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I've posted an awful lot about my two main aquaria, the Panda Fun Palace™ and the Panda Breeding Aquarium. Well, a little puzzle has arisen.

First, some parameters. For both, thanks, thanks to my maintenance régime, the parameters are almost identical in both. These are:

pH 6.8
dH 6° (sometimes fluctuates but no more than 2°dH either way)
Ammonia : zero
Nitrite : zero
Nitrate : hovering steady at around 5ppm

Both aquaria receive 50% water changes and thorough gravel vacs twice weekly. Which I believe is a contributory factor to my Panda spawning successes - they've spawned no less than 69 times in 2 years!

Planting is mostly big thickets of Java Moss and Java Ferns on bogwood. Panda Fun Palace™ has a big Amazon Sword centrepiece, the breeding aquarium has Water Wisteria staging a campaign for world domination

Both aquaria have Hornwort floating in them. Growth rate is astonishing - can be as much as 3 inches per day.

The BIG differences between the two aquaria, however, are as follows.

[1] Panda Fun Palace™ has 10000K tube, around 1.5 WPG illumination, and a veritable army of small snails combing the plants along with Otocinclus catfishes. Snail species identity unknown.

[2] Breeding aquarium has 18000K tube, again 1.5 WPG, no snails (because I don't want anything to eat any eggs I get in there!), no Otocinclus.

The Panda Fun Palace™ is an absolute joy to look at. It would shame quite a few display aquaria, and this is no idle boast. Think Takashi Amano and you get the picture - it is utterly pristine.

The breeding aquarium again looks lovely, but for one minor problem. My Hornwort keeps acquiring BGA on it. No other plants are affected, only the Hornwort. The other plants receive regular barbel stroking attention from the Pandas that are living in it at the moment, and I suspect this goes some way toward keeping the BGA at bay, because they snaffle anything that they find while exploring the plants. The Hornwort, on the other hand, is floating, and out of reach. It only takes one food particle to get stuck in there and wham, it's turning that familar BGA shade of green.

I suspect the snails are keeping it at bay in the Panda Fun Palace™, and keeping it free of uneaten food (along with my Pencil Fish, which keep picking at it looking for things, and the Otocinclus which keep browsing on it). Trouble is, I can't use snails in an egglayer breeding aquarium if I want to produce decent numbers of Cory fry. And, I don't want to use antibiotics and kill the filter, having gone to a lot of trouble to get that aquarium cycled to the liking of the Pandas (which are pretty demanding fish).

Now, how do I eliminate the BGA? Any nice eco friendly solution (ideally involving some novelty organisms) that will keep BGA at bay but will not snack upon any Panda eggs in there?

A nice puzzle for you all



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

The 18000K tube may have something to do with it as well. I'm assuming zero nitrAtes as well since it's a breeding tank. I do think you're right about the snails, I think that some of my MTS may eat some of the cyno, but I don't think they really like it.

I've been experimenting in dosing melafix in my 20 which continually gets cyno creeping back in even after a week long black out. In theory one would think that dosing melafix, cycle combined with a blackout and raised nitrAtes (20ppm) you'd be able to beat the stuff without going with stronger meds....

Running thru the list of ways to deal with cyno from blackouts, increased watermovement, increased nitrates to the medications route none of them seem like they'd be appropirate in your situation!

^_^
[hr width='40%']"There’s an emptiness inside her. And she’d do anything to fill it in.
And though it’s red blood bleeding from her now. It's more like cold blue ice in her heart.
She feels like kicking out all the windows. And setting fire to this life."

Cali - I have a question for you about your pH and kH. I'm assuming you are adding co2 and I'm just learning about that with my tank now that I've added it.

With a pH of 6.8 and kH of 6 degrees, that would put your co2 level at over 28.5ppm. I thought the maximum acceptable range was 10-25ppm for co2?

Do you have pictures of the palace? - I'd like to see these tanks. Have you ever posted pics of them? Link me, if you have.

No CO2 injection used Cory_Di, just whatever CO2 the fish provide. And the plants are growing healthily enough without for now - in fact some of them are staging a campaign for world domination!!!

If you don't already have a link to my online MSN Photo Album, you can get one via the Photo Booth. Just find the recent thread I posted featuring the Otocinclus catfish eating a live Bloodworm, and the Panda piggies' Bloodworm breakfast. Then, once you've found the ALbum, bookmark it for future reference. Use the drop down menu to get to the rest of the album (which is somewhat disorganised and contains all manner of strange things as well as fish!). The most recent full views of the main aquarium (not the one affected by BGA) are on page 23 or something like that of the album. You won't have any trouble recognising the Panda Fun Palace™ when you see it!

I'm planning on adding pics of the breeding aquarium soon, but to shoot a photo I'll have to get down to floor level



Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002