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Sorry to hear about the fish and plants.

I guess vacations and planted tanks don't mix. Kinda like having a dog. Clean it up, plant densely, run the co2 high, throw in the macros and let's see.

Look on the bright side, more pics for my horrific tank thread . Speaking of horrific I wonder how Chaos is making out with his restart

My Scapes

NowherMan6,

Sorry to hear about your mess with plants and fish.

I still haven't had the time to read through all the entries of your log since I left, you sure added quite a few pages (for someone who declared he will add only very little a while ago ).

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

for someone who declared he will add only very little a while ago

Yeah well, that was when i thought things were running smoothly, and an update every two weeks was all that was needed. I didn't anticipate the hostile takeover by hair/ thread algae.

Sorry to hear you came home to an algae problem as well... but at least you got to enjoy a week in the tropics to prepare for it.

Clean it up, plant densely, run the co2 high, throw in the macros and let's see.

I guess that really is all I can do at this point Wargh. I'm going to take ride to the LFS and pick up some weeds and replace the bacopa. I think I trimmed the tops off the bacopa too many times without replanting, so those stems are going pretty slow which explains why they've attracted the algae growth, as opposed to the wisteria. I don't like their look anyway. I'll see what the LFS has to offer in the weed department.

Re: chaos - yeah, we haven't seen an update to his tank in a while. Wonder how many of his new glass shrimp have survived

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Back in the saddle!

I guess vacations and planted tanks don't mix.

I'd have to respectfully disagree with this statement, tetra. Vacations and high-tech (high light, CO2 injected) planted tanks definitely don't mix IMO. But IME vacations and low-tech (low light <2wpg, non-CO2) planted tanks get along just fine. As you probably know, I left my 3 planted tanks (all low tech then) for almost 4 weeks without feeding and I only had algae problem in one tank, and it was mostly green spots and diatoms on the glass. Plants grew ok in all tanks, just bottom leaf loss in some plants due to shading. Incidentally, the one tank that had the most problem was the one that had the least amount of fish and highest light (yup, lack of nutrients).

-P

I'd have to respectfully disagree with this statement,

Yeah, that's true. When I made that statement it was a little poke at nowher and LF who both went away and have hi-tech tanks.



My Scapes

The exodus to the Promised Tank continues. My BN kicked today, along with a gourami. I'm starting to get paranoid, I'm making plans to redo parts of the tank. I'm getting rid of that new DW piece, I don't trust it. And today I pulled up the big long piece of DW and holy crap out poured, well, crap, pleco crap and other organic debris. Did a big gravel vac, tossed the algae ridden bacopa and replaced it with more wisteria (). Also trimmed the rotala and rinsed the clippings under water to get as much algae off as possible. Tank looks much cleaner already, but there's going to be a ways to go. Found staghorn in a few places, so macros are off, going to up those as discussed earlier. Pics to come at the end of the week, hopefully.

This high tech tank is no fun after vacations

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Back in the saddle!

Hey Nowhere - sorry to hear about your entire ordeal, especially with fish loss on top of it all (fish death always bums me out the most - much more than algae). Can't offer anything constructive, except just to wish you luck in getting everything back on track soon! Hope the voodoo crap that visited your tank has now left.

Cheers!

-P

NowherMan6,

You definately have some serious infection going on in the tank. Are you treating the tank with any medication? Do you remember what bensaf pointed out - the internal parasite issue that befalls Pearls, so maybe the Sparkling brought the same into the tank?

No fun at all

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Do you remember what bensaf pointed out - the internal parasite issue that befalls Pearls, so maybe the Sparkling brought the same into the tank?

Interesting since bringing in my little gourami I got those dots on my cards - interesting

My Scapes

Part of me thinks it's something the gourami brought in, but not necessarily an internal parasite. I've dealt with internal parasites before - it's usually a slow drawn out process, the fish becomes emaciated and can't eat. This was sudden, with no physical signs except death (well, on the BN and one of the harleys it was some sort of white fungus/ ??? covering) but the loach and the sparkling gourami showed no other physical signs, which makes me think it's not really an internal parasite.

