[Bradleyv1714]

So I have been on this forum for a while now and I have been posting for a while now also and I have gotten enough pictures from beginning until now that I feel comfortable to make one of these. I also wanted to thank everyone on this website for your help!

Some background info...
I bought a 55gal with stand, hood with shop light, koralia (I dont know how many gph) and a cascade 1000 for $180 off of someone on craigslist in which I had to severely clean because it was FULL of algae! I then set it all up with a 1" layer of eco complete and 1" layer of inert gravel. in the cascade I have charcoal, bio rings and white floss.

This is a picture of the entire tank with 6 Black ruby Barbs and 2 zipper loaches... the only plants I had in this picture was bacopa, small amazon sword, java fern, and corkscrew val.

Picture of the 2 zipper loaches... (May they rest in peace) after they died I bought another pair and they died again so I went back to get 2 more exchanged and as the lady was getting them 1 went belly up so I chose not to get them again.

here is a picture of some BRB's

Then I bought some plants from the SnS section from some great people... and this is how it looked about 1 1/2 months ago. at this point I got more obsessed with the plant side of aquarium keeping. in the tank although not good quality picture (sorry) I had Kleiner bar sword, corkscrew val, saggi, Hygro angustifolia, water sprite, water lily, bacopa, java moss, peacock moss and java fern.

I put new light bulbs added osmocote and started dosing seachem comprehensive as of 3 weeks ago and this is how the tank looks like now with ALOT of plant growth and some rescaping.

left side of the tank...

right side of the tank...

the plants that I currently have in the tank are... kleiner bar sword, saggi, water sprite, hygro angustifolia, corkscrew val, water lily, crypt wendtii brown, cryptii parva, anubias nanas petite, staurogyne deepens or tropics 49, and I think frogbit on the top. I also have a bunch of water sprite babies which I'm thinking of doing a raok for them as I don't think they would sell. But I never know!

The list of fish that I currently have are:
3 Black ruby barbs
4 long fin rosey barbs
3 torpedo barbs
1 golden dojo loach
3 otos
1 ruby nerite snail
1 blue gourami
1 bala shark
1 rainbow shark
5 brilliant rasboras
2 gbr
2 bandit corys

I think I'm getting algaebc I have something white on the walls or steady it looks white. What could it be? I think the nerite and otos have been eating it but I can't really determine that just yet.

Anyone have any comments or suggestions?

 

[sewingalot]

That was a vast difference from setup until now! Looks like you are getting a jungle in there. You are getting something white on the walls? It could be a fungus, which is normal in newly setup tanks. It should go away on it's own.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

Thank you! I guess a lot of people don't like my tank... lot's of vies and only one reply.

 

[sewingalot]

Give it time, and the more you write about your tank, show pictures, the more people will look and eventually comment. Try adding a signature that links to your journal, it really helps draw the traffic as you participate elsewhere. Keep in mind, just because a journal looks busy, doesn't mean it is. Often times, it's just a few people commenting back and forth. Once you find a few friends on here, you'll get comments on everything from the fish to last week's Simpson's episode. Hang in there. Your tank is looking good, try not to judge it based on lack of comments.

 

[lauraleellbp]

It's really coming along! roud:

I'm curious about your lighting- is your shop light T8, T12, dual bulb or more...?

 

[Bradleyv1714]

it's dual t8... both 6500k! I was thinking about getting better lighting but I don't want to go cheap and I don't have the money for the expensive. lol! I think my plants are doing pretty good with those lights though as I am getting pretty good growth. the only thing I wish is that I could have some of the really cool crypts/plants with multiple colors on the leaves.

I don't know if this is bad but I fed my fish today and I noticed that my Bala shark was missing and then I remembered the last time I fed them he was missing but I was in a hurry so I forgot to look for him. I looked for him and he is gone and no where to be found so I imagine that he was eaten!!! The same thing happened with one of my Black ruby barbs in which they went missing. I test my water params every week - 2 weeks and everything is perfect. I don't know if they just die, but it's what I think has happened but it happened with my bala shark which was a 1 inch long fish. I feed my fish every other day and sometimes every 3 days as I go to school to be a paramedic and I go every 3 days and then I work the day right after.

I was also thinking about putting some kind of plant on the dw on the left of the 2 center dw pieces. I was thinking of moss but I have moss on the left piece of dw so I wasnt sure... I don't want the plant on the dw to cover the background plants.

 

[150EH]

It's looking good with some growth in the tank and there nothing wrong with saving a buck on lighting if you can.

If you want to get a little more growth you could try a 500 ml bottle of Seachem's Excel and just ad a capful every day for 2 weeks, then take 2 weeks off and start over, but it looks nice how it stands.

And ya gotta put a link to everything you can think of in your signature, just looks at mine it's full of junk, good luck on the tank.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

how do you do the link with the name?

