Paul's 2x1x1 Ft First Proper Attempt At A Planted Tank

[Neo8223]

Aah point taken for the oxygen. I only use the tablets as a backup eg. if there is a power cut, but in this case, due to the age of the tank, i thought it might not have settled in enough. The snails are looking pretty nuked, although the tank my riccia is in was A) over run with them, and B) now un-inhabitable for any aquatic species considering the amount of snail stuff i put in that tank.... (which is now empty)

About the spray bar, should he holes be pointing down or across the tank? My spraybar is fully submerged in water and pointing down. will this affect the amount of oxygen in the tank?

Finally, tomorrow, i hope to see pearling so i will take some pictures if this happens.

 

[Neo8223]

Not a very good day at all!

One brisslenose passed away and was not belly up, but was obviously dead, i had to euthanize an endler and finally, done a hick up when doing a partial water change and managed to get a huge chunk of the black gravel and tetra complete substrate mixed up! Not very good.

The other fish seem happy and all water parameters are normal! I've cycld a tank using fish all the time and except for the first time when i didn't know about cycling, i have NEVER had a fish dieing on me! Rotten luck eh

On a good note, i managed to get the riccia pearling as promised, the tank water is almost perfectly clear and the filter seems to be almost cycled. I did promise pictures, but after the fish died, i was not exactly in the mood to take any photos.

I also bought greenlines 24" tank selection as it worked out to have a huge discount and the plants i was going to get all had similar properties. I also bought a single water wisteria from them as well. I am currently looking for some more java moss too but have almost ran out of cash. So a donation would be most welcomed and greatful. Obviously if someone donates to me, i will be willing to donate back once i get paid

 

[rsands]

sorry to hear your loss!

my spray bar is pointing straight which creates a slight ripple. if you have it pointint straight down then it wont ripple the surface and hence will lead to very little gas exchange for oxygen to enter.

I would take a picture of mine but the surface is that minimal i doubt a camera would show it that well. But you will know to look at it really.

Do you have carbon in your filter? my water is still cloudy and its not a bacteria bloom as i check parameters twice a day to make sure at present. dont know what has happened to it. I think it might be the trace mix.

If only a few days earlier for java moss, i took it out of the water i had it sitting in...i didn't have room for it in the end so i left it floating around in a huge bucket. its dried out a bit now though...still green as ever must admit.

 

[Neo8223]

Point taken, i re-arrange the spray bar to make more surface distortion. I also have got in filter carbon atm as it is advisable when setting up a new aquarium to do this anyhow! I think i might invest in some java moss from online. £3.50 gives me a huge amount of the stuff so its worth it. I'm just not looking forward to the ugliness of the string for a few weeks, but uts something i will have to put up with.

Its been a very good day for my tank and plants. No deaths and all the fish are very happy! The riccia is pearling like crazy so it should show some pretty good signs of growth soon. My plants should be coming thursday and i just got some flubanol 15 to use once i've got in all of my plants to ensure that i havnt got any nasties in the package with it all.

It was really nice to see my brisslenoses getting on so fine today, they were really eating hard at the bogwood and going into all the crevases. The tannis thats come from it is extraordinary! Especially that i really soaked it a lot in boiling water for 3 days!

Today i fed my brisslenoses some cucumber which they are devouring as we speak. Tomorrow, they will have a special treat.... freshly hatched brine shrimp! (well they should hatch tomorrow) I am adoment to make sure my 3 remaining endlers survive, two of which were born last week and fingers crossed, they are male and female!

 

[Neo8223]

OK, i needed to drill more holes in the spray bar as the pressure was too high. Now i think i went a bit overkill and the pressure is quite low, although there is still a gentle circulation for the tank. I'm starting to get a bit of algae in the tank and my hornwart is not doing too well as its actually starting to dissintegrate! although the new growth is perfectly fine and consistant.

I've now ordered loads of java moss off e-bay and it is coming thursday along with a load of other plants from greenline, so expect a monsterous update then!

Heres some pics of the pearling.

Slate

Stone

 

[Neo8223]

Hi, no update for a bit of time as i have not had any time to put on my blog.

So down to my tank. Its looking LOVELY! I'm not too sure if its looking as good as it possibly could. Its a lot harder than i thought it would be. I love how the layers form and the sheer density of the foilage.

