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Then I did a bit of maintenance, cleaned the window, moved the half-eaten hygrophila and cut away some longish sprouts of Mayaka. Here is a close-up of the lower-right corner, with nicely pearling tiger lotus, a closeup of the Hemianthus Micranthemoides (below) and the Limnophila aromatica (left).

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Finally a photo of half an hour ago, just after maintenance.

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Doc,

Maybe I missed it somewhere, but how much light do you have over this tank? I went through from the beginning but I didn't find the info

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Back in the saddle!

Dr.,

Green Spot Algae on the glass is not all that bad; some even say that it is a sign of a healthy aquarium. I think it is a sign of a nutrient imbalance.

And your tank, even when you think it is not at its best, still looks wonderful. There is the one area, right in front of that piece of driftwood, which looks very empty. What happened there?

About water changes: I assume you know that Python system we have here in the US. Don't you have something similar? You hook it up to a sink and fill the water into the tank straight from the tab while making sure that the temperature is pretty close to the tank temperature. This would only work though if you have an outlet that combines warm and cold water. I use a product called Prime to de-chlorinate the water while it is filling up my tank.

You say you added Nitrate, did you add anything else as well? Like K and P, and maybe micros? Don't blame us if it doesn't work out if all you add is N - not enough of a reason to lock our threads .

Ingo

PS: I mentioned in the other entry that it seems that Adam is already working on the page issue. At least we can see all pages again (plus some extra ones that are empty (). I am confident that he will get it under control eventually.

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

NowherMan6, there is currently three tubes of 36 watts over the tank, with reflectors that "supposedly" double the amount of light (I don't quite believe that, but they do have a visible effect). I'm still considering of getting 4 tubes of T5 lighting instead, but that will require me totally rebuilding the lighthood, so that may take a little while.

here is the one area, right in front of that piece of driftwood, which looks very empty. What happened there?

That spot looks empty from this angle, but it actually quite covered with Cryptocoryne willisii. Those did not like the low light that they had while the tank was heavily overgrown and as a result have become rather small and are very much flattened against the substrate. Also, the cories that I have move the substrate around quite a bit, I used to have it sloped, higher in the back than in the front, but they weren't quite happy with it and equalized the place, burying the ctryptos.

I assume you know that Python system we have here in the US.

I've seen pictures of it, but I have not seen anything like it for sale over here. Besides that, I don't think that the taps we have in the apartment would fit to a system like it, and taking them apart is not really an option. I'll just stick to lugging those buckets around... it's good exercise anyway

You say you added Nitrate, did you add anything else as well? Like K and P, and maybe micros?

Yes, since last week I've started dosing all of the above. I have KNO3, KH2PO4 and a mixture of other stuff called EasyLife Profito. This is what is supposed to be in there:
"Easy-Life ProFito is enriched with iron, potassium, manganese and many other vital nutrients. Dozens of ingredients are ideally mixed together. ProFito even contains various rare minerals which specifically promote cell division and thus plant growth. This well-balanced ProFito formula means an extra complete plant nutrition for a strong, healthy and lush plant growth in freshwater aquariums.
ProFito is very economical to use: 1 fl oz per 78 gallons of aquarium water. It is a multiple stabilized fertilizer without any nitrates or phosphates."

It's a bit vague, but I think it'll do if I add the KNO3 and KH2PO4 separately. Dosing has been as suggested by Bernard, once every three days, except that I only started dosing Nitrate today. It's kind of ridiculous how expensive all this stuff is. I was in my LFS the other day to drop off the angelfish, and they had a small bottle of 200 ml of some unknown brand of fertilizer, which was supposed to cost 20 €! This Profito stuff came in a 2l bottle for 28.90 €, still expensive, but affordable, and it should last me at least a year I think.

Finally, Bernard, the water here in Finland is very soft, with KH and GH at about 3 or less, my pH generally is around 6.5 I think (haven't tested that in a while). I should still check that out and look up one of those conversion tables´- and figure out how that works

Dr.,

It seems like you have all the fertilizers that you need, although (and that is rather common) the micro nutrient bottle doesn't disclose all the goodies that are in there. If Bensaf himself gave you a dosing routine then I have no further suggestion (because any derivative would be wrong anyway).

Your water is great and actually similar to mine. 3 GH is perfect and 3KH is better than mine, I have to add baking soda to get that much. With a ph of 6.5 you should have about 30ppm of CO2, which is a good range.

Instead of a Python you could also simply use a gardening hose that you can attach to the sink. Just get a handle piece that allows you to close it, even better if it has one of these heads that adjust the water stream to shower instead of full blast (forgot the proper words in English, but I hope you know what I mean). Believe me, once tried you will never go back to logging water to your tank in buckets, in particular if we can convince you to make 50% water changes.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Martin,

Just went back and checked the size of your tank. Bit smaller then I thought. !/3 of a tspn of KNO3 will do rather then a half.

But don't worry there's only about 3ppm difference so you haven't overdosed anything.

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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.

Alright, today I actually did a pH test (one of those color strips) and it is a bit lower than I thought, hanging somewhere around 6.2 - 6.3. KH & GH are indeed at about 3. Can I just mention that I really don't like color indicator strips? I think I'm going to borrow the electronic pH meter from work at some point to get a somewhat more precise measurement.

The good thing is at least that my water is still totally clear, even after dosing half a teaspoon of KNO3 . I even got the feeling it is a bit clearer than before, but maybe I'm just wanting to see that And Bernard, I'm not sure howw big you thought my tank was, but it's supposed to hold 240 liters (63g) when containing only water, keeping into account that I have a lot of substrate and a rather thick background, it's probably closer to 50-55g. This weekend I'll try the 50% water change. How soon after the change do you dose your ferts btw?

How soon after the change do you dose your ferts btw?

Personally, the day after the water change. But I don't think it matters too much. My reasoning is that during thw ater change, maybe there's already some N in the water that you just added, the amount of CO2 in the water has gone down since half of it has been removed and replaced with tap water (so nothing will be exactly limiting), plus there's always lots of bubbling etc. going on. The day after, things have settled down and it's easier to go back to normal routine. Just my opinion, but I can't see it mattering all too much

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Back in the saddle!

How soon after the change do you dose your ferts btw?

Interesting question, I never thought of that.

For me it was clear that I add ferts right away after the tank is refilled.

Reason: removing 50% water removes probably 50% of the existing ferts as well. Waiting a day would mean that I risk running on empty on one of the nutrients, ergo - I add them as soon as I can.

That's what I do

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I am with LF on this one. I add my right after I do my water change. I haven't had any problems yet and it doesn't seem that Lf does either.

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

And Bernard, I'm not sure how big you thought my tank was

For some reason I thought it was a 75 gal. I wasn't too far out.

Add the ferts whenever is suitable for you. Timing is not critical. It's more a case of building an easy to follow routine. I usually add the first dose directly after the water change. I add every day in the morning before I go to work, macros and micros on alternate days. Saturday is a day off. You can do in the evening if you prefer. As I say it's just a matter of developing a habit.

Some dilute, I just throw the powders straight in. Gotten used to it now I don't even really measure anymore.

Don't know why the chems are so expensive there ? I got a 25kg bag for $10 here which will last 265 years there or thereabouts. And yes I do plan to live that long

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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.

It's now been 6 days since I started with the "new" approach. Since then the tank has received all fertilizers twice (Just added the second dose of Nitrate). I think I am starting to see some changes, most of them good. Even after nearly a week the front window is still very clean of spot algae, with only some in the areas that I didn't clean very well last week. The water seems a bit clearer than it used to be, and the plants are looking good. I think part of that is also because I removed the Angel fish, which means that a light green Mayacca is now actually starting to grow again and the Hygrophila and Lobelia cardinalis now have some leaves that are not shredded down to the veins. The Bacopa, which I just gave a haircut two weeks ago, has a lot of new growth as well, I'll post a photo in a minute, but first an overview, this is how it was last monday.

hmmm removing a photo and replacing it by another doesn't seem to work, another try. This was last monday

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and this is 4 days later, not a great difference, but definately better, wouldn't you agree?