I use comprehensive... I wanted to try one but my g/f wasn't to happy that I got that many plants and that I bought fertilizer for them. lol! she found out when I bought osmocote and the comprehensive. I did some research and didnt find much info on which fert was best for a planted/fish aquarium so I went with comprehensive.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

I just had a question about my firemouth... I have a 10 gallon with a pair of them in it and one of them has has a fin which at the point of contact it used to be red and now it looks kinda meatie...

this shows the meatie coloring I mentioned at the point in which his side fin connects to the body is.

this is a picture of his other sidem which you can see he looks perfect and no discoloration on that side.

 

[150EH]

You got it but there's a twist, you click on the world-link icon then type or paste the link into the box and click ok, now you will see part of the text is blue, this is what you will see on the page http://www.plantedtank.net/forum/ta...-pictures.html but that's no good so hit delete and type Bradleys Bad 55 and this is what you get, a cool link in your signature, keep practicing you'll get it!

 

[150EH]

I can't see anything wrong with the fish but I'm old and blind so your going to need a way better photo to tell, if you think he's sick or has a parasite or something you should take a good photo and post it in the "fish" section and someone smarter that I will be able to tell what's wrong and may offer some advise on a solution.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

I did it. yay! lol!

so apart from getting My signature working... I found someone locally that sells crypts and moss really cheap although the moss is mixed and the crypts are a bit small in size I think by the pics that I have seen but other than that I hope that when I meet up with him the plants are to my liking!

I was thinking/hoping some of you would give me some ideas on the scape of my tank or if it looks pretty good what things to add to it here and there. I'm thinking after this last add of plant I am going to just let everything grow out.

 

[150EH]

Sweet, Crypts are slow growers mostly but are some of the most beautiful in the aquarium plants, moss is cool too and grows like the crypts in almost any conditions but like the water a little cooler like 76 or 77 and can start having problems over 80 or 82, I have Peacock moss and it's been growing nicely and even though my tank hits 80 and a little higher on the really hot summer days I haven't seen any problems.

Just plant it and watch it for a while, then if the mood strikes you don't be afraid to move stuff around, and you can do a little studing on different styles, Dutch, Nature, & Iwagumi to see what you like, who now you might be the next Takashi Amano.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

I was wondering what everyone was using in their filter... I have a cascadI e 1000 and I was reading someone elses tank thread and they were talking about A LOT of media in their filter...in the cascade 1000 I believe it has 4 trays and I have a custom baggy of charcoal in one tray, a bag of the cascade bio rings and 2 of the white filter floss.

I would love to try a scaping style but I dont wanna spend more money on rocks and stuff. My only concern would that I put osmocote in the tank not to long ago and if I uproot plants maybe it will let it out ending up killing my fish.

 

[sewingalot]

Uproot slowly (don't just yank out the plants like I do), and if you see any osmocote pop up either pick them out or shove them back in the substrate. I skewer or chopstick is great for this. Then do a water change and it should have no issues with your tank. Used to use osmocote and did this a ton with no ill effects.

One canister, I use only sponges and squeeze them out every few weeks or so, another, just ceramic rings, another, the whole shebang: foam, charcoal, bio filtration, filter floss. The best one I have is just the sponges. It's all really determined on how often you feed, your bioload, water changes and filter maintainance.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

Dang I never though about using chopsticks but that is an great idea.

I feed them every other day which ive been thinking about feeding daily but i cant since im not with the fish daily and I dont have that much bioload from my fish I think...

 

[sewingalot]

I'll tell you something else I do with chopsticks is to rubberband them together overlapping them slightly and poke holes in the substrate that is really deep. Releases the gasses that build up occassionally and helps keep it from 'burping.'

I only feed every few days, in my opinion the worst thing you can do is feed your fish too much. If you start feeding everyday, I would do half of what you are doing now.

There is nothing wrong with the method of filtration you are using as it will really polish the water. Just remember to remove the carbon if you need to medicate and to replace it often as it looses it's effectiveness fast. Except for one tank, I don't even use carbon for the most part. And I only use it in that tank because I have a ton of it leftover.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

I use charcoal bc ive always used it and ive read that it produces oxygen. But if I dont need it I will save the money... I was thinking about feeding more bc Ive had 2 to 3 fish that have just disappeared. Should I do a water change if I open up the gravel to prevent major burping? Wouldnt the burping go away over time or be prevented or sucked up bc I have the eco complete.

 

[Bradleyv1714]

Today I went to check on my tanks and my 10gal had all of this algae on the java fern

and there was also some on the piece of slate and amazon sword...

what kind of algae is that? I am thinking the one on the java fern and sword is bba and the one of the rock is regular algae... anyone give me some input on it, how to get rid of it? I dosed it once with comprehensive so that is probably why it formed with the cfl lights I put in. hmmmm.... any input apreciated! thank you

 

[Bradleyv1714]

anyone have any input on the algae and what I can do to get rid of it.