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You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2008.
A couple of weeks ago I posted saying I wasn’t going to trim my plants. Big mistake.
The hygro was growing out of the top, and was long overdue for a trim. Unfortunately I let it get too tall - too leggy. So when I cut it last week, I cut it way back. But the leaves that were exposed by that process were too old. When they were exposed to the direct light this week GSA set up on them badly.
That was made worse by the fact that I spent weeks without cleaning the GDA off the sides and let it get too bad. I had it where I could do a quick scrape every few days and the tank was fine. But by waiting weeks it got thick, and when I cleaned it it went all over the tank. Including those old leaves on the hygro. And it hit the wysteria pretty hard too. And because I let it get so out of hand before I cleaned it, it was unusually thick on the tank walls by the end of the week.
All this might have been avoided if I hadn’t neglected regular maintenance.
But I replaced the filter media on one of my OceanClears. Big mistake after a huge trim. The trim removes biomass, and the filter change took out half of my bio-filtration too, Stupid. But I did it. I wonder how long I have to be in this hobby before I stop making newbie mistakes?
So I ripped all the stems out, and the hygro, and cut it way, way back. And I removed the Ludwigia repens too. I hated to do that - I love that plant. But it’s getting warm in the summer weather - 85 degrees in the tank every afternoon - and it is just not dealing with the heat. All its old growth is algae covered, so it’s better out of the tank.
What went back in the tank was only 1/3 the plant mass of what came out. Now my tank has precious little biomass. That’s potential trouble. So I’m anxious to see what this week is going to bring.
Live and learn I guess.
I recently posted a rant about eliminating tank clutter - all those tubes and hoses, and wires… really anything that is not a plant, animal, or water. If this is something that concerns you then please read on.
Setting Expectations
First, if you’ve been looking at Amano books, then you need to be aware… he usually has all sorts of equipment in hist tanks. He just removes it for pictures. But that doesn’t mean that you have to. And if you look at at The Inspired Aquarium by the Senske brothers, there too you won’t see equipment. But that’s partly because their clients have the money to hide equipment with custom furnishings.
I can’t afford that. And if you can’t either, don’t despair. With a bit of work, and a modest investment, you can get a lot of stuff out of your tank.
The Culprits
Let’s tick off the big offenders for planted tanks. Much of this will apply to fish only freshwater, and to a very limited extent saltwater tanks. The most common type of equipment we see are: water outflow tubing, Water returns, air stones, air hoses, HOB (hang on back) equipment, standpipes, overflows, pH probes, CO2 diffusers, CO2 drop checkers, thermometers, heaters, float switches, lights, UV filters, HOB filters, and of course, all the electrical cords, gas and water tubing that stuff needs to work, all hanging over the sides of the tank.
Approaches
There are a number of ways to tackle this problem.
Obfuscation
What? Hide the stuff. That’s the most common method, and a great compromise. I’ve got an air stone in my tank, and it’s hidden in plants. You’d be hard pressed to see the stone itself. The bigger trick is hiding the air hose - especially outside of the tank. Probes, like for pH or temperature have the same problem.
Camouflage
Or put another way - hiding in plain sight. That is what Amano does. Almost all of his equipment is clear glass or plastic - including is beautiful inflow “lily” pipes. I’ve done this myself, and the only real downside is that it requires a lot of manual labor to keep that glass or clear plastic clear. They are algae magnets, and it will require a time investment to keep it looking nice.
Another way is similar colors. I made a compromise in my tank - I wanted water flowing back into it at the top. Since water is leaving through the bottom, this would help circulation. But that meant either return tubes coming up through the bottom of the tank, or typical returns over the side. I chose the latter knowing I could get black returns - which fade visibly in front of my tank’s black background. Black returns would have faded too - of course - but like clear glass, everything gathers some algae, and I thought eliminating that tube coming up from the bottom would be the better path. I only have a slightly greenish black return flange at the top of the tank rather than that sitting on top of an also slightly greenish tube coming up from the bottom.
Removal
This is the big winner for hiding equipment. All kind of stuff can be pulled out if you are willing to do the work and go to some expense. There are a number of excellent options for removing that equipment.
Sumps
And many people will say that you can’t have a sump with a planted tank - that all your CO2 will outgass. Well if that is a concern of yours, just swing over to plantedtank.net and do a search on “sump”. You’ll find these can work very well with plants.
Though I’ve never had one personally, they are clearly great ways to hide stuff - not to mention other benefits. With a sump you can hide heaters, drop checkers, pH and temperature probes, fertilization injection lines, CO2 adding equipment and more.
In line equipment
If you don’t want a sump, much of that same equipment can be put in line if you have closed loop filtration. If you have a Hang on Back (HOB) filter, replace it with a canister you can stick in the stand. In my tank I’ve got heaters in line, UV filtration, CO2 injection, pH and temperature sensing, fertilization injection, and even tank draining and tank filling hardware.
