Bowfront 180 Litres

[Biulu]

So today was the BIG day; I planted my tank!

Final plant selection:

the unknown plant
Alternanthera reinecki
Hygrophila diformis
Ludwigia repens
Sagittaria platyphylla
C. wendtti
C. moehlmanni
tigerlotus
Echinodorus 'red ocelot'
Anubia nana
MIcrosorum pteropus

Hardscape: 2 pieces of wood.

I know, I know; everybody will want to see pictures, but unfortunately, the water is still not clear enough. I have installed a powerfilter in my other tank where the fish are, and will wait a few days before moving my external filter to this new tank. Both will then have enough bacteria I hope. It is also then that I will move the fish.

Stocking:

2 angels (pearl)
17 cherry barbs
4 c. julii
6 c. puntatus (they sold them to me as puntatus, but it is a different variety, hope to take pictures soon and ask in the catfish forum)
7 otocinclus

In the mean time I can show you a picture of the tank in its place already with the black background. I used a simple black garbage bag for that as I though that painting was a bit too definitive.

Thanks for watching.

 

[Biulu]

I had forgotten to mention that I also have some aponogetons in my tank. Anyway, things have still not cleared up, due to the fact that my filter has not yet been installed. I am waiting for the bacteria to develop in my other filter before moving it, and putting the fish in.

As you can see, the water is very muddy plus that tannins are released in the water by the wood.

As a compensation, I am putting up a picture of the 'temporary' housing of my fish. All the fish will be moved to the new tank, and this set-up will serve as a breeding tank for some dwarf gouramis.

Thanks for watching!

 

[lljdma06]

Yes, quite muddy, but that will clear up when you add the filter.

What are you going to do with the plants in the other tank? There are some very nice ones. I imagine, you'll keep them for the gouramis breeding. Nice, when you breed the gouramis, you should setup a spawning journal in the gouramis section.

IMO, gouramis are one of the most underated fish.

llj

 

[Biulu]

Yes, quite muddy, but that will clear up when you add the filter.

What are you going to do with the plants in the other tank? There are some very nice ones. I imagine, you'll keep them for the gouramis breeding. Nice, when you breed the gouramis, you should setup a spawning journal in the gouramis section.

IMO, gouramis are one of the most underated fish.

llj

I have promised some sagittaria and c. wendtti to a friend, but the rest of the set up will stay the same for the gouramis. I have them quarantained as they came from a tank with some death fish in it. They seem to be doing alright though.

 

[Biulu]

I installed the filter and the thermostate, not without problems though. The outlet hose tends to loosen from the filter, every time I move it, and this time it was the same. It splayed a lot of water on the floor, inside my cabinet etc. So first I had to clean up everything before continuing with the installation. I found luckily an easy solution; I turned the hose around, so the outlet end now was attached to the filter, and this worked very well. Santo remedio as we say here!

The water cleared up nicely, but the wood is releasing a lot of tannins in the water, so it is kind of brownish. I don't mind it too much, as it gives a kind of sunset look to the aquarium.

What I am more worried about is that my 2 ballisters for the T5 burned out. There was a faint smell of fire/smoke in the hours before, but wasn't able to locate it. Now I have to ask my friend to come over and install them again. In the mean time I am only running on the 2 T8. Although it is unfortunate having to replace them, I do not mind too much at the moment as I intended to use lower lighting in the beginning anyway.

After the water reached the desired temperature I moved my fish to the new tank. It looks stunning, but I also realise now that I have a lot of space left... So, I can add more fish to my tank

I will try to put up more pictures tonight.

 

[lljdma06]

More fish are always nice. Pictures, pictures, pictures!

 

[Biulu]

More fish are always nice. Pictures, pictures, pictures!

Ok, ok, I get it. Here they are:

left hand side

right hand side

C. trilineatus, used to be my favourite, but have changed to c. agassizzi.

c. agassizzi:

I am not sure what to do with the stocking though: I like the look of the cherry barbs and maybe I should stimply up the numbers instead of adding congo tetras?

Thanks for watching

 

[lljdma06]

It looks really, really good.

If it were me, I would add more corydoras. They look great when they are swimming across the tank in larger groups. How many do you have in there now?

llj

 

[Biulu]

It looks really, really good.

If it were me, I would add more corydoras. They look great when they are swimming across the tank in larger groups. How many do you have in there now?

llj

Thank you very much I currently have 4 trilineatus and 6 agasizzis, so in total 10. I am not sure though if I can get the trilineatus again. It is a bit hit and run here with the fish available. They never know what is coming in, and basically I would have to be in mexico city every tuesday morning to see what they got and buy it, which is basically impossible. I was very lucky with the cherry barbs; it is the only time in all these years I have seen them. I think I should buy the ones they have left next week.

