Our 125gal Tank

[aaronnorth]

whats more effective? liquid or powder ferts?

a fertiliser is a fertiliser!! no difference, just cost

I don't know...What source did it come from? What chemicals were used as a binding agent or preservative? What is the dessicating agent in the case of dry ferts? How are ferts produced? How long do they sit on the shelf? Is it synthesized or from a natural source? I don't know, I've been thinking a lot about these questions lately. For example, why is Miracle-gro bright blue, when poop is distinctly not? Probably a stupid question, but my plants do better on tank water than on Miracle-gro. Miracle-gro has a warning on the lable about burns? Is that good? Do your chemicals come with such warnings? Have you thought about it? If it's potentially harmful for you, couldn't also be harmful for plants? On the other hand, you can squeeze filter sponges of their muck and feed the juice to corydora fry, so obviously it is not harmful enough to kill even the smallest of organisms.

Aaronnorth, you're probably right, but these questions have recently got me thinking about what I put in my tank, or water my terrestrial plants with, for that matter.

Just food for thought.

llj

:

only things to consider is the chelator used (which most companies use as standard anyway) and whether it contains toxins (ammonium nitrate is often used in terrestial fertilisers), and that is it IMO.
miracle-grow is made up of by-products of the petroleum industry, probably why it is blue, and also the reason for burns, due to the high Nitrogen content. the fertilisers we buy are salts, so we know they are not harmful to plants, and we know the levels we are adding.

all fertilisers are produced through ion exchange (eg. KCl + NaNO3 > KNO3 + NaCl) hence why they are called salts!

hope this puts your mind more at ease

Thanks, Aaron

 

[Amunet]

YAY... edgeumacation!


We are SUCH bad fish hobbiests!! lol
We headed on over to the Petsmart across town to check out their clowns and well.... my dear dear husband wanted to get a pleco. A pleco that's going to get frackin HUGE.

We also got some more kuhli loaches for the other tank and 4 apple snails for the 125

photos

snails

2 tiny little clowns laying together. Poor things I hope they're gonna be ok in the tank. They are SO small, probably just over an inch long from head to tip of the tail. No ich though, so there's always that.

The pleco... not really sure what kind it is. They had it listed as a longfin spotted pleco. Ugh... big plecos scare me, and I just know it's gonna uproot plants once it gets bigger! Don't even want to imagine the poop that's gonna come out of this thing once it is bigger.

And for the heck of it... the BGK My water cow is getting so big! It's such a little piglet too. Wish I could feed it by hand, maybe when it's bigger. My stubby little arms can't reach down far enough right now lol

 

[lljdma06]

only things to consider is the chelator used (which most companies use as standard anyway) and whether it contains toxins (ammonium nitrate is often used in terrestial fertilisers), and that is it IMO.
miracle-grow is made up of by-products of the petroleum industry, probably why it is blue, and also the reason for burns, due to the high Nitrogen content. the fertilisers we buy are salts, so we know they are not harmful to plants, and we know the levels we are adding.

all fertilisers are produced through ion exchange (eg. KCl + NaNO3 > KNO3 + NaCl) hence why they are called salts!

hope this puts your mind more at ease

Thanks, Aaron

Not really, but if you're at ease, then your moderator is happy. Something about salts bothers me too. I don't know, the dry stuff you put in doesn't look natural to me either, and I seriously doubt you would fair well eating it, but at least it isn't neon blue. No wonder Miracle-gro stinks, I was always suspect of the neon blue. That's just wrong. I'm so glad I don't put that garbage in my plants now.

Amunet, do I have to personally fly to South Carolina and go with you to shop for fish? Aaargh! Impulse shopping! Very bad! Naughty husband!

Oh well, take some good macro shots and get thee over to Plecos and other Loricariids and have the Pleco nerds tell you whether you've purchased a midget or a monster.

llj

 

[Phage]

I had a regular pleco, the 2 foot type. It was about 9inches long, sword plants did not last long with it

 

[Amunet]

Lol... that's what I'm afraid will happen. It's just gonna grow and grow and byebye plants.
SIGH!
Yes... we def need a chaperone when we go out to the LFS/LPS lol

I mean we wanted a pleco, b/c we're pretty sure the remaining rubberlip is dead and eaten.... but *shrugs* My hubby saw those pleco and said "We're getting one" lol

 

[Amunet]

Just a quick update.... That pleco... I dunno what is wrong with it, but it has like an 8 inch poo string coming out of it. At least earlier in the day it did.
Was fine when I woke up and checked the tank, then went to feed the tank hours later and poo string!.. BLEH! Hope it's ok. UGH I hope it doesn't poo like that all the time. BUT it's a lot less shy than the rubberlips were. Hubby still wants to get an albino BN.... sigh.

The little loaches seem to be doing really well. They've finally found the other loaches in the tank and are swimming with them. I think the little new ones have gotten the others excited again b/c they've been out a lot more often now.

Did not get a chance to do a water change this weekend, just forgot honestly, but will do it tomorrow. Will probably leave a patch of the green algae on the back of the tank for the pleco. Doubt I'll have to since I'm sure it'll probably be back in a day or so anyway.. sigh.

