Preparations For A Planted Tank

End of Week #3

Snail population has not exploded, so my scraping off of egg sacks when I spy them seems to be working ok.

Finally one of the melted Crypts, a Cryptocoryne wendtii 'Green' [link], has come back from the dead and 3 small leaves are just above the level of the gravel.  This one is in the extreme left-front position in my layout.  The other Crypts are still dead ducks at the moment.  I'm going to give them another week to make some sort of appearance before deciding whether to plant something else in those spots.  Shame really, I do hope they bounce back.

I trimmed down the Nymphoides sp. 'Taiwan' [link] by about half on Wednesday, as the upper leaves seemed to be failing and slowly showing signs of melt.  My hope was to promote new growth from the bottom to help create a larger bush as the specimen is a bit slim.  This seems to have done the trick and there are a good half a dozen new growths coming up from the base now. 

The Echinodorus ‘Red Special’ [link] was also relieved of 2 dying leaves on Wednesday, and I have to say this bugger is a very quick grower.  It has already shot up two more leaves, with more on the way.  This will be a really nice plant when it gets filled out properly.  Doing really well. 

Everything else is looking just fine at the moment, including the water condition.

Date	KH	pH	Phosphate	Ammonia	NitrIte	NitrAte
Tue 05 Mar	5	7.5	5	0	0	7.5
Thu 07 Mar	5	7.5	4	0	0	7.5
Sun 10 Mar	5	7.5	4	0	0	7.5

Tonight I had to clean the glass of some Green Spot Algae, a tougher growth to get rid of than expected. Also vacuumed the surface of the substrate to suck up quite a bit of Brown Hair Algae.  Overall the algae problems are nowhere near as severe as I was expecting, so bonus for me.

Happy plant-keeper here. 

This weeks pics attached.

Wow - those snails are messy!

I don't know if you've seen this article about algae? Definitely worth bookmarking.

Algae control.

As of Sunday (17th) I stopped adding JBL Ferropol daily dose and changed lighting regime to include a siesta period:-

On: 12pm to 4pm
Siesta: 4pm to 6pm
On: 6pm to 12am
Off: 12am to 12pm

The fast growing Brown hair algae is very much diminished in growth as of today.  Looks like the regime change is improving things as planned.

I ran a test of the cycling capabilities too, and am massively impressed with the results.

Cycle Test (dose: 5mL Ammonium Hydroxide @ 9.5%)

Date	KH	pH	Phosphate	Ammonia	NitrIte	NitrAte
Sun 17 Mar (post dose)	-	-	-	2	0	-
Mon 18 Mar	-	-	-	1.5	0	7.5
Tue 19 Mar	4	7.5	4	0.5	2	30
Wed 20 Mar	-	-	-	0	0	30 (was expecting higher)

Without me doing anything special, my bacterial colonies have shifted a huge amount of waste in 3 days, far more than my entire current stock could produce in a whole week.

Ok, so the water parameters are fine, but visually it looks sick.  Completed a 50% water change tonight... 9 buckets... takes a while... but it has improved a great deal.

If the algae has continued to be controlled, and the water quality is stable, I'll be doing another 50% water change on Saturday and will be moving my community over from the 64ltr tank.

  I'm going to put a sign on the tank "Free Buffet, All You Can Eat, Bring A Fishy Friend".

The water is still getting more murky, so I've started a blackout until Saturday.  See if that helps me along a bit more.

Looks good and I'm glad the black-out worked.

What's that tall, lightish-green plant in the first photo at the back, middle-right, behind the third plant-pot from the left, please? I like it and couldn't work it out from your planting diagram.

Thanks, Dave. I wonder if I can keep that alive for any length of time? 

My Vallis torta has just shed loads of leaves and a few have floated to the surface showing they've lost their roots.  *sigh* Ho-hum.... it looks like another Crypt will have to go in that spot. But, hey, I like crypts so it's OK.

End of Week #6

@ColinB, I've had to trim runner for the Echinodorus quadricostatus (link) 3 times since I planted it on Feb 26th.  It seems to be a very adept grower.

Most of the algae seems to be under control now, especially the brown hair algae which is not growing at all now.  I haven't seen any Green Spot algae on the glass, and no further instances of green algae on the sand has appeared either.  My only remaining issue is the green algae in the water column which is making everything look dirty (of course).

The week has gone well, and as we have hit the Eater weekend, my plans changed just a little. On Friday I transferred all my stock of 15 fish and 9 shrimp from my 64 litre tank.  So far everything seems to have gone well, with WCMM's shoaling quite happily together, the Glowlight Tetra's being as chilled out and together as usual, and the Glowlight Danio males chasing each other around the tank with even more gusto than before.

The large number of hiding spots seem to favor the Shrimp, as I have only seen 4 or 5 at a time, with the rest keeping away from the open areas of the tank.  I was worried that they would start chomping on plants right away, but everything seems to be going just fine at the moment.