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There is a small thing that worries me a little though, and it is illustrated by the photo below. Some of the older leaves of plants, here the Bacopa, but alos on some of the larger Anubias there is some green hair algae. Now I'm not quite sure how much of it there was before I added the ferts, but I think it has increased somewhat since then. I will have to monitor that a bit and hope it's not going to explode.

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Definetely

Just looking at the bacopa, rotala indica and stargrass, they all look more upright, little fuller, little punchier - just happier in general. Doesn't take much to make a difference!

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Back in the saddle!

Yup Dr.,

It looks nicer

But it also seems like your second picture has more light to it and as such does not create a fair comparison as the first one is slightly on the dark side .

About the algae: I don't think it would develop to this stage in only 4 days, my small hairy algae takes a long time to grow. But I guess we should wait for our "older" relative to evaluate the situation.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo, bot photos were taken at approximately the same time, at the same distance and exactly the same camera settings. I did not change anything about the pictures, except for cropping and resizing. I think the difference in light is purely the result of clearer water (the first one was taken quite soon after maintenance, which clouded up the water a bit).

Dr.,

You might be right

But I wouldn't be who I am (hell, who am I) if I wouldn't have to come up with at least one more possibility why the second is lighter (besides clearer water):

It is the focus point(s) of the camera. I can create completely different light effects in pictures of my tank by shifting the focus point (I usually use only one point - my preference) just millimeters from one target (let's say a bright green plant) to another right next to it (shaded).

If the change in your image is purely from the water then you must have had some pretty bad water beforehand .

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Well Ingo, when you look up to the photo above, then there is all the algae on the window. I scraped all of that off and the stuff basically falls apart as powder, clouding up the water quite a bit. The photos have been taken from pretty much the same spot. I hold the camera at about chestheight, with the screen turned upwards so that I can actually see what I'm taking a picture off. Then with the camera fully zoomed out, I walk up to the tank untill it fills the screen. *click* *click* *click* Three photos, usually all just fine

Looking at the time that I posted the previous photo, that was one hour later than the one from today. Maybe that just made a slight difference, but I'm still leaning towards the clouded water theory

I am thinking that the plants have just grown enough to catch more light. Thus making it look like there is more light on the tank.

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

The first picture clearly has a different exposure time than the second, very slight, 1/3 - 1/2 stop under. The camera's meter must've picked some outside light source up, maybe a lamp or something. Ot maybe it gave more weight to the dark bogwood in the second, I dunno. Both pictures look fine, but that's not the issue The plants have definetely perked up some in the second.

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Back in the saddle!

Hi Martin,

Yep, everything is definately looking better. New growth is bigger, stronger healthier looking.

I'm with you on the difference in brightness. The difference just cleaning the inside glass makes can be huge, there's always more stuff there then we think, like a grey haze, even without the green spot.

The clearer water you mentioned after adding NO3 is probably not your imagination. Healthy plants = clearer water. They produce more oxygen when healthier and working harder. Highly oxygenated water tends to have more clarity. The NO3 probably gave them the kick they need.

It'll take 2 weeks or so before you see the full benefits of this fert routine but I think you'll be happy with it. Better sharpen those pruning scissors, you're gonna need 'em

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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.

*starts spinning up the whetting wheel*

I am quite pleased with the result, I just hope I will be able to keep up the maintenance in the future. Knowing myslef, there will be times when I just won't feel much like it and will postpone it "to tomorrow" for several days/weeks. The tank will start being an absolute mess when that happens. Currently I'm all excited about it again, I hope it'll last.

NowherMan6, I would agree if the camara had been set to automatic, but when I take photos from my aquariums I always set it to manual with a fixed exposure time. In this case 1/20 of a second. Now maybe the camara still changes some other settings automatically, but that goes a bit beyond my knowledge of the thing I've now had it for 1½ years and keep telling myself to read up on all the finer things of photography, but in the end I just play around with settings until I like how it looks and keep it that way.

Taking photos of the tank I optimized some time ago, and I have all the settings saved in a program, just a turn of the wheel and I can start clicking away with the same settings as previous time.

Yesterday I examined the water tap in the bathroom and figured out that I can actually connect a hose to that particular tap. So yesterday I went off to a DIY shop to buy myself a 20 meter hose (60ft). And yes, it is almost that distance from the tap to the tank. While I was there I thought I'd looks around for some materials for rebuilding the aquarium hood so it'll fit one or two more fixtures and lamps, as the current setup is not quite as much light as I would like (108 watts over 65 g). The reflectors I have installed help, but it isn't optimal.

As the water temperature already is rather high from the three tubes that are hanging just above the water, I'll need to install a fan in order to keep the temp down if I want more light. With the current hood that isn't possible. So, at the DIY store I found nice aluminium corner profiles, 40 mm high, 20 mm wide and 2 mm thick. It is nice and rigid, and very light, it seemed like perfect material to elevate the fixtures a bit and it won't look too terrible I think. Probably next week I'll start with making the drawings for how it will be put together. If all goes well, then I'll order some new T5 fixtures within two weeks

Today I did the water change, I think I changed about 55-60% of the tank volume. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about dragging the hose through the living room. I fitted it with a garden sprayer that can be closed off. All in all it worked quite well, though getting the temperature and water pressure right was a bit of a hassle. I also removed most of the Hemianthes, as it had become quite a thick bush. Only a few sprouts were replanted, but they should be back to a thick carpet in a few weeks.

Here's a photo of how the tank is right now

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And here is a close-up of the Hemianthes, right after replanting

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Dr.

Nice pictures

Did the hose eventually make the refill easier?

I was going to ask you about how you plant the Pearl Grass, now I have seen it. Single stems, wow. I actually bunch about 5 to 7 together and then plant them as a group.

I guess I would have to go to single stem as well in order to get the carpet effect, right?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hey Ingo,

I planted single stems mostly because they tend to stay in the substrate better than groups of plants. My cories and Yoyos like to rummage around quite a lot and the substrate is very light, so if I plant many stems at once they often are floating a few hours later. I don't think it will matter carpet wise much, except that your larger groups should fill the area quicker than my single stems. In the beginning the single stems look a bit odd, but they grow fast, I expect to have to trim them in two or three weeks at the most. In a month or so they'll probably have formed a thick carpet again.

The hose did indeed make the refill quite a bit easier, once I had the correct pressure and temperature I did se an unusual amount of "fake-pearling" (to give it a name) due to highly oxygenated water. That worried me a little, but the fish seemed alright with it and none died.

Oh, I got another surprise when I removed the Hemianthes; I saw quite a few black molly fry escape from it. It seems like the mollies have been busy, and with the lack of any real predators (except for one betta female) I will end up with lots of them very soon. I think I'll go on the lookout for something that actively hunts. I'm considering a school of Sumatra barbs - I'm not quite sure whether that's the correct name, if I recall correctly the latin name is Barbus tetrazona. I've always kinda liked them, but they're a bit nippy, so I'm still not sure.

Dr.,

Glad the hose helped

Don't worry about too much oxygen in the water from the water change, I have not heard ever that it would harm any fish, actually I observe the oposite as my Espei really get in the mood after each water change.

How do you go about trimming the Pearl Grass?

I know nothing about the fish you mentioned, sorry. But yeah, you might have something to do about all the fry as your tank has soooo many beautiful hiding places that even with the addition of a predator some will survive.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

The tank is going very nice at the moment; the plants have never looked this lush and healthy before. Some time ago I had put second species of Mayacca in the tank, but the stem had been stripped of leaves by the Angel fish. Only one or two stems remained and they looked terrible, basically they were just twigs covered in spot algae. I was about to remove them last weekend, but there were a couple of bright buds, so I left it for a few days more. Those bright buds have now grown into healthy looking stems. I'll post a photo later today, when I get home. Also the green algae I was worrying about does not seem to get a strong hold except on the bogwood and the older plant parts. I think it arrested a bit after I did the water change during the weekend (which was the first water change in a very long time by the way). So, the main tank is going strong, but there still is the fry tank.

