Well the tank is springing back nicely. And my persistent algae problems are massively diminished. So while some of the leaves of plants have algae on them that they acquired several weeks ago, no new leaves have algae. And that is a nice change.

The Hygrophilia corymbosa is slowly filling in and getting bushier. I initially let it grow too tall before I trimmed it. Now I’m topping it off every week so that it will fill in better. The Hygrophila difformis snapping back. And my Cryptocoryne wendtii and Echinodorus ‘Rubin’ are both totally algae free! Only the Echinodorus bleheri - the sword plant - has any algae. But that plant is off the the side and not getting enough light, and it appears to be underfertilized too. I’ll have to look into that…

I’ve put in an Eheim autofeeder to make sure the new red 3R2’s are getting enough food, often enough. The upshot is that ALL the fish are getting more food. I can see them all fattening up, and getting larger. Good for them I suppose.

The overall tank is still unbalanced visually, and improving the aquascape will be the focus of my efforts this year, now that I’ve got this algae licked. Well, I say “licked”… the GDA on the glass is still there. But it is quite manageable - requiring one 15 minute session of glass cleaning every week. And that persistent algae on the sand has stayed away for a few weeks, thank goodness. So it’s all controllable.

The new red 3R2s are still hiding. Three of the five barely ever come out. If anyone is in the room at all, the skittish three hide. So I have no idea of they are coming out to eat. I hope so. I’m just hoping that they will get over this with time.

I made a number of important changes to the tank to get ahead of this aglae. I know you can only change one variable at a time if you want any idea of what does/does not work. But I was desparate to control my algae problem and changed multiple variables. Problem is, I just don’t know which one was responsible for the change, or what combination:

1. Started using a “siesta”, or 90 minutes in the middle of the day with no lights.
2. Reduced the photoperiod to seven (7) hours total time of lights on.
3. Eliminated macro dosing, except potassium.
4. Reduced potassium dosing way back to one tenth of its normal volume.
5. Reduced micro dosing back to one tenth of its normal volume.
6. Reduced CO2 back to around 15 ppm.

A lot of people will tell me some of those things are real “no-no”s. But it’s working, and it’s hard to argue with success. Over time I’ll pick up the CO2 dosing. And I’m sure I’ll be forece to tweak the macro/micro dosing. But for now, I’m happy to have the tank healthy.

Wow. Been a while since I last posted. Sorry.

Things in the tank have been going fairly well, all but the recent CO2 goof up I posted about. And the fact that I massively over-trimmed the plant AND simultaneously did a filter media change. So the tank has been recovering from that. But the operative word is recovering. But the big news is - NEW FISH! I love new fish!

In the first pic you can see two little 3″ (well almost 3″) reddish discus in the background. They are “3R2″s from Wayne Ng, a breeder/importer. My wife was jonesing for some red fish, and these were the best I could do. I got a total of five, and they are expensive little buggers.

I’ve actually had them for seven weeks. The first six were spent in quarantine. They were maybe 1/2″ smaller when I got them. They were healthy as can be. So after 6+ weeks I dumped them in the tank. But before I did that, I took my runt Cobalt out and put him in the quarantine - to see if it had any pathogens they couldn’t deal with, and visa versa. You can see the “runt” in the pic below behind one of the 3R2’s.

But to my dismay, I could not leave the runt in their tank. He is normally the most shy, skittish, beat-up upon fish in the tank. I guess that goes with being the runt. But once he got in with these little guys he decided he was BMOC, Hot Sh*t, Top Dog, and all that! He would NOT let my 3R2’s eat! As far as he was concerned, the food was HIS. Quantity did not matter.

So, knowing I was risking my whole tank - I dumped him back into it, so that the 3R2’s could get some food. About five days later i just tossed the 3R2’s in the main tank… since the cross-contamination test was effectively blown. I figured both populations looked healthy, so dump ‘em in and hope for the best.

As I stated up front, I got five new fish. But these pics only show two. Good reason… these fish are wicked skittish. Two of them will only come out when no one is around. One walks the line, but certainly will not come out for pictures. The two in the pics are pretty “up front”. But as I walked around with the camera they got nervous and retreated. That’s why they are in the background in the first pic. And from the difference you can see between the two pics, they darken up a lot when hiding near the plants.

Apparently 3R2’s are pretty skittish as a breeding line. But that said, my Cobalts hid in the plants for darn near a month when I first got them. So I think this is one of those “time will tell” sort of things.

My wife (and I - truth be told) wanted RED fish. Not orange. But orange is the color discus tend towards. If you see red discus - as far as I can tell - it’s either because they have been fed hormones, unnatural amounts of food supplements, or the tank light has been altered. Failing that, PhotoShop can always redden up your digital fish pics if needed.

I got these fish because I trusted the gentleman i bought them from - Al Sapetta - the owner of www.simplydiscus.com. Al’s a stand-up guy, and he knew my wife wanted red - and he knew of the natural orange tendencies of discus - and he recommended these fish. That is good enough for me.

I’m feeding them frozen blood worms, Tetra Color Bits (now renamed something like Color Granules) and a little bit of NaturalRose red color enhancer. So yes, I’m cheating. But not so much that it jeopardizes the health of the fish. Problem is, my other fish are eating it too! So if my blue Cobalts start looking purple, you’ll know why! LOL

More about the tank itself soon. But all is fairly well. But not perfect. Otherwise… why post?

PS - I forgot to mention! That darned runt is a runt BECAUSE he won’t eat Tetra Color Bits. All the other fish do - they got big, and he didn’t. Well, while bullying my 3R2’s he started eating the Color Bits, aparently just to spite them. WELL… since putting him back in the main tank he has participated heartily in the multiple Color Bit feedings and has grown VISIBLY in just one week. Sounds unbelievable, I know. But true.

