pennjones
New Member
I figured that since I am fairly new, that I'd post tank journals of my two tanks (20g and 10g), so that you all can see where I am now. A little info. I got the 20g tank this Christmas from my girlfriend. It was the all-glass 20g kit from a lfs. The first thing I did was let it run for a week, fishless cycling it. After a week (I know, too early), I added 6 zebra danios. The danios did good so I started adding more fish slowly over a few weeks. I eventually had 6 zebra danios, 1 common pleco, 3 pearl gouramis, and 3 gold gouramis. I don't have any good full tank shots from that time, but here are a few random ones:
Everything was going good, aside from the tank being hugely overstocked. I decided to add a few more rocks to make it look better.
I bought some aponogeton bulbs at the local wal-mart and they started to grow nicely. Here's a shot of one of them growing.
After reading on this site a lot and going to the local lfs (Elmer's: awesome store btw) I decided to get some ghost shrimp. Only a few survived the feeding frenzy. This big one was one of the few. You can also see my aponogeton growing.
I added some Wisteria in the back right corner and replanted my aponogeton bulbs to the back of the tank.
Well once again after reading on this side I decided I eventually wanted to go fully planted, and I loved the idea of sand, so I changed out the disgusting blue gravel for some play sand with a layer of flourite underneath it. I also bought a few more plants (I think they were all cabomba at this point aside from my bulbs), and took out all of the fake plants.
Well, terror then struck the tank and the gold gouramis started attacking everything. They first attacked and killed all 6 danios, some of which i witnessed, but didn't have time to do anything about. Then they started attacking the pearl gouramis, so after one got killed, and before the other two got killed, i took all 5 gouramis that were left back to the lfs. So i was left with a pleco.....
Well I went to the store and bought some anacharis and planted my tank more, and I also decided that my sand was WAAAAY too deep so I thinned it out. I also bought 10 neon tetras at this time and added them to the tank after assuring parameters were set. Oh there were 2 larger ghost shrimp left in the tank as well. Here's a shot at that point.
I have to get more updated pics, but the tank currently has no more lava rocks, a large piece of driftwood, the plants are growing like crazy. I have DIY CO2 running in the tank and have thinned out the sand even more.
Fish stock consists of 8 neon tetras (2 dissappeared shortly after they were all added and I still can't figure out anything but that the pleco ate them). I also have 2 bolivian rams, and 4 cories. Two of the larger ghost shrimp are still alive too. I decided that the pleco would outgrow the tank before I could update and recently took him back too. I'll get current pics of the tank ASAP. I apologize for the poor picture quality. Thanks for reading!
Everything was going good, aside from the tank being hugely overstocked. I decided to add a few more rocks to make it look better.
I bought some aponogeton bulbs at the local wal-mart and they started to grow nicely. Here's a shot of one of them growing.
After reading on this site a lot and going to the local lfs (Elmer's: awesome store btw) I decided to get some ghost shrimp. Only a few survived the feeding frenzy. This big one was one of the few. You can also see my aponogeton growing.
I added some Wisteria in the back right corner and replanted my aponogeton bulbs to the back of the tank.
Well once again after reading on this side I decided I eventually wanted to go fully planted, and I loved the idea of sand, so I changed out the disgusting blue gravel for some play sand with a layer of flourite underneath it. I also bought a few more plants (I think they were all cabomba at this point aside from my bulbs), and took out all of the fake plants.
Well, terror then struck the tank and the gold gouramis started attacking everything. They first attacked and killed all 6 danios, some of which i witnessed, but didn't have time to do anything about. Then they started attacking the pearl gouramis, so after one got killed, and before the other two got killed, i took all 5 gouramis that were left back to the lfs. So i was left with a pleco.....
Well I went to the store and bought some anacharis and planted my tank more, and I also decided that my sand was WAAAAY too deep so I thinned it out. I also bought 10 neon tetras at this time and added them to the tank after assuring parameters were set. Oh there were 2 larger ghost shrimp left in the tank as well. Here's a shot at that point.
I have to get more updated pics, but the tank currently has no more lava rocks, a large piece of driftwood, the plants are growing like crazy. I have DIY CO2 running in the tank and have thinned out the sand even more.
Fish stock consists of 8 neon tetras (2 dissappeared shortly after they were all added and I still can't figure out anything but that the pleco ate them). I also have 2 bolivian rams, and 4 cories. Two of the larger ghost shrimp are still alive too. I decided that the pleco would outgrow the tank before I could update and recently took him back too. I'll get current pics of the tank ASAP. I apologize for the poor picture quality. Thanks for reading!
Be sure about the color temperature of the bulb. Some people here can grow plants very well with 10,000K, but the more usual color temperature is between 6500-6700K. But bulbs are easily replaced. This will give you about 3.25 WPG, which is still high-tech, and you'll be able to grow almost anything, especially if you have good DIY CO2 and consider EI fertilization to avoid algae. Read the pinned article on EI. It can be confusing. Sam (Themuleous) had to read it a gazillion times before he got it! 
Your're far from that stage, but I'd watch. It's just that egeria densa (scientific name) does better in cooler temperatures and that is maybe what I'm seeing with the decaying leaves. In your 10g as well. It doesn't do as well in a tropical aquarium.
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