Llj's 15g Journal

I'm sure you'll be able to sort that algae in no time - and it's probably not quite as bad as it looks (hopefully). Good that all fish etc. are alive !
I have a months holiday to look forward to in Jan - and as much as I'm looking forward to it big time, I'm not looking forward to returning to an algae ridden tank but what can one do.....

November 28th Tank Maintenance​

I finally got around to cleaning up my tank after Thanksgiving. I don't think my friend dosed while I was gone, but she had really bad bronchitis, so I'm glad she was able to at least come and feed my fish so they wouldn't starve, and the tank wasn't trashed with lost fish like it had for past vacations.

Here it is. Ignore the reflection of my lamp on the top corner. I think the hygro looks pretty good and both of my anubias have new leaves.

As some of you may know, I had a terrible tank mishap last week. My heater went bonkers and the tank shot up to 96.5 degrees. The tank temperature has settled, but my plants became coated with an algae of some type. Very yucky. Today was a bad tank day, had to do major work, but it's better now. I didn't have to replace any plants, which is good. I had to get a new heater, though.

Here is the tank. If my anubias and crypts survive my vacation, I'll be satisfied.


Any advice on how my tank can survive this vacation. I'll be gone from Dec. 13th-January 25th, which is about 6 weeks. Currently my tanks are lighted from 7-9pm with a 3 hour siesta. I have CO2, but I haven't tested since I returned from Thanksgiving since school's been kind of crazy, but I'm regular about changing it, and I dose 2x a week.

You can get a automatic feeder. And for the light your can buy one of the light timers and guess you will probably gonna have to stop dosing till you come back. Thats all i can think of right now.

Well, I'm back from vacation and I didn't totally abandon tanks while in FL, as my 36g journal illustrates. I'm glad I was able to set one up there, because when I got back to IL, oh goodness, it was just aweful. So aweful, that I didn't even bother to get pictures since I was trying to restart filters and find all the fish through mucky algae. My 10g was half empty and the filter was completely dry. I'm expecting losses over the next few days from both tanks since I don't have the plant growth and I lost my biological filtration when the filter died. But it looked "fine" to my friend, so what can I say? Lost an imbellis which is not good, but the other fish survived the ordeal, including the bridget rasboras, which have survived several vacations under my friends "TLC".

So to chear myself up, I got some driftwood, two T-5 fixtures, and a small order of plants. I will update with pictures tomorrow.

lljdma06 said:

My 10g was half empty and the filter was completely dry. I'm expecting losses over the next few days from both tanks since I don't have the plant growth and I lost my biological filtration when the filter died. But it looked "fine" to my friend, so what can I say?

So to chear myself up, I got some driftwood, two T-5 fixtures, and a small order of plants. I will update with pictures tomorrow.

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What an observant, thoughtful friend you have . Has he/she offered any compensation? I'm assuming you educated them a little before leaving.

New toys sound nice though, good luck. What fixtures are you getting?

gf225 said:

What an observant, thoughtful friend you have . Has he/she offered any compensation? I'm assuming you educated them a little before leaving.

New toys sound nice though, good luck. What fixtures are you getting?

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Compensation? Oh gf, don't make me laugh! I'll hurt myself. Please, she thought she was doing me a favor. This is the same "friend" whose kids spilt aquarium food in my 15g the summer before, killing 12 neons. I've yet to see anything for that. In total, her particular tank TLC has cost me 12 neons, 3 betta splendens, 1 betta imbelis, about 15 plants, and one power filter. I have yet to see anything in return. Unfortunately, she's all I have to even take care of my fish. I gave her a detailed instructions, 2pages worth, links to websites, and portioned out food, but I think she's brain-damaged or something, or can't read instructions. Whatever, I won't be going anywhere else until I move in May, and I can handle that better myself, so she won't have to watch anymore. She's not a bad person, she just doesn't care like you or I do. There are people like that running around, where fish-keeping and aqua-scaping are not huge priorities. They haven't been exposed to the finer things.

I purchased two Coralife T-5 double linear strips 6700k at 28W and 24". My tanks are only 20" long, but I find that the 24" strip actually allows for better lighting, since the actual bulbs are close to 20". One is for the 10g, so I tossed the two rather bulky standard 15W strips, bringing it from 3WPG to 2.8, which with the better quality lights, I don't think will make much of a difference.

Likewise, I chucked the 15w strip in the 15g, so now I have two of those fixtures on that tank, giving me 3.73 WPG. Nice for some glosso, which I ordered.

I still have the two nutrafin units, but now with DIY mix. I had to chuck a lot of plants because of algae and poor quality, so the tanks look nasty, very bare. I purchased about 6 or so small pieces of driftwood and order some new plants from aquariumplants.com, which I'm receiving today.

I'll keep people posted and put a picture of the 15g after I cleaned it. I don't have a damage picture, it was just too, too painful.

