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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:
- Started using a “siesta”, or 90 minutes in the middle of the day with no lights.
- Reduced the photoperiod to seven (7) hours total time of lights on.
- Eliminated macro dosing, except potassium.
- Reduced potassium dosing way back to one tenth of its normal volume.
- Reduced micro dosing back to one tenth of its normal volume.
- 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.
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!
<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>
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