Vigilante

LMAO! You'll have to fight my wife over the tilapia, it's one of her favorite fillets haha...

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We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
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curiousbear

I had a 20 gallon fresh water aquarium with few barbs and tetras. I also had natural plants in it. Now I had moved to a new place and it will take some time to decide about aquarium. I will mostly go for fresh water school fishes and lots of natural plants.

ChyTrack, you can post the photos in flickr or picasa and embed the link here. Like this. or you can embed the picture itself like below.



But I think a separate forum for Garden & Pets would be a good idea. Moderator?

MontanaXVI

I had at one time.

10 gallon betta tank
20 L community tank
46 bow front with an Oscar and two HUGE pleco I had to get rid of though they just outgrew my tank too fast for me to get something larger, plus my small apartment didn't suit the tank upgrade

I took the 46 and added one single otto cat and about 5-10 mystery snails which I had for a number of years, then when I moved the otto was the only thing left and he didn't survive the move so I have had the 46 in the basement empty for almost a year now.

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Spank you very much

Vigilante

Here's a pic of mine finally, still in the setup stages. Most of the plants towards the back will fill the top and make a backdrop. Just playing the waiting game with them for now. Hair and staghorn algae are kicking my ass, which is why some of them are trimmed down to nearly a stump.

I have mixed native plants and fish with tropical now. Didn't feel like hassling with native plant adaption issues. It could work now that I've upgraded the light, but meh. Light in the pic is ~200w, 3 white 32w + 2 54w daylight HO lights. The two 54w HO actinics are off, but present. Waiting for the plants to out-compete the algae before I crank up the juice. It's not really necessary, but I want the plants to bush out with little upward growth, and I like the added blue tint. The yellow tint is kinda ugly IMO.

Image is link to fullsize


Cory cats love the sand substrate...


See?

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Tophat665

Good tank. Couple of things that will fix your algae problem.
- Lose the actinics and replace with 10000K or 6700Ks. Algae uses actinics more efficiently than vascular plants for some reason.
- More plants. Get something like Anachris or Wisteria (Hygrophilia difformis) that grows like mad and which you won't feel bad about ditching when that cabomba starts taking off for you. There aren't enough plants in there to make a good dent in the nutrients, and that's what's giving the algae an opening to get busy with.
- Siamese Algae eater. Now, this is one you may or may not want to do. They will take care of staghorn and black beard algae, given some time. OTOH they get up over 4" easily, and they get snotty when they get large unless they have company (I have 3 adults in a 75 who pal around pretty good and mostly limit their aggression to each other, but the one juvenile in my 50 is a bit persnickety and territorial - likes to move my monkey loaches along if they decide to get near him.) But over time they will solve any BBA problems.
- Flourish Excel. If you have a lot of plants in there, but you still have algae problems, then maybe your plants need a source of carbon, usually CO2. This stuff adds carbon in a form the plants can use but that won't outgas if you roil the surface.

Hope that helps you out.

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Vigilante

Just to get you up to speed:
- Actinics have been off since my 3-day blackout. Hair algae is down, but staghorn is back up.
- I'm working on stocking the tank still. What I have will fill it up over time, but I'll continue to grab more ground cover as well. I'm looking for this one type of grass, maybe I can get some this week.
- I had 3 SAEs but they died. I got them from an excellent local shop, but the turnover is so fast there that I couldn't get known healthy and tolerant fish. Ironically the 5 otos I got from petco are doing great (all alive after 2 weeks) and the ones I got from the other shop, 2 out of 10 died within 24 hours. The rest seem to be doing fine. If your SAEs are grouchy maybe they are flying foxes? I had a couple of true SAEs in my last tank and never saw any aggression at all, even when they did mock breeding behavior. From what I've read, if your SAEs have any color in the fins except a mild yellow, they are probably FFs.
- CO2? No need for excel yet, unless I want to double dose.

Constant feed. Was feeding into canister intake but when the tank had higher levels the gas would build up some in the filter, so I went to just open tank release. It is positioned so that the bubbles hit the filter output and get dispersed in the water column. With this working as well as it is, I don't feel the need for a diffuser. I get so much pearling that some plants seem to be more air than matter. Trust me the water column is literally full of O2 bubbles from the plants. I use the central airstone to simply keep the balance, otherwise it would be too much for the fish at night. It also helps to break up the inevitable surface film that occurs when you fert the tank. pH is normally 7.8, but drops to ~7.2 with CO2. No signs of distress to the fish so I'm holding it there. I have some H. difformis on the right side in the second pic. Don't worry I'm there already and I know the plants I need, but budget is tight so it's just a few at a time . I'm depending on them to grow so I can do cuttings, rather than buy a tankful at once.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Tophat665

You're way out on top of it then.
Your algae problem, then, is simply a matter of there being too few plants to use all the nutrients in the water column. Time is your friend, because the stems will eventually take off, and if you get Saggitaria subulata (probably the grass you're looking for), that will carpet the tank right quickly once it gets going.

