Tank taken down - Dans l'Attente High-Tech

[FrostyNYC]

How to help the glosso and gayi? CO2, likely. Do you have a drop checker? I see you have a DIY CO2 setup.

[demosthenes]

No, whats a drop checker? i'm a CO2 noob. I noticed that my driftwood has a big pocket in it that i've been using as a cave, so i redirected my DIY CO2 output (just an airstone) to go under there so the gas would have more time underwater before it rose to the surface. Will this help at all?

I've also added rotala wallichii (i got ~15 stems for $5!) and what i think is some kind of nesaea (is it?), so hopefully they'll grow, too. I had nesaea a while ago, but it was under crappy lights and little to no ferts, so hopefully this time around it'll be okay. The old ones actually stayed alive for a really long time, they just didn't grow any roots. I did get some new leaves though.

On another note, I bought a clown loach from petco a week ago, and as soon as i got home, i noticed that it had terrible ich. It died a few hours later, and i returned it, got my money back, and bought a new, healthy clown loach from a really reliable store, and put it in my 46g tank. So now, the three fish that are in this tank, have suddenly come up with an absolute infestation of ich. So i'm battling that, which is just fantastic. My betta and swordtail just got covered by it, but the rainbow and otos are doing pretty well. (all fish are currently alive, they seem to be getting better, it was just a really bad case of ich).

FTS:

Rotala Wallichii:

Nesaea sp.:

Note on the nesaea sp: It has these weird white deposits on the lower leaves, it looks like the plant has some white powder on it or something. What are these? They don't come off.
Awful photography:

Note on the fish: She was apparently born without an eye. she was perfectly healthy when i got her, she just didn't have a left eye. She has ich now, too, but she's being a trooper and trying to survive. The medications I got are definitely helping so far.

[demosthenes]

In the past two weeks a lot has happened: I got a nice little glass CO2-diffuser, I set up one more liter of DIY CO2 yeast stuff, and now my wallichii and glosso have started to grow a little more. The Ich medication, while making the whole room smell bad and the water really cloudy for a while, saved all of my fish in the space of about two days. Now the water is less cloudy and the plants have started growing again. I also got rid of the swordtail and moved the rainbowfish to another tank.

Current fauna: 1 female betta, 5 neons, 2 amano shrimp, and 2 otos.

Current flora: ambulia, sunset hygros, watersprite, stargrass, moss, nesaea sp., unknown cabomba, unknown myrio, r. wallichii, r. rotundifolia, potamogeton gayi, glosso, reineckii, crypt. parva and lucens.

Top view:

FTS:

Unknown Myrio:

Unknown slow-growing Cabomba:

Potamogeton Gayi:


And now a few questions....
first of all, can anyone ID the myrio and cabomba? beyond the genus, i have no clue what they are.
second, my gayi is finally starting to grow and look cool, but its only growing brown leaves. It used to grow these huge green leaves, but now they're just little and brown. Whats up with that?
third, my LFS just got in a bunch of micranthemum umbrosum, which i've noticed Amano uses a ton of in his tanks, so I was wondering if it would be worth getting some to put in here. Do any of you guys use it? Do you like it? I think the round little leaves are kinda cool looking, I might pick some up later, but idk.

thank you for looking, any feedback is appreciated

[ZooTycoonMaster]

I think the Myrio is either Mattengrossense or Aquaticum. And the Cabomba is just your normal one.

I like your tank! What kind of filter are you using? HOB right?

[demosthenes]

thanks! yeah, I have an Aqueon10. It's a pretty big eyesore, but at least it works well.

The myrios look a lot like the pictures of "aquaticum" that you showed me, but each individual stem is less than in inch in diameter, and they grow realllly slowly. In the amount of time that my ambulia has grown 8", they haven't grown noticeably, and they've been in there a lot longer.

The cabomba also grows very slowly, but has a weird tint. The picture makes it looks much more green than it is. In real life, the stems are slightly wider than 1" and the leaves are very dark brown to red. Eh, probably just the ugly duckling.

[demosthenes]

Today I took out the tiny piece of driftwood on the far left side and put it in my 46g tank, along with some of the ambulia, too. I also added some kind of lilaeopsis (i think?), i'm not sure which species. The new ambulia and potamogeton growth have looked a little bit better, i've been messing around with my DIY yeast setup, and I finally got a 2L bottle instead of a whole bunch of little bottles! yay!

Weird or random things:
- my rotala rotundifolia is trying to carpet the right side of the tank, if you can see it in the pictures.
- my glosso is finally starting to grow a little more, just really slowly
- I'm thinking of getting rid of the reineckii and just letting the stargrass and cabomba grow in there instead.
- I still really want some HM to use on the left side instead of the parva
- I'm thinking that i should use riccia or something instead of glosso, the glosso seems to hate me. I don't know how hard my water is, and I know lilaeopsis grows in hard water and glosso in soft water, so i'll hopefully see which does better soon enough.
- Nesaeas don't grow very quickly, do they. Mine have just sorta sat there since i got them. They had a big growth spurt to start off, and then stopped.

FTS:

Closer up:

Wallichii pearling! haha sweeeet!

