The Black Lagoon- Se Asian 'biotope'

[OohFeeshy]

Er... about a month? There's going to be another three weeks of nothing starting on Sunday, then hopefully the summer to learn from the past and do stuff to make it more stable when I leave it again.

Otos aren't exactly South Asian And they're probably a bit fussy/fragile anyway. There aren't a great deal of Asian algae eaters that would be suitable, in theory I could go SAE sort of route and move to the 4ft, but nerites seem a better route. I was originally going to get a garra, but I don't think the tank is really a suitable environment.

Oh, I'm also thinknig of getting a brown background. Either paper or possibly cork bark- I would put it on the inside, but I'mnot taking everything out to silicon it in.

 

[Biulu]

Cherry barbs are lovely! I have 15 in my tank, and they look great, so lively and colourful. I have put black plastic on the back side of my tank, simply from plastic garbage bags. I am very happy with the result though. It is much easier than painting the back of your tank or using paper which will eventually get wet and lose the colour.

I think if you clean up and decrease your photoperiod, you will be fine. I had a similar problem and was advised to decrease to 6 hrs, just in one go (no photo period break)and it worked well. You do need to do a clean up first though, because the established algae and especially the bba doesn't leave by itself. HOwever, the new leaves were then algae free.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Blackout update- looking a tonne better already, will need a mega water change though plus possible addition of small mechnical filter to get rid of all the 'stringy' bits in the water.

Update Mk II- I've taken the blanket off, I'll clean tomorrow. Then re photo, although it still won't be brilliant.

 

[OohFeeshy]

I don't know whether it's just the light at the computer, but the photos seem really dark. I'll see later when it's darker. If they're as bad as they look, I'll take a better one.

Still not brilliantly clean, but since it's just going to grow again while I'm away there's not much point doing it proeprly when I'm going to strip it down somewhat and give it a 'deep clean' when I get back.

I'm already thinking of a miniature rescape, mainly to get rid of the mopani, reposition the redmoor, add more moss to it. Then get another lilly (so there's one each side) and replace the Cyperus with C. balansae. If I get bored I might do another 'artists impression'.

 

[ian]

i think that looks really good!

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

Nice amount of plants, yet still loads of free water for your fish to swim in... I've got visions of my tank turning into an overgrown forest over the next few months!

As for snails, how about some Sulawesi Orange/Yellow Rabbits?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Sulawesi aren't bad, but they're probably a bit bigger than what I want and I don't think a whole heap is known about caring for them. Plus they cost an arm and a leg.

Righto, suggestions on stuff time. Liquid carbon- yar? Bearing in mind the tank will only have crypts and a couple of lillies. Anything else chemical-y?

Also, any techy people have any ideas on how/if I can reduce the light intensity a bit?

 

[OohFeeshy]

I've done lookings at AE and have less idea than when I started. Current research suggests-

AE liquid carbon- £5.99 for 250ml. Dosage 5ml per 250l daily.

EasyCarbo- £5.99 for 250ml. Dosage depends on plant load, for me I'd say about 5ml per 250l daily.

Flourish Excel- £8.50 for 250ml. Dosage 5ml per 200l daily.

From that, EasyCarbo and AE own brand seem identical, does anyone have any input on how true that is? Because I'm only basing it on numbers, not actual performance.

 

[Biulu]

I also have crypts and lillies (plus some other plants) and am not dosing CO2. Most people here seem to have experience with easycarbo...

 

[OohFeeshy]

Hooray! Just over a week until the proper work can begin! I'm ridiculously looking forward to being able to go fish shopping.

RE liquid carbon, it's more for algae prevention than the plants to be honest, but I'm sure they're not going to complain either. I've got a stupid amount of light now (yeah, I know. Going from 'I haven't got enough light to grow anything' to 'I've got too much light, halp!' probably wasn't the best plan, but the luminaire was cheap...) but since I've got no desire to faff around with high teccyness and fast growing plants the algae gets a bit much.

 

[lljdma06]

Hooray! Just over a week until the proper work can begin! I'm ridiculously looking forward to being able to go fish shopping.

RE liquid carbon, it's more for algae prevention than the plants to be honest, but I'm sure they're not going to complain either. I've got a stupid amount of light now (yeah, I know. Going from 'I haven't got enough light to grow anything' to 'I've got too much light, halp!' probably wasn't the best plan, but the luminaire was cheap...) but since I've got no desire to faff around with high teccyness and fast growing plants the algae gets a bit much.

You want a non-techy solution to too much light intensity? Floating plants.

It looks very good. I like the addition of the lily. A nice touch.

 

[OohFeeshy]

Well, I will let the lilly take over the surface a fair amount, so I suppose that will help.

Slightly debating where to buy my plants from. I want enough C. balansae (or whatever the shop is calling them, but the tall ones) to make a decent background layer, and two more lilly bulbs. Tropical balansae pots are ridiculously expensive, Planted Box are more reasonable but they have the minimum of 6 and I don't think they have bulbs, at least not reasonably priced, Plants Alive is fine and what I'll probably end up going with again, but I would have liked some slightly better crypts than what they usually supply.

On a related note, I'm also going to be redoing my 4ft into a sort of Cameroon biotope for my lovely lovely cats (and the gold barbs which I'm going to claim got lost), so I'll probably start a journal for that where you can watch me complain about the price of wood and attempt to make black PVC tubing into something you'd find at the bottom of a river.

Edit- Looks like I'm going for PlantedBox liquid carbon, I wanted to do a wood order at the same time and AE didn't have anything I liked. Darn all these lush branchy woods! Plants will therefore be from Plants Alive- I did email them asking about what's the difference between potted, bunched and individual, but haven't heard owt yet. Wood will be for the 4ft, by the way.

 

[DAlmond123]

Why don't you get plants from Bob's Tropical Plants or Sweet Aquatics?

 

[OohFeeshy]

Cos of the big salty watery thing in the way?

 

[Ryefish]