shalu's 100 gallon tank-updated 04-17-2005*bandwidth warning*

[greentetra]

I have 3 male rams
Where did you find a female
My LFS told me they dont get many becuase the fish farms keep them
Great Looking grass stuff. What is it

[shalu]

greentetra, some of LFS do have the females. I also got some from a local breeder. The "grass" is hygrophila difformis, water wisteria, a very common plant. It grows horizontally under bright light, making an easy foreground.

[aquakev]

Shalu, Got some questions for you since I am about to introduce discus to my tank.1) What is feeding like, I saw the worm cone but are you just feeding 1/day? 2) How do the plants handle the higher temp(what do you have it at)? 3) In one of the pics I sow Glosso. but then not in any others, did you have problems with it or just didnt like it?

Thanks,

Kev

[shalu]

Hi Kev,
1) I use two feeding cones to feed frozen blood worms, which is the only food I use right now. I feed quite heavily, use about 3-4 ounces of frozen bw each day. I fill the cones before going to work in the morning, then do the same twice in the evening, so three feedings. Frequent water change is therefore necessary. I do at least 3x60% water change per week, dose back plant nutrients after wc. One feeding would be ok for adults, but mine are still not fully grown.
2) most of the info about plants not doing well in high temp is not true. I grow any plant I want to try and none failed due to high temp(I set it at 83F). I have tried at least 50 species. There are only a few I have not completely mastered, but I am sure it had nothing to do with high temp. But at high temp, plants are less forgiving about lack of nutrients or CO2, so have to make sure you supply ample amount of those.
3) yes, I had a beautiful glosso lawn once, but glosso is very fast growing and aggressive and piles on top of itself soon. My arm can barely reach the bottom of the tank so it became very hard to manage/prune. So I got rid of it. Now I want to grow it again, but only in a small area.

[pufferfreak]

I thought it was the other way around with H. Difformis. With lower light it grows horizontally and with bright light it grows vertical.

[shalu]

pufferfreak, you got it backwards, I've got it growing in both conditions.

[pufferfreak]

so under bright light it grows sideways? WTF

[shalu]

yes, or when shaded by other plants, it grows upwards.

[pufferfreak]

not cool, no wonder my wisteria wasnt growing up, dangit lol

[shalu]

Time to post pics of some of my less favorite discus. This one is a LFS runt, never grew a bit after I bought it. Its body is badly deformed if you look at it headon. My wife has asked me more than once what I was thinking when I bought this fish . It has colored up though, and has spawned repeatedly, acting as if it were the queen of the tank.


The runt paired up with the GoldenSunrise, here they are at it again,




Of course, the eggs have no chance of hatching in such a community tank.

This is an expensive leopard snakeskin, unfortunately, it ate too much and developed constipation(intestinal blockage) long time ago. This problem is quite common among discus. I treated it for months in epsom salt without much success, so I gave up and put it back. It still eats and poops a bit daily, but its stomach is always like a little balloon. I have another fish with the exact same problem. As a result, they are now severely stunted, as evident in the big eyes.


I just can't have enough of this fish, my favorite


I have a passion for stem plants, and have been collecting a lot of them so far. I am slowly incorporating the newly aquired ones into my hodgepodge aquascape


For a long time, I have had trouble growing a few rotala species, r. macrandra, r. magenta, r. wallichii. They would grow a little, then develop stunted leaves and the shoot tip dies. Then they try to send out side shoots and repeat the cycle. My GH =8, and both water report and my own measurement shows there is no lack of Calcium. However, I also observed calcium deficiency symptoms in some other plants: Ammania gracilis grows distorted new leaves. New leaves on L. 'Cuba' is slightly distorted sometimes. New leaves of A. reineckii are twisted and cupped downward. H. zosterifolia new leaves are whitish. I have read the debates about too much k interfering with calcium uptake and I am only dosing K moderately. I finally convinced myself that it can still be calcium deficiency afterall, so I started dosing CaCO3. Calcium carbonate does not dissolve in water quickly and clouds the water for a while after each dosage. I happen to like this effect and I think my tank looks like a foggy morning in golden gate park in San Franciso


I started slow and gradually increased dosage of CaCO3 after each water change. I see a marked improvement in r. macrandra. For the first time in two years, I am getting those big, fluffy, bright red leaves ,


the r. magenta is also showing some signs of new life. Still not much improvement in wallichii yet. The L. 'Cuba' leaves are no longer twisted/bent. New growth on stargrass is green, not whitish anymore. I am going to further increase dosage of CaCO3 and see what happens. So far the lesson seems to be:if it looks like calcium deficiency, it probably is; If hard water(gh=8) does not work, try making it harder. I think Tom Barr is right once again: he believes many so called "soft water plants" actually do better in harder water.

