Any aquarium buffs out there?

[DM1975]

Marine aquariums can be as hard or as easy as you want to make them. I hardly spend any time on mine now that it is more established. I may spend a total of a half hour a week max on it and it is still a rather juvenile tank. Some people turn it into a damn job, but it doesn't have to be at all.

[Doggonewild]

I said I'd post if something bad happened, but I change that to good things as well. It's been three weeks since I first added water to the tank.


The lone survivor of the Temple Plants has two original leaves that look like hell. But it's producing new leaves and I see some roots growing out of the solid but bare stem. That makes me happy. The suspected Angustifolia version of the same plant is devoid of leaves now, but there is a stem back there. I'll wait a little while and see what happens.


I did surgery on the suspected Needle Leaf plants a couple days ago. I pulled the the ones with rotten stems out, trimmed the rotten stuff off of them, and the ones with long enough roots left got planted. So far they are looking good. I left a few very short but good leaves and stems floating with no roots, but I don't think this experiment will work. The filter seems to shoot them down and they get hung up on other plants.


The tall spindly Needle Leaf, with long roots sticking out of it. The stem is long but good, but I'm thinking of cutting it down and planting it very low like the others if they survive after a few days. I like the looks of them down there more.


The suspected Broad Leaf Sword. It has a couple red leaves now, and one damaged leaf I'll trim off soon. I also untangled the Crypt. Balansae from it, as well as the suspected Val from the Cabomba in the filter corner. The snails are getting bigger, but still only about an eighth inch long.
I have a newfound repect for them, they seem to be taking care of the minor rotten vegetation here and there.


A better picture of the king of the tank, the Dwarf Gourami. It's hard to pick up the blue stripes as they shimmer. He is by far the most active Gourami I've ever had, but he's also the first one in with real plants. All the fish seem really active and happy.

[Doggonewild]

http://crypts.home.xs4all.nl/Cryptocoryne/index.html
If you are a Cryptocoryne lover, here's a nice site. I think I have more Crypts. than I first thought, including the one in the front left corner. The leaf pattern is not like an Anubias. The tall grassy plants could also be Crypts. instead of Vals, more research is needed. I need to weed through all those pictures again.

Nitrates are actually going down, that's pretty cool. I think I know how much to feed the fish now. I think I'll get some freeze dried bloodworms for the Harlequins and Gourami, and reserve the quick sinking frozen ones for a catfish snack.

I need to get a timer, but I've been running a light for about 13 hours a day so far. No sign of any algae yet.

[pick1e]

The suspected Angustifolia version of the same plant is devoid of leaves now, but there is a stem back there. I'll wait a little while and see what happens.

It might just come back. In my experience these aren't quite as robust as the standard temple but still quite hardy.

The suspected Broad Leaf Sword. It has a couple red leaves now

I'm definitely going with "red melon sword" on that one. I thought the submerged leaves were a different shape but I must be wrong. Maybe high light has something to do with it.

He is by far the most active Gourami I've ever had, but he's also the first one in with real plants. All the fish seem really active and happy.

That's why all my tanks always have live plants!

[Doggonewild]

The Temple plants might just make it, both versions. One old leaf is still hanging in there, and there are three new leaves on the long stem. The Suspected Angustfolia stem isn't rotten, (I have become an expert on what a rotten stem looks like) and may have a hint of green at the top. It's hard to see, it's in the middle back.

After you mentioned Red Melon Sword pick1e, I did some research. I think it's a regular Melon Leaf, as their young leaves have a reddish tint and turn green with maturity I found out. It's also pictured on aquariumplants.com's site, but it is a very small picture. The light in the aquarium is pretty dim actually, the camera makes it look brighter than it really is. Thanks much again for steering me in the right direction.

I think the three smaller plants in the front, one tinted red, are Cryptocoryne Wendtii of some kind. Three more plants and I think I know them all.


A picture right after feeding. The tallest Cabomba Caroliniana I think will hit the surface tomorrow, I have to figure out what to do with it. What I've read they may be a good reason I don't have any algae.

Water conditions are stable, but with nitrates inching up again. I'll do a good water change tomorrow night and get them back down to 10. That sounds like a good number to maintain without too much work.

By the way, when you trim leaves off it's best to cut it off next to the stem, right?

[Bone Daddy]

I've been lurking on this thread as I'm considering converting my 6 gallon Fluval Edge into a fully planted tank. I like your methodical approach. Your tank looks beautiful.

One thing that is stopping me is that the LED bulbs I need are on back order. The other thing is that I really don't feel like breaking down a perfectly good tank.

My little tank has some Java moss and a Java fern with a single spectacular, spoiled rotten betta. (How spoiled? I raise fruit flies for him. BTW, your gourami would love fruit flies. Petco has them.) I have two 5 watt 6500k MR16 led spotlights. Originally my plan was to try my hand at breeding licorice guorami. How did I end up with a betta? That's a funny story for another time.

I too love harlequin rasboras. They were in my section when I worked for a fish wholesaler (best job I ever had). They really color up nicely with soft acidic water.

Two suggestions:

- CO2 is your friend. You have lots of plants competing for whatever CO2 may be in the water. I need to add CO2 to my tank. I'm using API CO2 Booster. It is a liquid supplement. Never used it before, but seems to be working really well. You may want to give it a try.

Your filter will also aid in the reduction of CO2 by disturbing the surface of the water providing more surface area for gas exchange. (I'm assuming you turn it off for the pictures?)