Nature Aquarium World

by Takashi Amano

ISBN: 0-7938-0089-7

If there ever was a book that changed the face of a hobby, I suspect this is it. Published in a large 9.5″ x 12.5″ format, it is a gorgeous photographic collection of aquatic plants, artfully aquascaped, in a great “coffee table” sized book. The plant layouts are breathtaking, but it is the photography that really makes this book come alive. And that’s no surprise, as at the time of the writing of this book, the author Takashi Amano had spent most of his career as a photographer. The book was published in 1996 - quite a while ago - and much has changed since then. Mr. Amano has since spawned a mini-empire of premium planted aquarium products under the Aqua Design Amano (ADA) brand. This was his first major book available in English, and it remains a classic today.

People that stick with the aquatic plant hobby do it for a number of reasons. But I think we all begin for the same reason… because at some point we all saw a planted tank that took our breath away. And we wanted to do the same thing. So after perusing this book anyone would have to wonder, “How many people started their aquatic plant hobby because of this book?”

It is an inspiration.

In this book Mr. Amano shows his “Nature Aquarium” style, a significant departure from the previously dominant “Dutch” aquascapes. He throws out the old style of neatly ordered avenues and rows of plants, and introduces a less ordered, but still artfully balanced arrangements of plants. The practiced eye will notice the liberal use of Riccia fluitans as a foreground plant, and even Cardinia japonica shrimp for algae control. Though you do have to look, and know what to look for, because surprisingly the book provides scant information about the flora or fauna in his aquascapes.

There are over 60 separate aquascapes presented, many with multiple camera angles and two page spreads. And most do have a good bit of information about them:

• Tank size
• Lighting watts
• Filter type
• Substrate
• CO2 supply rate
• Water change frequency and volume
• Temperature
• pH
• Total Hardness (GH)
• Carbonate Hardness (KH)
• Nitrite PPM
• Nitrate PPM
• CO2 PPM
• O2 PPM

But the book is not limited to pictures of beautiful aquariums. It provides a primer on use of the “Golden section” and basic aqascaping layouts.  There is good treatment of driftwood selection and positioning, rock arrangement, and the use of both as anchors for plants (including Riccia). Also a bit of treatment on the correct tools for aquascaping.

There’s even a beginner level - though very good - treatment of the role of the critical components of a planted tank: CO2, biological filtration, lighting, substrate, fertilizer, and maintenance. There is even a bit of treatment of algae, snails, plant trimming, and diseases of aquatic plants.

With nearly 200 pages of beautiful photography, this is not - per se - a beginners book. Not in the sense that it provides all the technical detail you need to get started. But at the same time, all those technical books fall so far short in the inspiration department. And in that sense this is a beginners book, because it provide that in abundance. But even for the expert - and anyone in between - it’s one book that will be enjoyed each time you pull it out.

It could be argued that some of Amano’s subsequent books were better. I’ll review those too. But this one started it all. When I first laid hands on it, it was a major inspiration. I could barely put it down… turning page after page just wishing I could do the same, and deciding to try. Then flipping through it again and again, trying to decide which of the many aquascapes I was most inspired by. My personal favorites are on pages 16, 26, 60, and (most inspirational) page 90. What do those ’scapes look like?

Sorry. Get the book. But when you do, you won’t be sorry! Read it, be inspired by it, and go try it for yourself!

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.

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.

I’m tired of cleaning green dust algae. Tired of trimming plants. So I’m taking a break from maintenance this week.

Usually I’ll clean the tank on a Friday evening if we don’t go out. Or Saturday afternoon/evening if we do. But last night we didn’t go out, and I was tired. Didn’t feel like farting around with the tank. And this afternoon we are going to the SimplyDiscus.Com 2008 Northeast Meeting and Cookout. So it won’t get cleaned then. I’m sure that tomorrow I’ll feel compelled to clean. But I’m not doing it on schedule.

Actually it didn’t get cleaned last week either. So the plants have been at least two weeks without a trim. So some old leaves are getting algae - that’s natural. Others are rotting. Natural too. But that’s why regular maintenance is required.

And the green dust algae (GDA) is getting bad in some places. Here’s a pic. Not very good, and clicking brings up a larger one. In this you can see that the GDA really does need attention. And the crypts need old leaves trimmed off.

I chose this pic because it reminded me of something disconcerting this week…

Earlier this week I came in to feed the fish one morning, and there was a bunch of foam on the surface of the tank, up against the tank wall. Uh oh. Looks like protein film. Hmmmm. I wonder what died?

All the discus were there. But a couple of days ago I noticed that one or two of my cockatoo dwarf cichlids seem to be missing. I had four males and two females. This pic is a typical feeding shot. When I drop in frozen blood worms everybody comes out of the bushes in a hurry! Dwarf ciclids, corys, biota striata (zebra loaches), and ghost shrimp. They all love bloodworms. But now, no more than two or three male cockatoo dwarfs. At least one is gone. If I can get them to hold still long enough maybe I can count.

I’m not really up on these fish… I suppose one or two could be guarding a brood. I’ve got breeding caves hidden in the plants. I wouldn’t know. I just hate to think that one or two died. They were young, and apparently healthy. I quarantined them for almost six weeks, and hit them with all sorts of prophylactic meds. If that didn’t kill them, I’m concerned that tank conditions would.

But it has been hot this week. The tank temps have been climbing as high as 85-86 degrees F every afternoon. Maybe it’s time to turn on the air conditioners and bring the ambient temperature in the room down a bit. It’s definitely killing my Ludwigia repens. Could be giving my poor cockatoo dwarf cichlids a hard time too.

And speaking of hard times… my favorite plant forum plantedtank.net has been down for two days. And I notice that aquaticplantcentral.com is down for repairs. I wonder that there has been another attack on aquatic plant sites? Hope not. And I hope that whoever it is that does that discovers in a nasty way that there is karma in the universe, and that what goes around comes around. But mostly I hope everything is ok.

Well! The tank survived a year! No mishaps. No floods. No tank killing algae. Cool!