Date	KH	pH	Phosphate	Ammonia	NitrIte	NitrAte
Mon 25 Mar	-	-	-	0	0.25	30
Tue 26 Mar	3	7.5	5	0	0	7.5
Tue 26 Mar (post dose)	-	-	-	2	0	< 5
Wed 27 Mar	-	-	-	0	0.25	30
Thu 28 Mar	2	7.5	7.5	0	0	30
Fri 29 Mar	-	-	-	-	-	7.5
Sat 30 Mar	-	-	-	-	-	-
Sun 31 Mar	4	7.5	7.5	0	0	10

NitrAte has been all over the place as I finished an API batch and started a new one on Tuesday.  The readings look very odd and I don't trust them at all.  It is Saturday before I can buy a JBL kit to run a comparison.  Just my luck that the new API kit and the JBL read the same.  Very weird, but I have to trust the readings.

Phosphate is rising, though there is already an abundance in the tap water.  Probably means the pad in the filter is full, which is replaced on Sunday.

With the stock emptied from the 64 litre, I begin to use this as an isolation tank.  On Saturday I got a single female Glowlight Danio to increase the shoal to 6, and give another girl to the squabbling boys.  In addition, I have 6 Cherry Barbs (2m, 4f)... and I love 'em already.  3 weeks in isolation and then we swap out for the next lot.

Oh, forgot to mention.  I move the left hand Mango root piece from the front to the back of the tank.  This gives good visibility on the gravel patch on the left.  Not sure if this is going to stay at the back, but we'll see what happens.

Quote from: TigzFish on April 01, 2013, 12:49:11 AM

@ColinB, I've had to trim runner for the Echinodorus quadricostatus (link) 3 times since I planted it on Feb 26th.  It seems to be a very adept grower.

Thanks Dave.... I might try an Echinodorus quad, but you do seem to have more light in your tank than me. Though it's impossible to tell from piccies. I have 1 x 11Watt bulb on a flexi-stem over the glass evaporation covers. It looks like you have 2 x long tubes in there and that'll make a big difference I would think.

Ahh right.  I have 2x30watt T8's in here.

Quote from: TigzFish on April 01, 2013, 12:49:11 AM

In addition, I have 6 Cherry Barbs (2m, 3f)... and I love 'em already. 

p.s. 2+3=5 

   There's my brain to finger communication breaking down again. That beer was more effective than I thought.  Fixed. 

**edit**
I lost a Glowlight Tetra female this morning, she was floating upside down at the surface.  No sign of any infections, belly has been partially eaten. The other 4 are perfectly ok, no sign of any problems. :-(

Ahh right.  I have 2x30watt T8's in here.

**edit**
I lost a Glowlight Tetra female this morning, she was floating upside down at the surface.  No sign of any infections, belly has been partially eaten. The other 4 are perfectly ok, no sign of any problems. :-(

Sorry about your Tetra.

My 11Watt light is a Compact Flourescent (link) at 6500K into a 55Litre 40cm deep tank, so there's a lot less light than your 60W into 180litres. The only clump of Vallis torta that has not died yet is at the side of the tank near the window, so I suspect it's all to do with light levels. In that size tank (40cm cube) then Crypts and Java Fern look fine. I think I'll get some more bog-wood and attach Ferns and place it vertically in the tank to give me height.

End Of Week #7

My planned heavy lifting of water has been done this week, and the water today looks absolutely amazing.  I'll be keeping the lower 6 hour lights on regime, but will now not be changing the water as I want to observe the growth of the algae.  From this experiment I should be able to determine whether I keep a balance with smaller water changes (oh yes please). Ideally I'd like the max to be a 40L change each week (about 23%), but I reckon it will be a while before I get to that stage, so we'll see. By next weekend I will make a decision on whether to get the UV kit or persevere with larger water changes.

Bonus note is that I did a filter clean last Sunday and replaced the phosphate pad. This is now helping to get the level down. The pad that came with the filter was in there for 45 days, and looking at the readings became saturated at around the 30 day mark.  That fits in with the manufacturers own estimates of 4-6 weeks.

Date

|

GH

|

KH

|

pH

|

Phosphate

|

Ammonia

|

NitrIte

|

NitrAte

|

Water Change

|

Mon 1st Apr

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

Tue 2nd Apr

|

5

|

4

|

7.5

|

3

|

0

|

0

|

10

|

50%

|

Wed 3rd Apr

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

Thu 4th Apr

|

6

|

5

|

7.5

|

2

|

0

|

0

|

7.5

|

50%

|

Fri 5th Apr

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

Sat 6th Apr

|

7

|

5

|

7.5

|

2

|

0

|

0

|

5

|

50%

|

Sun 7th Apr

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

-

|

This weeks pics attached.