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Sounds logical Nowher. I'll tell you if my cardinals still falling I'm filling up my tank with a nice big school of white clouds.

My Scapes

it's usually a slow drawn out process

Well, maybe not. I also think to remember that bensaf mentioned that there are potentially no signs at all and all of a sudden the fish is dead.

You just may remember when I got the Pearls and one dropped dead after just one day in the QT, showing no signs what-so-ever. That's when bensaf brought up the before mentioned points.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

You just may remember when I got the Pearls and one dropped dead after just one day in the QT, showing no signs what-so-ever. That's when bensaf brought up the before mentioned points.

That's actually a very good point. Maybe I'll shoot him a PM and see if he has any more detailed info. If I come to the conclusion that it's them that introduced something to my tank, that begs the question, how do I go about dealing with them if they're all infected?

I'll tell you if my cardinals still falling I'm filling up my tank with a nice big school of white clouds

No no no! No white clouds! What ya do is, you give your old pal LF a call and you take some of his magical breeding espei off his hands. You have carnivorous pencil fish to pick off the fry so you won't be over-crowded with fry like he was, and he gets to lighted his bio-load. Everybody wins!

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No no no! No white clouds!

Don't worry I'll get some golden ones, long-finned to mix it up a bit.

Actually that probably ain't a bad idea with the espei, but let's see how my school, shoal, herd, pack or whatever reacts. Maybe they bit each other and it wasn't the gourami. Moral of the story for all of us. Fish with "lungs" are bad luck

My Scapes

Moral of the story for all of us. Fish with "lungs" are bad luck

Yes indeed... and rule 1(A) to that Moral should read, If you must have a fish with lungs, ALWAYS use a quarentine tank.

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tetratech,

I currently would be able to supply you with 30 juvenile Espei, but it would have to be soon as I will start to peruse the LFSs for a trade-in.

Yeah, a QT comes in handy sometimes. I am very glad that I can use my 20G for this purpose.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I currently would be able to supply you with 30 juvenile Espei

A very tempting offer, but right now with 20 cardinals it would surely be a free for all if I added those espei, so do what you need to do, but in the future we should definitely try to trade stuff (livestock, plants, etc.) could be a good NY/NJ thing with nowher and others in the area.

My Scapes

I wouldn't be too quick to blame the gouramies. From the sounds of the syptoms it's more like an infection or something irritating the skin or possibly an external parasite.

With internal parasites it's usually shown in behaviour rather then physical/marks syptoms. The sudden death thing is more attributable to fish with parasites being weakened anyway and the stress of introducing to new tank for example, being too much and they keel over ( a bit like LF's pearl and tetra's Honey).

In your case, where the fish were there for some time and settled, if the gouramies had been infected and it spread I'd expect a more long drawn out death.

Did any of the dead fish have swollen stomachs ?

A prophylactic dose of Metrodizanole will remove any possible internal parasites. It's a very mild med and won't cause any issues with healthy fish or plants.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

NowherMan6,

That is the medicine that I bought for my Pearls when the first one died. You may remember that I couldn't get my hand on it locally as all meds here contained this substance with something else (not pure) and that was too hot for me to handle. I ordered it from the "That Pet Place" website ($50). It arrived almost a week after the Pearl died and because all other fish did fine in that week I never used it. I may still use it in the future as Bensaf suggests it as a preventive treatment on Gouramies.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Not that I'm losing alot of fish, but I did find a dead cardinal today. (The first card lose since I started my UV) I'm still amazed at how my low tech tanks seem to do better. For example my 12 gallon sand bottom tank houses:

8 Gold Tetras
4 Black Neons
3 Otos
2 Kuli Loaches

I think you could say it's well stock and I haven't lost a fish yet (bite my tank) . I think it's been running at least six months, but I don't know because all the dates are screwed up in my thread.

I guess it's not a fair comparison because of the species. In my 72 I haven't lost any pencil fish, any bolivians, I lost one rummy in the first few weeks of setup.

My son's newt tank, no heater, had lot's of BGA and bearily any fish died. I'm also not in the camp that BGA is toxic to fish, because the BN in there was living off the stuff until I added alot of wisteria to get rid of it.