Conclusion
Take a look at my plumbing diagram to see how some of this can be plumbed. And soon I’ll post on my in-line drain/fill, in-line CO2 injection, and in-line pH and temperature probes. With a bit of research, from info here and as can be found in the forums I’ve pointed to in my Links page, you can find out all you need to get a great deal of equipment out of your tanks and hidden from view, so your friends and family can see that they are really interested in - your plants and fish!
Sometime Wednesday access to this site fell through the floor. And it remained bad for at least 24 hours, if not 36. It seems that my hosting company was having some significant difficulties. Sorry about that folks.
But truth be told, I’m not happy with the response times of this site at any time. When you click on anything, it just takes TOO long to fully paint the new page IMO.
I’ve been able to identify a minor (meaning cheap) upgrade that might improve things a bit. Hard to tell if it matters yet, as it requires a DNS change propagation. So I should know tomorrow.
But either way, if you are frustrated in your access to this site due to slow response times, please do let me know. You can click on the Contact tab on top to see ways to let me know.
Thanks - Steve
<rant>
Why is it that aquarium hobbyists have such an eye for beauty, will often sit for hours enthralled by the lovely spectacle of their fish or plants or inverts, but somehow develop an apparently blind eye to all the crap in their tanks?
I don’t get it.
Even many pets shops are guilty of this - some “Mom and Pop”s can be the worst! You walk in and see beautiful, healthy fish, but the distraction of tubes, and hoses, and pumps, heater (and gosh-knows what other equipment!) sitting in, hanging on, and cluttered near the tank is enough to make anyone think twice about owning an aquarium.
On a recent reality TV show the lead moderator was trying to tell a contestant that he had come up with a grotesque (very, very weird) design, but also to explain to the contestant how it happened. He cleverly said,
“You know how you go in the monkey house at the zoo, and say - WOW, this stinks! But you really want to see the monkeys, so you stick it out. Pretty soon you are so amused by the monkeys, and have been walking around in the monkey house for so long, that you barely notice the smell. Well friend, you are LIVING in the monkey house!“
The contestant couldn’t even see the obvious any more - he’d been doing weird designs too long to be aware of how “different” they were anymore. And as soon as I heard that I thought,
“Wow! Many aquarium hobbyists are the same way about the equipment in and around their tanks.“
They just don’t see it anymore.
And it matters. Even if you don’t think you notice it, you do. Don’t believe me? Go pick up any book by Takashi Amano. After you get finished “oooh’ing” and “aaahhh’ing” over his gorgeous tanks, please consider this - there is no equipment to be seen. Or go pick up the Senskes’ book - The Inspired Aquarium. Simply gorgeous tanks. And in books by either of those authors (with rare exception), in and around their tanks you will see nary a wire, not a cord, not a pump, NOTHING to be found. Just fish, plants and water. Now that’s not all there is to making a beautiful tank. Far from it. But it is an ESSENTIAL element to achieving visually appealing aquatic design.
Now if you are completely self satisfied in your hobby, and take no value in what other people think about the aesthetics of your aquatic creations, then by all means - please ignore everything I’ve said. Your own willingness to put up with equipment, or your ability to ignore it, should be your only limitation. I’m sorry to have wasted your time - this does not apply to you.
But if you do care about what other people think, then this is something you might want to pay attention to. All most people want to see is water, plants, and animals. Anything else just blows the illusion of witnessing a little container of aquatic nature.
I’ll start a post soon to tell you how you can do this, if you are so inclined. It’s work. And compromises are almost inevitable. But there’s often room for significant improvement, if you try.
</rant>
Well, the Green Dust Algae got pretty nasty. I hadn’t touched the tank in weeks, and it looked like it, so I broke down Friday nite and cleaned it. There was so much GDA that after scraping it off gave the water a strong green tint. So I did an 80% water change too, just to get most of it out. And I’m still having trouble with some kind of green algae growing on the sand. So I gravel vacuumed up the top 1/2″ or so, Chloroxed it, and put it back.
I’ll have to go back and check my records I think it had been three weeks since I touched the tank. And doing so created a maintenance effort that was probably 3 hours in total. A good bit of work I’m afraid. Or, I suppose you could say 1 hour a week for 180 gallon aquarium isn’t too bad. Especially with plants and discus.
I obviously trimmed the plants while I was at it. It felt like a pound or two of trimmings were pulled out. Tank looks better now though.
These photos really look aweful. The depth of field - or rather lack thereof - makes the tank look flat. I need to get a better camera, because I can tell you these boring, unidimensional pictures, just don’t show what the tank looks like in real life… where you can see the layers of depth. It also makes the fish look like they’ve got no room, when in actual fact they’ve to all kinds of room. So one day, a new camera. But for now, here’s a few pics of my fish.
I’ve got two types of discus, Cobalts and High-bodied Leopards. Both sets purchased from Dan at Gulf Coast Discus. If you look hard, or click on on of the pics to pull up a larger shot, you can see that one of the Leopard’s tails is a bit raggedy. I’ve got two fish that get beat up by the other fish. The ragged tailed Leopard, and my runt Cobalt. I’m not sure the runt can be seen in these pics - he’s hanging to the background where it is safe.
Anyway, here’s some pics.
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