[travis]

shalu - I've had similar experiences with many so-called soft-water plants (well, except for L. pantanal, but I still don't want to talk about that ). I keep Afrcian cichlids in my planted tank - no, actually I keep plants in my African cichlid tank - and my KH and GH are 14 and 16 respectively with a CO2 moderated pH of 7.2. I currently have flourishing specimens of Didiplis diandra, Heteranthera zosterifolia, Ammania sp. 'Bonsai', and Cabomba furcata. Like you, I keep the CO2 constant at 25-30 ppm, and dose water column ferts regularly. 25% of my substrate is Caribsea's CaCO3 buffered Cichlid Sand which I originally introduced for the Africans but also serves quite nicely to supplement Ca. A few plants will not tolerate the CaCO3 in the substrate, which can damage some roots, but most have no problem with it. Like you, I don't feel that hard water is as big a concern for most plants as people have been led to believe. Here's a quote from Chuck Gadd that a friend sent me. Chuck is describing a presentation given by Claus Christensen of Tropica at the AGA Conference two years ago:

From Chuck Gadd's APD Post:

Claus took the entire Tropica crew (50 people!) down to South America. After seeing the crypts of asia, we figured were going to see some South American soft water plants. Well, we did see lots of South American plants. But the water was ANYTHING but soft. The area they went to was in Brazil. I'll need to ask someone who was taking better notes the exact name of the area, but the water was originating on top of a plateau, where it then filters down thru calcium-carbonate rich rock, and emerges in springs which feed into rivers and a huge swamp type area. Instead of tea-tinted soft water, this was crystal-clear water, with a KH of about 18 degres, and a GH at least that high. Most of the substrate was PURE calcium carbonate. A bright white bottom. The plant growth was unbelievable. The plants were all the usual South-American plants. The ones that we are often told are "soft water" plants. Claus made the point that those plants that are typically considered "soft water" plants are simply those that do a reasonable job of surviving and growing in very soft water. These same plants, in rich hard water, grow MUCH better. There were massive swords, huge fields of stargrass, a few species of Ambulia, basically anything that could grow in South America was found there in the very hard water. Claus showed a slide with some water sample analysis numbers, and even though the plants were growing wonderfully without any signs of deficiency, there was ZERO measurable iron in the water. And since the substrate was calcium carbonate, it seems unlikely that the plants are getting any iron from there.

Your point about Ca does not fall on deaf ears. If I can grow it my tank, then I can guarantee that it does not require soft water

I love the fish btw. And the San Fran fog look is a great way to describe that picture. It really does resemble heavy fog. I'll have to tell that to people when the iron supplementation is precipitating out of solution in my tank

Thanks for the great post and pics!

[Ibn]

Interesting read there travis...now if only the Tonina fluviatilis would get that through it's thick membranes.

Nice pictures of the discus as usual, especially of that wild green. It has some of the nicest colors that I've seen on a wild fish.

Have dealt w/both stunting and constipation of discus in the past. I lost my cobalt due to constipation awhile back, which was my favorite fish at the time. The runt of my pack happened to be a brilliant green, which was the last discus that I added to the tank. That was a long time ago however, and after seeing pics of discus in both shalu's and ray's tank, gives me the itch...

[rayhwong]

Interesting note about the CaCO3. I notice my plants do significantly better when I dose more of it. They look more robust and fuller. I know that might just mean more CO2 for plants when using a pH controller, but i noticed the same result in tanks w/o one and just using DIY co2. I see the result from a 2-3KH bumped to 4-5KH. Ive added CaCO3 coral sand to my filter now.

[rayhwong]

Shalu you have some gorgeous discus. I love the green colored wild one. I wish my discus had as nice body shape as yours. I dont have any orange,red, or golden colored discus. Now I want some..hehe.
Did you notice more black spotting on your discus in high light? Ive bought some pigeon bloods with no spotting but under high light they developed significantly more spots. Do you think stress also brings out more spots?
Do you find that the non blue-green discus cause color imbalance against the greens of the plants?

Do you think white faced marlboro reds will look good in a planted tank?

[Ibn]

It's normal that your pigeon bloods are developing the spotting. Most pigeon bloods start out w/no black coloration/spotting, until they get a little larger.