Llj's 36g Journal

[lljdma06]

Lost several of the catfish to wood collapsing during maintenance, so I've been spending a little time trying to find a stable hardscape. Catfish are rather stupid creatures. I only have the one A. reineckii, the rest of the plants consist of anubias, bolbitis, moss, and marsilea hirsuta. The A. reineckii is screaming for some more dosing and CO2, but it'll get used to the leaner nutrients with time.

I'll update with photos soon. The tank isn't really densly planted anymore.

llj

EDIT: The post above was added recently, not June 29th, and I'm not sure what happened there.

 

[lljdma06]

The fish are much happier since the hardscape changes and there have been no more accidents. I need to add more Brochis and C. pulcher to make up for the numbers lost, but that takes money and I'm undecided as to whether or not I want wild-caught or tank-bred. An angelfish took a chunk out of one of my blue tetras, but he's eating, showing no sign of infection, and he's healing, so I'll leave well-enough alone.

I wouldn't call this densly planted anymore, as there is a lot of bare substrate now, making it much easier to clean. There is more room for the large catfish. I removed the CO2 equipment from the tank on Tuesday. It made no big difference; I hadn't changed the canister in a month. Same story with the 20g, no more CO2 injection. I still have flowering anubias and A. reineckii, which is nice. Some of the anubia leaves are ginormous!

Thanks for looking,

llj

 

[pratty675]

thats rilly kool

 

[Themuleous]

Quite a change, those anubias must be pretty big to fill a 36g like that. I never do very well with anubias

Sam

 

[lljdma06]

Quite a change, those anubias must be pretty big to fill a 36g like that. I never do very well with anubias

Sam

Yes, the largest A. barterii has leaves reaching nearly 5 inches in length, so it's really, really big. The angelfish often spawn on the leaves.

Don't sweat it, Sam, you do great with other things. I royally suck with cabomba. Can never get it to grow.

 

[lljdma06]

This tank hasn't had CO2 for about a month and a half. Accidents from the change in hardscape and the resulting pH climb from the removal of CO2 resulted in some losses, mostly of the wild-caught catfish (Brochis splendens and C. pulcher). My tank-bred specimens are doing great, and I added 3 small tank-bred Brochis to rebuild the numbers again. I have to be up on water changes as the pH spike has also made this tank more sensitive to the effects of ammonia and nitrite. As I am overstocked by quite a margin, I have had to do larger water changes and the tank has since stablelized. I will also probably add another filter to the tank in the near future, as the 20g has benefitted from this.

I also have an outbreak of greenspot algae, mostly on the glass and on anubia leaves. I've read a few articles and I will be reducing the intensity of the lighting in this tank, which means the removal of the 2x 65W CF fixture (I was only running one bulb anyway) and exchanging it for 2, 28W twin T5s, which I think will do nicely. The tank will go from 1.86 to 1.5WPG, which may be just enough of a difference to help things out and the plants won't suffer. My marsilea hirsuta does extremely well in my 20g with only 1.4WPG. The only difference is the depth, at 21", the marsilea may not get enough light, in which case, I'll replace them with cryptocorynes and smaller anubias, which always do well for me.

I am continuing to "dumb down" this tank.

llj

 

[Underwurlde]

By 'dumb down' I assume to mean 'go lower tech'. Thumbs up to that then.

Re: algae... do you run Zeolite in your filters? i have found this stuff useful in the past at removing that algae casuing trace amounts of ammonia. Adding 2nd filter should also improve the algae problem for this reason as well...

Andy

 

[Viettxboii]

Hmm Well looks good so far, goodluck with the algae problems, and as always great job lj!
Sorry about the losses, and hopefully your plants will perk up, even with decreased lighting!

 

[lljdma06]

I removed two large pieces of wood from this tank Yesterday. They were soft, not good. So out they went. I'm in the process of curing some Mopani, but that won't be finished for a while, so I only had one piece of Mopani to work with. I stripped all the hardscape and plants and rearranged. I'm getting a new order from Aquariumplants.com and will adjust this tank accordingly. The plan is to showcase the anubias (as always) and a cryptocoryne mother plant (a bronze wendtii). Smaller crypts, pelia, and egeria najas will round out the look. The fish are completely freaked, but I think the hardscape is better for now. Only the roots of the anubias are buried, the rhizomes are above and hidden by the wood.