I would have posted sooner, but we have had house guests, and tank things had to wait.

Hardware

I had some work to do before I made it to the 1 year mark. I wanted to finish all my under the stand stuff. So I bolted down my second Ocean Clear filter that had been loose before. And I did a thing I had really been dreading… moving my water depth sensor.

I haven’t posted the technical details of my setup yet, but suffice to say I have an auto water change rig that does not require any floats or sensors in the tank. It detects a “full” condition with a water pressure switch in the stand that gets water through a bulkhead hole in the bottom of the tank. And so that little critters don’t crawl down the hole, in the tank it’s covered with a somewhat unsightly filter sponge. If you have noticed the patch of crypts to the front left of my tank, it’s there to hide the sponge.

Well I wanted to create an open area to the left of the tank, and that meant that I had to push those crypts further back and to the right a bit. But that exposed the sponge, so I had to unscrew it from the bulkhead, cap off the bulkhead, and screw it into a different, better hidden bulkhead. That’s a real PITA with a tank full of water and three inches of sand in the bottom of the tank. And none of that describes all the hardware I had to move under the tank. Anyway, maybe you can see why I procrastinated.

I’ve got a few additional changes to make, with the hardware waiting in the wings. But I don’t need any of it yet, so I figured there’s no harm in crossing the 1 year threshold without doing that too.

Now that the tank has been up a year, there are a number of long-term maintenance things to start doing. Like changing the carbon filters that strip the chlorine out of the water as I add it each night. And changing the UV filter light. And - though I don’t like the cost - the HQI hologen bulbs need to be changed. Drat! This is going to add up.

Fauna

Been a lot of changes this year in fish. My school of Green Neons (P. simulans) has lost a few fish. It’s getting pretty small now - no more that 30 I’d guess. And I recently added six juvenile cockatoo dwarf cichlids that are doing quite well. And my small school of Otocinculus catfish has gotten smaller. I think I’m down to less than 10. But that’s OK, they can be tough on discus sometimes.

But my shrimp are doing great. I’ve still got quite a few Amano’s. I’m guessing 25 or 30. They are hard to count in a planted tank. And I’ve got no idea how many of the orginal 100 ghost shrimp purchased for this tank are still around. But it’s a bunch. Every week I find a new one or two on the floor in front of the tank - or so it seems. But at that rate they should be almost all gone. But they aren’t and I don’t think they are breeding because I never see any juveniles. Either way, I’m glad they are still around because they are great at eating excess discus food.

And as for the discus, they are fine. Or at least I assume that since they are still breeding like rabbits. I have at least two pairs breeding every couple of weeks. Maybe three pairs. I have to admit I don’t pay much attention since all the eggs are toast in a tank full of neons, dwarf cichlids and shrimp. But knowing that they are breeding is my way of knowing they are reasonably healthy and stress free.

Flora

I’m going into the second year for this tank with something that I’m not really happy to call an aquascape. IMO it’s a little lousy looking - closer to what I refer to as JABOP, or Just A Bunch Of Plants. But I’m still working through the set of plants that will tolerate my ultra soft water and the warm water temps that discus need. And having somewhat low maintenance plants is also an important criteria they must all pass.

So another real aquascape is coming. But not yet. Crossing the 1 year mark I ripped out a lot, trimmed a lot, and moved a lot of plants around. So I’m letting things settle a month or so before I go messing with stuff. And just to manage expectations… my aquascapes are not set up to look good in pictures. They are set up to look good in person. For instance, the open area on the left is that way to attract and hold fish. The tanks right side is in a corner of the room. So that keeps fish closer to where the people watching them are. But it does not always make for the best looking aquascape in photos I’m afraid. Sorry.

Conclusion

It’s been a pretty good 1st year for the tank. Algae pretty much under control, even if it did take too long. Fish are fine, plants healthy, and that tank hardware pretty much installed and complete.

This next year I’m going to have to redouble my efforts to get this to a nice looking aquascape. I like a challenge, and that will certainly be one.

Spending time in aquatic plant forums, and watching people continuously ask “how much” with regard to macro dosing for a particular tank drives me nuts! People want to know the quantity of a fert that they should dose their tank. It doesn’t make me nuts so much because it is a bad question, but because so often it is the wrong question. And a very clear tradition exists in this hobby to answer all dosing questions by describing how much to dose. Problem is - of course - that it is usually a meaningless answer.

When someone describes a quantity of a macro fertilizer to dose, it ignores plant uptake rates and water replenishment rates. To say that your tank needs X grams (or teaspoons, or what ever measure you feel happy with) of KNO3 every other day completely ignores water change intervals. I’ve got discus, so I change water more frequently than is normal in the hobby. So while X grams may be enough for the average hobbyiest for a tank with size, plants and lights like mine, I’m going to need something more than X, because I’m flushing so much down the drain so frequently. Likewise, the same recommendation of X grams KNO3 completely ignores plant uptake rates. Some plants have dormancy periods, recent trimmings or placement in a tank will be a factor, as will the general health of the plants, not to mention light, CO2 or other limiting factors. Different tanks of the same exact size with identical lighting can absorb any given nutrient at wildly differing rates.

So to reccommend X amount of any nutrient does a disservice to someone needing to know how much to fertilize their tank. But there are important exceptions to this.

If you are dosing Tom Barr’s Estimative Index (EI), or any other method that ignores day-to-day nutrient levels within a tank, please ignore every thing I’ve said. EI is founded on the idea that you establish an amount - “X” if you will - of every needed nutrient that will be at least enough, if not more than enough, for the plants. Then you dose that amount regularly - knowing that your plants will alway have enough - though not knowing if they might have too much. Frequent and regular water changes insures that any nutrient buildups do not become extreme.

So if you are not dosing EI or a similar method, what should we ask with regard to dosing, if not “how much”?

We should ask “what’s my target level“!

