120L Juwel Lido - 'eternal Cycle'

[daizeUK]

Looking great daize!!

 
Cheers Rak!
 

Great looking tank daizeUK, the centre piece works really well and now that it's had some time to establish itself it looks very natural.
 
Am I wrong or is the sand is looking much better? Is that down to the shrimps?
 
And finally, how are the fish? You mentioned they are showing signs of cottony mouths.

 
Hey Spacewolf,
Thanks!  The plants are filling out just as I hoped they would.  I always envisaged that big mass of java fern in the middle and it's almost finished filling out.  The moss also seems to have started growing downwards rather than upwards which I think looks very natural and attractive.
 
Diatoms are gradually disappearing in the tank and I'm hoping they will vanish for good soon!  The shrimp love eating diatoms and are doing a wonderful job, including picking up individual grains of sand and cleaning them!  I have to confess though, if the sand starts to look brown I will occasionally skim off the top layer of sand and swirl it in a bucket of water with a wooden spoon.  After a couple of minutes stirring the sand becomes white again.  This works well for my Unipac sand because of the coarse grain size, almost a fine gravel.
 
The fish are much improved after a long course of Melafix, the cottonmouth is nearly all gone but my injured platy is still suffering.  If he can't heal I may put him down.  I'm anxious to see whether the cottonmouth returns after I stop dosing Melafix.  I'm not sure what else I can use since the antibiotics recommended in the US don't seem to be available in the UK

 

[daizeUK]

Fish still doing well, no signs of cottonmouth.
 
Here's some shrimp pics
 

 

 

[daizeUK]

Stupid, stupid.
 
I cleaned out the hoses yesterday, took everything apart and reassembled it.  Didn't notice that the temperature dial on the external heater had been knocked when I re-connected it.
 
This morning my tank was sitting at 35 Celsius.  All 5 harlequins dead.  Threadfins, platies and shrimp all looking distressed but alive.  Looks like the shrimp have been moulting like crazy.
 
What a dumb thing to do.  I hope that the rest of my livestock recovers.

 

[KirkyArcher]

Daft bat, sorry for the loss

Accident happen, perhaps a method to keep the dial at a set position should be employed (even a couple of strips of electrical tape might be sufficient to effect possible unintentional adjustment) fingers crossed for you that everything else pulls through!

 

[daizeUK]

That's a good idea.  The dial on Hydor heaters is notorious for being easy to accidentally knock.  Think I'll follow your advice and put some tape over it.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Oh no!
 
That is rotten luck indeed.
 
Hope your guys pull through.
 
Think a lesson is learned here.
 
Sorry for your losses BTW.

 

[daizeUK]

I think your threadfins may have had a lucky escape from me the way this tank is going, Charlie!  First cottonmouth and now overheating.  Yes, lesson definitely learned but I should have checked the temperature gauge out of common sense anyway.

 

[Rak9378]

So sorry to hear that daize.

  Hope the rest of the stock pulls through. 

 

[daizeUK]

Cheers guys, everyone in the tank is behaving normally and looking a lot happier now so fingers crossed.

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

Great looking tank! Im just wondering, where did you get your sand? I love how light it is and how bright the tank looks, would love to use the frosted film sheet background idea if you dont mind

 

[daizeUK]

Of course!  I got the frosted background idea from a UK shop over here called The Green Machine who sell translucent backing especially for aquariums, but I simply bought cheap frosted window film from Ebay.  It works very well with a backlight.
 
The sand is Unipac Maui fine, although the texture is actually very coarse, like fine gravel.
 
Thanks for the comments Ellie!
 
My threadfins, platies and shrimp thankfully seem none the worse after my stupidity with the heater on Saturday.  I'm now wondering how best to restock.  I won't get harlequins again, although they were attractive and schooled beautifully they never seemed quite right for this tank.  With hindsight they weren't the best choice of tankmates for the threadfins because they occupy the same upper third of the tank leaving the lower regions empty and also because they are quicker at feeding time so I had to be careful that the slower rainbowfish got enough food.
 
Option one is to increase my threadfin numbers by adding females.  I think I'd need about 8-10 females to go with my 7 males and I may have trouble finding that many, most of the stock in my LFS seems to be male threadfins.
 
Option two is a shoal of 6-8 cherry barbs.
 
Option three is celestial pearl danios although I'm more inclined to put those into my 35L instead.

 

[spacewolf]

Hi daizeUK, any updates?
 
Like others, I am sorry for the losses. That particular scenario I have been through myself, it is really upsetting.
 
Blessings

 

[daizeUK]

Thanks Spacewolf.  Not much to report - I am waiting for a week or two to let the tank settle back down and make sure that everyone is okay before adding any more stock.  I lost the injured platy who caused the cottonmouth outbreak - not unexpected.  The poor thing was getting bullied daily and I had plans to move him to another tank but he didn't make it.
 
I would love to increase my threadfin shoal but I've noticed that the threadfins tend to avoid the right side of the tank where the flow is strongest.  I would need to make sure the males are comfortable before I consider adding any females.
 
I haven't been able to upload pictures for a couple of weeks after a technician broke the SD reader on my PC, hopefully getting that fixed today!

 

[daizeUK]

Yay computer fixed!  Latest pic
 

 

[Ch4rlie]

ooh, looks great, really lush, as usual a fabulous looking tank!