aconnoll
New Member
Ok here goes, apologies for the length of this post... 
My girlfriend got a Siamese fighter for Xmas in '05 and we had it in a small bowl and did regular water changes. It was great for a while until winter came where I noticed him suffering from the cold. This then opened a can of worms when I did some research and discovered how terrible we had been treating the little fella hehe. Long story short we found an old 9 gallon at my gf's parent's house and proceeded to set that up for him (set this up around June '06). I used the gravel that was in it from when it was used many many years ago and just had some fake plants and some other ornaments in there. The Siamese Fighter died around Oct '06 and all I had left in there was a neon, a glowlight and a cory. The cory died around end of Nov '06.
At the start of Jan '07 I wanted to learn more about keeping tropical fish and put some real plants in - revamp the tank a bit. I got some lighting (2 x 15 watt globes one around 6800K and the other higher I think), an external hang on filter w/ 3 stage filtering, an air pump & stone and some bog wood. I learnt about ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/ph etc.. but at this stage haven't had the budget to get all these kits just yet. At the start of Jan '07 I started getting more neons and glowlights slowly each week until ive reached what I have now (which is 5 neons, and 4 glowlights). Im stopping at this amount of fish as I followed the 1" to 1 gallon rule.
For the month of January things were going really well and the plants were growing great. I had about 3 bunches of Ambulia (like 4 or 5 stalks each), vallis and some other type of plant im not sure of. The ambulia and vallis were growing great and very fast and things were looking good. I was doing weekly 25% water changes w/ gravel vac, water was nice and clear with some tannins. All the fish had (and still have) very erect fins, are very active and have a very healthy appetite (feed them frozen bloodworm, shelled pea, bread crumb, etc and have a fast day per week).
At the start of Feb I noticed that there seemed to be a decent amount of brown algae (diatoms) building up, mostly on the plant I didn't know what species it was but the majority was just on the bogwood. The other plants weren't affected (or didn't show any sign of diatoms on them). I also noticed small hard bright green spots on a small section of the glass which ive learnt is also diatoms. From what I can gather, this is due to excessive phosphates or excess silica (silic acid - or what ever its called) and high nitrates? Is this true?
Since the start of Feb ive been doing 25 percent water changes prob every 3-4 days gravel vacc'ing everywhere I can without disturbing plants and also scrubbing the bogwood with a brand new toothbrush with the gravel vac over the brush (to try and get as much of the diatoms out of the tank), as well as the usual wipe down of the glass. Ive tried to cut back how much food I give the fish and have one or two fast days a week. The lighting period is 5 on 2 off 5 on. The ambulia has stopped growing in height and has gone yellow and slightly red on the top section (which I believe is normal), since then I have chopped the tops off them and replanted the tops to try and encourage more growth and more plants to absorb the nutrients over the diatoms. It seems at the moment im in a constant battle trying to get rid of as much diatoms each water change as I can and scrub it off the plants and bog wood each time. I know that if I wasn't as rigorous in removing it, it would surely grow out of control.. Is this normal? Around 30 percent of my gravel has plants in it - I cant really put much more in there as im running out of space, I also have added a clump or two of java moss. The fish seem very healthy and fine.. I use tap water (obv treated for chlorine/chloramine) for my water changes and dont have access to rain water or RO water. I let the new water sit in a bucket for 24hrs before hand with an air stone in there. Does anyone have any ideas... I dont dose liquid ferts and have treated the fish with melafix on occasion when adding new fish (as per instructions). Let me know if anyone wants anymore information.
Cheers,
Adam
My girlfriend got a Siamese fighter for Xmas in '05 and we had it in a small bowl and did regular water changes. It was great for a while until winter came where I noticed him suffering from the cold. This then opened a can of worms when I did some research and discovered how terrible we had been treating the little fella hehe. Long story short we found an old 9 gallon at my gf's parent's house and proceeded to set that up for him (set this up around June '06). I used the gravel that was in it from when it was used many many years ago and just had some fake plants and some other ornaments in there. The Siamese Fighter died around Oct '06 and all I had left in there was a neon, a glowlight and a cory. The cory died around end of Nov '06.
At the start of Jan '07 I wanted to learn more about keeping tropical fish and put some real plants in - revamp the tank a bit. I got some lighting (2 x 15 watt globes one around 6800K and the other higher I think), an external hang on filter w/ 3 stage filtering, an air pump & stone and some bog wood. I learnt about ammonia/nitrate/nitrite/ph etc.. but at this stage haven't had the budget to get all these kits just yet. At the start of Jan '07 I started getting more neons and glowlights slowly each week until ive reached what I have now (which is 5 neons, and 4 glowlights). Im stopping at this amount of fish as I followed the 1" to 1 gallon rule.
For the month of January things were going really well and the plants were growing great. I had about 3 bunches of Ambulia (like 4 or 5 stalks each), vallis and some other type of plant im not sure of. The ambulia and vallis were growing great and very fast and things were looking good. I was doing weekly 25% water changes w/ gravel vac, water was nice and clear with some tannins. All the fish had (and still have) very erect fins, are very active and have a very healthy appetite (feed them frozen bloodworm, shelled pea, bread crumb, etc and have a fast day per week).
At the start of Feb I noticed that there seemed to be a decent amount of brown algae (diatoms) building up, mostly on the plant I didn't know what species it was but the majority was just on the bogwood. The other plants weren't affected (or didn't show any sign of diatoms on them). I also noticed small hard bright green spots on a small section of the glass which ive learnt is also diatoms. From what I can gather, this is due to excessive phosphates or excess silica (silic acid - or what ever its called) and high nitrates? Is this true?
Since the start of Feb ive been doing 25 percent water changes prob every 3-4 days gravel vacc'ing everywhere I can without disturbing plants and also scrubbing the bogwood with a brand new toothbrush with the gravel vac over the brush (to try and get as much of the diatoms out of the tank), as well as the usual wipe down of the glass. Ive tried to cut back how much food I give the fish and have one or two fast days a week. The lighting period is 5 on 2 off 5 on. The ambulia has stopped growing in height and has gone yellow and slightly red on the top section (which I believe is normal), since then I have chopped the tops off them and replanted the tops to try and encourage more growth and more plants to absorb the nutrients over the diatoms. It seems at the moment im in a constant battle trying to get rid of as much diatoms each water change as I can and scrub it off the plants and bog wood each time. I know that if I wasn't as rigorous in removing it, it would surely grow out of control.. Is this normal? Around 30 percent of my gravel has plants in it - I cant really put much more in there as im running out of space, I also have added a clump or two of java moss. The fish seem very healthy and fine.. I use tap water (obv treated for chlorine/chloramine) for my water changes and dont have access to rain water or RO water. I let the new water sit in a bucket for 24hrs before hand with an air stone in there. Does anyone have any ideas... I dont dose liquid ferts and have treated the fish with melafix on occasion when adding new fish (as per instructions). Let me know if anyone wants anymore information.
Cheers,
Adam