Concentrations of nutrients in the water column - expressed in some meaningful way like Parts Per Million (ppm) - is the ideal way to communicate dosing requirements. And I say target level, because short of some form of perfect constant dosing mechanism, soon after you dose anything, some of it may already be consumed by your plants. You could have a ppm target, and even if you dose perfectly, that level is going to change soon. Let’s say you target 14 ppm for Nitrogen. Depending on your plants’ uptake rate the nitrates in your tank may fall to 12, 10, or even 0 (that would be hard though) by the end of the day. So if you knew that your tank’s uptake rate for nitrates was 4 ppm per day, you might target 14 ppm by dosing enough to make the tank 16 ppm. So the tank starts the day at 16 ppm but falls to 12 ppm over the course of the day. Your average worked out to 14 ppm - the level you were targeting.

Dosing to target levels requires a good understanding of your plants’ uptake rates. And that requires test kits. If you don’t want to deal with test kits, then you need an “ignore the level” method like EI. Go take a look at Tom Barr’s website and read all about it. Otherwise testing is required. And good record keeping too if you are ever going to understand your plants’ uptake rate. And it’s easy to understand those rates. Test after dosing, but before the lights come on, and test when the lights go off. The second test should show lower ppm’s. The difference is your daily uptake rate. If nitrates started the day at 16 ppm, and ended the day at 12 ppm, then 4 ppm is indeed your tank’s daily uptake rate for nitrates.

Once you know your uptake rates, and you know what level you want to target (do you want 14 ppm for nitrates?), then you can go figure out how much to dose. There are great websites out there that can help you with that. Fertilator on Aquatic Plant Central is one, and Chuck Gadd’s website is another. If you know what level (in ppm) a nutrient is in your tank, and you know what level you want it to be, these sites will calculate the “how much” question for you.

At this point some of you may be asking “But how do I find out what my target levels should be?” Well, that’s the 64 thousand dollar question, and I’ll not try to answer that here. But what I do hope, is when you get onto a forum or go to a web site to find out, please don’t ask “How much of X nutrient do I put in my tank?”

Ask “What should my target level for X nutrient be?” That will get you the answers that you really need.

And some of you might be thinking… “That’s fine for Nitrates and Phosphate, it’s easy to get cheap test kits for those. But not Potassium.” That’s true. Potassium kits are rather expensive. But once you know your uptake rate for Nitrates, you can assume that Potassium will be consumed at roughly the same rate. If it turns out to be more, and you aren’t dosing enough, you’ll see pin holes in the leaves of your plants. And if you are actually dosing a little too much, that’s fine for potassium - assuming you are doing regular water changes to keep the excess from getting out of control.

And some of you might also be thinking… “But why should I care about this?” Easy. I’ve already shown that asking “How much” leads to not really understanding the macro concentrations in your tank. And too little will starve your plants and algae will soon follow. And dosing too much will likewise lead to algae. Yes - I know many will say “EI” provides too much, and that doesn’t lead to algae. True. For some people in some tanks it doesn’t. But it does not work for everyone. I’m not sure why. I believe Tom Barr’s position on that is that if excess is leading to algae then something else is wrong, like not enough CO2. But I don’t believe that is always the case when EI does not work for someone. There are a whole lot of experienced, clever people out there that EI has not worked for. So I’m gonna stick with my belief that unless EI does work for you (and it just might), then too may nitrates or phosphates may lead to algae trouble in your planted tank.

On a final note… please notice that this entire rant is about not asking “how much” for macros. Not micros. Micro-nutrients are not easily managed by testing your water (yes - I’m including iron in that statement). For micros you have to ask “How much”, because you cannot reliably know concentrations or ppms.

</rant>

Two days after this picture was taken my tank will have been up for one year. And that pic was taken two days ago. So today makes 1 year! Yippee!!!

But this isn’t the anniversary photo. Maybe I’ll take that tonight. There have definitely been changes in the last two days.

It’s been a stable year for the tank. But a disappointing year in some ways too. And a year of learning.

The fish have been healthy. I did have one case of bloat in one of my discus. And I thought that I had lost most of my Ottocinclus catfish until I tried to put some Rotalla wallichii in the tank, and I caught them eating the tips. So I guess they are just hiding in the plants unless there is something really tasty to come out for. Same with my amano shrimp (cardinia japonica). I thought they were gone too, but when I did a big trim a couple of weeks ago, I found dozens of them. Hiding too I suppose.

I’ve struggled with algae in this tank. None of the bad varieties. Just green spot (GSA) on the plants and green dust algae (GDA) on the tank walls. Lots of “experts” will tell you that GDA in particular just means you have a healthy tank. But lots of people don’t have it at all. I don’t mind a little. A minor wall cleaning every week or two is fine. But in a 180 gallon tank, any more than that is work. And I’ve been working.

I’ve flirted with a number of fertilization dosing regimens, and have settled back on the one I started with: letting the N an P in my tap water supply those macros, coupled with that being produced by plants, excess food, and biological breakdown of plant matter, supplemented with daily potassium and limited daily micros. That seems to both keep my plants healthy, and keep away the thread algae that wants to appear in any of my tanks that have sand substrates coupled with Phosphates over 1.4 ppm.

Ultimately I think the reason why dosing normal levels of N & P did not work for me in this tank was that my plant mass to animal mass ratio could not sustain it. The ammonia excreted by the discus was not being utilized by the plants fast enough. The plants were being dosed good levels of nitrogen in my dosing regimen, and the ammonia (NH4) was not being used fast enough and was triggering algae growth. Not that you could measure any ammonia in my tank. But it doesn’t take much to encourage algae.

For the sake of my plant health - which keeps the algae at bay -I’ve had to make a compromise that really hurts. I’m adding small daily doses of baking soda (NaHCO3), Epsom Salts (MgSO4), and Calcium Chloride (CaCl2) to raise my KH and GH. I’ve gone to great lengths to make this tank as low maintenance as possible, with a reasonable degree of success. One major goal has to been to be free of daily maintenance - with the exception of fish feeding. But if I’m away, anyone can do that for me.