The main problem i have with the tank is the lack of CO2. No matter how much i add of home made CO2 into the mix, the CO2 drop checker is now always going close to Blue. In a months time, i am going to convert to hi-tech CO2. This will ensure theres always enough CO2 to help the plants.

Also as i have low CO2 levels, i am also getting algae. I'm getting a UV sterilizer on wednesday so it will get rid of a lot of Algae with this. However, only once i have conquered the source of the problem, will my plants really grow!

Enough of the talk, heres the pics.


Heres algae. The riccia has really grown tho!

Another Algae pic.

Any reccommendations how to get rid of this stuff.

 

[Neo8223]

Umm... advice still needed.....

 

[R1ch13]

Wow that thing look BEAUTIFUL!

I really like!

I want yo get my 2 foot planted back up and running

Keep up the good work everything looks like its going well

Richie

 

[Neo8223]

Hi, its been ages since i last done an update.

Right, First off, the algae problem is not sorted. I have purchased a UV filter off someone and had to buy/liberate some items to make the connections work. I'm going to fit that today so the algae war should be over at that point.

I'm still loosing the algae wars although the other day, with the addition of 7 plecs (2 are being babysat for someone at my work) the algae seems to have had its growth stumped.

I also took some fish off someone in the forums. These include:
1 Otto
2 Khuli loaches
3 Cherry barbs
2 Algae shrimp.

I realise this will take my tank close to the overstocking limit, however, there was no change in water parameters and i checked daily for NH3 and NO2 readings to find no change. (i added my dads filter media JIC) Also with the addition f my overpowerful filter, i dont see there being a probmem with overstocking and none of the fish are fighting for territory due to the actual landscape of the tank providing many hiding spaces.

The plants have being growing MAD but the floating plants have to go as they are blocking out the light to smaller speciesof plants, this is why i am going to trim a load of my plants down today. I'll take a photo of the stuff i'm trimming to see if anyone wants it. £3.00 posted the lot!!!

I am going to attempt to thin out the plants as there are too many in my tank, however i want to make sure that this does not premote algae growth, so i must be careful about this decision.

Heres the current view of the tank. NB - My light unit broke off the makeshift holder, and it slammed into the condensation guard which then semi broke the seal for the upper ledge of the tank. This is why i put the maget in the front to keep up the lights. I'm going to fix that today with the use of pop rivets.

 

[Neo8223]

Quick summary of the day. Removed Algae from plants, trimmed plants and put the rest in my dads barrand tank (which only has his fake plants or the plants i gave him) and then spent 5 YES 5 Hours connecting the UV filter up and hiding the wires. The problem was i had no convertors between 12mm pipe and 18mm pipe so i had to improvise. I used the end of one of those kiddy light sabours to widen the diameter of the tubes gradually so that they would grip around the connectors. Then i zip stripped them to make sure they would not move.

Tomorrow i need to: Dose ferts and do a 30% water change ready for tuesday in which i am getting 9 more pure strain endlers.

 

[john starkey]

Quick summary of the day. Removed Algae from plants, trimmed plants and put the rest in my dads barrand tank (which only has his fake plants or the plants i gave him) and then spent 5 YES 5 Hours connecting the UV filter up and hiding the wires. The problem was i had no convertors between 12mm pipe and 18mm pipe so i had to improvise. I used the end of one of those kiddy light sabours to widen the diameter of the tubes gradually so that they would grip around the connectors. Then i zip stripped them to make sure they would not move.

Tomorrow i need to: Dose ferts and do a 30% water change ready for tuesday in which i am getting 9 more pure strain endlers.

Hi paul, uv filters on planted tanks do not always make any differance, i have not used one but i have friends who have tried them and they seemed to make things worse both of them removed the uv filter in the end, regards john ps they are both very good planted tank geeks.

 

[Neo8223]

Damn, guess thats not check mate in 3. Hopefully my 8 brisslenoses will sort it out. I've now started completely chopping off the effected leaves and that seems to be working better than just pulling the algae off them.

Its strange though what you say, i have noticebly seen a difference in the amount of green algae in the tank since adding the UV and even though the UV's have not been effective, i still will give it a shot. Especially that it took me 5-6 hours to attach the damn thing!

 

[TimNorwich]

A commendable effort, well done... Really like it.