The fry tank is a mess. It still contains my breeding pair of angel fish, the only ones I have left after returning the three from the main tank to the LFS. I am planning to start a fertilizing/water changing program with that one as well, but since the angels had a set of eggs again last week I've been postponing that for a bit as they are always quite stressed when they have eggs. Since then the eggs have hatched and two days ago I started a bottle of brine shrimp. It was the first time I ever did that, but as the bottle of eggs I have already contains salt it is just a matter of "add water and air". Yesterday the fry was swimming freely, and I added some of the first hatched brine shrimp. There weren't all that many yet and the amount of fry is near 150, so I've also added some very fine dry food for fry. It was quite amusing to see the little fish chase the shrimp and flakes. Most of them ended up with nice round bellies. I'll be interesting to see how these little fish will fare. Until now every group of young angels has been gone after a few days, I don't really expect this brood to survive much better, but it is the first time I'm really trying to feed them, so who knows. I must note that my wife found it rather sad to hatch the shrimp just to feed them to the fish

If they survive until Saturday I may try doing some work on the fry tank then. As I said it's a mess, plants are either not growing or very slowly, I think there's at least three different kinds of algae thriving there. The new bioload of the fry is not going to improve it much either I think, so something will have to be done soon before it collapses into chaos completely. I'm considering of adding DIY CO2, even though I hate having to refill the yeast mixtures, but getting a second CO2 tank is out of the question, and the tanks are too far apart to split a hose and get it there that way. I will need to think on this for a bit.

Dr.,

This are great news about your main tank and the Angel fry. I hope that you will have more luck this time around and the feeding helps. Just wondering though, what would be your plans if all 150 make it ?

I know very little about raising Angel fry, but I have a feeling that messing with the tank right now is not a good idea, except if it is a death trap in its current stage. Two reasons:

- There are quite a few species of animals that will eat their children when threatened or stressed. It's an instinct that kicks in and basically means something like "hey, all seems hopeless, let me at least regain the protein so I can survive and try again later."
- Your algae in the tank might very well serve as fry food.

I got nothing to back this up though.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I'm considering a school of Sumatra barbs - I'm not quite sure whether that's the correct name, if I recall correctly the latin name is Barbus tetrazona. I've always kinda liked them, but they're a bit nippy, so I'm still not sure.

Tiger barbs! Yes, they are indeed nippy, at least amongst themselves. Keep in a large school and the chances of them messing with other fish goes down. The common thought on these guys is not to keep them with slow moving, long finned fish like bettas and angels, could shred their fins. IME they'd rather shred each other

Nice to hear the tank is doing so well, and I'm shocked that you found molly fry. I would think the yo-yos would have eaten them early on...

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Back in the saddle!

Ingo, at the moment I have no idea what I would do with 150 angel fry if they would all make it. I think I'd have to beg some fish stores to take them But I seriously doubt I'll have as many as that in the end. The tank itself is a serious mess, but not yet a death trap. During the weekend I'll decide whether or not I will do something about it, here follow a few shots of the fry tank. The first one is an front shot. The glass is covered with some algae, I'm not quite sure what it is, as it comes off rather easily.

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As you can see in the shot above, the plants are doing absolutely terrible in there. It's part because the light is bad and part because I have not done any proper water changes or fertilization of the tank. It should improve in the near future though.

Here is a shot from the side of the tank, which was still algae free, mother came up real close to chase me away, father is in the back, guarding his little ones.

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Finally the promised shot of the Mayacca from the main tank. Yes, that dark green ugly stick in the middle was all that was left of it before I removed the Angels. They thought it was a lovely side dish for with the occasional molly fry, mosquito larvae and flake food.

NowherMan6, I think the Yoyos have been too preoccupied with the trumpet snails, they really love digging those out. Besides that, up until last weekend the Hemianthes was so thick that anything small could hide in there and survive, the yoyos could not worm their way into it. small fry definately could.

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Time for a bit of an update. it's now been about two and a half weeks since I started the fertilizing/waterchanges program. I have to admit that I was a bit sceptical at first, but I'm turning into a believer. The tank water has never been clearer, except maybe when I started the tank now nearly two years ago. All plants are showing very nice growth, almost too much to keep up with Just to give you a bit of an idea what has happened in just two weeks, here are the photos, they speak for themselves:

Day 0, the start of fertilizing:


Day 4, water clearing up:


Day 8, first water change:


Day 15, plants need weeding (shot taken during daytime, a bit of reflection on the glass):


Day 16, weeding done, tips replanted, old plant parts removed:


At the moment the scape itself doesn't look particularly good, but I'm not too worried about that. I'm currently mostly trying to get all plants in such a shape that they look good and healthy, before trying to actually put them in places where they suit best. The Reineckii for example was in quite a bad shape, the leaves very curly and ugly. In the two weeks since I've started fertilizing it has started to recover quite nicely, the new growth looks very good and I think I can do something nice with it soon.

I've also noticed that the sunset Hygro is not nearly as red as it used to be. I saw Bernard mention somewhere that low nitrates often makes plants redder, I guess that was the case with the sunsets then. It's a shame really, as I liked the very pink variety better than the way it looks now, but I guess it is a tradeoff I have to make for healthy plants

Then there is still the story of my Angels. I wrote last week that I had started a brine shrimp culture. Well, that worked fine for two days, though not nearly as many seemed to hatch as I would have liked. I fed the Angel fry with it for those two days, and added some fry flake dryfood as well. Then during the third night I heard a bang, went to look and found the brine shrimp culture on the floor. The vibrations from the airpump had moved the whole contraption to the edge of the table and finally over it. Needless to say that I wasn't very happy.

Since then I've been feeding the fry just with dry food, and did not really expect to find any of them after day four.

As it turns out, now, more than a week since hatching, still close to 100 fry survive Slowly I'm starting to wonder what the heck I'm going to do with them if they all survive. The ones still present all are very active and seem to grow while I'm watching them. Already a few of them are over half a cm long, getting closer to 1 cm. I expect to see some of them to start taking on the V-shape sometime next week.

As the front window was completely covered in some slimy algae, I yesterday decided to clean it up a bit and scrape off the excess. That went rather well, though it created large sheets of algae floating around in the tank. This was one time I was happy to see that my angels have developed a love for green stuff, as they gobbled up those sheets of algae with pleasure. I've now started dosing with smal amounts of fertilizer to see if it helps with getting the algae under control. If all goes well with the fry, I think I'll try a water change coming weekend. Here is the happy family:


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Dr.,

Slowly I'm starting to wonder what the heck I'm going to do with them if they all survive

Welcome to my world .

I am a little worried about your algae that comes off in sheets (and is green). Can you eliminate that it is BGA? If it is then this would be bad as I have heard it is supposedly poisenous to fish, eating it might not be a good idea. If it is not then I am gald I voted for NOT cleaning the tank and predicting that the fry might like a snack of algae.

And your plant growth in the main tank: SPECTACULAR

It is awesome to see how fast your stems were shooting up. Good thing you became a Moderator here at FP - this forces you to log on more often and as such we have the pleasure of getting to see more of your tank

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

at first I was a little skeptical

Oh, ye of little faith. Welcome to EI Nirvana

The curled ugly Reineckii leaves were the plant stunting due to lack of nitrate, as was the pink color on the Rosenverg.

The pic before the trim is a testament to the difference feeding the plants make. With growth at that level algae will become a distant memory.

Yep the lack of pink is a trade off , but a worthwhile one.
You can force the pink a bit more with added micros, especially Iron or more light. But with more light the growth will speed up further, so be careful what you wish for

You're a very heavy trimmer

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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 a little worried about your algae that comes off in sheets (and is green). Can you eliminate that it is BGA?

