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Chickennublet's low maintenance journal

18K views 140 replies 23 participants last post by  Count Krunk 
#1 · (Edited)
Latest pic 13/10/2019:



Hey all, thought I'd document the changes my tank has gone through here. The imgur thumbnails are pretty low quality but you can click on them for a nicer picture if you want

This is what the tank looks like right now, right after a really big water change. The trident fern in the middle-ish and the big java fern on the right were added only just now. My cories are painfully shy and that last water change took a little longer than usual so all but one of them are hiding.


This is what it looked like probably 2 months ago or something.


Not a lot of difference but the big ferns give it a bit of height at least.

Approximately 7 months ago


Before that picture I was using a different light, it made my ember tetras look really red but I hated the purplish hue. Had quite a bit of algae back then too
 
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#4 ·
Hello! Yeah I posted there not too long ago, sorry I didn't take your advice, just wasn't keen on adding any more substrate.

Looks good! The cory's look to be pretty good size. What size tank?
It's just 60cm wide. It's actually a little too small for the corys, I love them but I almost wish I didn't get them.
 
#8 ·
Today was water change day. As I do my water changes I tend to move my plants and hardscape around a lot so that I can clean up underneath. Saw quite a bit more shrimp than I expected. Picture was taken a couple of hours later. This blue was born in my tank. Still pretty small.


The first time I saw a baby was during a weekly water change. I nearly sucked it up because I thought it was detritus, until I realised it was suspiciously shrimp shaped and moving away from my finger. I was absolutely overjoyed to see baby shrimp. I did buy a berried female along with my second batch of adults a couple of months back, so the babies I got then might just have been from that one berried female. Blues are really hard to spot, so I never see berried females in my tank, but even though I lost some of the original batch I got from the LFS, I'm fairly certain that they have continued to breed, as I sometimes manage to spot babies of drastically different sizes hiding in the plants.

Haven't scraped algae in over a week. The plants look fine but I do get a fair bit of wall algae. I've left the algae alone since I'm hoping to get a horned nerite in a few days. I'm hoping that by getting just one it will have plenty to eat in my tank without me having provide supplemental food too often, plus just one nerite probably means less eggs.
 
#9 ·
Welp, got two horned nerites today. They started exploring the moment I put them in the tank so I think they will be fine.

Noticed that the belly on one of my larger embers appears flatter than usual. That one in particular has always been paler than the rest but I never thought much of it since she's active and eats well. She is still active and eating, but I'll be keeping a close eye on that one... if her stomach starts to sink I'll probably have to euthanise.
 
#10 ·
The nerites are pretty amazing, the glass algae is pretty much gone. It wasn't really a problem before but I hated scraping it every week. I hope the tank produces enough food naturally for the snails.

I am fairly certain that I lost some of my shrimp. Saw one of my shrimp sporting the white line of death and a terribly enlarged carapace 3 days ago and I've been worrying about them since. I decided to do my weekly water change one day early. Moved the rocks on one side of the tank about as usual to clean but only saw my juvies and no adults, even the ones I bought just recently. I'd hate to lose them, even if I almost never manage to spot them, they were an absolutely beautiful shade of blue. I'm just hoping that they moulted successfully and were all hiding in the corner of the tank that I didn't disturb. I'll probably have to reduce the volume of water that I change. Guess I should also stop disturbing the setup so much when I do my water changes.


 
#13 ·
Really nice looking tank! I like the simple look actually. I agree that it would be better to not disturb the setup so much when you do water changes though.
Thank you both. I'll try not to move the hardscape around too much from now on, I just hate the idea of all that detritus stuck under there but then again I also hate detritus flying all over the tank. I might have lost shrimp because I was too enthusiastic with the cleaning and gave them more stress than their little bodies can handle!
 
#14 ·
I posted in the ferts and water parameters sub to get advice on whether I can get away with dosing an all-in-one fert without harming my fish and inverts and after some discussion I've decided to give it a go. I have some pretty ratty looking java fern (pic below) that I've hidden in the back. I'm hoping that changing the fert routine will help them bounce back, although it will probably take a really long time.


Currently I am dosing a product that the LFS foisted on me when I first started fishkeeping. It only has micros and K, but no N and P. As I understand it N and P are produced by fish waste, so in a very low energy setup additional N and P might be unnecessary. Mine is a low energy setup, with super low light (I'm using the dimmest setting on a Chihiros A series light) but I feel like I should have enough plants in there that will benefit from additional N and P without harming the livestock. So I'll probably head out tomorrow to get a bottle of Tropica specialised fertiliser and start giving my tank one pump a week after my next weekly water change, and monitor from there.

