46g Summer Surreality (56K!)

[demosthenes]

For any of you who follow my tanks or read my threads, here goes one of my rants...

I've been dreaming for a while - too long in fact! - and I finally decided to take the pressurized CO2 off of my 10g tank, upgrade the lighting on my 46g tank, switch around the plants and fish, and completely re-do the substrates with different topsoil mixes that i've been experimenting with since June. So, I did. For christmas this year, my "one big one" was a brand spankin' new 2x96W lighting fixture and a bunch else. Here's what i've got:

Equipment:
Fluval FX5 filter with a nice-sized powerhead
2x96W PC lighting
pressurized CO2 hooked up into the intake of the powerhead to diffuse nicely
another small pump for extra water movement
50g-sized heater

Flora:
Cyperus helferi
Bolbitis heudelotti
Rotala macrandra sp. 'green'
Rotala sp. variants
Mayaca fluviatilis
Cabomba piaohyensis
Lindernia parviflora 'variegated'
Elatine orientalis
Limnophila aromatica
Ludwigia arcuata
Ludwigia sp.
Micranthemum umbrosum
Potamogeton perfoliatus
Potamogeton gayi
Microsorium pteropus
Microsorium sp. "windeløv"
Flame moss
Microsorium sp "needle leaf"
Hemianthus micranthemoides
Eleocharis acicularis
Lilaeopsis carolinensis
Staurogyne sp.
Saururus cernuus
Ludwigia senegalensis 'guinea'
Blyxa japonica
Hemianthus callictroides
Eleocharis sp. 'belem'
...and i believe thats it.

Fauna:
6 Serpae tetras
2 Kribensis (breeding pair)
2 Curviceps (maybe a breeding pair? not sure.)
1 Celebes rainbowfish (i need to find a bunch more to get a school, i love these guys!)
2 Kuhli loaches
3 Mixed dwarf plecos (brown with white spots, looks almost like a farlowella )
1 Albino dwarf bristlenose pleco

Before I get to the pictures, note that the giant amazon sword in the middle of the tank is not going to stay there. I haven't figured out what to do with it yet, because I can't fit it in any of my tanks, and my LFS wouldnt take it. Anyone here can have it for $25 shipped if you want it (species is Echinodorus sp. 'tropica' if that helps haha). I think thats what I paid for it when it was just a little tiny guy.

Pictures:

[demosthenes]

okay lots of new pictures and stories here, this could end up beign a really long post...

so i set this tank up a week before christmas, then went away until january 2nd (my birthday yayyy! ), and when i came home, the tank was just covered in algae and most of the plants were dead or algae covered (cladophora, BSA, BBA, and even green water *gasp!*), but i've been overdosing Flourish Excel, and most of it has gone away. The water is still pretty murky though. Anyway, here are the pictures:




The fissidens on driftwood and slate chips... my female krib (after spawning) dug this massive cave underneath it (big enough for me to put my whole fist in! ...deep substrate.) and one of the slate chips is kinda falling in. she buried all of my HC!


about 100 of the eggs hatched, and i sucked a bunch of them out through a pipette, and heres where i'm keeping them for the time being. I counted 64 in the picture, but there may be a few more or less, and probably a lot hiding in the mosses and on the other side of the tank.



all of this came from ONE single node of E. sp. 'belem' that I got tangled up in the roots of some Hydrocotyle sp. that I got from legomaniac a while ago:


fun little hiding-spot for my curviceps, and one of my very favorite fish



Nymphaea micrantha from Digsy (btw, thank you SO much! its such a cool plant!)


Some more random pictures and my fish*:



*I traded in my 6 serpae tetras at my LFS for 6 celebes rainbows, and bought another from a different store, so now i've got 9 total, and I can still tell apart my one little buddy thats been in my tank for over a year haha. Also, can anybody ID the pleco that isn't albino?

[pandapr]

nice tank !

[Nskylinerb-25]

wow awesome tank

[demosthenes]

Originally Posted by pandapr

nice tank !

Originally Posted by Nskylinerb-25

wow awesome tank

thank you everyone! here's whats been going on lately:

i have been crazy busy this past week, so I got lazy and didnt fertilize or anything, and i broke my diffuser, so without much CO2 or ferts and a ton of light, my tank got nasty. now its not so bad, i did a major clean out and partial rescape today. I think now the 'scape looks a lot better, and once the rotalas in the background, lilaeopsis, cyperus, and bolbitis fill in more, it'll look great. I am also really starting to appreciate HC. Once my HC and Eleo 'belem' fill in the whole foreground of the tank.... ahhh i can't even wait!!!!

as for fish, I haven't changed anything with my fish at all lately, but i've gotten a little ich outbreak within my celebes rainbowfish population . i've been treating with ParaGuard for a few days, and it seems much better so far. I've also isolated the one curviceps that hasn't ever really been doing well, and i'm giving it some extra bloodworms and things so maybe it'll heal more easily, especially now that the bigger fish can't boss it around. nothing has died yet that I know of, so thats good at least... lol. I used to have some kuhli loaches though, and theyve totally disappeared. I haven't seen any sign of them in weeks. strange.

take a look:
here's the tank this morning, still algae covered and gross...


now here it is this afternoon, where the water is still really cloudy from the medicine i put in, and the fine bubbles from the water i had just added. It doesnt look great, so I think tomorrow i'll try to add some more pictures from my mom's camera instead of my little crappy one...


...the second one looks better in person aha

thanks for checking out my tank!

[devadair]

Wowww, that looks great yo

[seds]

Fissidens is looking great! So is the H.C...

What is that giant milfoil type plant?

For the record, I only see my upside down catfish when I move their hideaway. During "rescapes." And they are 3 years old.

[Frenchie]

wow awesome tank, it looks much bigger than it is. How are the baby kribs doing, were you able to keep them alive?

[demosthenes]

just dug up this thread again... hoping to update tonight or tomorrow night. SO much has happened since then... i got some curviceps (SUCH cool fish), but my mom accidentally turned my CO2 all the way up and gassed all of my fish to death, so now i only have the baby kribensis from the other tank, a few rainbows, and the plecos left in here. the kribs have gotten big! the aquascape also look drastically different now, i'll show you guys later!

[BlackDogExpress]

I see this is a pretty old thread, but if the OP still has that Plecostomus, and if you are still wondering about it, it is a Gold Nugget (Baryancistrus sp.).