Before and after

marcusbacus

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Belo Horizonte, Brazil
These are pictures of my humble 19G (72L) tank. It started to be cycled in December (3rd or 4th), and this is how it looks like after about 45 days.

Before:

before7iy.jpg


After:

after5hq.jpg


There are some algae here and there but nothing serious, the ottos can fix that. The riccia carpets (the 2 green things seen in the "before" pic) didn't survive, I'll remove the remaining one soon as I've added some Echinodorus tenellus 3 days ago to try to make a carpet instead. Some plants now need some serious trimming, but I'll wait a little more. Things started to go really well after installing the Hagen CO2 kit. Ammonia level is 0, nitrites 0, nitrates not measured and pH is 7 (it comes from the tap above 7.8 or more). Kh is usually around 3.
 
Nice tank your temp reader should be below water level so that it will read the water temp the temp below water and above water are not the same
 
Nice tank, I suggest you get a background on it, or fill it up with some plants :thumbs:
 
It's just 54W for 19G (72L), I have one ProGlow (in the first pic it's just the PG) with 20W and some compact fluorescent with 34W. At first, as there is plenty of sunlight in the room where the tank is I thought I wouldn't need anything else but a cheap light just to give some different effect, but plants like glossostigmas and riccias (the 2 green carpets seen in the first pic) didn't make it.

I tried adding a new light (the compact) about 2 weeks ago but still I couldn't save them, and as long as I started the CO2 things are going extremely smoother. I'm not sure if I'll try new glossos or riccias though, they need much more lights than I can have for now.

Some plants are growing extremely faster than others, but all seem to be growing. These that are the slowest are the Alternanthera reineckii “rosaefolia” (which seems to be stuck for days but isn't dying or anything like that) and the Microsorium pteropus, but I heard that this one is slow anyway.

The plants I currently have are:

2 Alternanthera reineckii “rosaefolia”
Bacopa australis (now they are spreading fast)
Ceratopteris cornuta (a monster - it has grown a trillion times its original size)
2 Echinodorus quadricostatus (started to grow real fast after the CO2, were stuck until then)
Hygrophila corymbosa (these big ones at the bottom)
Hygrophila polysperma var. Sunset (has some BIG leaves now, all pink - even the new leaves at the bottom part)
Lindernia rotundifolia (it was ugly and small, it's getting much better now)
Microsorium pteropus
Vallisneria sp. (spreading everywhere at the right side)
Java moss
Echinodorus tenellus (fresh, hasn't changed apparently since it was planted like 3 or 4 days ago)

The substrate I use is the Caribsea eco-complete planted aquarium, and nothing else.

Fishes are:

2 Dwarf gouramis (couple)
2 Rams (couple)
3 Rasbora maculata (I think it's one male and 2 females)
4 Ottos
9 Cardinal neons
4 Runny nose tetras
3 Corydora punctatus
1 Neritina zebra
and perhaps some baby gouramis soon - if the neons didn't eat all these eggs...

I like to call it a "free style" tank, I never attempted to make any kind of specific layout or configuration, just bought some plants that I liked and that's it.

As for the digital thermometer, I think it's a bit accurate where it is - I have thermometers in the betta tanks and the temp shown is pretty much the same on them all (despite possible different settings of the thermostates). If it is different, it's nothing but one degree Celsius. I'm afraid that trying to move the thermometer can damage it, as it might not stuck to the glass anymore.

I think I am actually very lucky for not having any serious problems so far, having no prior experience at all. My best evidence that things are going fine was the couple of gouramis "doing it" last Thursday.
 

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