Shrimp are still hiding, I think it's probably my fault, my last couple of water changes were especially stressful for them since I moved around nearly all the plants and hardscape trying to clean out all the detritus underneath. They probably hate me, so I'll stop disturbing things when I do my water changes from now on. I will probably also get the API GH and KH tests tomorrow.



There are still a couple of crevices between the rocks like in the picture above where I can stuff more plants. I'm thinking of getting a couple of bucephalandra green wavy rhizomes to fill these little places out. Also not sure if you can see but in the middle there is a shrimp sitting on top of a Glasgarten dinner pad. That is where I've decided to put shrimp food since it's pretty much the only place where my corydoras can't reach. Corydoras may be shrimp safe for the most part, but they sure as hell aren't shrimp food safe.



Finally this is just a picture of the tank as it looks like today. Had to increase the light intensity briefly so that I could take this picture so that my reflection won't be so obvious. Nothing is dead as far as I can tell so that's good.
 
#17 · (Edited)
So my shrimp are still mostly invisible in the day, but they seem more active at night, after lights out. Sometimes I peek into my tank at night using the ambient light from the kitchen and can spot some of my shrimp hanging out on the sponge covering my filter intake. I'm glad to know that I still have at least some of them, since I know for sure that I lost a couple of shrimp when I first added them to the tank (my first shrimp were added in August).

Speaking of the intake, the sponge looks pretty gunky right now even though I just squeezed it out like 3 days ago with my water change. I guess my shrimp are just crowding it at night and crapping all over it. I like that it the big pieces of gunk out of my filter but seriously, I hate how filthy it looks hahaha. Looking forward to my next water change.

EDIT:
Just got back from a visit to my favourite aquarium store in my relatively small country. It's a pretty small shop, but the livestock are well cared for and the owner has a decent selection of equipment and other stuff. The store is actually run by just one guy, very friendly and patient. He also appears to know what he's talking about (although by his own admission he's still learning about shrimp since he's more of a planted tank guy), whenever I drop by to get stuff I end up chatting with him and his customers for much longer than I need to.

Bought the Tropica fertiliser as well as the hardness test kits as planned. Bought JBL instead of API at the owner's recommendation, although it was his opinion that I could probably get away with not gH and kH at all. If anyone isn't familiar with JBL it's a German company I believe. I know most people recommend API (I use their Master test kit myself) but I'm guessing that it's also because most people I talk to online seem to live in America and Mars Fishcare is an American company, so API products are pretty much everywhere?

Very nearly bought some blue diamond shrimp, but decided against it. Also very nearly bought some shrimp food from AZoo which is from Taiwan I think? He fed the neos in his shop with this stuff when I asked about it and their reaction was very impressive. In the end I decided not buy anything more than what I originally planned to get.

I'm quite excited to see if the Tropica fert helps my plants or screws up what I have going on now. I'll start off with just one pump a week after my weekly water change and monitor what happens from there.
 
#18 ·
What's the all-in-one your LFS recommended to you? I've been using Aquarium Co-Op's Easy Green and Easy Iron and been quite happy with it.

EDIT: Never mind. I just read the last post. :icon_redf
 
#19 ·
Hello. I decided to get Tropica since it's easily available where I'm from and application is simple since it's a pump bottle. I'm know Aquarium Co-Op has their own fertiliser, but I don't live in America so Easy Green was never really an option.

Now I'm wondering what I should do since I've just found out that my GH seems to a little too low for my neocaridina. Tap water tested yesterday at just 2.5 dGH and tank water 4.5 dGH. Apparently there aren't enough minerals in the water for both my plants and my shrimp. I'm wondering if I should get something to increase the tap water of my GH. I was advised on a different platform that I shouldn't mess with my GH until I actually see shrimp dying, since I should have enough minerals in the water from all the seiryu in the tank and coral chips in my filter.

Since I'm going to start using the Tropica next week I guess I'll delay the GH issue so that I don't have too many things going on at once. I'm thinking I'll dose the Tropica specialised once a week after my water change, and then continue to dose this since I've been using it since the start.
 
#23 ·
Thanks, I suspected as much concerning the availability of API vs other brands in the US. Fortunately for me European and Asian brands are just as easily available as American brands here.

I've been trimming off the poorly looking leaves but I'll probably do it over time as the rhizomes produce new leaves.

