Tank is looking great.

Very nicely presented, and I really like the layout.

Looks like a great home for those healthy looking Bows!

Have to agree with Gregg - tank is looking very nice!

Thanks. Things are growing nicely except for the hair grass, its just sitting there lol. I got a plant I have not seen before, kind of neat its pogostemon stellatus 'octopus' It grows very similar to stellatus, but stays green, and the leaves are longer and narrower. I am trying to get a few more stems of it to fill in. Its just to the right of the normal stellatus. I want something on the very far right, just not sure what yet. The Buce are starting to fill in. The black centipede is really neat looking, almost black leaves. The deep blue is getting some nice bluish metallic color to the leaves. Nice little plants.

Bump: Thanks. Things are growing nicely except for the hair grass, its just sitting there lol. I got a plant I have not seen before, kind of neat its pogostemon stellatus 'octopus' It grows very similar to stellatus, but stays green, and the leaves are longer and narrower. I am trying to get a few more stems of it to fill in. Its just to the right of the normal stellatus. I want something on the very far right, just not sure what yet. The Buce are starting to fill in. The black centipede is really neat looking, almost black leaves. The deep blue is getting some nice bluish metallic color to the leaves. Nice little plants.

Been a while since I last updated. Got busy with cycling this summer.

Tank is doing VERY well. Algae is now down to almost nil. The BGA outbreak I fought with all summer finally gave about a month ago. Since then, only a little green dust algae on the glass each week. The plants are finally growing well. I only have 1 that is not doing soo great, not sure what is going on with it. I added a few more plants, a few swords (I love my hadi red pearl!!!) And some species of bacopa that gets a very nice pink color on the leaves. The bows are doing fine. I did loose a herbertaxelrodi to a fungus infection that I treated the whole tank for. But the others are doing great. I am very happy with the rubrivittata, they are stunners. deep blue glow. If I get a Christmas bonus I have my eye on some wanamensis that can be traced back to Gary Lange, we will see if I can get ahold of them though.

Anywhoo, here are a few updated pictures. I upgraded my phone, and man its taking some incredible pictures (Pixel 3XL)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vTN9XS6rTBiu9vu37

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WCtUSNtumXFpiSXw8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4TCyc3Ny5gbEbqf59

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JtXfXFWCReEJ1YFS9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/FLbbG6fTa5aZJQGD7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SeuPmuaA14JAFhjDA

sorry for the links to the pictures. I will try to get them imbedded at some point.

Nice tank and the fish photos are great! Good to hear the BBA as been reduced substantially.

Hello old friend 🙂

Tank is looking great! Glad to see that you are still enjoying the hobby. We settled into a new home a couple years ago and I decided to jump back in...the new tank is up and running.

Look forward to following your build.

Hiya all . I am still around, just have been busy again this summer with cycling.

The tank is in a poor state at the moment. I tried a new fert. strat., and well... umm..... I lost about half the plants before I could correct it. I just received a delivery of new plants, so that should be back on track here shortly.

I also have been fighting something in the tank. It has taken out about half my bows. It is presenting as columnaris, but it is slower moving, and attacking mostly the mouths of the bows. I just recently think I might have won the battle, I will see over the next couple months.

Its been a trying time for the tank, but I will get it all back in order as fast as I can. The remaining bows seem to be happy and healthy, they are laying eggs all over the tank, which I always take as a good sign. My plan over the winter is to get the stock back up on the bows, and get some other species from the oceanic area of the world in the tank as well.

No pictures at the moment, I am a bit embarrassed at the state of the tank. More to come at some point lol. The winter is going to be dedicated to my tank more, and My cycling will end up at the back burner until warmer weather. (I HATE riding my trainer in the basement ughh...)

Hey good to hear from you.

We all have set backs....it happens.

Looking forward to more updates and pics.

Its been trying that's for sure, hope things are looking up. Got the new plants in, and settled. Now let's see how well they grow. Most were in the emersed state, so it will take some time to transition. I shifted the stump on the right further back and to the right. Giving me some more room for plants, and hopefully in the near future some bottom dwellers.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

Well, My first post in over a year! I have been on auto pilot with the tank. In February, I had a very aggressive attack of columnaris. It started with my herbertaxelrodi, and very quickly swept the tank. Out of all of my bows, I managed to save one single rubrivitatta male, and two SAE's. I have been soo depressed that I lost almost all of my fish that I just did the normal maintenance and kept things up and running.