I have a question about the photoperiod: I am currently only using the 2x 15 W as the ballasts of the other 2 broke down, but they were connected to a different circuit, so I can put them on different timers. I am having 7 hours straight currently, is that enough? Should I see how things work out algae wise?

 

[ian]

nice tank, be good to see it growing up!

 

[lljdma06]

Thank you very much I currently have 4 trilineatus and 6 agasizzis, so in total 10. I am not sure though if I can get the trilineatus again. It is a bit hit and run here with the fish available. They never know what is coming in, and basically I would have to be in mexico city every tuesday morning to see what they got and buy it, which is basically impossible. I was very lucky with the cherry barbs; it is the only time in all these years I have seen them. I think I should buy the ones they have left next week.

I have a question about the photoperiod: I am currently only using the 2x 15 W as the ballasts of the other 2 broke down, but they were connected to a different circuit, so I can put them on different timers. I am having 7 hours straight currently, is that enough? Should I see how things work out algae wise?

Try 6 hours for now and see where that goes. Plants will grow fine with as little as four, you've planted pretty densly and you have lower light levels, so 6 might be fine to start with. You will probably be able to go as high as 8 hours once the tank is established.

llj

 

[Biulu]

Ok, thank you. I will try to buy new ballasts tomorrow. Once the T5s work again, I will alternate the lighting, adding in 4 hours of full lighting.

I am not sure about upping the corydoras as they have managed to uproot almost all of my potagonetum. I might start looking for an alternative to this plant too as some fish (I don't know which one yet) are nibbling on its leaves!

 

[Biulu]

So, an update: There is some growth as you can see from the pictures below; new leaves at the cryptocoryne, some hesitant growth on the alternanthera and good growth at the polisperma. Growth will be slow as I only have 2 15W lamps on for 8 hours a day. It looks like the ozelot is melting, although I do see some new leaves at the bottom. The potamogeton has all been uprooted, and basically disappeared. Some have developed roots and I will plant them back. It looks though as if the leaves are being eaten. I suspect it are the angels...

The place left bare by the potamogeton I will fill temporarily with sagittaria until I can find a suitable replacement. Sorry for the quality of the pictures; I can't find the charger of my camera and these were taken with my telephone.

Here is the growth on the polisperma:

Here you can see the leaves of the ozelot browning:

growth on the crypts:

Here you see the alternanthera with one of my trilineatus that wanted to be in the picture

You can also see the empty space behind the alternanthera where the potamogeton used to be...

 

[Biulu]

I have not encountered any algae on the plants, however the piece of wood on the right hand side has developed green, fluffy algae patches which are pretty abundant. I think it looks ugly, and wonder how I would be able to get rid of this? Is it due to the nutrients available on the dead wood? Should I put ferns or moss on the wood to avoid the development of algae?

Any suggestions are welcomed.

 

[Biulu]

I have just come back from a 3 week's trip. My automatic feeder worked well, but I noticed that the bottom dwellers do not get enough to eat, result: all but 1 c. agasizi dead and 1 c. trilineatus dead. Luckily I had bought 4 c. julii so I hope that the 1 agasizi will team up with them. The c. trilineatus are definitively to big for him.
To avoid this in the future I will mix in special bottomdwellers' food from Tetramin and I will set the feeding at 2x a day.

I also bought rams. Here are some pictures from them:

There is now a regular supply of plants in Mexico city. The choice is still limited, but getting better. I bought more a. reineckii as the plant occupied a too small spot, and I wanted to make a larger group. As the potagonetum had disappeared, I had enough space to plant more.

The aponogetons have basically disappeared; they were sold to me without a bulb and decent rootstock, so that is not a surprise. I found hydrocotyle and I have planted this directly behind the wood. I know that hydrocotyle can stay quite small, but these seem midsize plants at the moment, so I hope they will grow larger than the wood. I bought further cabomba (I will see if this plant will do well in my tank, normally I feel they desintegrate too quickly) and a plant I don't know. The leaves are featherlike and I quite like the look of it.

I have still little algae, a little green algae on the grass, but nothing to be worried about. The only place with fluffy algae is the right piece of wood. I don't know what to do to get rid of it. Any ideas are welcome.

Growth of the sagittarius and the cryptocorynes is good. The sagittarius is multiplying and I am afraid that I will have to start 'weeding' them out soon. The growth of the stem plants is very slow, but I guess that is due to the low light and the lack of CO2. I really hope to have my 2 other lights running this week.

So, enough talk, let's go to the pictures. This is how I found the tank after my return. It was very hard to take pictures without reflection. I will take more pictures after the planting tonight and post tomorrow.

Thanks for watching and reading.