I have had BGA in a fry tank before (some 15 years ago) and this looks quite different. For one, there are not the tell tale air-bubbles trapped inside. Also, this is definately green algae, not blue-green, and thirdly, the way it grows is somewhat different; on the free-water exposed side it forms long threads that wave in the current. I'm not quite sure what it is, but the angels ate everything that had come off and what they could reach They seem just fine and it's been two days now, so I'm not too worried about them.

The pic before the trim is a testament to the difference feeding the plants make. With growth at that level algae will become a distant memory.

I hope so, there is still a bit of the green hair algae showing up. On the plants it is mostly establishing itself on the reineckii, but maybe the contrast against the red makes it just more visible. If you look at the series of photos above, then you can see that the bogwood has turned quite a bit greener. It is pretty much completely covered with the algae. It doesn't look awful, but it wasn't really my intention to have a piece of green wood in my tank. I'll try to get a close-up later today when I'm home.

Well, the problem of what to do with 100 angels is gone. This morning mother angel suddenly lost interest in her babies and instead saw them as really nice snacks . I think she's eaten about 95% of them while a very excited father was trying to hold her at bay. There is now about 5-10 left, and I expect those to be gone pretty soon as well. I'm still not sure what triggered it, but maybe 10 days is as far as her attention span lasts. It's sad, but maybe it's good in a way as well, I think that a hundred angels would have been terribly difficult to get rid off. At least now I can use this weekend to get that little tank a bit more organized.

Here is a shot of the driftwood as it is of this day:


And a close-up shot of the algae:


Some suggestion on how to get rid of that would be welcome. It really seems to grow mostly on the slow growing plants such as Anubias and the reineckii, but that can be just a percetion because the others are replanted all the time, leaving the older parts closer to the bottom of the tank and thus less exposed for the algae to settle upon.

Just to give an idea how well some of the other plants are doing, here is a close-up shot of the resurrected Mayacca. it is growing exceptionally fast and each afternoon it looks something like this:


And now that I'm posting photos anyway, here are some random shots of my fish, first up rummies:


and one of the Yoyos:



finally, one of the cories:

Dr.,

Sorry to hear about the Angel fry

When I was a child I has some mice in a cage, a girl and a boy. Of course they started to reproduce and from the first litter 3 made it to adulthood. Now, with 5 mice in a small cage, they bred all the time and each time there was a litter it was taken care of for a few days/weeks, but eventually the babies were eaten. The explanation I was told (and I never researched its validity) was that the lack of space causes the adults to realize that there will never be enough space/food for all of them (natural instinct - they don't know that the owner can increase the amount of food) and that is the reason why they ate the babies. Maybe something similar happened here in your tank.

About the algae: yeah - you got a nice base for additional algae with that driftwood. Can you take it out and treat it? I would first scrub off as much as you can and then dip it in a bleach solution, then rinse it and scrub again. Maybe place it in a bucket with water in it for another day (dark - no light) and then repeat before adding it back to the tank. BTW, it looks like a severe case of brush algae to me.

Mayacca Fluitans: Bensaf uses it as an indicator for his Iron level. And the way I see it yours is too low as the tips of your plant are white. They turn a bright green when Iron levels are sufficient.

Rummie picture: I see that your Pearl Grass is growing straight up. Is that intentional or is it not doing the lawn thing anymore?

Otherwise - Nice fishies

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Mayacca Fluitans: Bensaf uses it as an indicator for his Iron level. And the way I see it yours is too low as the tips of your plant are white. They turn a bright green when Iron levels are sufficient.

Somebody was paying attention in class

The color will vary anywhere from white to dark green depending on FE. It's very iron hungry.
Does look a little pale, so more micros It will help color up the red plants too.

---

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.

Somebody was paying attention in class

Yeah, you can be proud of your slightly younger student

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Well then, another two weeks along the way. In general I'm fairly happy, but there is still room for improvement. First some pictures and then a silly question. Here is the tank two and a half weeks ago, februari 14:


Since then I've been following weekly waterchanging schedule and have switched to a slightly heavier dosing of nutrients: more nitrate and more micros. The increase in nitrate was to stop the green brush algae from taking over, this seems to have worked... it doesn't grow nearly as much as it did two weeks ago. The micros were increased as the Mayacca seemed to indicate a lack of iron. I've added 50% more every other day.

Here's the current look:


One thing that is really starting to bug me is the staghorn algae, it is so far only present on the older leaves of some plants, but it definately is on the increase, here is a very clear photo of some of it.:



Now it is time for my silly question, so far I've been assuming that a tspn is a teaspoon... but as the staghorn is supposedly due to a lack of phosphate (right, Bernard?) then am I mistaken and is it actually a tablespoon? I really want to get this staghorn under control before it becomes a mess like it was 1½ years ago. So any suggestions on the matter are highly appreciated

so far I've been assuming that a tspn is a teaspoon... but as the staghorn is supposedly due to a lack of phosphate (right, Bernard?) then am I mistaken and is it actually a tablespoon? I really want to get this staghorn under control before it becomes a mess like it was 1½ years ago. So any suggestions on the matter are highly appreciated

Nope, tspn means teaspoon.

As for the staghorn, I'm not sure how it relates to phosphate, but I would push CO2 some more. Also, Flourish Excel is known to kill it. Use as directed.

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Back in the saddle!

Hi Martin,

Staghorn is usually an indicator of low macros, this would be N and P. Getting those right should stop new growth , but it really won't do anything for the algae that was already there (the nutrients don't kill algae they just prevent it from growing).

Certainly Flourish Excel will kill it , easily. Apply the Excel directly to the alagae via a syringe or something and it'll die off in a few hours.

Once you have Co2 and Macros good, it shouldn't re-appear.

But you do have to harass the old stuff.

---

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.

So flourish excel is the miracle tratment then. Does anyone know an online shop which sends stuff across the globe? I've never seen any flourish articles in my LFSs and the online shop in Germany, where I usually buy my things doesn't have it either.

Over the last week the staghorn has grown quite a bit, but part of that could be because my CO2 reactor wasn't working the way it should have. I think that due to dirty cablings from my filte not enough water was coming through it to effectively mix the CO2 into it. That has since been remedied. The new lights should be coming within the next two weeks I think, so then I get to do some DIY to get it all fixed into the hood. I'll probably also have to adjust the fertilizing schedule a bit again. For some 7 days I've now been dosing Nitrate every day and phosphate and micros on alternative days. Maybe I should still up the amounts a little to get algae growth further reduced.

Further increasing the amount of CO2 will mean that I'll have to install a second powerhead, I think. In the current setup part of the water flow from the filter is directed to my CO2 reactor, but that will have to be increased if I up the bubble per second rate, and that would leave not much to keep up the current through the tank.

Does anyone know an online shop which sends stuff across the globe?

http://www.Gregwatson.com should. He has Flourish Excel.

-P

I personally found that Excel works much better on Brush or Beard algae than it did on Thread or Staghorn. The only time that I saw the Excel take some effect on Staghorn was the very first time I treated my tank. Maybe it developed a form of immunity after that.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

How does flourish excel actually kill the algae, according to the description it's just organic carbon?

One of the ingrediants is also a mild dis-infectant which seems to have some effect on certain algaes.It also has some de oxidising properties so expect pearling to diminish when using.

---

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'm doing something wrong

Over the last two weeks or so, things have slowly started to deteriorate in my tank. Even though plantgrowth in general is still good, the staghorn now has gotten a solid grip and is showing up all over the place. In the week after the previous installment I figured that maybe I had been dosing too much of Nitrate and phosphate, and created some sort of imballance. The dosage that Bernard had suggested had not been really making a difference in the algae growth, I was still getting quite a bit of spot algae on the glass and slow growers such as Anubias and Lobelia, and so I had been dosing a bit more phosphate that prescribed (about 1/4 of a teaspoon every other day) and as my Alternanthera was still growing stunted I also increased the Nitrate dose, and was dosing about half a teaspoon every day. Now one thing I have to say and that is that I find the teaspoon measurements a big pain. Here in Finland foodstuffs aren't measured in teaspoons and so I'm just working with an ordinary teaspoon and guessing that what I'm adding is about 1/2, bus as I don't know how much of a pile you need on your spoon to have a full spoon full it is a bit of an wild guess really. Therefore it is quite possible that I'm not really adding quite as much as I think I am (it's a small spoon).