My Scapes

I ordered it from the "That Pet Place" website ($50).

$50 for Metronidazole?!?!? I remember buying it about a year ago and it cost a tenth of that Wonder why the price went up... I've used metro many times myself, as recently as a few weeks ago when one of my sparkling gourami developed a large bulge around her stomache.

The only swollen stomache fish was this sparkling gourami a few weeks ago, I posted a separate thread about it. But that was a big ulcer type thing, it wasn't a symmetrical bulging stomache.

Sorry to hear about your cardinal tetra. Was it one of those with the white spot on the tail?

No more fish loss thus far. My stock is now down to the following:

12 Harlies
5 sparkling gourami
3 yo-yos

But one of the sparkling gourami, i noticed, has one of his eyes bulging out of his head. I assume this is pop-eye?

Ya know, now that I'm looking through different lists of symptoms, it may be possible that they have fish TB. Is there any way to test for this? I know TB is bacterial, but is there a way to diagnose it?

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Back in the saddle!

NowherMan6,

I know nothing about TB, sorry about that.

But Here is a link to my Metronidazole.

Is that what you got for much less money?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

That's the one. Got it from Drsfostersmith a while ago. Fostersmith actually has a bottle of pure mtro for sale, it's not seachem brand but it is just metro, 20 bucks I think. That still seems high. I can't imagine why it costs so much now...

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Bigals has the Hikari Metro+ 3.5 ounces for $4.99

Nowher,
Well I still have two with the dots, so unless another one developed them it was a different one.

Anyone have any success with the Jungle Anti-bacterial food or is it alot of bs

My Scapes

Anyone have any success with the Jungle Anti-bacterial food or is it alot of bs

I have a nearly full bottle of the stuff if you want it, though it's probably not worth the shipping cost... conceivably i could put it in a white envelope but, again, probably not worth the effort

I've used it but I don't know if it works, mainly because I don't know if my fish had a bacterial infection. My fish went after it at first, then wouldn't touch it. Plus the thing with sick fish is, they tend to not compete for food so well, so it's really going to the wrong fish.

That's why I like non-food meds, you just dump some in and the fish take it in no matter what.

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That's why I like non-food meds, you just dump some in and the fish take it in no matter what.

Point taken

My Scapes

well if you put the fish in a OT then it might have some worth if the fish wants to eat or not....

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

NowherMan6,

No posts regarding this tank in over a week. I hope the fish loss has stopped and all is going ok.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hey LF,

Yeah, I've been laying low the past few days, just doing some introspection, concentrating on the tank. The tank has gone under some pretty big changes.

But first things first: the fish loss stopped after losing two more gourami. That leaves 12 harlies, 3 gourami and 3 loaches. I have not been able to isolate the cause of the illness, or the algae outbreak for that matter.

I removed that new branch and the rocks around it, and since that time the deaths have stopped. I found it interesting that when I lifted one of those rocks, a sheet on the side of it just melted off. There seemed to be a ton of organic matter attached to it and around it. I don't know where it came from but I sucked it all up. Did a lot of other tank cleaning as well. Fish deaths stopped after that. I know it's specious reasoning to say that the two are linked, so it was probably coincidence. More likely is that the water quality improved drastically after removing the organic gunk. In any case I noticed that the yo-yos stripes became more distinct and they were more active after removing those things and the gunk, which to me indicates health.

That left the algae problem. The outbreak was/ is this long green thread or hair algae on the glass and one or two crypt leaves and this brown algae within the plant leaves that looks almost like diatoms, but threadlike as well.

A few days ago I decided to approach the problem by really looking at the plants. The wisteria told the story this time. The new/ infected leaves were dark green and generally not lush looking. Searching around I found some info indicating overly dark color in leaves was a sign of nutrient deficiencies, and in some cases N. I noticed the dark color in the tenellus leaves as well - usually both plants have bright green leaves when healthy. I know my CO2 was pushing pretty well, so to me that left N, since it seems to effect plant health more than anything else besides CO2 and light. I upped KNO3 to more than 1/4 tsp every other day, a little bit under 1/2 tsp. I also cut back very slightly on Flourish, since I was providing one full capful for my 46g tank, and that turned out to be a little more than necessary. For the past week WC schedule has been regular, once a week, but before that I was doing 2 per week. In addition I upped P dosing, as I believe I was underdosing it. K dosing remained the same.