The anubias are very impressive, and this is after I pruned a lot of leaves. Hopefully, the new plants will contribute to the look. Sorry for the lousy pictures, but they were snapped in haste.

llj

 

[Themuleous]

How red are those cheery barbs!!!

 

[lljdma06]

How red are those cheery barbs!!!

Those are the fry I raised like a year ago.

 

[lljdma06]

I did most of my Christmas shopping Yesterday. Got presents for the family and friends, but some for me too. It's amazing what you can find at a LPS, if you know what you're looking for. I found several large Amazon swords, HM, and Lobelia cardinalis. I used those to fill out the 36g a bit, and I have to say, it looks much better. I should have done that instead of an online order. It cost half, and I got to pick the plants.

I haven't put an Amazon in my one of my tanks in over 10 years, so it'll be interesting to see how they do with more than just the standard lighting that comes with a tank. Usually, it is far less than 1WPG, especially if the tank is larger than 10g. With 1.8WPG, the 36g seems a great place for all three plants. The HM might be taller, but the tank is 21" deep, so taller isn't going to make much of a difference. I'm considering injecting CO2 in this tank again, as I want the plants to do well, the scape is rather cute. My fish would kill me. I'll see how things go without CO2 first.

I'll update with a few pictures soon enough.

llj

 

[lljdma06]

I caved and added CO2, just one canister for now, but for stability, I'll add another on Friday. I also reduced the photo period, but added a short burst of light in the afternoon, and I think my plants like the changes. I keep promising pictures, but I'm pretty lazy. I'll make an effort this week, though.

llj

 

[lljdma06]

As promised, here are the photos. This is what the tank looked like before the Aquariumplants.com order, when I removed a lot of plant material and the squishy wood.

Pretty empty. The order was a bust, only the apongetons and the C. retrospiralis survived, and they are in the 20g. I purchased some plants at a LPS (Amazons, HM, Lobelia, etc) and replanted the tank. I think it is an improvement. The amazons are getting used to the new surroundings and I am seeing new leaves. I will put in root tabs as soon as they settle in.

To keep the lobelia and the HM compact, I've decided to give a short afternoon burst and began injecting CO2 into this tank again. Eventually, I may do away with the burst. The tank is over a year old, so I'm not really anticipating having to do much with regard to ferts. Perhaps only trace on occasion. The tank is certainly overstocked with fish, having just added 3 more otos, Yesterday. They school with my other 3, and I like it.

Pictures

Ooooo, I almost forgot. Remember when I had a red Nymphaea lotus zenkerii var. red? I removed the bulb from the 36g a while back because I thought that it was maybe going dormant (as lotus often do) and didn't want the bulb to foul the water if it ended up dying (which sometimes they do), so I chucked it into my little 8g fountain tub outside, where I keep some cuttings. It stayed there I think the entire Summer. A week or two ago, I was checking the pond for tadpoles (kind of fun), and I see this spot of red underneath the massive amounts of green hair algae. In the bottom of the tub, I found a struggling lotus. The leaves were very tiny and it wasn't getting enough light underneath the algae mat, so I fished it out, rinsed, and put it in the 36. It has made a marked improvement, and it will be nice having a lotus again.

Right now, it's pretty tiny (used super macro to get the picture), so it's not officially part of the scape. If it grows to it's former stature, it will take its place behind the anubias on the right of the tank. If it stays small, it may go into a smaller tank, possibly the 8g. It is growing very well, and sprouting new leaves. Typical lotus.

Thanks for looking,

llj

 

[SuperColey1]

I don't think reducing the lighting is dumbing down LLJ.

I think Tom Barr has been trying to persuade everybody there is no need for vast amounts of light for a long time and I certainly decided on my last scape change to reduce from 2.5WPG to 1.8WPG (I failed miserably cos the T5 HO seem much more more efficient than the CF!!!)

I am now down to 1.5ish due to a careless mistake breaking one when replacing the lid and I think I will stay that way.

I think we'll all end up using less light eventually with CO2 addition.

Love the tank and those Large Anubias. What variety are they? Where did you get them from? They look cool.

Andy