In any case, the staghorn did not diminish but actually got bigger, so I thought I was overdoing the phosphate thing. For a week I dosed a minimal amount of phosphate in the hope that would do the trick... Alas, a week later the staghorn has spread even more and it is slowly starting to look like the mess I had 1½ years ago...

I've now reinstated the previous fertilizing scheme, as then it at least didn't grow quite as fast. I opened the CO2 a tad more (pearling had diminished a lot during the week I didn't have as much phosphate). But I'm still looking for some answers.

- how much is one tablespoon?
- should I add even more nitrate?
- more phosphate?

I feel like a beginner again

Oh Martin, Martin,

You've made the classic mistake of letting the algae force you into meddling with dosing.

If you are having trouble with the teaspoon (teaspoon NOT tablespoon)download a nutrient calulator here http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_aquacalc.htm it will allow you to work out dosages in grams if that's easier.

Dosing the nutrients solves the root cause and prevents new algae growth. But it won't kill or reduce existing algae - you have to do that manually. Or nuke it with Excel. If you have access to hydrogen peroxide at the lab, you can also use this to nuke the staghorn by injecting small quantitites driectly onto the algae.

Keep at the dosage rates I gave you ( remember teaspoons the little 'un for stirring your coffee !), keep Co2 good and you will beat this.

No problem with adding more Nitrate, especially if the tap water is low. Can be a good idea to add a double dose after water change to get the level up and then a normal dose during the week to maintain.

Increasing Co2 is always the place to start, especially if pearling has decreased.

Also check and keep an eye on GH, don't let it get below 3dgh.

---

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.

Another two weeks further along. Since last time I've downloaded Chuck's calculator and based on that made liquid solutions of my Nitrate and phosphate. The dosing is a lot more controlled this way and at least it seems that the staghorn is no longer growing as hard as it did before. It's not gone, but there is some improvement.

Also, this week my new lamps arrived. two 55 watt T5 lamps, which will raise my wpg from about 1.8 to nearly 3. I haven't installed them yet, as I have to rebuild the hood a little to make it all fit without getting the water to a boil. the last few days I've been working mostly on that in the evenings. In practice it means that the lights will be raised about 4 cm, giving more air volume and with some extra holes in the back I hope to get enough airflow that the temperature will stay below 30 degrees Celsius. If not, I may have to install an active ventilator, but there should be room for that as well with the new setup.

Meanwhile I've been neglecting the plants a little, and everything is BIG at the moment. The stargrass is crawling on the surface, the Mayakka as well. I may do something about that tonight.

I wish you the best of luck with your aglae issue. To make you feel a little better. I really like how your tank is set up. You have a great virity of colors and everything looks great where you up it.

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

Dr.,

Good to hear that things are improving .

Now you will have to be very careful with the new light. That most likely will mean that you will have to up the nutrients and CO2 as well (but I am sure you knew that). I would suggest (as many others do as well) to have the new light on only for a short period at midday, like maybe 3 hours.

And before you start the trimming of your tank, please take a picture as I find overgrown tanks very pretty.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Yeah hang on to your pants with the new light. As LF said it might be a good idea to slowly add it in. Although I am running 3.25 for about 12 hours a day. No major problems. I did start out that way.

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

Nearly a month since the last update, The past few weeks have been a bit hectic in life and on top of that the motherboard of my PC decided it was time to die, which has limited my online activities quite a lot. Scanning the threads in these forums to see what was going on while I was at work has been pretty much the only thing I've been able to do lately. Currently I'm working on a temperary solution until the computershop gets my replacement motherboard (it still had guarantee so they had to replace it with the same model, which of course they did not have on stock).

In any case,I now have a series of photos that show quite nicely what has happened to the tank over the last few weeks. When I last posted I was having lots of trouble with the staghorn algae and the new lamps had just arrived. After I installed the lamps I hung in there for a week and hoped the algae would halt. At first nothing really seemed to change much, except that it did not seem to appear much on the new leaves. The patches of algae that were already there however, kept on growing bigger and bigger. After that week the bottom part of the tank looked like this, with staghorn covering lots of the anubias and cryptos there:

Attached Image:

Currently I'm working on a temperary solution

Wow Dr., no kidding, when you say temperary you really mean it, or why is there no additional photo showing?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Doc.,
That looks like some pretty nasty stuff. Have you been doing anything to beat on it a little? Stable CO2 and bunch of over doses of Excel should get you where you want to go.

Best of luck with the computer problems!

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

By that time I started to become rather annoyed with the whole thing. The tank just wasn't working the way I wanted it, the look was not quite as I liked it, the staghorn issue and on top of that the mollies we getting out of control with three or four females almost continuously giving birth. As I had removed the Angels some time ago, there was no predator present to kill off the young, so many of them survived.

At that point I decided to just let it be for a while, and only fed the fish. For nearly two weeks that was all I did and the tank went from this:

hmm, when I try to attach another photo it is always the same one that appears... I'll upload them to my personal webspace, show them from there


Attached Image:

ok, nevermind, that worked after all, it was just the preview that was wrong.
anyway, two weeks later the tank looked like this:


Attached Image:

Wow, And LF thinks he has problems! Are you gonna try and rescue it or scrap it?


Rick
See all my pictures at Google Web Albums

I can't say I'm proud of that photo, but that is how it looked at that point. By then I started to have a bit more time and during the easter weekend I took an afternoon to set things straight.

One of the problems I had been having was with the CO2 reactor. as that was driven by part of the filter output, it would slowly work less and less as the filter slowly clogs up with debris and the output is less. with as result that the reactor would just fill up with CO2 and not mix with water anymore. That was the first thing I addressed by taking the powerhead that had come with my second tank (basically a "toy" powerhead). I set that up so that the CO2 bubbles are split by the impellow and thus injected into the tank.

Then I removed a lot of the plants and almost all the leaves with algae. One thing I must note is that during this time the staghorn had disappeared almost completely except for two or three big wads near the surface. Those weare easily fished out. I removed a rather big lavarock that was always invisble and replanted everything. I think I discarded a few kilos of plants

Then it looked like this (notice the change in light intensity as well, though the photo is somewhat too bright)


Attached Image:

Wow, And LF thinks he has problems! Are you gonna try and rescue it or scrap it?

I almost scrapped it but instead rebuilt.

It's now been 1½ weeks since the resurrection. I am happy to say that so far: NO STAGHORN! None, nada, the tank is clear of it. Also, it seems as if the thread algae on the bogwood is receding, it's shorter than before and seems to get less. I still do have some spotaglae forming on the glass and on the slow growers like Anubias, but it isn't too bad. If it stays like this I'll sign for it. The powerhead is ugly, but it works like a dream. The plants pearl like there is no tomorrow and grow really well. Here's the look of today:

Attached Image:

One thing I didn't mention, is that I've now hired the help of a school of Tiger barbs to keep the molly population in check. They seem to enjoy the place, have nearly doubled in size since I go them and the molly population has dwindled a bit, so they seem to do their job.

I had the Angel parents in my fry tank, but about a month ago I donated them to some people who probably would enjoy them more. Some four days before they were picked up, they laid some eggs, of which the fry was swimming freely the day they were moving out.

Somehow about 30 of those fry survived, and they're still alive. Here's a photo of the frytank, as it is of today


Attached Image:

Dang Doc your tank went out of control! You need to take the jungle tank award away from LF. Its yours now! Tank is looking better. Keep us up dated!

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

Very nice Dr., good documentation of stages

So, what do think was the problem that caused the major algae outbreak in the first place? Do you think it was only the inconsistent and dwindeling CO2 input? I think it could also have been that your plants didn't get enough light anymore (that one shot seems to show that there was almost no light reaching the bottom) and as such neglected to suck up the nutrients, which then in turn were used by the algae.