I have to say, I'm pretty happy with the results over the past few days. Within 2 days new wisteria leaves were coming in bright green and full, not droopy. The algae was still present, but not growing and taking over as much as before, especially the brown stuff. It's still there, but it just needs to be vacuumed out. This will happen over the course of a few water changes. The very very long green thread/ hair stuff still worries me, but I removed as much as I could from the glass last night. We'll see how quickly it comes back this time around.

I still have work to do on the scaping side of things. It needs character again. Right now the tenellus is overgrown and wild. Wisteria is creeping into the tenellus. That big stem plant I have in the back left is starting to take off. Even though I personally like the jungle effect of a slightly overgrown tank, it needs some order. I'm planning out ideas of other plants to add, mainly more crypts and some small anubias nana probably. For some reason in my mind I think of them as "hard" plants - not in difficulty, just in terms of scape placement, because they're fairly static and don't change shape etc all too much. I think I'm lacking those, because the tenellus and wisteria just grow wild once settled, and there need to be some more anchors around the new DW pieces (I replaced all the old DW with self-sinking malaysian DW. Nice color too )

So that's basically where I stand right now. I'm going to lay low again for some more time, need to concentrate on the tanks, I think I was concentrating too much on posting about the tanks before rather than really paying close attention to them. Guess I'm not at the point where I can do both at once like you and tetra

And that's right, I said tanks, plural. I have my little 2.5g desktop tank set up. It features a large piece of DW, and I've got some slow growers in there. Mini-moss, mini-pelia (which looks like it will turn out beautiful ), going to add some petite nana and crypt parva. Probably some stems of HM once I upgrade the light. Have a bunch of floting pennywort to help the tank settle in.

and p.s. I've been around here keeping up on everyone's logs etc. I like the algae growth on your DW. It does the work of moss without you having to buy any of it. Doubt it will spread to the plants, as long as they're growing anyway.

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Back in the saddle!

I am glad to hear that things are getting better with your big tank (as I have to call it now, given that you now have a small one as well).

I am not glad to hear that you are planning to cut back on your chatter here at FP though .


Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I am not glad to hear that you are planning to cut back on your chatter here at FP though

Dude, I'm not joining the foreign legion or anything like that. I just want to follow through on getting the tank back in order and make sure I know what the heck I'm talking about before getting distracted by further chatter again I'll be in and out. With pics, since I haven't posted any in a few weeks (so much for being the photographer)

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And that's right, I said tanks, plural. I have my little 2.5g desktop tank set up. It features a large piece of DW, and I've got some slow growers in there

I guess we are both holdouts . Sounds nice, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I hope the extra no3 does the trick for your 46g. We need some fresh pics, I'm sure people are getting tired of mine.



My Scapes

OK, did a bunch of cleanup and removed half a shoebox full of tenellus and clipped the bottoms off the HM because it had become so think they weren't really getting enough light. Replanted, rearranged, new wood etc etc. Right now it looks a little empty, but I think once it fills in it'll be nicer than what it was.

First here's a pic of the worst algae in my tank, the looong green thread stuff:



Lovely, eh?

Now a comparison shot - first what it was, now what it is:





There are a few areas of the tank that are still giving me trouble though... Particularly the empty middle section. I was thinking perhaps another kind of tall plant, or some anubias... or both And I think I'm going to break that little hook piece off that tall piece of DW, unless anyon ehas any othe rideas of how it could work I also have a vision of a little HC carpet in front of the HM

Anyway, that's my update for now. Hopefully it's a nice little break from the usual pictures of LF and tetras gorgeous tanks

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Hopefully it's a nice little break from the usual pictures of LF and tetras gorgeous tanks

You know, I wouldn't call this tank shabby either. I like the way it looks now, nice and green. Isn't Pearl Grass one of the easiest plants to replant and to scape? I think so.