To accomplish that my ferts are injected automatically, and my water changes are done in small, daily, completely automated cycles. To that end I’ve tried to let my plants adjust to the extremely low KH and GH of my tap water, and it just hasn’t worked. They don’t thrive without more calcium and magnesium than my tap provides. And the baking soda helps keep the pH stable. So I’m stuck adding this stuff daily. So much for no daily maintenance. I’ll just have to figure out a suitable way to automate this too.

And finally, I’ve finally finished all of the technical changes to the equipment that supports the tank. I’ve not posted info on it yet, but a pretty elaborate setup support the tank. A year ago I still had an additional pump and filter to install, a few improvements to make to the plumbing, and I needed to move the “water depth sensor” tube to a different bulkhead opening in the bottom of the tank. With that last labor intensive item done this weekend, there are no more planned changes to the equipment under the tank.

So I find myself at the end of a moderately successful first year of this tank. The hardware supporting it is finished. I’ve got the algae under control. And have finally found plants that work well with these lights, at these fertilization levels, at the warm temperatures discus require.

On the down side, I’ve got to figure out a way to automate my daily GH/KH boosting. And I’m not happy with the aquascape. That will - no doubt - be the focus of my efforts this coming year.

PS - If you see the dark discus that appear to be sulking in the right corner, they aren’t sulking. They’re OK. They are just tending their eggs.

Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise for the Home Aquarist

by Diana Walstad

ISBN 13:978-0-9673773-1-5

Wow! Now here’s a book I’ll never understand. The subtitle kinda says it all. It is indeed a “Scientific Treatise”, and I’ll wager that only a biochemist can ever really understand the entire book. So was it of any value to me, a your average aquarist without a degree in biology or chemistry? Yes. But if you are a biochemist that has planted aquariums for a hobby, then this is the book to die for!

Just a listing of chapters can give you a good idea of the contents of the book:

1. Introduction
2. Plants as Water Purifiers
3. Allelopathy
4. Bacteria
5. Sources of Plant Nutrients
6. Carbon
7. Plant Nutrition and Ecology
8. Substrate
9. The Aerial Advantage
10. Algae Control
11. Practical Aquarium Setup and Maintenance

To give you a better idea of the nature of this book, let’s just list the topics discussed in a sample chapter. I’ll use topics from the Substrate chapter, because as a planted tank hobbyist, it’s a subject I would hope to know a little about. The topics in the chapter are”

Components of Soils and Sediments

1. Mineral Particles
2. Organic Matter
3. Precipitated Inorganic Matter
4. Microorganisms

Characteristics of Soil and Sediments

1. Nutrient Binding
2. Anaerobic Nature of Substrates
3. Oxidized Microzone Keeps Nutrients and Toxins in Sediments
4. Stability of Sediments and Submerged Soils

Chaos in Freshly Submerged Terrestrial Soils

Terrestrial Soils and Sediments for Growing Aquatic Plants

Problems of Sediments and Submerged Soils

1. Metal Toxicity
2. Hydrogen Sulfide Toxicity
3. Organic Matter
4. Low Redox
5. Acid Sulfate Soils
6. Turbidity

Effect of Aquatic Plants on Substrates

Substrates in Aquariums

1. Selecting Soils
2. Setting Up Tanks with Soils
3. Fertilization
4. Gravel Additives
5. Substrate Degradation over Time?

Hmmm… maybe I didn’t know as much about substrate as I though. Most of that is a bit more advanced than the typical “Is flourite really not as good as AGA Aquasoil?” conversations I have. It’s WAY deeper than that, and will be outstanding information for many people. And in fact, I could actually almost follow most of it. But it is non-trivial stuff. Planted Tanks for Dummies this book is not. But enough of the “Scientific Treatise”, what about the “Practical Manual” part? Well, it is that. But only within some clear boundaries.

The author limits practical discussion to tanks wiht low light, soil for substrate, densely planted, no CO2 injection, and lots of surface plants. I’ve never done a “low tech” tank myself. But if I ever do, this book will be indispensable. And even though I do prefer “high tech” tanks, there is still value here for me. The algae control discussion is very good and the aquarium setup and maintenance information would be beneficial to newbies.

Throughout the book the author spent a number of years as the Technical Adviser to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA). She uses questions posed by hobbyist during that time, a long with her responses, as examples to demonstrate concepts explained in the text.

The book is all black and white, though later versions include 4 color photographs of the author’s tanks. Then again a lot of peer reviewed scientific publications don’t have a lot color either. They are just jam packed with great technical info. Same here. Thought it is richly illustrated with technical diagrams, charts and tables. In the 194 page book, I count 78 such technical illustrations. And the material is clearly very well researched. Each chapter has a truly extensive bibliography. And though the book was published first in 1999, it does not suffer much from obsolescence. While there is some different new thinking around some of her material, I believe most of the basic biochemistry she references is still unchanged.

I wish I was qualified to review the technical discussions in this book, but I’m not. But some very well covered subjects should be fascinating to those more academically advanced than I - allelopathic competition between plants and algae, bicarbonate uptake in alkaline water, the economies of CO2 use for aerial growth, the persistance of biofilms, and much, much more.

For me this book left me with a very deep respect for the extraordinary complexity of the chemistry and biology that drives the ecosystems in our planted aquariums. It’s a good thing that Mother Nature does such a good job of taking care of herself, because ‘cuz most of it is clearly too complicated for me. Though after reading this book, and getting a glimpse of just how much more complex things are than they appear, I’m feeling absolultely a lot less the idiot for having troble with algae in my tank.

I cannot easily recommend this book to someone without a biochemistry inclination, if not a formal background. Though I believe it is a MUST BUY for any hobbyists that does have that understanding. It should provide enough info about the complex processes that keep our planted aquariums humming along. Or not. Your increased understanding will help you discern the difference, with the added benefit knowing why.