Unfortunately it seems that my nerites have been chewing up some of my older java fern :icon_mad: you can see the holes in there. I guess I'm trimming those leaves at my next water change, I'm guessing these will never recover. It sucks, that's quite a lot of leaves I'll have to remove.



I hope they don't eat it all. I thought they would only eat dying plants or something and those leaves looked healthy to me. I wonder if my tank just isn't producing enough algae for them and they're starving, or if those leaves just weren't healthy at all and I was mistaken.

I'd like to try giving them some veggies but I'm worried about pesticides. I might have to try throwing in a couple of fish pellets into the plant filled areas and see if the nibbling stops. Perhaps I should get some algae wafers as well?
 
#24 ·
Hello

Officially started work on the 2nd as a legal trainee before I finally get called to the bar here. Unfortunately this means I have a lot less time to look at my tank and spot problems. I bought a timer for my light so that I don't have to get people at home to turn it on and off for me since I've been doing it myself so far. Decided on a siesta lighting period (4 hours on 4 hours off 4 hours on) just so I can see the tank with the lights on when I get home from work, although I suspect that most days I'll only get home after lights out. I guess I'll still turn the lights on when I get home though so that I can feed the fish.

One of my ember tetras appears to be turning black from the inside. I have tried to google it but didn't get any conclusive results, although it seems that other people have reported similar symptoms with their embers. Doesn't seem to have spread. It is still active and eating well so I'll leave it alone until it's time.
 
#25 ·
Congratulations and good luck at your new job!

I run 2/3 of my tanks on lighting timers for similar reasons and it's really quite handy. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine a longer siesta period would be better than waking the fish up at night to feed, but you can see how it goes. Try and avoid doing maintenance on busy days, just watch the tank for 5+ minutes before & after feeding - I work 12 hours on Saturdays and Sundays and things always seem to go wrong then.

Not sure what on earth is going on with your tetra, but you're right in that a lot of people have experienced the same thing. I have to say that I'd probably euthanise if there's any sign of it spreading to the others though. Hope it's all fine.
 
#27 ·
Hey all

Haven't been updating much at all since I started working, although I have to say there isn't much updating to do anyway.

Not quite sure why but some of my java fern is looking really bad. I think the nerites have been chomping on them. The other plants look fine though.



Since java fern grows so slowly I guess I might go out tomorrow and get some more java fern to replace these. I'll trim the sad looking leaves and tuck them somewhere else and hopefully they bounce back. Haven't really had time to observe my tank for awhile, usually by the time I get back it's almost time for the lights to go off, so i'm looking forward to tank maintenance tomorrow.
 
#28 · (Edited)
Long update! I dunno why, but I wanted to post about my day.

Here's a picture of the tank today, after a huge water change, trimming off the suffering java fern leaves, and adding more plants. Sorry, it's a [censored][censored][censored][censored]e photo, the ambient light is quite bright so the reflection is quite obvious.



Went to my usual LFS today, although Singapore is a city state so pretty much every aquarium supply store is technically an LFS I guess? It's actually two stores under the same unit but separately run. The fish store is run by a relatively young man, very friendly and knowledgeable. The other store specialises in chillers, CO2 stuff and mosses. I think this other store is pretty well known locally, lots of folk go there for CO2 top ups too. I think most folk call the owner of this other store as uncle. Any Singaporean readers will probably know which store I'm talking about.

Anyway I got some narrow leaf and more trident fern. Uncle was nice enough to dig into his tanks and get me some of his smaller trident fern, after I told him that the ones he sold me the last time were much bigger than I expected. I didn't realise that the narrow leaf java fern was so big though, from the picture it almost looks like corkscrew val or crypto spiralis or something.

ANYWAY as for the tank, maintenance took a lot longer than usual today. Trimmed off all the yucky looking java fern leaves, leaving the healthy growth (small leaves though), and because I had to add the plants I ended up disturbing quite a lot of the setup AGAIN when I already told myself that not to. Anyway I'm pretty happy with the outcome, although I might have to get a bit more of that narrow leaf.

Thanks for reading!
 
#29 ·
D:< I just added those ferns yesterday and my nerite has already gone and chomped on it. Is it super hungry or something? I thought my tank would grow enough algae and other stuff for it to eat. Any suggestions on what I can do without using fresh vegetables? Just not too keen on adding veg because of concerns over pesticides and stuff.

 
#30 · (Edited)
Another small update!



I've been resisting the idea of a black background for awhile now but I decided to do it after my brother kept pestering me about it. So I bought a black piece of cardboard and stuck it in the back between the filter and the tank and I have to admit it looks loads better.