I also note that you getting into Wisteria Heaven here . You are for sure looking at way too many pictures from tetratech .

And I think I'm going to break that little hook piece off that tall piece of DW

Why? Do you think it looks ugly? I like the fact that it is not just a plain old stick. If you plan to keep it in the open then maybe adding some moss onto it could be nice.

And HC for the front might work well too, although I have to say that I like the "beachfront" (tetratech term), so keeping it open may work as well.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Wow, that's some healthy looking algae. If you could grow it on a rock it would look kinda nice. . Is the that algae growing mostly on the glass and other objects because the plants look good from what I could see.

That first pic you looked like you were pretty much there with maybe alittle fine-tuning.

The second pic as you mentioned the dead middle has broken the triangle. Do you not want a triangle? Oh I just noticed it's all wisteria on the right. Did that plant in the first pic (bacopa?) get consumed by algae?

From what I see, get the right as tall as possible. That new piece of dw looks like it should be pointed more toward the front of the tank and have the plants pass thru it half the way up as they go down the triangle. That's too bad about the tenellus that looked really nice.




My Scapes

I know it certainly is different, but you must udnerstand, much of the tank had bits of dead and living algae throughout, and it was necessary to uproot a lot and remove a lot of plants. That's what happened with the tenellus. You can't really see it in the first pic, but many of the leaves had BBA growing on them and excel treatment wasn't quite working. It was also so dense that I couldn't vac under there, so there was a lot of organic buildup for whatever reason. I'm trying to keep the bottom as clean as possible to improve WQ.

Now, the wisteria on the right is temporary, it's there right now because it's a great filler and great nutrient sucker. It's there until the algae break-out fully subsides, which it appears to be doing as the green thread stuff has shown no signs of coming back. (the rgeen thread stuff, by the way, only grew on the glass. th eonly stuff on the plants was this brown dirty looking stuff that looked suspiciously like diatoms. ) The bacopa sadly would not recover from the algae outbreak, it was sonsumed, and i think I clipped the tops off too many times, the bottom stems just didn't grow out. Add bacopa to the list of plants where you have to replant the tops every time

As for overall shape, I'm not sure if I want the triangle. I don't know what i want, but I'm not sure why there needs to be a defined shape, for example, it seems like I only have a few options: triangle shape, bell curve, or concave. I guess i just want something more random and less defined at the edges, but more defined within the 'scape itself, with room to get a little overgrown. Is that too much to ask?!?! That's what I'm going to experiment with anyway. Right now the plans are to eventually move some of the wisteria out of the right, and move the rotala group further to the right, adding another large stem plant grouping to either the middle or the right. I'd also like to add a few mid-level plants around the big DW on the right, like crypts, and maybe a tropica sword or two, something small. i didn't have success in the past with the tropica swords but that was because of my fert regimen.

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Nowher,

I like the set up of the new tank better. Let things grow in and play arouhd with shapes and I think you will be happy.

What kind of filter are you running?

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Thanks Wings,

It's an Eheim ECCO some-number I forget, I think it's the biggest one

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I see... thanks I have the same problem with the bright green hose. I am running a Odyssea aka new jebo on my tank. It really moves some water around compared to the HOB job.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

I don't mind the hose being in view nearly as much as others here might , the only problem I have with it is that hair algae infected it very badly.

I hear ya on the filter though. After hooking up the eheim my water flow was actually pretty minimal until I hooked up the spraybar. Woosh! That got things going

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Why did the Rotala change color and become so green ?

I take it you've upped NO3 - what about micros ?

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

I am not running a spray bar on mine. Just having it come out at a right angle. Kind of makes a river system. If I do the spary bar I would have to find a way to hide it better than just having the 90 degree bar hanging there. Bensaf green is not quite might idea of a good time with a black background.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Yes, the unfortunate side effect of the upped NO3 has been the green rotala. I upped N to this level because I'm trying to get the plants going the best I can. I've been dosing micros as per the bottled instructions. Because the algae outbreak I've been having is a thread/ hair algae problem - see the pic above - I'm afraid to add extra iron. In addition to the extra N I've also been adding extra P. This has made the wisteria take-off pretty well, and since that's the outcompete the algae plant I'm looking to get going the most, I guess I'll keep this up... unless you suggest another course of action?