Anyway, it looks very nice now. And it also seems like you cleaned out the fry tank quite a bit as that was doesn't show any algae either anymore.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Do you think it was only the inconsistent and dwindeling CO2 input? I think it could also have been that your plants didn't get enough light anymore

Probably a combination of both. Also, I think the three tubes that I had in there before I added the T5s are at the end of their life time. All three of them are well over a year old, closer to two actually, which is about the maximum you can drag out of them I think. Seeing the effect of the new tubes I'm considering switching to T5s altogether, removing the three T8s that are in there and adding two of the T5s that I just bought. That would put me at 220 watts over the 65g.

Currently I'm just not quite sure if I want to spend that additional 200€ right now, or wait and see how much I have left after the summer holidays and fixing my motorcycle

Also the inconsistent CO2 dosage may have contributed, but I think that there was too much algae to begin with. It had such a big start that the plants just could not outcompete it. When the tank went overboard and grew totally closed up, I basically had a blackout for about a week. I think that helped shutting down algae growth while the plants were still mostly doing fine. By removing all plants and leaves that still had a lot of algae I think I gave the plants a fresh start where they could start outcompeting the algae. At least, I hope I did. We're now nearly two weeks further since I did the major overhaul and generally it still looks very promising, with only the front glass, the reineckki and anubias showing a bit of algae. I'm not too worried about that, but I fear what the tank will look like when I get back from summer holidays, when I 'll be gone for two weeks with only someone coming by to feed the fish

As for the fry-tank. Once I started doing some more regular water changes it pretty much fixed itself. The algae that remained was eaten(!) by the trumpet snails in a span of a few days, they literally ate everything. You could see the progress while watching them. Since then I've been doing 40% water changes weekly and nothing else. the plants grow slow, but steadily, and although nothing is really lush, I rather like the look. It's a low light tank after all, at 1.2 wpg or so, and no CO2.

It is time again for a monthly update (I never get around to being as active in my updates as Ingo ).

The new lamp arrived from Germany some two weeks ago and I installed it pretty much the day after. During the first 24 hours I kept a close look at the temperature, and although it rose a little, it stayed under 30 degrees Celsius. As I was leaving the house for a couple of days for a meeting just after the weekend, I thought I'd keep it like that until I came back and then work on the hood improvements during the next weekend. Funny how things never really work out the way you plan.

When I returned, the amount of algae in the tank had increased a lot, it was mostly something that resembled green spot algae and it had pretty much covered the front glass. I can't say I was very happy about it. That evening I cleaned the glass, pruned a little (though the plants had not grown particularly much) and did the waterchange. Two days later there was already a lot of algae on the window again. By that time, plant growth seemed to have ceased almost completely for about half of the plants, and one of my Otos had died. Things were definately not good. After I located the thermometer (the suction rubber always comes loose) I checked out the temperature and was shocked when it read 33 degrees Celsius! That was thursday last week.

That evening I went through all the electronics stuff I have gathered over the last few years and combined two computer fans and a battery charger to set up air circulation in the hood of the aquarium. At the moment it is a temperary solution that makes a lot of noise (the fans run at about 6000 rpm), but it works. Late thursday evening the temperature had dropped down to 30 degrees Celsius, and by friday evening it was holding steady at 25 degrees Celsius. We were away again for the weekend, but there is some progress visible now. Plants have resumed growth and algae does not grow nearly as fast anymore on the front glass.

So there you have it, keep an eye on your temperature, too high is definately bad.

I never get around to being as active in my updates as Ingo

I take that as a compliment, or are you trying to tell me I should slow down ?

What an experience you had there. While reading through your entry, although you mentioned the temperature pretty much up front, I concluded for myself that the issue is nutrient related. The new light caused more nutrient uptake and eventually you ran out of one member and the rest was available for the algae. For the same reason, the plants stopped growing after the reserves had been used up.

But you seem to have figured out that it was all heat related. I take your word for it

On the other hand - - What if a higher temp causes faster growth in your plants and that is why the nutrients depleted?

just some food for thoughts,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I take that as a compliment, or are you trying to tell me I should slow down?

Nah, I'm following your thread with great interest, even if it is sometimes a bit hard to keep up with all the new posts

On the other hand - - What if a higher temp causes faster growth in your plants and that is why the nutrients depleted?

Well, growth slowed down and then pretty much stopped, also did some of the crypts begin to melt, as did the tiger lotus and the green lotus. All this time I have kept the nutrients quite steady, so if it was just that, I would not expect to see all these plants suffer so much all of a sudden. I'm 95% confident (let's not put it at 100% until a week has passed ) that it was mostly temperature related. As far as I know, most plants prefer temperatures below 28 degrees anyway.

Yep 33o would definately hurt, especially over a prolonged period.

Just remember with more light you will need more nutirents

Plenty of phosphate will keep that algae off the glass and eveything else. Used to have the same problem , scraping glass every week, in the years since I started adding phosphate never seen a spot on the glass or anywhere else. Now it just gets a quick runover with a sponge once a week. The phosphate really does work.

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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'm following your thread with great interest

Oh thanks Dr. , that means a lot to me, given that in my first entry of my log, in the section About the log, I indicate that you were one of the blueprints that led me to create that log in the first place.

About the Temp and the Algae: Yeah, no doubt 33 degrees is too hot and will cause problems by itself, but talking in a more abstract term:

We all know (I believe) that fish seem to live longer when maintained at the lower end of their acceptable temperature range, it slows down their metablosim and makes them less active, ergo they burn out slower (sounds like a light bulb description, ). I think it is only a small step to associate plants with this process - lower temps (within range) should mean slower growth and as such less nutrient uptake.

So - if someone has figured out the right settings of nutrients for a lower temp and all seems fine, and then the person increases the temp but not the nutrients supply, shouldn't that conclude in a lack of food for the plants?

Just thinking,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

hi all...im new to the forum so u can expect some stupid questions from me... apologies in advance...dont even know if its the right thread to post in but please give me the benefit of doubt
i have a question regarding the CO2 injection by the yeast/sugar method. Fermentation produces alcohol and it evaporates readily. Then it dissolves in water readily too. Shouldn't it create a problem for the fish? I lost four fish in a night when i introduced CO2 injection. I'm 90% sure it was a change in pH that did it but the question remains in my mind.

mughal113,

Hi there and welcome at FP

To be honest, it is not really ok to create your questions in someones diary or log .

Instead, you should create your own New Topic and raise the question there.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

hi ...well, i saw that coming thats why id mentioned "appologies in advance"
thanks... will take a bit of time to get used to of the rules and regs. i was reading the diary and came across the co2 injection portion, thought of clearing my concept...

regards,

Hi mughal113,

I don't mind the question very much, asking questions is the best way to learn something new and as I had a DIY system for a while I'll try to answer it.

Fermentation produces alcohol and it evaporates readily. Then it dissolves in water readily too. Shouldn't it create a problem for the fish? I lost four fish in a night when i introduced CO2 injection. I'm 90% sure it was a change in pH that did it but the question remains in my mind.

Yes, fermentation does indeed produce alcohol, but it will take time and the final concentration in the DIY bottle will not get terribly high. Anything more than 15% will surely kill off your yeast, and that will effectively stop the fermenting process. Furthermore, the amount of evaporating alcohol at those concentrations is really quite low and the small amount that actually does evaporate will end up in a much larger volume of tankwater. I'd say that on average an aquarium has a volume of 10-40 times that of a DIY bottle, now let's say that one tenth of the produced alcohol evaporates from your 2 liter bottle (I'm just naming an amount, I'm not sure how much actually does evaporate, but I'm quite sure it's a lot less). 15% of two liters makes 300 ml, one tenth of that is 30 ml. Say you have a 60 liter aquarium, that would make a final concentration of 0.05%. I don't know how much that would affect the fish, but I don't think it's very much and it would take a long time to get to that point. If you keep up regular water changes you would never get there.

