Low Tech 29G - Few Questions

[Gootz]

Originally Posted by Wannaberooted

I'd still do a water change on a regular basis, I do 25% a week. My nitrates show about what yours does right before a water change. It goes down, and slowly creeps back up through the week. I've found that with my water supply here in Eau Claire, a big water change effects almost all my plants in a bad way. I have a high pH from the tap, which the tank lowers. I top the tank off due to evaporation with distilled water once and a while. You want to strive for stability, wild swings in anything is bad.

Depending on a lot of things, like what you use for water, plant density, stocking, fertilizers, light levels, oxygen levels, CO2 levels, and the boogeyman in your tank, you will have to change things slowly and observe what happens. Keep reading everything having to do with any problems that occur, and then read some more.

I'm glad you like your julii's, they should be very happy in your tank. They don't get very big, and they will keep things tidy. Just don't overfeed, that might be the hardest part of keeping a tank. The fish always seem hungry, but they are gluttons.

Good luck, pretty soon you can fill in your middle and top levels of your tank with fishies.

Got it! Will be doing a 25% WC today and retest my water levels. I strive to do weekly WCs to, as you said, keep things more stable. I always cringe when I talk with friends who have tanks and don't do regular WCs (we're talking not even once a month).

I have a high PH (~7.5) as well as hard water too. I do have a water softener installed at my house, but it's not hooked up currently. I have to get it serviced as it was turned off when I bought the house 3 years ago and has never been used (my fault for waiting so long, just busy with family and life).

The Juliis are very fun to watch and have quite the personality. Love their eyerolling. Not very good eyesight though! I've seen them swim right by food when I know they are hungry and looking for it because they find or have found food at this time. I only feed them enough so they eat where there isn't any food remnants left over after a short time.

I'm finding the fishkeeping to be very peaceful. I'll keep updating as I go and will hopefully get some good pics to share. Thanks again for your help.

[Wannaberooted]

Yup, I've been a big Cory fan since I was like 12 years old, and a lot of that probably has to do with their wink. Plus they do so much good stirring up the substrate and debris wherever it might be. I wanted to get julliis in my tank, but there were none in town, so I got Peppered instead. Any Cory is a good Cory.

My ph is 8.4 out of the tap, but mid 7's in the tank. I have to be very careful I have learned. Being I have a 20g, there isn't much room for error. You will find a happy medium where everything, light, CO2, stock, etc. balances out and your plants will grow slowly, you won't have a bunch of algae, and the fish will be happy. Patience, patience, and dilligence, dilligence.

[Gootz]

Originally Posted by Wannaberooted

Yup, I've been a big Cory fan since I was like 12 years old, and a lot of that probably has to do with their wink. Plus they do so much good stirring up the substrate and debris wherever it might be. I wanted to get julliis in my tank, but there were none in town, so I got Peppered instead. Any Cory is a good Cory.

My ph is 8.4 out of the tap, but mid 7's in the tank. I have to be very careful I have learned. Being I have a 20g, there isn't much room for error. You will find a happy medium where everything, light, CO2, stock, etc. balances out and your plants will grow slowly, you won't have a bunch of algae, and the fish will be happy. Patience, patience, and dilligence, dilligence.

The blink/wink is a very nice surprise, very funny to watch. They are more than likely false Juliis since real Juliis are hard to come by and these guys were only $5 each. Either way, I like em a lot. Since I picked up this new tank I've been much more into proper fish keeping and learning about all of the different species.

Woah, that's crazy! The driftwood in my tank helps lower the PH a tiny bit, but not much. How do you get yours down so much? BTW, my tank is really low tech, no CO2 and only 1 single T8 bulb. Maybe one day I'll go full throttle, but right now, with a 3 y/o and hopefully another on the way I don't have as much me time as I'd like.

[Wannaberooted]

I was generalizing a bit, my water out of the tap isn't always 8.4, sometimes it's lower, and the water in the tank isn't always mid 7's, sometimes it's 8.0. I don't really check it very often anymore, as there isn't much I can do to it to change it much without risking a wild swing. I feel that as long as any changes aren't drastic, the occupants of the tank will deal with it. Ammonia and such are a different story.

