65 Gallon Tanganyikan Tank with Vallisneria/Algae

[jerrytheplater]

Originally Posted by HouseofZoo

I love your hardscape!

All free from my yard while digging the garden over the course of 20 years or so.

I travel around with a geologists pick and rock chisel in my trunk in case something looks interesting along the road. I haven't yet gotten anything with the pick though.

[wootlaws]

nice, would love to see an update on the tank if possible

[jerrytheplater]

Sorry I don't have any photo's right now to update this thread.

This tank is almost three years old now. My nice green growth of algae has died back and some BBA has shown up. Last week the tank was without power for 6 days during Hurricane Sandy. I am left with one adult Tanganicodus irsacae Moba and a pair of Julidochromis regani and one Synodontis upside down cat.

I replaced a burned out 55 Watt PC and turned on the 96 watt PC this past Monday. The 96 watt lamp is new too. The tank is pearling amazingly out of the Vallisneria and I am seeing new green algae starting to grow over top of the dark algae on the rock faces. Even this is pearling. This is without CO2 and without any fertilizers. There is a lot of build up of mulm in the substrate that could use some cleaning, but I have not figured out how yet.

I removed about 1/2 of the upright rocks on the right side of the tank while looking for victims of the cold to remove them and have not replaced them yet. I"m hoping the ugly algae will die off on me. I know I can use bleach-I just have not used it yet.

I'm still undecided what fish I am going to get for here. I may have to think on this for a while. I'll still stay with Tanganyikans.

[jerrytheplater]

Here's a video I took today, 6 days after the power went on after being off due to Hurricane Sandy.

http://youtu.be/-j1lNV_w5d0

[jerrytheplater]

I noticed on Saturday night, Nov 11, that I had accidentally plugged the 96 watt PC light into an untimed outlet so that it was on 24 hours a day for at least a week following the blackout of 6 days. Maybe that is why the green algae is starting to make a comeback in this tank. It is now on a timer for a 12 hour cycle. So I have about 150 PC watts on this 65 gallon tank.

This tank spent 6 days without power during Hurricane Sandy. The water temperature went down to around 55 F or so. I cleaned all of my Eheim filters on all of my tanks while the power was off so I would not get a huge anoxic spike in the tank when the filter started back up. I am glad I did.

I have two PC lamps on this tank, 96 & 55 watts. Both lamps were just changed as they would not start back up after the power failure, or failed soon after.

I removed rocks on the right side while looking for dead fish and weighed them. The ones removed totaled 65 lbs. So I am estimating I may have had 250 lbs of rock at one point.

The video in the post above shows the tank right after removing the rocks. This video I"m posting today shows the tank a week later. The green algae is really growing in and has already covered the bare areas which were shaded by the old rocks.

It is amazing how much this tank is pearling without CO2. The lights come on at 6 AM. I get to work at 7 AM. The tank is not pearling at this point. By noon, pearling has begun. By 4:00 it is almost like the tank is carbonated. The only plants here are Vallisneria and Green Algae. I would like to ignore the Red algae on the rocks, but I am really fooling myself. It does look like it is getting overgrown by the green algae.

I added enough Potassium Mono Phosphate to raise the levels to around 2 ppm as phosphorus, not P2O5, not PO4. I really did not see any difference in the bubble production at the end of the day. I normally don't fertilize this tank at all.

Noon time video, Nov 15, 2012: http://youtu.be/rzW10mwH_ec

4:30 video, same day: http://youtu.be/xnD0OMPzrOA