To the best of my knowledge, Diana Walstad has produced one of the few truely technical, English language, works available to the advanced planted aquarist. And we all owe her a dept of thanks for doing so. Even if you have to go onto a forum and ask someone to explain it to you. Really.

In my last journal post I said that I’d keep my hands out of the tank until the end of the month, when I passed the one-year mark for the tank. Well, those intentions were great… but I could not help myself.

Most of the stem plants were at the water’s surface, and I don’t want them to get too “leggy”. I’m not a good aquascaper, but if I have to hang on to stem plants to keep this tank healthy, I’d at least like them to be bushy and thick. So they were getting a bit too tall and I cut them.

Because I’ve been fighting excessive Green Dust Algae (GDA) on the tank walls for a number of months, and because it has been MUCH better in the last month or so, I’m worried about pulling too much plant mass out of the tank. So I took metal weights and wrapped them around the tops of the stems I trimmed, and sunk them back into the tank. So hopefully they’ll keep growing and plant mass will not be too adversely impacted by the trimming.

In the pic you can see that the Ludwigia repens to the left is not doing well at all. When I let it grow to the surface it is thrilled. But even nine inches lower than the surface and it starts to really suffer. Now, where I have it growing is not directly under the metal halides. This plant needs high light to thrive. But I’m hard pressed to believe that being 18″ from a 150 watt HQI lamp is not enough light to thrive. I just don’t buy it. Instead I think that when it gets really, really close to the light that the photosynthetic rate that results somehow gets beyond what ever else is holding it back.

I can’t be sure, but I suspect the problem is temperature. My temps fluctuate from about 81.5 to 83.5 during the day. And Ludwidgia - a native of North America - is a cool water plant. But supposedly it can tolerate warmer water. This is kind of my test.

Anyway… the some of the other stem plants I inserted to help with the GDA - Wisteria (Hygrophila difformis) and Green Temple (Hygrophilia corymbosa) - seem to be dealing with heat just fine. Since I’m personally fond of Ludwigia’s, I’d be really tickled if this gets healthy too.

This is a shot of my tank from yesterday. I’m approaching the 1 year mark for having this tank up. By that I mean plants and fish in the tank. That day was May 27th, 2007. I keep really detail records on my tanks (something I heartily recommend to everyone), so I know that is the correct date. Yet I am frustrated by the fact that I STILL don’t have an aquascape that I’m happy with. But I’m going to have to just chill on that, because I’ve stated on some forums that if I haven’t gotten control of the algae I’m battling by the one year mark, then I’m scrapping the aquascape and starting over.

Well, as it turns out, the algae is reasonable right now. But it’s only been “OK” for a few weeks - apparently due to a radical change in my fertilization regimen. So while I’d love to rearrange plants so that I could say that I crossed the 1-year mark having achieved a satisfactory aquascape, I’m going keep my hands out of the tank for the next couple of weeks. If the algae remains under control as it is now, I won’t scrape the tank, but will merely rearrange it to a more esthetically pleasing arrangement.

If you saw my AGA 2007 post, you will see that I started this tank with anubias all over the driftwood. Those anubias got (and continue to get) green spot algae (GSA) on old leaves like nobody’s business. So I ripped those out and tried to replace them with other plants - primarily crypts of various forms. You will also note that I removed all the lovely lotus plants I was growing. Those were sending roots into the sand and causing what seemed (to me) to be unhealthy conditions in the sand. So I ripped them out. I never intended to have plants rooted in sand. All the plants you see right now are either not rooted in the sand, or they are in shallow pots of ADA Aquasoil covered with sand.

From the primarily anubias and lotus arrangement I moved to a (shallow potted) ’scape of various rosette plants. Those all suffered from the intensity of the 2 150w halogens. The algae it created on their leaves caused constant trimming until the plants were just dim shadows of the huge plants they started out as.

And next I filled the tank with stem plants as an algae fighting measure. The tank you see today is a reflection of that.

There are a number of urgent aquascape changes that need to be made to this tank . But I’m gonna let it cross the 1 year mark before I mess with it in a major way.

IMO a planted discus tank does not do well with hard tinkering or rapid changes. If it is balanced, leave well enough alone. Or tinker very slowly. So keep posted. A better tank is coming. I hope. But it will take a month or so.

The home built Big Clear Kahuna tank - with the 2006 discus aquascape - met an untimely end. It had a massive failure of a seam. Can you say “75 gallons of water gushing onto my wooden floor!” ? My wife can.

I’ll post later on how I built that tank, and how you can avoid the mistake that I made on that one. It’s easy. But for now I’d like to share my submission to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA) 2007 Aquascaping Contest. I got a new tank - this time a 180 gallon - and named it Son of Kahuna, after the dear departed.

These pics are pretty early in the tank’s life. It did not remain this way. The lights were just too bright for the anubias, and they had to be replaced. The green spot alage (GSA) they kept getting on their leaves was driving me nuts. But this is what the tank looked like in the fall of last year at photo submission time.

Technical Info

Plants
Amazon Sword (Echinodorus bleheri), Anubias Barteri Round Leaf (Anubias barteri v. Round Leaf), Anubias Nana (Anubias barteri v. Nana), Anubias Petite Nana (Anubias Pygmy Nana), Bronze Crypt Wendtii (Cryptocoryne wendtii v. Tropica), Red Rubin Sword (Echinodorus v. Rubin), Red Tiger Lotus (Nymphaea zenkeri), Tawain Moss (Taxiphyllum alternans)

Fish/Animals
100 Ghost (Glass) Shrimp (Paleomonetes sp.), 25 Amano Shrimp (Caridina japonica), 5 Singapore Flower Shrimp (Atyopsis moluccensis), 5 Swartz’s Cory Cats (Corydoras schwartzi), 5 Zebra Loachs (Botia striata), 15 Oto Cats (Otocinclus sp.), 50 Green Neon Tetras (Paracheirodon simulans), 9 Discus (Cobalt and Leopards) (Symphysodon spp.). And if you look hard, you may see a single miscellaneous white tetra. It’s not consistent with the aquascape, but it came to my family, desperately needing a home.