I do have a piece of Mopani driftwood in my tank, but otherwise, I'm not sure why the tank is lower in pH than my tap water, besides maybe by having a couple plants that absorb calcium from the water in the tank.

You might not even need to add CO2 with your light. The more light, the more hassle. As long as the plants are growing slowly without dying off, it's easy. If the plants are melting or dying off like mine did last October, I found a potassium and iron fertilizer and some liquid CO2 turned things around. The fish food supplies the rest of the ferts. It really all starts with the light, but you should be low light with yours, maybe even too low. Read all you can written by Hoppy and Diana, my experience using their advice is very positve.

[Gootz]

Makes sense. I don't like the idea of adding a PH lower additive. I've read that it can cause more issues than it potentially solves. I'm just avoiding any fish that need more acidic water.

I love the Mopani driftwood. I wanted to go that route, but I couldn't source a large enough piece and I didn't want to have to soak it for several weeks.

I'm definitely not going to be adding CO2. I'd like to keep the plant growth relatively low, so I don't have to worry about trimming maintenance. Also, higher tech tanks don't appeal to me because above the plant maintenance, it's an even higher level of maintenance and monitoring requirement which I don't have time for at this point in my life. I have started adding some fert after each water change to help provide the plants with any missing nutes. I've also considered the API CO2 booster, but am waiting to see how the plants react with the fert first before adding anything else. I'd like to know how each additive helps individually.

Thanks again for all of the info and advice. I'm definitely open to learning.

[Gootz]

Quick update, tank is running really smoothly with no further setbacks. It's currently stocked with 5 silver hatchets, 6 juliis, 1 oto and 1 assassin snail. The tank needs some more plants which I'll be picking up this week. Between the juliis and the hatchets there isn't a whole lot of color, so I've decided to try my luck with CTs instead of the RMTs. Pics to follow...

[Wannaberooted]

Great to hear your tank is stable, it's a wonderful feeling when that happens.

Just a quick thought on Mopani wood, it doesn't need to soak for weeks. It is naturally heavy so it sinks right away. I soaked my piece for a week, changing the water daily, and have had no issues since adding it to my tank. It didn't even grow any white fuzz. My only complaint is all the pieces seem to be small and chunky, I'd like to find a thinner piece around 16" long.

I'm looking forward to your pictures.

[Gootz]

Thanks for following the thread and for the advice. Definitely feels good to finally have the kinks worked out!

I found someone on another fish board who basically creates their own decorative "trees" using fallen dead oak tree roots and affixes moss to them. They are seriously amazing looking, so I've asked him for one and am excited to put it in my tank.

As you can see from the below pic, it's a work in progress and needs some more landscaping. The tree will go between the 2 pieces of driftwood and then I will be adding some more plants. Some hornwort or similar to the rear left and some low profile grass to the front right and maybe a little in the front left.

Older, but higher quality pic:



Crappy quality pic from today:



The tank now has 5 silver hatchets, 6 juliis, 1 oto, 1 assassin snail and the LFS just gave me 14 guppy fry for free, so we'll see how that turns out. I'm sure I'll lose several of them, but if they look nice I may keep them. Otherwise I'll let them grow and trade them in for some CTs.

[Gootz]

I went to my LFS to pickup some red ludwigia and anacharis, which I did, but on my way up to the register they had this BEAUTIFUL male betta that caught my eye. The icing on the cake was the bettas were on sale, so I picked him up along with the 2 new plants. Here's a pic of the tank with the new plants and the betta. Like my last one that fell to an untimely and sad death, when I first put him in he is flashing at his reflection in the tank as you can see in the pic. In 1-2 days I'm sure he'll stop, but I definitely admire his beauty when he does flare. Also, something weird happened after I put the new plants in. I thought the first assassin snail I got a couple months back had died because I hadn't seen him for about 1 month, so I went and got another one to help keep the (bad) snail population down. Well, low and behold this morning when the light goes on I see BOTH!!! He must've had a nice loooooong nap! A little while later I noticed that the two are intertwined and am curious if they are mating, fighting or what? Pic below.