10G Dwarf Pufer Planted Tank Journal, Updated: 7/4

[Finch_man]

Hey Casty you might encounter some diatom but don't worry they will die off with in weeks... Just letting you know.

[Casty]

It's day 6 today. I noticed that there were a bunch of dead Ludwigia Repens leaves near their roots, I didn't do a good job of planting and planted some leaves into the substrate as well. Cleaned that up and planted them better.

Actually, I think now the algae is staghorn and not hair algae. I'm guessing it's due to ammonia. My Redsea CO2 Tester shows up "green", but I'm going to measure my parameters today and 24 hours later to see what it's really like. Right now CO2 is at 30 bpm, when I first installed the bubble counter I was at 1 bps, not bad for DIY CO2!

Theres a LFS around here that sells their Bio-Spira and have a special fridge just for the product. Pretty cool, but I will wait for a couple weeks (when I get my paycheck) if things aren't better. (I seriously doubt I will have ammonia in 2 weeks)

I feel like I should post a picture, but nothings really changed. :P

Btw, does anyone know what that clear shrimp is?

[styxx]

Originally Posted by jaidexl

Be wary of where you get Bio-spira from if you decide to go that rout, the stuff is garbage if it stays warm for too long, and there are specific parameters and whatnot like pH that supposedly are a factor. I tried it twice and it didn't work, had to ship it through four states, it might have worked one time, but it was the fourth week of the cycle already so it's hard to say what happened. I have however heard enough stories of super fast cycles with it to know I did something wrong or the stuff went bad during the trip here. On my 65gl I just setup, I ran a canister for it on a ~heavily stocked tank for a month while I gathered parts, lights etc. I made sure to feed the fish like crazy and never touched the tank. That canister along with plants cycled my 65gl in a week and a half, on the day it brought the ammonia and nitrite from my tap down to zero, I threw a fish in it, then one more after a week and so on, no waver in stability ever. You're on day five, right, with a seeded filter? I would personally give it a little more time rather than dump money into Bio-Spira.

It certainly sounds as if you experience with BioSpira has been both positive and negative. I myself have used it successfully on 4 different occassions with excellent results. Of course it was only a 10 min. drive from the lfs where I got it to home and they gave me a cold pack to ensure its temp. I dumped it in and dumped in 20 Harlequin Rasboras and didn't lose a single one for over a year! Of course I was using pressurized co2 and the pH was around 7.0 when normally it would have been 8.0 but it didn't seem to affect its performance; the only noticeable difference was there was a slight clouding affect each time its introduced. (Which presumably suggests that its working to absorb and ingest the ammonia)...for me there WAS no cycle. It instantly worked each time I've used it...FWIW...

[jaidexl]

If only they sold it close to home then it would be worth it to me. Buying and shipping it overnight cost me about $60. I did double and triple doses to try and get that magical 3 day or less cycle I've heard so much about.

Casty, after reading around I realise that people are using zeolite to combat new tank algae, that makes sense. I guess i never thought of that since algae is another thing I like to ignore, I've never had a huge battle with it though, other than BBA before pressurized CO2 came into the equation, and I usually ramp up my ferts slowly rather than go head-strong from the start, whatever works for each person I suppose. Anyway, I see where your reasoning is now, I always saw that stuff as a band-aid for other issues, but it has an obvious reason here.

Originally Posted by Casty

does anyone know what that clear shrimp is?

Looks like a Caridina species to me.

[Casty]

GRR! This algae turns out to be worse than I thought. Clado I am thinking... It isn't too spread out yet and I'm doing daily removal of what I can w/o damaging plants. Hopefully the shrimp in my tank will eat it, even though only one is an Amano Shrimp... I bought excel and am dosing that as well, hopefully that will kill it in time... Clado probably came from plants I got on the forum. :/ I really should of waited to buy the HC until my tank was balanced out, oh well live and learn.

Good news today I finally see a drop in ammonia and a rise in nitrites and nitrates.

Pics of algae, clado right?

[Booger]

Originally Posted by Casty

I really should of waited to buy the HC until my tank was balanced out, oh well live and learn.

Don't worry about it. My HC went through a terrible stage before coming back from the brink. It could still pull through. If it doesn't come back, no worries. I'll send more once your tank is rocking and rolling.

[Casty]

Well I recharged my purigen with bleach/water, but didn't have anything to lower the PH back down (bleach raises it a LOT) so I threw it back in and hoped for the best. Now my PH is at least 8.0 and things are melting a lot again. :/ Whoops... Ludwigia Repens is really the main plant taking a beating, but some new growth is occuring and it should come back eventually. Got a lot of algae as well, and STILL have ammonia at least 1.0 ppm... unless my test kits are bad, because I also have 0 nitrite and low nitrate... hmm.

The good news is that the HC is algae free, and slowly growing! Plus my biggest RCS has eggs, my first batch ever.

[Casty]

Well it's been a little over a month. I was hoping things would be much more developed, but I don't think I planted heavy enough from the start, and should of had more HC to start with. The HC is slowly coming back and it is peaking out from under the soil.



I figured out after about 3 weeks that my test strips for ammonia were bad, they still read 3.0 ppm after a whole month... I knew this couldn't be right so I bought a RedSea Ammonia drop kit and it showed 0 ammonia... that's more like it! I have since added the 3 Dwarf Puffers and 2 Otos, and all the shrimp are still alive from the beginning.



Once I put the puffs in, they were gasping towards the corner surface of the tank, was really worried. So I did a WC and raised the spraybar up for more oxygen and they were fine within 5 mins. Might of been pH shock, or maybe just low O2, don't know.

Whenever Dwarf Puffers are in a new enviroment, they pretty much call a "truce" between each other and stick close together and shoal until they get used to things. Usually if they see each other they chase each other away, but for awhile they were all friends. :P





One looks, they all look!




Closeup on Sploink


Peacock moss has grown quite a bit from the very small piece I had originally though.



I need some ID on this, my lfs didn't have HM or HC, but had these little pieces attached to their intake and I asked for them. They were smaller originally making me think HC... but now that they've grown I think it might be HM. Anyone got an opinion?



Also, there are tons of little bubbles coming from all my plants, my wood, and sometimes my substrate. Tons of pearling going on, but all these little bubbles in the water are everywhere and it makes me think something might be wrong...





Using the interactive tank designer made by mistergreen found here, I came up with an approximate design I am aiming for. I have some HM on order as well as some Blyxa Japonica that should be able to make this possible. I might put some stems in the back eventually, but the HM background kind of looks cool alone, we'll see. Pretend the wood has some moss on it and pretend the Glosso is HC!



Thanks for looking.

[jaidexl]

That's HM you have in your foreground, the one you got from the lfs.

That tank designer thing looks pretty cool, I'm gonna have to give that a try