Well, I decided it was more depressing looking at a mostly empty tank and I decided to change that. I dont think I will do bows again for a while. The expense, and energy spent to bring those little fish to the beautiful colorful grown fish is just not with me for now. Soo... I will move to a more community tank for a while. I have always wanted to jave a tank of a few species of tetra, so I think the final stocking will be as follows.

10- Congo Tetras
40 - Neon Tetras (I am really looking forward to this part of the tank!)
10 - Oto's
20 -Serpae Tetras
A pair of Apisto's (species to be decided)
and possibly some Cory's

I will keep the SAE's (named Bert and Ernie) in the tank, they keep to themselves, and mostly stick to the back of the tank until the lights start to dim. The Rubrivitatta seems happy at the moment, full color, active in the tank. I will keep him, and hope that other fish in the tank will not stress him out. If that happens, I will give him to another bow keeper in Colorado.

I replaced the lighting tonight on the tank as well. There were too many dark areas of the tank with the 30" BML light, and the Ecoexotic light was pretty darn dim, So I opted to put (2) Finnex planted 24/7 ACL's on the tank. We will see how well they work, the are VERY noticeably brighter than the lights that came off. I have set up my own programming, and have roughly the same light time period as before as well.

I am going to go pickup some Congo tetras on Saturday if my LFS still has them in stock. They had a tank of them a couple weeks ago. The Q-tank is up and running and a seeded air filter is ready to go!

Lets see if I can keep up with journal entries this year.

Anywho here are a few links to some pictures I took during my minor rescape and new lights.

Before the new lights after the rescape
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ars3kKUevsML--kPWcu9-qGeeWFQJA

After the new lights!
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ars3kKUevsML--kzE9jrsYG7as2GzQ

Update.

I am enjoying the new lights. The custom 24/7 feature on the light seems to work well. No algae as of yet. I will adjust the light levels if needed. right now I have the schedule set as

12Pm - 3Pm - 10% red, 10% white
3Pm-6Pm - 100% all colors
6Pm - 9 Pm - 100% all colors
9Pm - 12Pm - 10% Blue, 10% Green, 0% Red, 0% White
12Am- 12pm - 0% all colors.

The transition between each time block is smooth, and produces a very cool effect.

I also picked up 10 Congo Tetra's They look great. Currently housed in the Quarantine tank. They should be ready to go into the main tank on Christmas.


Took a few pictures tonight as well.

Hey the tank is looking very nice!

If you ever decide to go back to an oceanic theme, an option for crustaceans are some Australian Algae Shrimp. There's Darwin and North Queensland Variants but they grow much bigger than cherry shrimp and are usually compatible with rainbows and other similar sized fish. We also have the so-called "Australian Amano" which is the Caridina Typhus, itself a bit bigger than the other algae shrimps. Since we cant import true amano shrimp here, those shrimps I've mentioned are ones we rely on as an alternative. Although I am not sure if you can get your hands on these guys in the states!

Example Darwin algae shrimp: https://algaeeatingshrimp.com.au/pro...-eating-shrimp

Example Australian Amano: https://abquatics.shop/products/aust-amano-shrimp-rare

Thanks! The new lights really seem to have put a punch in the plants. They seem to be doing really well.

I do plan on going back to setting the tank up with bows and species from that part of the world again at some point. They are just to enticing not to. It was just too painful to loose all but one bow (pictured above), so I figure I will go a bit with a general "community" tank, and setup another bow tank at some point, too many species of bow I have not had yet, and I REALLY want to get my hands on some m.nigrans again.

I made note of the shrimp species in my aquarium notebook, I might have to look for them even before I head west with the tank again

When those congo tetras color up they'll be stunning. Those, dwarf neon rainbows, diamond tetras, and bleeding heart tetras are all on my shortlist for medium-size schooling fish for whenever I get a bigger aquarium. There's a person who goes by Triport with an African tetra tank that makes me want to try alestopetersius brichardi as well, I've never seen them as colored up as they are in his tank.

Highly highly highly recommend getting m.rubrivittata over the praecox (neon rainbow) They are MUCH MUCH MUCH more colorful. The lines of praecox has been dulled over the years, and ther rubrivittata have only been known to science for a few years, and the lines are very bright. They are GREAT little fish.

So far the Congo tetras are absolutely stunning even in the Q tank. I have wanted to keep them for years, but was always in the hunt for new bow species I had not kept. I might have to find some alestopetersius brichardi at some point too.

Eventually I will start back with bows. But for now this is giving me some fun!