Still, anachris is cheap enough that some folks buy it to feed their goldfish, and you don't have to root it. Chuck a couple of bunches in there as nitrate sponges while the cabomba comes up to speed. That should help with the algae at least a little.

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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Vigilante

I think you're right. Last time I did a water change (right after I did the blackout) I didn't dose any more nutrients into the tank. I'm still getting the surface film so I suspect there is an overabundance. This may be coincidence, but every time the tank films up, the staghorn goes into overdrive. Something for me to think about....

That's a good idea on the anachris, I'll see if my local petco has some. I got some E. tellenus there in the sand, and it's already starting to send runners so I suspect the tank will fill up soon enough. I want to mix in this other grass though. It's not Sagittaria, it's a true grass of some sort. It's awesome looking. I'll find some and show you a pic with the genus when I get it.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Tophat665

That really is a sweet tank.

Is that proserpina or mexican oak leaf over on the right (or am I way off)?

Some aestheic advice of the thoroughly ignorable variety:
1) Adding dwarf hairgrass in front of the Pygmy Chain sword would create a sort of a green to rough contrast when it all grows in. That could look really nifty (if you keep up with replanting it as the cories kick it up.
2) Dwarf Lobelia cardinalis in front of the E. tenellus would provide a really nifty contrast of an entirely differnt sort, with the large, rounded leaves against the spear shaped ones.
3) To the left of the tank, between the filter intake and the front left corner (not the whole distance, but say 2/3 of it) would be a great place to put either some more driftwood or some rockwork to putt the focus of the tank away from the middle where it is now. It would also cover up the stem parts on the swordplant leaves on the left.

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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Vigilante

The red stuff? I'm pretty is was in the alternanthera genus, but I'd have to look again. Not sure on the common name. In front of that is H. Difformis, growing very quickly of course.

Yeah dwarf hairgrass, that's the one. I don't know why I couldn't think of it...duhhh. That's pretty much the plan, kinda alternate regions with DHG and tellenus. I also plan to add some rounded stream rocks, scattering them throughout to break things up and give pockets of dark color, about 3in dia.

Love those corys, they crack me up. They go all the way to their gills in that sand, and I've never seen corys with longer whiskers.

I want to get a thin driftwood branch for the area you mention, or a cypress knee. They are hard to come by though, since cypress is either alive or drifting miles downstream haha. The piece I have now is local, from the river. I just washed it off, let it soak overnight, and then attached a slab of rock and dropped it in the tank. The pleco LOVES it, and so did the upside down cats, until I introduced CO2 and the pH change killed them

Here is another piece of the same log. It was a stump that was turned sideways and just a few inches from the water. Moss everywhere, which is still alive on both logs as you can see.
image is link to fullsize


I might use that, but it's hard to figure out how or where.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

stonefaceddog

I had a 29 gallon freshwater tank. The last fish I had was a rather large, ill tempered clown knife. The rooms in my current residence are small and poorly configured for an aquarium so the old tank in in storage in the basement. Hopefully, I will be relocating in the next year and I will be able to set it up again. Its relaxing to just watch the fish swim while listening to some music. I miss that.

Vigilante

I got so pissed that I tore mine down today and redid it. I had algae streaming all the way across the tank with no end in sight. I think it was too much topsoil under the substrate. I never considered that it might leech out enough to feed algae, but I guess so. Anyways, I sifted the sand and rocks out of the dirt and put that back in the tank, along with the two logs above and a few plants, some of which I cut back so far that they are just stems. There is still a little staghorn algae on the log and a couple of plants, but I'm going to watch it and make sure it dies this time.

__________________
We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

Tophat665

75 Gallon. Loaches & SAE retirement home.


55 Gallon. South American whitewater stream biotope. (Whitewater as opposed to blackwater, not for rafting on.)


40 Gallon Breeder. My older Daughter's tank. A mixed community.


Zinj. My 110 gallon high tank. Bichirs & Leopard Bushfish (Anything else they would eat.)


20 gallon long. Breeding tank for Rineloricaria eigenmannii. A South American blackwater stream biotope.


15 gallon. This is my Orphan tank. Fish who lose their schools go here.


5.5 gallon. My 8 year old's other tank. 1 male & 2 female dwarf puffers.

I've got about 10 more tanks, but I only recently got a tripod, so hitherto the pics have been lousy. I'll see about getting some in the next week or so.

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Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Tophat665

Set up a 55 gallon yesterday for some Festivums I am trying to breed:




Also moved my breeding tanks upstairs this weekend so we could put up the Christmas tree. Apparently this is actually necessary. Who knew? Here's the breeding tanks:

Crappy picture. Lo siento. Here's one of my breeders muggin' for us:

One of the male Sterba's cories. I ought to be able to get them to spawn if I can time a water change with a weather front.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

BadNick

I want to congratulate you on all those gorgeous tank setups.

They really inspire me to get a couple more done in my house. But I have to finish my 3rd floor first, hoping to do that in the next couple of months, so my one boy can move up there and then his room on the 2nd floor can become my private den/fish room...since the family is already tanked-out on the 1st floor with just two fish tanks and one turtle tank. When I was single I had a few more tanks in this house...the good old days