Gaia: High-Tech 20L Journal- Post vacation pics 8/16/09

[@marko@]

diatoms: nope, no silicates from new glass. the tank itself is years old. and my light is NOT low. i have over 3 wpg PC light.

thread/hair: might be nutrients. my drop checker is green, so my CO2 is fine; but im yet to start the EI auto-dosing. i will do so this weekend.

[Karackle]

Diatoms are really common in recently set up tanks, they'll eventually go away on their own, but Otos go after them voraciously, I'm not sure about SAEs and Amanos but i'd guess they'd eat them too, again though, not sure.

Not sure on the thread algae, but if you do a search on this forum i'm sure you'll get lots of helpful bits of advice!

[@marko@]

ok, i spent over an hour, and manually removed all but the tiniest of peices.

im not sure its diatoms. diatoms are a deeper brown, i think. i have them in another tank (lol).
besides, the tank itself isnt new, just the setup. so its not the glass leaching silicates.

anyway, i got 4 amanos and 2 small SAE. i figured, **** otos, im getting the heavy artillery.
amanos will eat whatever is growing on my gravel, and later any uneaten fish food, to keep the decaying matter low and the tank overall cleaner. the SAE will eat hair/thread algae, GDA, BBA, diatoms, and beard algae. the only things they wont eat are GSA, and cyanobacteria, but i dont have either (yet).
ill have pics of the fish and clean tank up after the fish are done acclimating (tap around here has ph around 7.6, my tank is 5.6; so im taking my time with the drip-line).

[ZooTycoonMaster]

How the heck would an SAE eat diatoms?? They're like pressed to the glass...

[@marko@]

same as they eat GDA.

have you ever kept a SAE and watched it eat?
they dont have a suckermouth, but their mouth is still flat, and on the underside of their head. they have something similar to a radula (a snails "tounge" that scrapes food into their mouth) which they use to eat algae, though im not sure if its one of their lips, or their tounge they do it with.

[ZooTycoonMaster]

Oh I just realized your avatar was a lizard I thought it was some fish I've never seen

No apparently I've never seen a SAE eat

So they have a radula (for GDA and diatoms) and a regular mouth (for BBA, thread, etc.)?

[@marko@]

really!?
lol. thats my P. l. laticauda.

no. they have a mouth. its just on the underside of their head. and in it they have some kind of structure they can scrape with (probably on their tounge, but i cant tell). like how a snail opens its mouth, and then stick out their radula and scrape the glass with it. SAE can do something similar.
but i do have snails. i saw 3 yesterday. now i see them everywhere. the little gray kinds, and the little bronze kinds.

[ZooTycoonMaster]

Dang I wish there was a dwarf SAE to go in my 10 gallon

Or I could stunt one

jk. Looking forward to tank pics!

[@marko@]

why wish for a dwarf SAE that fits in your 10 gallon?
wish for a 20 gallon to fit around your normal SAE.

they eat best when they are small, so if you had a terrible algae problem, you may consider getting a tiny one, and giving it away or trading it back after 6 monthes, if it werent for the fact that they are impossible to catch. they are beyond fast, and they are pretty smart too, they wont fall for you herding them with 2 nets.

[@marko@]

ok, fish and shrimp are in.
SAE are racing around sampling the local algae. really hard to get a pic of.
the shrimp are all hiding, except one, eating algae off the wood. if they do well, i will consider trying to set up a colony of RCS.
as for the plants, they are growing. glosso is filling in incredibly fast. R. macrandra is recovering well. the growth is brown, but i think that it will become red when it gets more iron and i up the light.

here are pics:

[mizu-chan]

Looks great. I really love that piece of driftwood you have in there.
Can't wait to see that glosso carpet fill in. (:

[@marko@]

thanks.
yeah, its growing in fast, id say in 2 weeks it will definately be a thick carpet.

im setting up the auto-dosing right now. i just tried running one minute and got 7.5 ml. that means i need 315 ml of dry N in the whole 1 gal bucket.
too concentrated IMO, im trying 2 min.

[Chrisinator]

Sweet first inhabitants! I really like your Amano Shrimp and your plants!

[Karackle]

Looking good! I hope you beat the algae, I'm sure you will! It doesn't look like it's too bad though.

And, like ZTM, for the longest time I thought your avatar was a really cool fish too, then i looked at it closely one day and realized it's one of the most gorgeous lizards i've ever seen! You really own him?! That's awesome, he is stunning! I've never seen one like that.

But I digress, the new fauna in your tank is great, good first choices!

[@marko@]

chris:
thanks. i like my amanos and plants too. lol
im a bit worried about the amanos. the plantex CSM+B has some Cu, is it enough to hurt my shrimp?

karackle:
thanks. well, im manually removing it daily.

yep, its a gecko. a gold dust day gecko. go to the vivarium/terrarium forum under general discussion, i have a thread there where you can see a whole bunch of pics of him, his mate, and his eggs.