Like I said, it's just an example and not based on actual data. As the mixture in a DIY bottle is under some pressure (caused by the CO2) and is an almost closed environment, I think the actual evaporation of alcohol is very low. What you encountered with the fish dying is indeed most likely related to a sudden shift in pH or some other factor. In one night you would not even have all that much alcohol production anyway.

If I'm making some critical thinking error, then I'd like to see that corrected, so anyone, feel free to comment.

ThankS a lot for clearing out the confusion. Yes, the percentage of alcohol by volume would be too small to incur any damage to the fish. pH change must have been the culprit.

Another update, I think it's been about three weeks since the last one. During these three weeks nothing terribly much has changed in the way I've run the tank. Meaning that I have been ignoring it a bit and only have done the weekly maintenance and a bit of fertilizing. The tank is behaving better though, the ventilators on top really seem to have made the difference and keep the water temperature very nice at 25 - 26 degrees Celsius. I must say that they're still very much at a temporary setup, but my wife hasn't been complaining about the noise of the ventilators so I haven't had a very big incentive to do something about them. I will have to do something about them before I go on vacation in two weeks though, as the water evaporation is a bit extreme at the moment, in three days I lose about 2 2½ gallons due to the evaporation.

Otherwise things go pretty well, most algae has stopped growing, with the exception of a bit of beard algae and green spot algae on the glass. My guess is that with a bit tighter fertilizng sceme that should go as well. I'll try to get that going after I get back from Malta.

To cut things short, here's a photo of this afternoon, about 2 hours after the water change and some excessive weeding.



Attached Image:

I think that .05% alchohol would give the fish a nice buzz...but they should probably give somebody else the keys. In all seriousness I never had any problems with fish while I was doing DIY.

I think once that front section fills in with the chain sword, the tank will look very nice again. The mid and background plants look excellent.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Dr.,

Yeah, the tank looks very nice and most improtantly you seem to have much less algae issues

One question: What happened to the Pearl Grass carpet towards the right? Was it too maintenance intensive to keep them in a lower shape?

So when you go on vacation you go from one Island in the Mediterranean to another?

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I think once that front section fills in with the chain sword, the tank will look very nice again. The mid and background plants look excellent.

That shouldn't take too much time, those few plants that are there at the moment were the ones I picked from the 40 or so that were there before the weeding They grow really a bit fast. I'm still not too happy with the left side of the tank. The anubias there is still a bit of a problem. When I did some maintenance 1½ weeks ago I took them all out and removed almost all leaves that had too much beard algae growing on them. That was about 80% of the leaves. This left them really rather bare, but I hope they'll fill in with new shoots soonishly. Also, the Lobelia in that area is still in a bit of a bad shape. those plants really could not stand the high temperature and had almost died. Since I installed the fans they are recovering nicely, with new shoots rising up from the old, ugly stems.

One question: What happened to the Pearl Grass carpet towards the right? Was it too maintenance intensive to keep them in a lower shape?

There is still some of the pearl grass, but before I put in the new lamp it was not really growing sideways like I wanted it to. As a carpet it did not really function very well and then I found those chain swords which grew a whole lot better. I then got rid of most of the pearl grass, except for a small group which is right next to the chain sword. I don't really trim that, and just let it grow upwards, when it gets too high I cut it down and replant the tops. Maybe I'll do something different with it at some point, that's why I keep it around for now.

So when you go on vacation you go from one Island in the Mediterranean to another?

This year, yes Though Madeira isn't really in the Mediterranean Malta is going to be really nice and relaxing, with a lot of diving, and later this summer to Italy. Next year will probably be a USA year with a summer trip down the eastcoast. What can I say, we like to travel

Gee Dr.,

I got confused. I thought you are in Cyprus, but now I remember that this was Robby, I believe . Well, close enough

Yeah, I saw that you have some pearl gras remaining, I was just curious because I have quite a bit of it in my 125G and I was wondering how well the carpeting was working out in the long run. I think I got my answer

Ingo

EDIT: Oh - US East Cost - you will have to visit us

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

In Ingo's thread I said that I had stopped with this log, I guess I lied The updates do become rarer and rarer, but occasionally I'll try to add a little progress report here with some photos.

During the summer months I haven't really paid too much attention to the tank. I've done some weeding every now and then and added two gallons of water every four days as I'm still running the temporary fans on top to keep the temperature down. Funny how things that are temporary can just stay and stay and stay. Over those three months surprisingly little changed, I stopped fertilizing almost altogether, as my nitrate solution had run out and I figured that dosing just the other stuff wouldn't be particularly good either. Besides, it was summer; I was traveling a lot and away for most weekends. Leaving the fertilizing to my inlaws was not an option, making them feed the fish and having them top off the tank once a week was pretty much all I could expect from them. So, there was no fertilization for nearly three months.

The result: an increase in beard algae, it grew on all anubias and on some of the older leaves of plants, mostly the old crypto leaves and the lower leaves of the Bacopa, but also the bogwood is now completely covered in the wavy stuff. Some small tufts of staghorn here and there, but not so much that it really bothers me at the moment. And slower plant growth, though the Reineckii actually seems to like it better this way. Oh and the sunset hygro is a lot more colorful than it was during the high dosage fertilization.

Then about three weeks ago, all vacations were over and I was getting a bit more time for maintaining the tank. I dis some more weeding, moved a few things around a little and started dosing a little bit of phosphate and some micros (I still don't have nitrate). I'm keeping the dosage low, just enough to halt the staghorn in it steps and I want to slowly see what works best in my tank. I have some photos of how the tank was two weeks ago (the 9th, two days after maintenance) and today (also two days after maintenance), you can compare them with the one of the beginning of July. Enjoy.

Oh, PS. I had to remove the chain swords. Someone, I suspect the yoyos, were eating all the new leaves, and they were looking dreadful. Also, yesterday I recruited six Otos to help me in my battle against algae, even though they don't eat beard algae, there is plenty of other stuff for them around.


1.7.06


9.9.06


24.9.06

In Ingo's thread I said that I had stopped with this log, I guess I lied

Well Dr,

It is amazing how well your tank looks after it got so little attention for such a long time. Unlike me though, you are not really showing us the details at the bad stage .

How did you get rid of the BBA? Simply by trimming off all effected leaves?

About the Otos: don't think that you have now a sufficient platoon of algae eaters for future outbreaks. 6 of them is a nice group (have 6 in my 40G), but they will not really make a big difference. I simply find them cute and that is why I have them. Although, they were pretty good at eating the onset of diatoms when the tank was new.

Good to see that you do update your log once in a while, I would not like to see this log to simply vanish.

Have fun,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

It is amazing how well your tank looks after it got so little attention for such a long time. Unlike me though, you are not really showing us the details at the bad stage.

Ah well, I had some nasty details on the previous page so I thought I'd spare those for now, I'm not really all that proud of them, you know

How did you get rid of the BBA? Simply by trimming off all effected leaves?

Pretty much yes, there's still quite a few leaves that are having a bunch of the stuff, but from a distance it doesn't look so bad. Maybe I'll take some photos of those during the week, if I'm home early enough to actually find the main lights still on.

About the Otos: don't think that you have now a sufficient platoon of algae eaters for future outbreaks. 6 of them is a nice group (have 6 in my 40G), but they will not really make a big difference. I simply find them cute and that is why I have them. Although, they were pretty good at eating the onset of diatoms when the tank was new.

Yeah I know, and since they don't really eat beard algae I don't really expect to see any difference either. I used to have a set of 5 Otos, but most of them passed away in the period when the tank was overheated. Only one remained, and I bought the six as company for that one. Besides, they -are- cute

Good to see that you do update your log once in a while, I would not like to see this log to simply vanish.

I'll try to keep it up to date, but I know that I have periods in which I am more active at these things, and then after a while I just can't seem to make myself take the time to update about the fight against algae
We'll see how long I manage this time.

