remove. I suppose it is some kind of algae but it could be something else. Another thing that came to my mind is iron rust.. I wonder if it is possible to get iron rust on the glass from dosing iron ferts (I doubt it). The am dosing the suggested amount of Iron fertilizer according to the instructions on the bottle which is 0.5ml in my < 5 gallons of water

[Mablisboa]

Ohh so it's a hard one to get rid off... Mine tank had, well still has a little tea color water but is was because of the driftwood... My otos took cake of the diatoms i had... I had a little problem with hair algae too but it was too much light and too much fish food and the food i was using had a lot of phophate on it and that can cause algea problems too (that's what i was reading not sure if is right).