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Green with envy yet?

You bet I am!!!

How did you up the Kh? With Baking Soda I hope.

Your increase in snails is without a doubt not related to your stabilized tank, except if living conditions beforehand were so bad that not even the snails survived. Snails are increasing because of one of two things (anyone is welcome to share if he/she knows of other reasons):

- Too much fish food
- Larger than usual die-offs, usually in plant matter but it could also be fish left in the tank

Otherwise, the tank looks very nice,

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Ingo,

Yep, baking soda did the trick.

Also, I've always had a thriving snail community, but after the upped kH, they seem to be in happy land, reproducing like crazy. I've got lots of trumpet snails that I'm happy with, but the pond snails and the ramshorns - geez. I hate em. About water polution, absolutly no fish were harmed in the making of this tank and I only have a tiny bit of die off in my vals. The rest is going great. I haven't seen many of the amano's around over the last few days...I'm hoping they are just hanging out somewhere that I can't see. I'll have to spend a bit of time eyeballing for tiny skrimp corpses. Yuck!

As for the food, I'm very good with portioning. I only feed in small amounts and watch it get eaten before feeding more. I'm pretty frugal with the eats having heard many times about the perils of overfeeding. The fish aren't starving, but they for sure aren't overfed.

Any ideas on how to reduce their numbers would be appreciated. For now I'll keep on picking them out.

:j

You did do a trim!

My favorite part about that tank was the path in the middle leading back to that feathery tall plant in the middle that came to a point. It's not pointy anymore. Nothing like being picky, is there?

Great haul on the free stuff! That's always so much fun!

Jay,

The only other explanation I can imagine for the snail explosion is that you somehow have more calcium in the tank, usually by having a higher GH or specific calcium addition as a fert. That's the stuff snails need to build their shells (I think) and if it is lacking then shell buildup is weak and snails die off before becoming large enough to be seen.

If that were not the case in your tank then somehow they must have a food source, otherwise they cannot be there. Do you have more algae than before? Or, as a last resort, did you reduce surface agitation and now have a film of protein on the surface (great snail food) ?

With regards to removal support: I am opposed to use fish for that means, except if one wants to have these specific fish anyway. Here I am thinking in particular of Loaches, most people recommend Clown Loaches.
I am even more opposed to chemicals to kill off snails.
Hand removal is the right thing to do, it will take some time but you are the closest to the subject and can identify changes in the population easily (as such, identify changes in tank conditions).

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Ingo - Yep, I've had much more algae recently. I had attributed that to my UV bulb dying but I supposed it could be something else. Also, my spraybar is under water and does not agitate the surface very much at all. I raise it every once in a while to get rid of the protein scum, but haven't done that in around two or three weeks.

Everyone else - two questions.

First one, what the heck is this stuff?

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t178/plankton9/80%20Gallon/whattheheck.jpg

It wraps itself around everything.


Second question. My girlfriend is moving in with me and bringing her two cats. It's not that I don't like cats, but my tanks are open to the air - no tops. Are there any other fish keepers out there who have to deal with cats jumping on their tanks? Catdancer perhaps

Just wondering the best material to cover the tank with. I tried eggcrate but it sucks. It blocks a ton of light and isn't very strong. I'm thinking a sturdy piece of glass, say 1/4 inch or so. If I use glass, how much space do I have to leave for air exchange? Any suggestions for other materials? I'd love to keep it open, but I think that's probably out of the question.

Cheers!

:j

Hi,
We have cats. My tank has a 1/4 inch piece of glass on
it that covers all but the last inch and a half in the back
leaving room for the heater and filter connections. On top
of the glass sits my hood. It has a fan in it and the cats
don't like the fan.

Whenever I am cleaning the tank, I have one that sits atop
the computer hutch staring down at the operation,
supervising. The other will jump from the desk top to the
top of the tank, when I leave the tank open, and balance
with three feet on the black plastic rims, and go "fishing"
with the fourth. She swipes at the fish when they swim
past her. That, of course, gets her paw wet, and what
self respecting cat will tolerate wet feet? So she shakes
it hard to throw off the drops and somehow still maintains
her balance. I swear some day she's going swimming!
She's never caught a fish as they sense the sudden movement
of her body and paw and dive deeper into the tank. But it
is a riot to watch.

What you picture could be a plant fragment, or more
probably, stag horn algae that is growing. The green glass
would indicate that you also have sheet algae growing on
the glass.

Here is a site that should help identify the types of
algae, their causes, and "cures":

http://www.otocinclus.com/articles/algae.html

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Frank -

Thanks for the reply. Man, it would really really suck if your cat took a header into the tank. Makes me cringe just thinking about it.

The green you are seeing are the plants. The camera is pointing at the glass divider and down into my tank. The more brown stuff on the right is a bit of florabase sludge. I'd just been working in the tank. My glass is pretty much clean as a whistle.

And I don't think the mystery stuff is staghorn. For one, it doesn't attach itself to plants. It just sort of drifts along in the current until it gets snagged by something. It seems to act mostly like a moss. I don't think it's a plant fragment - these always look pretty much exactly the same size shape etc. I've been plucking it out of the tank about on par with the java moss that I'll never see the end of.

Also, it never seems to get bigger than whats shown About 16th inch in thickness and about 1 1/2-2 inches in length. The pictures I've seen of staghorn show that it grows quite large.

I could be wrong though, I've never dealt with staghorn and don't know much about it other than what I've read on a few websites.

I'll go have a peek.

Jay , If you want to control pond snails , Dwarf Loaches are a pretty good option .
Active little fellas that perform for you as well as eat snails .
Don't take up much room either ,as they only grow to a couple of inches unlike Clown's .

Garry

Everyone else - two questions.

Does that mean I am not allowed to answer the questions?

Well, I got one anyway

Frank, get your glasses

That Staghorn is a piece of Riccia. very often tiny bits get stuck in plants from vendors, in particular in mosses. These then grown in the new owner's tank to normal structures and are used by various people with great success in aquascapes.

Jay - Search for Riccia on Google

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

hehee..okay Everyone else, including Ingo...especially Ingo...uh how about just Ingo.

Thanks for the info EVERYONE.

Hmmm Riccia eh? Yep I'm canadian and the ever present 'eh' is a big part of my vocabulary. I've only seen it in photos where it is in lush mounds. I never saw a piece of it on it's own before. I was trying to find some a while back - I went all over the place, but nobody had any - and I had it in my tank the whole bloody time

Garry, how do loaches do with the rest of my clean up crew? I've got amano's, ottos and a couple of SAE's? I remember reading somewhere that they can be pretty ornery...

:j

Look what just popped up! Now I know where your avatar came from Ingo.

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t178/plankton9/anubiasflower.jpg

Out of curiosity, what is the biological purpose of these flowers? Do they propagate via seed? If so, how are the seeds harvested/planted?

:j

Jay , Funny you should mention that . Mine seem to have taken a dislike to the SAE's , chase them about a bit . The SAE's are big enough to look after themselves though . Don't seem to bother the Ottos or anyone else . Remember these guys are pretty small .

Garry

Hi Jay!

I just happened to think of your tank this am. & was wondering how it was doing? It might be a jungle by now.

I suppose gone are the days of it's nice slim, trim look that I liked so well? It's ok, I still have the picture. A recent one might prove interesting though, if you feel up to it?

Jay-

I am new to planted tanks.. well new to fishkeeping period lol. I just wanted to tell you that your tank is very nice, looks quite natural. I like the addition of the hardscape material, the big stone especially. It sort of breaks things up a bit. Those tetras look shard against the darker colored plantings... very nice, what a showpiece! It looks like you've spent a lot of time with this tank!