 

[lljdma06]

Just a quick update.... That pleco... I dunno what is wrong with it, but it has like an 8 inch poo string coming out of it. At least earlier in the day it did.
Was fine when I woke up and checked the tank, then went to feed the tank hours later and poo string!.. BLEH! Hope it's ok. UGH I hope it doesn't poo like that all the time. BUT it's a lot less shy than the rubberlips were. Hubby still wants to get an albino BN.... sigh.

This is the reason I like otos. My butterfly koi used to poop like that. It was something to behold. I bet he could give some yappy dogs a run for their money!

Take comfort that platies are as small as they are. They already have good-sized poop, image the poop from a pleco-sized platy?

 

[aaronnorth]

wait until it gets bigger!. I had a 10" plec

 

[Amunet]

Just a quick update.... That pleco... I dunno what is wrong with it, but it has like an 8 inch poo string coming out of it. At least earlier in the day it did.
Was fine when I woke up and checked the tank, then went to feed the tank hours later and poo string!.. BLEH! Hope it's ok. UGH I hope it doesn't poo like that all the time. BUT it's a lot less shy than the rubberlips were. Hubby still wants to get an albino BN.... sigh.

This is the reason I like otos. My butterfly koi used to poop like that. It was something to behold. I bet he could give some yappy dogs a run for their money!

Take comfort that platies are as small as they are. They already have good-sized poop, image the poop from a pleco-sized platy?

ROFL... I don't even want to imagine that! I swear, platy look all cute in the store, you get them home and all of a sudden they turn in to freakin poop machines!

I really am dreading when this pleco gets bigger... told my hubby that it's gonna probably look like someone is squeazing out brown (or green) toothpaste.. ROFL... ew.


Okedoke, so update on the fishies..... some of them are acting pretty strangely. Few of the tigers haven't been schooling with the others... probably nothing, but *shrugs*
Also not too sure about 1 of the little clowns. May have spoken too soon when I thought they were doing ok. I hope it's ok, but we'll see I guess.

In a few more days, if everything looks fine, will be transfering the 4 black ruby barbs to the 125. They are such nervous little fish in the 10gal. Doesn't help that our cat likes to pounce at them... silly cat.

The plants are ok. Anubias still has a bunch of algae on them, but I'm trying to rub off as much as I can during water changes. The tiger lotus plants are doing well, specially the one that's in the back left corner. It's slowing getting bigger which I'm excited about
Eeeeerm lets see...Think I'm going to keep the big island of floating plants lol. Need to pick out some vallis leaves that are in there, but the rest of the stuff is actually growing really well. Like the water sprite, wisteria and uh.. think that's it actually heh.
The hygro in the tank and the wisteria that's still planted is growing like freaking crazy. Looks nice though, would probably look better if the current wasn't pushing them, but oh well.

And yep.. will get some more photos in a few days, probably whenever I put the other barbs in to the tank.

 

[Amunet]

Bit of a change in plan.
Was looking in to the tank, and noticed the pleco. It looked like it had som discoloring on it, like maybe the start of columnaris or something, so took it out. Since we only have 1 quarantine tank, had to take out the barbs and put the pleco in to it. So the barbs are now in the 125 and pleco in the 10gal getting treated.
2 of the barbs pretty much found the others and colored up REALLY nicely. They are just so gorgeous w/ their red faces... and the other 2 were still hiding. Will get some photos in a bit, or tomorrow night.

 

[aaronnorth]

are you sure it isnt just changing it's colour? Pleco's do that frequently to their surrounding's. I had Blue (yes blue) gravel ad it was near enough black, but then i changed to natural pea gravel and it went extremely light in colour!

 

[Amunet]

I dunno... we took it out and put it in to a cup to take a closer look before putting it in to the q tank. And *shrugs* We just weren't sure. I figured it was better safe than sorry. Didn't know that they could change their color like that though.
I'll go take a look at it, and if it looks ok, will put it back in the 125.

 

[Amunet]

Photos time! yay!

The pleco and it's poostring... eeeeew. Least I know it's eating? BLEH lol... I was worried when we first got it b/c it had long white poo, but I'm fairly positive it was b/c it was eating those 7day feeding cube white things they put in to the tank at the store. B/c now, pleco poop is a greenish color b/c of the algae munching. Can't believe I'm talking about fish poop........
But anywho, yes, I took the pleco back out of the quarantine tank and put it back in to the 125 once I saw that it didn't have any weird marks on it. I was just being super paranoid heh

1 of the apple snails just inside the drop checker

One of the new loaches. I really like the 2nd black marking on it. I dunno.. it's just different from the solid black line that goes all the way across.

And finally for fish, a bunch of photos of the barbs. Some were taken earlier today, some taken at night. They are frackin hard to photograph though. Still skittish, but not as much as before. They are SO pretty. For the black ruby barbs, think we have 3 males 1 female. Which is ok with me.. the males are more colorful heh The female is pretty too though

I still smile whenever I see the clowns schooling with the barbs, and vice versa. It's just so cute

Plants are ok, some are looking a bit scraggly, but a lot of them are growing new leaves so *shrugs*
Photo of the floating island of plants. Have to pick out vallis leaves daily from it, but the plants are growing well it seems.

Tank shots

Left

Middle

Right

Full

And finally, a random photo of a patch of algae I left in the tank for the pleco and snails. I just thought it was interesting to see the patterns the snails make in the algae

 

[mancin]

The Black Ruby Barbs are gorgeous!

 

[jacko9901]

great tank, looks amazing.

imo a big shoal of tetra or rasbora would look good? just a thought though.