Edit: I just noticed this was my 300th post

after a while I just can't seem to make myself take the time to update about the fight against algae

Come on, that is what my log makes a living off

And congratulation on 300 posts , which is about as much as I post in a month

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I agree with LF, the tank must have magically formed a beard algae black hole or something. All those plants are looking quite healthy. Good recovery from not taking care of it for so long, and nice colors. Gotta be doing something right. I like how the stargrass forms a bush in the second pic, rather than a column in the third. Other than that, I got's no complaints.

EDIT: Oh, and too bad about the chain swords. They might be my favorite plant. If someone started destroying them in my tank it'd be war!

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

the tank must have magically formed a beard algae black hole or something. All those plants are looking quite healthy.

That is true for the faster growing plants, yes. But although the tank looks pretty good from a distance, when you look up close, there are still many instances of the beard algae present. I still haven't removed the Anubias from the tank (I can't help but love Anubias and I keep hoping that some day I'll beat the algae and they will grow nicely for me). I thought I'd illustrate it by putting up a couple of close-up photos. First up is the Alternanthera reineckii, I'm actually really pleased with the way those are going, as I have come very close to discarding them at some point. For some time they just looked absolutely horrible, and kept attracting all kinds of algae, now they look mostly very clean.


the second group is Limnophila aromatica, They're currently a bit thin-ish, as they've just been re-planted and it usually takes a little while for them to recover from topping. Still, I really like these plants. They're fairly easy, grow relatively slow, but stay quite algae free.


This third group is a red Crypto, I used to have a group of those off to the left, and then this one popped up from a creeper some distance off from the group. It is amongst a group of Cryptocoryne willisii, which is now becoming quite shaded, I may have to remove either kind. The willisii always has been quite susceptible to beard algae, but lately it's been doing a little better. You can still see some in between and also some of the red crypt have beards.


Then the last group I want to show is a Lobelia cardinalis mixed in with some of the old Anubias. Both are slow growers, with maybe the lobelia being ever so slightly faster. Yet, the Aniubas leaves get overgrown with beards in just a few weeks, while Lobelia in general stays quite clean. In this photo the worst affected area of the tank is shown. I may do some weeding in there during this weekend.


There you have it, a set of large closeups of my tank. I'll try to get all my images organized and prepare a series of photos of the tank over the last two years.

Yeah Dr.,

That's what I am talking about. I appreciate your willingness to show us the beauty of your black plants

And I agree, there is sure some algae left in the tank. At least it doesn't make me feel like I am the only one with this kind of issues.

And yes, go dig out the old pics, please

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Very nice!

The colors alone are something to really appreciate. I particularly like the way the baby tears in the second pick go in front of the tall corner plants that frame the tank.

Anyway, BBA just about everyone has some. The co2 inconsistency definitely increases the growth rate of the BBA, that coupled with high organics IMO makes the BBA flourish. I see many very big waste producers in the tank. That is a difficult mix with a highlight planted tank. I see about 15 pretty good size fish not counting the rummys and whatever else you have in there. These fish simply create too much waste and their food requirements are larger too. They give you very little room for error. I also get BBA in my tank mostly on the hardscape and sometimes on the Blyxa because it doesn't get enough light to grow. IMO you have to push the co2 to the max to control BBA in a tank like yours or in that case most tanks that have a fairly large organics load.

BTW - When I first saw your Limnophila aromatica I thought it was stargrass. As you might know I have the same plant as the centerpiece of my scape. I usually replant the tops though. I guess it depends on the look you want. When you cut the top I usually get multiple headers coming out of the cut stem which results in a bushier look, but thinner stems and probably less colorful.

My Scapes

I see about 15 pretty good size fish not counting the rummys

I thought my fishload wasn't too horrible, though the explosion of black mollies have made it a bit high. I'm planning to get rid of some of those. Besides the rummies there's three Yoyos, six Tiger barbs, three medium sized black mollies (and a bunch of little ones), and then now the six Otos. Mhmmm... summing it all up like this does make it sound like a lot. I need to get rid of the Mollies.

Anyway, I've gone through some of my files and have come up with a series of photos that show off the tank quite well. I've resized them so they're all the same size, which made the first couple a bit blurry. Those were taken with a normal camera, and I don't quite recall where I put the originals, so these will have to do.

Here we go, it started with an empty tank, with only the background installed:


Then I filled it up with water and let the bogwood pieces soak, only two of those ended up in the tank. This was May, 2004


The first plants, I thought it looked awfully empty.


And about two weeks later it looked a lot better: June 2004. The first fish, a couple of Rummies were added to the tank (they still live).


In August I started running into some trouble, staghorn and cloudy waters, I hated my tank:


Some two and a half weeks later, the water issues were mostly solved, getting rid of the staghorn took longer.


Another week later I was slowly starting to like the tank again: September 2004


The end of October, 2004. The Angelfish have decided to become vegetarians and ripped many of the plants apart.


Januari, 2005. The angels are still eating the plants, but plant growth has picked up, first week one:


Then one week later:


And one month after that, right after a weeding session:


July, 2005. About a year after setup. The angels are doing great, laying eggs nearly every two weeks, but I've returned two of them to the petstore, there was too much aggression between them. The plants are not doing very well and the nesting often prevents me from maintenance as I don't want to scare the parents:


October, 2005. Bernard once said that I'm a heavy weeder. He's very right, I think I overdo it a bit.


February 2006, I've moved the Angels to a different tank and now have started a more consistent fertilization schedule. Plantgrowth is picking up beautifully:


Ten days of fertized growth:


The next day it was time for some heavy weeding. Too much? Yeah, you're probably right:


March 2006: A month later, plantgrowth is great, but so is algae growth. I hoped the fertilizing according to the EI schedule would prevent it, but the problems with consistent CO2 delivery probably pit a stick in the wheel.


July 2006: The tank is now up and running for two years. Summer is over and I'm trying another fresh start. This year new light have been installed and pretty soon I hope to have a hood which makes it easier to maintain the tank.


September 9, 2006: The hood is still under construction, but the tank is picking up under a somewhat better controlled fertilization and CO2 delivery, I have not quite given up hope yet.


September 24, 2006: The most recent photo up to date. Still some algae, but it's not too bad, coming weekend there's more time for maintenance. new photos will be made

Awesome Dr.,

That sums it up nicely,visually and emotionally. 2 years of ups and downs, we are for sure in the same boat

Visually I like the "February 2006" shot the best, the tank seems to display the greatest depth at that stage.

I am wondering also, do you think your hand-made background was worth the effort (and the water displacement)? Most of the time it cannot even be seen in the pictures, except after some heavy weed whacking. I would also assume that the surface of it allows for algae populations to thrive as cleaning them off seems impossible to me.

Thanks for the summary, very nice,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

I am wondering also, do you think your hand-made background was worth the effort (and the water displacement)? Most of the time it cannot even be seen in the pictures, except after some heavy weed whacking. I would also assume that the surface of it allows for algae populations to thrive as cleaning them off seems impossible to me.

The answer to that is simple: No

Over the past two years I've often thought that I made that thing way too thick, and as you say, in a heavily planted tank you just don't see it enough. I think that it would probably work very well in a cichlid tank with mostly rocks (though then in a color matching the natural rocks).

However, in a freshly weeded tank, I still like the look of it, and if I would start completely anew with a tank, I probably would still make some kind of background, I'd just keep it a whole lot thinner and probably would not put nearly as much effort in it as I have done for this one. The lower part could have been a quarter inch thick and totally flat, and you'd never know it once the tanks has grown in a little.

Actually I really enjoyed that about your thread DR. Bonke. I still find the texture at the top very attractive compared to a flat peice of glass that is easily figured to be painted or backed with cardboard. I agree it would do the job thinner and the bottom half isn't visible, but I've always thought it would have been worth it.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Just a brief update of the tank as it was during the weekend. This photo was taken on the 6th. All in all I'm happy with the way it is progressing. the light fertilization seems to have helped with the plantgrowth and algae issues. a bit of phosphate keeps the front window quite clean and stops the staghorn from taking over the place. And the micros keep my plants pretty.

Here it is