The Cookie Crew

Tank log for "The Cookie Crew"... 

Will add any news and some up to date pics imminently... 

Finally planted the Echinodorus Red Diamond today, after a short spell in quarantine...  But with the other new plants recently introduced, I'm seeing a lot more of the pesky little ramshorn shape micro snails and picking them out manually...   

Went in the tank today for a little light trimming & tidy up, having done the same yesterday, and blow me - what starts out as 15 minutes of tinkering soon becomes the entire afternoon, eh...??!!??   

Will get some new pics up asap Helen...  Tank is a tad murky at the mo because of tinkering with the plants...  I couldn't, literally, get the Red Diamond to settle in the chosen spot I had for it, so ended up uprooting one of the nuisance H.Costata and then planting Old Red in that space, so the tank will look a fair bit (read: a little bit, lol) different once I get it nice and clear & photo worthy again... 

The H.Costata came out reasonably well and without too much disruption (unlike the Elodea I uprooted recently...!!!), so that has encouraged me with the idea of removing them all, over time, and replacing them with better choices... 

Went in the tank today for a little light trimming & tidy up, having done the same yesterday, and blow me - what starts out as 15 minutes of tinkering soon becomes the entire afternoon, eh...??!!??   

Did you have a swim while you were in there too? 

The most recent pic I can find, although this is a few days old and prior to a few changes... 

Very envious of how great it looks. 

After noticing some kind of filamentous algae growing on a few of the taller Sword leaves and the upper H.Costata leaves, some serious trimming has been underway, so the tank is definitely looking less lush and jungle like at the moment...  Also inclined to leave the skimmer filter on all the time at the mo too, to see if I can't combat the algae a little...  Finally, just as @Matt has suggested, I shall be reducing the lighting period a little too... 

In the meantime, the Seachem Pristine is working well and keeping the tank nice and clear & bright looking, and the Seachem Phosguard is also doing its thing well, having approximately halved the phosphate levels in the tank...  Only problem here is that my tap water level is high, so I may have to consider setting up a better solution by putting a layer of Phosguard in the main filter...

A possibly controversial suggestion: you might find that increasing the number of red phantoms reduces the bickering! 

Two good recommendations to kick off with...  My concern with the Galaxy Rasboras would be them being so small, but then having said that, maybe that could mean a shoal of 8 to 10 fish and not much additional bio-load...  Definitely not ruled out and definitely a beautiful little fish...  Bottom line; added to the new wish list...!!! 

Adding more RPTs I would say is not at all controversial Helen and I suspect that would probably work well in terms of reduced bickering...  The problem I have there is that I really don't especially like them now, and adding more kinda goes against the grain a little...  I so wish I had got Harlequins instead now, but no use to think like that too much...  Maybe Harlequins are not a bad idea anyway, then simply replace each RPT with another Harlequin as their numbers come up, over time...? 

The two main contenders on my wish list (prior to Dave's suggestion above) are Cherry Barbs and Neon Dwarf Rainbowfish...  I have no experience of either species so far, but they both look nice to me and sound like potential candidates...  Would love a pair of Gourami of some sort, possibly Honeys, but this is another species that I need to research more... 

Still wide open to suggestions though... 

They are lovely fish, the Harlequins...  and not ruled out really...   

Just been reading about the Brilliant Rasbora (Rasbora einthovenii) which could be an option, although they are a bit larger than ideal... 

To give you something a bit different to think about... Bolivian ram - great characters. Will show some really different behaviours to your other fish. One how about something for the surface. I've seen hockeystick pencilfish in a few of my local MA stores recently and have been giving them some serious thought...