Wings - my spraybar runs flat across the top of the tank, paralell to the side, so it flows out across the top of the tank

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I guess I could probaby get mine up that high but I woud have to do some chopping of the pipes.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

See here for new tank development - http://www.fishprofiles.com/files/threads/28093.1.htm?0.5325311#

Hint: it has to do with these:

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Nice NowherMan6

I guess if you want to find out for sure then you will have to take a dive into your tank as well (in case you don't know what I mean, read my log again ).

Great news,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

No, I read your log, LF, I know exactly what you mean Funny that it happened at roughly the same time, though. Maybe it's something in the Jersey water, or a barametric pressure change in the area, or maybe they just know spring is in the air.

Either way, I think we both need a miniature version of ALVIN (ya know, that deep sea submersible they used to find Titanic ) to confirm.

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NowherMan6,



Yup, a mini sub - that is what we need, with lights of course. I checked some toy periscopes that we have at our company (give-aways) but they didn't turn out any good for the task at hand. I guess I at least will have to wait and see if anything will wiggle somewhere at some point.

Are you stocking up on baby food then very soon (just in case)?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I think we both need a miniature version of ALVIN

No you don't, you need the Fishgeek:



Attached Image:


My Scapes

OK, I'm looking for advice on how to proceed now.

As you know the tank is still suffering from algae problems. IN LFs log it was suggested that large amounts of turnover and redo's of the tank can lead to mulm and ammonia being stirred up into the water column, allowing different types of algae to appear.

My dilemma is this: many of my plants are affected with the brown algae described in another thread, mostly at the bottom of the stem. I'd like to go through and snip the bottoms off tonight and replant the healthy parts. Before replanting I plan on sucking up any mulm that gets churned up when the stems are pulled out.

In LFs thread, however, bensaf and tetra suggested doing work like this only a little bit at a time.

So my question is, is it better to do it as I originally planned it, or to do one plant group at a time per week?

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Back in the saddle!

NowherMan6,

I thought I replied to your question above yesterday evening, but then we had a power failure and the modem went out

Anyway, what I said was that I am for sure not the right person to ask as I have the same problem. But as you can see from my tank, overhauls don't seem to help. As such, try the slow approach, trim off heavily affected leaves, add more weeds (aka Wisteria <- bracing for impact from tetratech) and see if this helps. If it does help then let me know so I can approach it the same way . No, actually this is what I am going to do this week (or weekend) anyway.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

D'oh! That response came one day too late. I already did the overhaul.

But here's the thing. I don't know what it is about my tank or the way I take care of it, but there was so much crap, organic gunk and who knows what under the wisteria pile that I finally understood why the algae was happening. Holy cow, I can't believe I got those gourami to breed under those conditions!

What I did was, I removed one plant group at a time, and when I removed that group I did a gravel vac of the area. So it worked out to three different gravel vacs, one for the wisteria, one for the rotala and one for the HM. Leaf litter under all of them.

I had to do a hack job on the wisteria though. You could tell the healthy parts and the unhealthy parts. Most of the main stems were covered in algae so I took them all off and saved the healthy parts. I meant to take a comparison shot of the old leaves and the new leaves, the old ones being an ugly dark green, the new healthy being a nice bright green.

All in all I took a lot of stuff out of that tank, both old algae covered stems and gunk from the bottom. I'm goign to continue with another WC some time this week to make sure I got as much gunk up as possible, then I'll get back to the once a week routine. The plants do look nice and clean though. And I also cleaned the diffuser. It's vitally important to keep that disc clean. if it clogs up you get bigger bubbles and less CO2 saturation. All clean it comes out in a fine mist, most bubbles don't even make it to the surface.

So I'm pretty happy with this, it gave me a chance to do a good amount of house keeping, hopefully I can maintain this. I plan on adding more weeds ASAP, maybe more wisteria, maybe some hygro or hornwort. My HC is coming in the next day or so, so that should be exciting to plant as well. We'll see how this goes in a few days.