I do notice some algae on the front of the acrylic, but I usually get algae there. I wonder why the nerites aren't eating those? I have not scraped it in a while but if it's still there by Saturday I guess I'll have to do it...
 
#31 · (Edited)
Hello!

Just got home from work not loo long ago, it's like 9pm now in my part of the world. Anyway, took some pics!



Everything looks ok a far as I can tell. I mean the nerites have already gone and chomped on the long narrow java fern, but whatever. I really am enjoying that plant though, I think I might have to get more the next time I go to the shop.

The left of the tank is pretty bare. I think the cories appreciate having a bare area for them because frankly the tank is a tad too small for them, there isn't a lot of length and depth for them actually, but I think just one more bunch of anbias nana petite or maybe even some big anubias coffeefolia would look really good, right at the end next to where that clump of bucephalandra is. If any reads this, would appreciate your thoughs!



Some of my cories. They are really shy, all 5 of them were piled up in the front at first, but the moment I hold my phone up they start to swim away.
 
#32 ·
It's Saturday, which means weekly maintenance, big water change, and visiting the LFS.

Got more narrow leaf java fern to fill up the back a bit more. I also bought a pot of bucephalandra, although I have no idea what species



This cost me S$18, which I thought was alright. Unfortunately I only realised when I got home that a bunch of leaves were covered in BBA so I had to get rid of quite a few leaves. I still got a few good rhizomes out of it though.

I also made what I think was a big mistake. The shop always has a large tub of tubifex in an antibiotic solution, and you can get quite a bit at 50 cents a pop, and I thought I'd get some for my corys since I've never tried feeding live food. I also bought a feeding cone, and I tried that at first with just a relatively small chunk of worms. My tetras and gourami didn't realise the cone contained food, and since I was impatient I decided to try lowering the cone to the substrate for the corys... however the worms just ended up everywhere; some ended up stuck on the sponge filter intake and I think some of them might have found their way into the substrate. The fish did eat some of them. I really hope I don't end up with those things living in my tank. I also read horror stories about the nasties tubifex potentially carry... the water they were in was clear though so I do hope none of my fish fall ill. In the end I threw nearly all of the worms down the garbage chute.
 
#33 · (Edited)
3/2/19

It's been awhile!

Yesterday was water change day. I've been pretty unhappy with the way the tank looked the past couple of days. I realised that just throwing plants into the tank didn't actually make it look prettier, and a bunch of the java fern was starting to look really ratty. Even worse, one of my anubias nana petites developed rhizome rot, although I really am not sure why. In the end, I did quite a big trim, got rid of a bunch of the trident fern and narrow leaf fern. Also snipped off the bits of anubias rhizome that was rotting, although that was pretty difficult because it was rooted to lava rock. I put the rest of the plant back in, hopefully it doesn't start rotting again or affecting the rest of my anubias. Here's an update of the tank, photo was taken just moments ago. I think it looks a lot better than before.



Some algae on the glass but nothing I can't deal with without a bit of elbow grease. I'm just starting to realise nerites don't eat all kinds of glass algae (for want of a better term).

Since Chinese New Year is just round the corner, most shops will be closed for the public holidays starting tomorrow, so I decided to do a bit of shopping today. Thankfully, the other shop I frequent was offering discounts for all livestock. I bought 10 blue neocaridina from them today. Here's a pic of some of the new blood.



Anyway, here are some pics of buceps; these are all hosted on imgur so if anyone wants a clearer look at all please click on the thumbnail!



Finally managed to snap a pic of my cory crew sitting together. Unfortunately I noticed that one of the smaller corys has split his dorsal fin, the poor thing. Guessing he might have gotten hurt during yesterday's water change. I'll be keeping an eye on that one. I do hope it heals up nicely. In the mean time I'll stay on top of my weekly water changes.

Thanks for reading!
 
#34 ·
Welp, when you keep fish, I feel like inevitably you need to learn how to humanely kill fish.

I just noticed some red streaks on the tail end of one of my ember tetras that definitely wasn't there earlier today. Also, as we know ember tetras have transparent bodies, and there was something off with the affected ember tetra's tail. Here's a picture of the little guy. It looks a lot worse in person.



Initially I was going to wait until tomorrow night before checking on it again but after a bit of deliberation I decided not to risk whatever it is spreading to the other fish, especially since I suspected the issue to be septicemia, which I don't think can be cured.

It sucks, but I guess it's also part of the hobby. Anyway, I had some clove oil on hand so I put it to sleep using that.
 
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