Decorative Materials

25 ft. driftwood, secured with ADA Woodtight, 1″ ADA Bright Sand. Sword plants and crypts are planted in shallow pots of ADA Aquasoil over ADA Powersand.

Background
black acrylic sheet

Lighting
2 x 150 watt HQI MH, 10,000K

Filtration
Ocean Clear 340, Eheim Pro II 2026, Lifegard 25 watt UV. System flow rate set to 2.8x tank turnover / hour.

Additional Info
This tank and aquascape were designed to provide a visually pleasing planted environment for discus, while still requiring relatively low maintenance. The plants, fish, crustaceans, and systems supporting the tank, all work together to keep tank maintenance requirements low - currently one weekly 45-60 minute maintenance session. Multiple, small, automated water changes each night yield an equivalent of 50% water change every 3 days. Three tank outflows are plumbed thru the bottom of the tank, with two returns over the top. Pre-filters on outflows and return nozzles are obscured by plants. No equipment was removed for photos. CO2 in-line injection with Mazzei venturi. CO2 kept at 45 ppm by pH controller. Daily micro fertilization with 9 ml ADA Green Brighty Step 2. Potassium dosed to keep tank at 25 ppm at the beginning of each day (prior to uptake). Nitrogen and Phosphate are found in the tap water used in water changes, keeping the tank at 8 and 0.9 ppm respectively. Neither is dosed.

I went kinda “all out” on the technical aspects of this tank. I’m sure someone’s got a more technical setup somewhere, but I’ve not seen it. It certainly makes keeping a planted discus tank this size visually appealing (no equipment in the tank), and easy to maintain. I’ll post more details on that later.

If you read my post on the AGA 2005 Big Clear Kahuna, it’s worth noting that that tank never really took off. Plants would do OK for a few months, and then begin to die. This repeated multiple times. And the poor plant health (and all the silicates from the sand) prompted a nasty thread algae outbreak. Ultimately I tore the tank down out of frustration and found the source of all of my ills. A silver plated coaster! I had used one to prop up some cardboard keeping the sand separate from the soil as I was setting up the tank the first day. And I forgot to remove it. That coaster began to dissolve and leach into the soil. And silver is devastating to plant roots. Look it up. So there’s one stupid mistake to never repeat.

Anyway, after I tore the Big Clear Kahuna, I named my next tank Kahuna’s Revenge. And by that time I had decided that I had learned enough to try to keep some discus. It has a reputation of being hard - keeping discus in a planted tank. And it’s not easy. But I wouldn’t call it hard. There’s just a little extra attention to detail required. For example, many discus keepers regularly use medications that will kill plants. And may plant people use fertilization dosing levels that would make discus sick or unhappy. Like I say, it’s just paying attention to the details. But it’s not really hard.

These are the pics I submitted to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA) 2006 Aquascaping Contest.

Technical Info

Plants
Anubias barteri, Anubias barteri var. nana, Anubias barteri var. nana petite, Crinum calamistratum, Cryptocoryne crispatula var. Balansae, Marsilea minuta, Vesicularia fasciculata

Fish/Animals
40 Otocinclus vittatus 50 Caridina japonica 70 Paracheirodon simulans 8 Symphysodon spp.

Decorative Materials
ADA Aquasoil substrate on top of ADA Powersand special with borders of ADA Bright Sand. Moss and Anubias planted on over 20″ of driftwood scaffolding.

Background
none

Lighting
54w T5 HO 10,000K and 54w T5 HO 6,700K

Filtration
Eheim 2026 (950 l/h)

Additional Info
Daily dosing: 12 drops ADA ECA, 1.3 ml ADA Green Brighty, 25ml solution of K2SO4 (equivilent to 2.5 ppm K). Pressurized CO2 injection to 35 ppm. 20% daily water change.

You’ll note that I’m not adding dosing any nitrogen or phosphates. With my city water - which has about 7 and 0.7 ppm respectively - it’s not necessary. Plus with the discus and their copious amounts of food, they add a good bit of nitrates to the water. In fact, without that 20% daily water change it would have been tougher. And that 20% water change sounds like a lot of work. But I’ve got it completely automated. I don’t have to lift a finger.

I’ll post more info on that, should you be inclined to try it yourself. It sure eliminates the biggest time consuming chore in this hobby.

Mickey’s 20g was not my only entry in 2005. I had really finished that tank early in that year. My real project was a tank I build myself, from big panes of glass. It was a 75g, and since I used very clear low iron glass (no green tint) I called it the Big Clear Kahuna. The BCK, as it was known in a few forums, came to an untimely end. This aquascape itself was doomed.

But it looked OK early on. So here are the pics I submitted to the Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA) 2005 Aquascaping Contest.

I was trying to create a biotope, the looks of which I had never seen anywhere else in planted tanks. I wanted it to look like the sandy bottomed bayous I played in as a kid on the gulf coast, with similar plants and fish.

Technical Info

Plants
Echinodorus cordifolius, Eleocharis acicularis, Eleocharis montevidensis, Hemianthus callitrichoides, Ludwigia Repens, Nymphaea rustica, Nymphaea zenkeri, Nymphoides aquatica, Vesicularia dubyana, Riccia fluitans

Fish/Animals
Micropterus salmoides “Largemouth Bass” - 1, Lepisosteus osseus “Longnose Gar” - 1, Crossocheilus siamensis “Siamese Algae Eater” - 1, Botia striata “Zebra Loach” - 2, Caridina sp. shown in a photograph is not a permanent tank inhabitant.

Decorative Materials
Cypress tree stump and a Cypress “knee” for hardscape. Cypress “knees” are protuberances that grow upward from Cypress roots, often breaking the water surface, a common sight in gulf coast swamps. Substrate is Eco-Complete in the planted areas, with quartz river sand for the “stream bed”.