[demosthenes]

This week a few things have changed. First off, I added some new plants (micranthemum umbrosum, lilaeopsis sp., dwarf riccia 'tropica'). The umbrosum was looking pretty weak when i bought it, so i'll need to cut it down in a few weeks and replant the good-looking part, and then itll look a lot better. The riccia doesn't look like it's doing so well... i'll add pictures. I also chopped off the weak looking parts of the wallichii that i bought originally and i replanted only the parts that grew in my tank, so it looks a TON better now. And I took the glosso out of my 46g and added to the foreground here. Its finally starting to fill in!

FTS:

struggling riccia:


As you can probably see, my riccia isn't doing great. It was an RAOK from craigthor, and i'm not sure it survived the trip. What chance to you think it has for survival? There is a little bit of green on one of the edges, but not much.


Oh, and also, I have been thinking about making a DIY Canister filter, because my HOB filter looks horrendous. How much are the QuietOne pumps? Is that the quietest pump i can get easily? Where should i start looking for the actual container? How much should i expect to pay for it?

[ZooTycoonMaster]

It looks great!!!

Where'd you get the nets to secure the riccia?

[fishbguy1]

wow...this tank looks great! Despite me used to hating it, I greatly miss my 10 gallon now...lol

[demosthenes]

update:
this morning my mom told me she'd get me some new stuff for valentine's day (she had to go to petco to get a dog leash, and my LF is like a block away), so I bought a TON of hairgrass for $7 and a bunch of stuff for my 46g tank. I spent like all afternoon planting it and cleaning the tank, and i'm so excited for it to fill in! Also, most of the riccia died and rotted away.

This week i've spent a bunch of time on the swap n shop, and i'm goign to get a bunch of new plants this week (riccia, ludwigia arcuata, and lagarosiphon madagascariensis), so get pumped for another update later this week! haha...

I also spent a bunch of time this week picking up pieces for a DIY Canister Filter that i was going to build this weekend... but i couldnt wait! I built it on like thursday afternoon and set it up yesterday. So far it works pretty well. There have been a few leaks that i've found, but i've patched them up. The filter media is pieces of clay that i fired in the kiln at school (i am in an advanced ceramics course, lol) to mimic the ceramic rings in other canister filters. I also cut up some other HOB filter cartridges to catch little pieces of detritus.

FTS this morning:


FTS this afternoon:


FTS with flash... weird! haha it looks so ugly, but its a much clearer picture of the plants:


the riccia rotted away...:


The filter:



The spraybar filter output:

[OhNo123]

Sweet tank!

We have a lot in common, I think. I'm also trying to make my SINGLE 10g look good, but I don't have a ghetto filter, I got a Eheim 2213.

Also assuming your chinese from your caption under your forum name? Me too..
And the parent thing... I totally agree.

But anyhow, I'm just wondering how long your tank lights are on for? Mine are only on for 5.5-6 hours a day due to my parents. I have growth, but not nearly as much as you.

[demosthenes]

oh cool, thanks a lot!

haha, i wish i could get an eheim. i couldn't possibly get a filter that's name i couldnt pronounce right though. is it ee-haim, or eh-heem, or what??

well, not exactly. ethnically i'm welsch or german or something white. but i wish i was chinese. I speak a fair amount of mandarin and i went to china for three weeks this summer (to beijing, xi'an, guilin, and shanghai). and i love china... its a pretty sweet place.

you should try to start dosing, and get a timer for you lights. You can get the kind of timers that you leave on when you go away so people think youre home for like $7 at a hardware store, so your lights will turn on and off at the same time every day. if your lighting schedule is the same every day and its more like 9 or 10 hours, you should get better growth

[CAM6467]

Sweet 10 gallon! I especially liked seeing the pearling that you've got going on! I just began my 10 gallon project, and I first started out trying to build a DIY canister filter. I got it to run fine sitting on the dresser next to the tank, but it was a disaster when I set it on the ground (4.5 feet below the tank)! I bit the bullet and got an Eheim. Trust me, it's worth every cent!

Say, what are the red colored plants you've got going on there? PM me if you don't mind. That way I'll definately get the names of these plants. Check out my tank and see if you have any advice for a newbie.

I love the tank man! Keep up the great work.

[OhNo123]

Yeah, I have a timer and all, but its the parents...

But the good news is, I'm still getting growth.
I got pressurized co2... thats probably why
and I dose try fertz in a solution

and I think its pronouced E-Hem.
I got my filter new off ebay for ~$75 shipped.

[demosthenes]

well, i went to my LFS the other day and saw an Eheim for a 10g that was $42, which is about what i spent on mine, but i'm sure it works much better...... what a disappointment! i thought i was saving money! oh well.

anyway, i got some nice new riccia this week, and the lagarosiphon madagascariensis and ludwigia arcuatas are looking great so far.

Oh, and i found out that my eleocharis is not acicularis, it's parvula. Each blade sprouts out new plants instead of growing straight up. but hey, i still think they're cool.

here are some pics, and again the green smudges are my camera lens, not algae:

FTS:


healthy new riccia:

hairgrass shortly after its first haircut:


my potamogetons are still growing slowly, and so is the MU. Once the two of them and the riccia fill in, i think that tank will look much better. Until then though, i think i'm relatively satisfied. haha now i need to work on my other tanks, they need it!

except for one little think... i'm not so sure i like the watersprite in the background. but what can i swap it for? i was thinking maybe a rotala sp. mini or some type? idk, we'll see. Also, at some point i'd like to put some cyperus helferi in the very back left corner and replace the ambulia with a different stem plant. idk what though... maybe some myrios or MU? I also really like HM, so idk. soooo many options!.....