Jakes Journal (25gal)

[JasterMake]

I've had this tank a long long time. These pictures start way after I started the tank in 99'. I did not know about macros back then when nitrate and phosphate were bad words.
I constantly went through cycles of intense growth followed by slow melting away.

This was done with 2 phillips 18" T8 daylight tubes from walmart and the stock Marineland hood and ballast. I was only dosing trace elements.







Look what happens to the tiny sword. I cleaned out everything else when I moved.

[JasterMake]

Then my hood broke and I had to go LED.. Well I did not have to go led but I love playing with electronics so I gave some cheap eBay leds a shot.




But this was too much light. So things did not go well. Plants were not thriving like before. Then I found this site and learned all about macros.
Cleaned out most of the algae covered rocks



Added some floramax one cup at a time. After a super thorough 3 step rinse. I did not relocate the fish and the picture was taken 4 hours after I added the floramax.



Then I ordered some plants from some of the members here.

[Hilde]

What are your nitrate levels?

I think a see a comet gold fish. I believe he will outgrow the tank.

Wish would past the links in the square icon with the moutain. Then I could view the pictures without going to another page.

[AguaTropical]

PM'd you (JasterMake) about the images...

[JasterMake]

Nitrates are steady at around 40ppm. I've used some nitrasorb stuff that brought it down to 15ish but it went back up to 40 n a couple of days. Goldfish eat to much if I don't feed it enough it starts to look sad.

I don't know what kind of goldfish it is. Stupid school carnival gave them away as prizes.

I'm working on the Image issues..

Ok I think I fixed the pics. Please let me know if it worked.

Thanks

[Hilde]

Originally Posted by JasterMake

Nitrates are steady at around 40ppm. I've used some nitrasorb stuff that brought it down to 15ish but it went back up to 40 n a couple of days. Goldfish eat to much if I don't feed it enough it starts to look sad.

When I had nitrates at 40ppm I got string algae. You probably need a stronger filter or do more water changes until you rehome the goldfish. Their like cows eat and poop constantly. They also love to eat plants.

[JasterMake]

Originally Posted by Hilde

When I had nitrates at 40ppm I got string algae. You probably need a stronger filter or do more water changes until you rehome the goldfish. Their like cows eat and poop constantly. They also love to eat plants.

I was doing ok with the string algae until I upgraded my lights. I think the mollies were keeping it under control. When I upgraded my lights I rehoused the mollies into another tank because the BA tetras were stressing them out and they would go spastic shaking and point straight up. At this point the string algae started getting long and annoying. I start dosing PO4 and Mg because both of those were less than 1ppm. I also bought a huge bunch of hornwort. I now try to keep Mg over 10ppm and PO4 over 2ppm.

The only algae issue I have now is green stuff on the glass that easily wipes off once a week and a little bit staghorn that grows on the older leaves of one plant. I have been trying peroxide on this but usually I just cut off the older leaves.

The one thing I really love about "lighting" the goldfish is he/she does a great job at keeping the substrate clean. It is always eating anything that falls or sucking up and spitting substrate.

[AguaTropical]

Originally Posted by JasterMake

I'm working on the Image issues..

Ok I think I fixed the pics. Please let me know if it worked.

Thanks

Pics are coming through just fine! Looks good!

[JasterMake]

The yeast decided not to ferment this time and I went all day co2. The good news is that the water cleared nicely and I now I know the drop checker turns blue when the co2 goes out.

[JasterMake]

So this is what it looks like today.




It would probably have many more plants but the buenos aires tetras and gold fish keep mowing them down. However what you see in there has been there long enough to assume that they must taste bad.