EDIT: Here are the pictures for comparison.

Tank on December 5 right before I left.



Tank after a heavy duty cleaning and plant removal. The rotalia is from my 36g in Miami. I brought a few plants over since I had to thin that tank out a little and didn't want to waste plants. It was bad. There was soooooo much crap and mulm and algae. Totally gross. My anubias survived as did most of my crypts, so they will be put in the lower light 10g.



And here is the 10g, which has more plants from FL. In that tank, 1 red crypt wendtii and my microsword survived, and that's it. All the other plants are borrowed from FL and the anubias are from the 15g, so you can only imagine my disappointment.

Ouch i feel for you, that's the only problem who do you trust with your tank when you go away.

It took me months to train my dad to do the job, luckily enough for me, he's in to the Hobie now and has a low tec planted community tank.

Nice toys you should have them back on there feet in no time.

Ok, after breaking my back here it goes.

15g before, actually yesterday after a mammoth clean to get rid of crud.



15g today. I added a lot of new plants but I also have almost a full WPG more than I did before and I increased my CO2 and fertilizer output.



Detail of glosso added



It was nice switching from obsidian to driftwood and I really like the look for the giant hairgrass against the background. Biotope is now out the window, so I decided to have fun and grow what I always wanted to grow. Somewhere in there is also a barclaya longifolia, but even I don't remember where I put the bulb. I feel much better now. The tank looks like a tank again.

I'm having a teeny problem with what I think is BGA. It's a Nitrate and CO2 issue, I'm sure. I seem to never be able to get consistant 35ppm. My 10g never has algae, but the 15g, it has been a recent struggle ever since I returned from vacation. I get a lot of light in that room and direct light does hit the tank. I ordered new fertilzers but the Nitrate was out of stock, so I had to order it from another vendor. My LFS doesn't sell Nitrate supplement, the salesperson doesn't believe it's necessary and looked at me really funny when I asked for it when I purchased my croaking gouramis. Tomorrow, I'll pick up some elodea (I'll stick it in the back somewhere hidden), some more stem plants, some black cardboard, and post pictures then. Oh, and I think a trio of honey gouramis would look lovely in the 15g don't you?

I tried your Nutra fin recipe from another thread Jimbooo, and I'm seeing a lot of bubbles, so hopefully I'll get the 35ppm I've always wanted. Thanks a bunch!

llj

hiya, no problem. i noticed the "thanks Jimbooo" in the title and had no idea what i was being thanked for LOL.

makes sence now. no problem just make sure it doesn't over froth and shoot up the tube. leave the water 2cm short of the top fins to be safe.

jimbooo said:

hiya, no problem. i noticed the "thanks Jimbooo" in the title and had no idea what i was being thanked for LOL.

makes sence now. no problem just make sure it doesn't over froth and shoot up the tube. leave the water 2cm short of the top fins to be safe.

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I filled it up the way you suggested. I also added a few more stem plants, including a form of elodea to see if I can curtail my algae a little before my nitrates arrive.

Yes, I just randomly thank members of the forum. Who's next?

WoW looking much better now ! Hope it continues like that.
You do now realise that you can't go away on holiday anymore

bloozoo2 said:

WoW looking much better now ! Hope it continues like that.
You do now realise that you can't go away on holiday anymore

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I know No holiday for me.

On a higher note. The tank has been at 30ppm for the past for days. The fish are fine. If I can get up to 35, I'll be happy. Still waiting for my nitrates to come the mail. I definitely going to move the glosso until I have the algae under control, and add more stem plants. They're growing very well, I'm just sick of removing crud from them. Any recommendations for a fast-growing stem plant isn't necessarily a groud cover but can be cut shortish. I have 3.7WPG?

EDIT: I moved the glosso. It might not carpet in the 10g, but at least the glosso that is already there doesn't have any algae and is growing very well. I can always save it until my algae problem is resolved in the 15g and then move it back in. Right now, the 15g has mostly fast-growing stem plants. I'm encouraging the growth of more duckweed, as it seems to be helping with the algae and I think the gouramis will like it. It's mostly situated above the cryptocrynes. Here's an update.



Thanks in advance.

I have an update for today. I moved my water change day to Saturday. I am starting to dose Nitrates and am beginning to follow a modified EI regimen. I also have to lay back on Iron a bit, since that could be causing trouble too. I want to start slowly at first and work on my algae problem first. I rearranged the tank and brought back a little glosso. If the algae continues, the glosso will go back to the 10g. I tested my tap and it tests 0 for Nitrates and 0 for phosphates, so I'm assuming that is the root of all my troubles. I now have all the fertilizers to dose and hopefully things will work out alright and by May I can have a tank with a focal point and all that great layout stuff that's so wonderful. The duckweed is getting larger and is forming a funny mass of roots. It looks funny, but my gouramis adore it, so function over beauty.