Background
Black matte posterboard

Lighting
6 x 54 watt T5 Tek light, 10 hour photo period. Most of the day at 2 bulbs, increasing to a 6 bulb “noon day” peak

Filtration
Eheim 2026, outflow through hidden bulkheads in the bottom of the tank. Return through twin lily pipes over the side.

Additional Information
Growing up on the Gulf Coast of southern USA, fishing in cypress forests, with their myriad mazes of cuts and channels made by the passage of boats and water, while holding such fascinating aquatic life, created for me a deep love of that environment. This is rendition of how such a cut through a cypress forest, like those I grew up passing though on boats, might actually look underwater. - - - Though great pains have been made to keep this true to a real cypress forest, a few practical considerations keep this out of the biotope category. Botia striata have been used for snail control, Crossocheilus siamensis for algae control. And Vesicularia dubyana on hidden rocks provides a temporary barrier between the two substrates, to be removed when the foreground is fully mature. - - - Many Nymphaea, like the N. zenkeri here, are not indigenous, but have been present in USA cypress swamps now for around 100 years due to introduction by humans. - - - The Riccia was unplanned, though it is native. It snuck in on the Hemianthus callitrichoides and spread to the Eleocharis acicularis. Since that was both lovely and quite true to the invasive nature of that particular native aquatic weed, it has been allowed to continue spreading along the bottom, just as it would in nature. - - - This is a “point-in-time” tank. It is hard for me to imagine a recreation of any cypress swamp without the ever present top level predators that inhabit them. These fish can eventually outgrow all but the largest of tanks, and will eventually require replacement by juveniles. While this may not be considered “sustainable”, neither is the use of any fish population that do not breed in an aquascape - they have to be replaced when they die. Once the predators are a bit larger, the SAE and the loaches will be replaced with larger, mature Lepomis megalotis (Longear Sunfish) to fill their niche within the tank. So the tank should be fun to watch for a year or so any way, while hopefully being somewhat representative of true conditions. - - - With the exception of the temporary addition of a background to provide contrast for photos, this is the way the tank looks every day in our family room. No equipment was added or removed, no special lighting used.

There were a few notable problems with this attempt at a Gulf Coast biotope.

First, those cypress stumps grew algae like nobody’s business. Even putting them in was a huge effort because they are incredibly bouyant. I had several pounds of slate bolted to their bottoms so that they wouldn’t float. But I had to toss them. The algae on them just got too bad.

Second, I had to lose the gar. I loved that fish. It was cool! But I found out (after the fact) that they are illegal to posses in my state. So I had it quietly tranported to a friends marine biology in a state where they were allowed. Bummer. I really liked that fish.

And finally… the bass! Or Mr. Piggie as we called him. That fish was a eating machine. And a regurgitating machine for that matter too. I could not keep fish in the tank with that thing once it got a few inches long. It would try to eat anything that moved. It made no difference if it was clearly too big to eat. If he could get his mouth around it, he would eat it, or kill it trying. And after it digested stuff - as much as it could - ir would regurgetate on the plants. Really looked nasty, and took a lot of maintenance. So Mr. Piggie had to go to a pond. Another bummer.

But it was fun trying to create a biotope anyway. If you are inclined try something similar yourself, I’m going to doing a review of Robert J. Goldstein’s American Aquarium Fishes, an invaluable reference on native American freshwater fish. And I’ve included a link to Jonah’s Aquarium, a great place to buy them.

I never planned on getting into the planted aquarium hobby. Truth be told, my son young Mickey got a cheap little plastic aquarium for Christmas a few years ago, and I was stuck supporting it. Needless to say we over stocked it, and had to buy a bigger one to fix that, but we over stocked that too. So we bought a 20 gallon tank. And I had a great idea… “Hey Mickey, if we put some plants in there, they’ll soak up all the amonia, and we can put in even more fish!”

Boy was I a chump. It didn’t work out like I planned, needless to say. But I did discover diatomic green water, and Internet forums where I could ask stupid questions. I could have done without the green water, but discovering aquarium plant forums was a wonderful thing!

The tank wasn’t much of an aquascape. But by the end of the year it was healthy and growing very well. So I entered it in that Aquatic Gardeners Association (AGA) 2005 Aquascaping Contest. It wasn’t a competitive tank, but it was fun to enter and be judged.

Technical Info

Plants
Alternanthera reineckii, Blyxa japonica, Cabomba caroliniana, Cladophora aegagropila, Cryptocoryne balansae, Cryptocoryne blassii, Eleochari sparvulus, Glossostigma elatinoides, Lilaeopsis novaezelandiae, Ludwigia repens, Microsorium pteropus, Riccia fluitans, Vallisneria spiralis, Straight Vallisneria, Vesicularia dubyana, Vesicularia fasciculata

Fish/Animals
Botia striata (Zebra Loach) 2, Crossocheilus siamensis (Siamese Algae Eater) 3, Hemigrammus rhodostomus (True Rummynose Tetra) 3, Mikrogeophagus ramirezi (Cichlid, BlueRam) 3, Otocinclus vittatus (Oto Cat) 2, Paracheirodon axelrodi (Cardinal Tetra) 12, Caridina japonica (Marsh Shrimp) 6

Decorative Materials
Single driftwood piece in corner, obscured by java fern and moss.

Background
none

Lighting
1 x 65watt PC for 12 hours, additional 1 x 65 watt added for 3 mid photo-period “noon” hours

Filtration
Eheim Ecco 2230

Additional Info
Flourite substrate, pressurized CO2, all water treatment in-line (heater, CO2 diffuser, CO2 sampling, fert injection, UV, filtration)

At any rate, I’m still a bit attached to this tank. My son Mickey helped me get it going, it’s where I started learning about planted tanks, and I had a ton of fun with it.