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Sorry about that NowherMan6

Now on to this:

hygro or hornwort

What hygro other than Wisteria? And I personally "hate" hornwort. To me it is the most ugly plant I ever had, and really messy on top of it. Wherever it was shaded it would simply disintegrate and leave a big mess of needles everywhere.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

What hygro other than Wisteria

I forgot, wisteria is hygro difformis. I was refering to the weed of all weeds, hygro polysperma, even though I tossed a big batch of it a few months ago, it has great value as a nutrient sucker.

I have a love hate relationship with hornwort. I don't really care for the look of it either, just what it can do. I wouldn't place it in the aquascape, just let it float... but i find that it becomes a breeding gorund for green algae when it floats. I certainly share your dislike of its look though.

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Back in the saddle!

just let it float...

I thought that this is what you would do with it, but even that, IMHO, creates a problem: shading of other plants. If the hornwort would continously cirle on the surface then this would not be an issue, but often the surface current pushes floaters in a particular spot and that this where the plant spends its day, shading all plants below it.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

It's not even just that. I've found that certain plants don't really do too well when left floating.

Pennywort, which I have as a floater now, does well because once at the surface the leaves adapt to surface life. They become a little thicker and more waxy, like a marsh plant.

Hornwort, on the other hand, just sits there and does not adapt. I've found that it collected a lot of junk in its branches. Plus you also raised an interesting point about its brittleness - with the new spraybar I have creating more current I'm sure the needles would break off easily in the current creating more mess.

Thanks LF for reminding me how much I dislike that plant!

I will think about other plants though.

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NowherMan6,

How about a trip to AF in two weeks? In case you don't know what I am talking about, Here is the thread that mentions a planted tank discussion.

I signed up over the phone yesterday

I don't think we would get tetratech to come though, he is too scared to venture into Jersey .

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

As for hygro's Maybe try some Sunset. It can be pretty pink!

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

I saw the thread about the meeting but unfortunetely I can't make it that night, have previous plans. Sounds like it could be cool though, nice to see that there are other people in the area that are into the planted scene.

Wings, I don't think hygro polysperma is available anymore. Last I heard it's classified as a federal noxious weed.

I'm currently looking into some other plants, maybe crypt balansae and some more stem plants to work with.

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Wings, I don't think hygro polysperma is available anymore. Last I heard it's classified as a federal noxious weed.

Hmm... Well I have quite a bit of it. We probably shouldn't talk about how much my store has right now... How do you find out whats ok and not ok?

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

NowherMan6,

Yeah, the fact that a plant is classified as a federal noxious weed doesn't seem to stop its distribution. Just look at Cabomba, same deal. Tetratech may know more about this particular "weed" as I have read that various water ways in Long Island have been heavily infested with it.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

My wife to be's mom was asking me all sorts of questions if I was part of that problem a while ago....

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Well, in some cases I think it does, at least with hygro. AZgardens.com and now aquariumplants.com have stopped selling it. (speaking of aquariumplants.com, have you seen the new website? snazzy)

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The pic below shows a lake near my house. See how thick the water looks. It's completely choked with Cabomba

Attached Image:


My Scapes

Thanks tetratech for the picture

You could make a fortune selling this stuff from that lake illegally, although I am not recommending at all that you do that.

And yes, I have seen the new site of aquariumplants.com, and in fact I have ordered from them twice since the new site is up. There are still some areas that they have blank right now, but I am sure they will fill them in when they have the time to do so (hey, just like FP).

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

EPILOGUE:

It has been a few months since my last post in this log, and, since it went on pretty long and in terms of developing my aquascaping and knowledge of planted tanks was an undoubted success, I thought this log deserved a formal wrap up.

My last ditch attempt to save and redo the tank failed. I couldn't beat back the algae, and most importantly, the disease that was sweeping through my tank earlier continued to kill off most my livestock. When I saw the remaining fish were infected, and knowing I couldn't stop whatever it was, I put them down. Very hard, that was, but to me it was the humane thing to do.

So lately I've just been tearing down the tank. Now, where once stood a developing world of my own creation, there is just an empty tank in need of a cleaning. No longer is it a vibrant piece of living art, just an empty space.

Now it's just time to move forward. I plan on removing the DW and just throwing it out. I could clean and scrub it, but I wouldn't feel right about selling it to someone else in case whatever disease was in the tank still remains inside the wood somewhere. The tank will get a good hard cleaning - bleach it out and get in every crevice. I plan on selling it locally once I feel it's ready. I feel I can sufficiently clean and disinfect it so that it can safely be used by someone else - however, if anyone out there feels it'd be better to just not sell it then please let me know, I'd like to know all opinions on this. I'll sell off the stand and the light hood.

However, I will keep the CO2 set-up and the cannister filter because I will be using them again some time in the near future. Large-ish planted tanks are not out of my future, I know that for sure. I just need to properly plan and think etc and learn from my past mistakes and successes. That's the best I can do, I think.

And so, I thank all of you for your contributions over the past year. LF, tetra, bensaf and others have taught me a lot. It's been tons of fun, and I'll see you on the boards

- Rich

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Back in the saddle!

Rich,

What a sad epilogue

I knew somewhat that your tank wasn't doing too well, but I didn't know that it was so bad, with regards to algae and in particular the fish killing illness. I can deal with algae, but when one fish after the other succumbs to an illness, that eats me up. So sorry for you.

Being a man of caution, I would throw out the wood. Others may recomment to boil it, which may be fine, but that is not my style. Disinfecting the tank and other equipment will work well though, IMHO.

And I find it a good idea that you keep the CO2 unit, an expensive piece of equipment that will remind you that you have to put it to use in a bigger and better tank in the very near future .

Now, don't you dare to dissapear into the nirwana of becoming a lurking reader of our logs, your input is not only a pleasure of communication but your knowledge and experience are valuable assets that I would hate to see lost. More than once has your opinion swayed me into a particular direction (may I say driftwood from EBay).

Last but not least, planning and setting up a new tank is a very exciting task, keep on working on it

Have fun,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Nowher,
Sorry to hear about taking your tank down and the loss of your fish. There are some fish in my tank I am going to cry the day they go because I have had them for about 5 years now.

Best wishes with the new set up soon to come. Keep us updated!

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

It's that @#$% Jersey water.

Nowher,

It wasn't too long ago that I had a tank literally blow-up after turning it into the latest L.I. Brewery. I lost about half my fish, including my favorite Snowball Pleco. That tank also had it's share of problems with a slimy coating that seemed to get on all my plants. I learned alot from that experience with the help of Bensaf, LF and you as well.

Sometimes things just happen and are beyond your control, bad piece of DW, corrupted eco-complete, diseased fish.
Even Amano talks about all the fish he killed along the way as he learned about the hobby.

This country is run by a cowboy, so get back on your horse.


My Scapes

Thanks for the kind words everyone. I've been keeping up with all of your logs and have found them inspiring, but when I ceased to be inspired by my own that's when I knew it was time to tear it down and start over again later.

I guess it's a case of the "46 bowfront curse" striking again. My next move I guess will be to clean everything out and sell it off, and then start planning another tank. I won some money while in AC two weeks ago (kids, don't gamble .... and don't drink ... and certainly don't do both at once ) so I may get a price quote on a custom type tank, or maybe go for an ADG type set-up, something smaller and rimless, we'll see.

And Wings, I hear ya on the fish part. The hardest ones for me were the loaches, they had more personality than any other fish in there. For a while the deaths stopped, then would come again, then stop again etc. This last wave is when I put them down.

Thanks again for th esupport all

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or maybe go for an ADG type set-up

Now that is pure evil

First making us all sad, and then telling us you go all out and get a super tank. You go, Man

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

The camera does not make the photo, nor does the tank make the aquascape. Just tools my friend, that's all they are.

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Back in the saddle!

The camera does not make the photo, nor does the tank make the aquascape

Well Rich, not really

If it wouldn't be for you then I probably would make mostly mediocre pictures. Not because I learned so much about how to make pictures from you, but because you recommended the right lense.

And with regrads to the tank: I immediately noticed the silicone borders after I redid the 20G and wished for an ADA tank. It would have made a big difference.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club