This puzzles me:

"What I've learned is that a couple layers of fiberglass screen for bugs can reduce the light enough to get me to low light, so I don't need to add CO2 and stuff. I joined the Planted Tank Forum and asked about this to the lighting guru, and I'm waiting for a reply. He used to design lights for NASA if I remember right."

Plants need light, CO2 and water to produce food - glucose. Reducing light levels will reduce photosynthesis which in turn will reduce CO2 uptake, but this is a bad thing as it will also reduce glucose production sapping the plant of the energy it needs to grow.

- Second is that I think your plants would benefit from more light. The indicator is your Cabomba. Cabomba is a high light plant. If you look there is considerable distance between internodes. Look at the difference in stem length between whirls of leaves in early pictures and later pictures. It is stretching to get closer to the light. Hygrophila is another bright light plant. If you have any Valls, they too are a high light plant.

Anyway, keep posting pix and updates.

Bones

[Doggonewild]

Thanks, Bones. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.

No, the filter is on during the pictures, it just doesn't make many ripples. It does pump a large amount of water, and I think there is plenty of oxygen due to the fact I've only seen the catfish go to the top twice since I got them. So I hope not too much CO2 is escaping.

Nothing to be puzzled about, I just chose the low tech approach to a planted tank. Being it is only a 20 gallon tank, I didn't want to mess with it too much to keep water conditions stable. Hence, low light, no CO2, maybe some fertilizers someday. The idea is to achieve a balance where the whole system supports itself. What I've read is lots of plants and few fish work the best, so I'm seeing if it is true I guess. Was buying the 12 plant assortment of unknown plants a good idea for a beginner? Probably not. And they gave me 19 plants! Aquariumplants.com did say they were low light-hardy plants, but I know now that some of them do better with at least medium light. I guess the plants will have to figure it out for themselves on how they grow. Some chose not to and died. Frankly they are doing way better overall than I thought they would, I figured I'd kill half of them in the first week. Algae blooms seem to be a good indicator of an imbalanced tank, and mine is microscopic.

[Doggonewild]

I think the tall grassy plants are Cryptocoryne crispatula yunnanensis, not a type of Val. Seachem Excel could be used in the future if needed. In the second picture, the battered Temple Plant leaf is incredibly still on, and the other small leaves are growing.
http://crypts.home.xs4all.nl/Cryptoc...y/yun/yun.html


I think this broad leaf plant is a Cryptocoryne moehlmanntii, not an Anubias. This picture shows off the vein pattern in the leaf better. I don't think I have any Anubias in the tank.
http://crypts.home.xs4all.nl/Cryptoc...y/moe/moe.html


The recently transplanted Ludwigia arcuata, or Needle Leaf I think. A couple leaves melted, but I think they will make it. What I've read I could plant this low all over the tank if I want.

[Bone Daddy]

Hey Doggonewild

I'm not puzzled by your approach, I'm puzzled by the advice you were given.

Here's a few pix of my tank taken without a flash.

1st one: filter on

2nd: filter off (you can still see some bubbles in the water)

3rd: Java fern on left, Java moss on right.

When I first set up the tank, I used the supplied lights. These were two Mr15 halogen bulbs.
They didn't last long. Low light levels, wrong color, algae, etc. I replaced the sockets with ones suitable for MR16s and the bulbs with two 5 watt 6500K LEDs. Made all the difference in the world. I built a fixture to add three more bulbs, but they have been back ordered for quite awhile.

The Java moss was languishing when I first added it to the tank. Slow growth with
greenish brown foliage. I knew light wasn't the problem so I figured it was low CO2. After all, bettas are air breathers. I was going to build a sugar/yeast generator until I saw the liquid carbon in Petco. Since supplementing, the Java moss is growing well and has greened up nicely.

I added the Java fern about two weeks ago. It is just starting to send out new rhizomes. I also supplement with iron because Java fern responds with nice deep green leaves.

Remember these are classified as low light plants.

In the left hand corner is my stand in cover for the betta until the Java fern grows in.

More later.

Bones

[pick1e]

I'm not puzzled by your approach, I'm puzzled by the advice you were given.

I think the idea is just to keep a balance in the tank. If the plants are growing they will out-compete algae and cyanobacteria- but if they exhaust their chemical resources, the plants stop growing and the high light is now an invitation for nasty stuff to take over. So if you're not planning on adding chemicals or CO2, dimming the light will slow the growth of the plants and in turn slow the uptake of nutrients, keeping a better balance in the tank.

[Doggonewild]

http://www.sudeepmandal.com/hobbies/...ed-tank-guide/
I just found this, he does a good job of explaining it all.

[Bone Daddy]

There are many things I do not about this article.

It raises way more questions than answers.

More later.............

Bones

[Doggonewild]

It's been four weeks since I added water, with the plants the next day, and two weeks since the Cory's and six Harlequins jumped in.

A front view,


and a view from my perch.


Some observations.

I definately have plants that don't belong in a low tech tank. What I thought was Needle Leaf is definately Stargrass. The mid-plant roots sealed the deal. It needs more light. The Cabomba is a bit spindly, and the tallest one just bends after it hit the top. The Cardamine grows how expected under low light, with small leaves and thin stems. The Temple Plant lost it's last original leaf, and the one opposed to it looks bad, but the two others look good so far. The Angustfolia is gone.

On the other hand, two C. wendtii have more new leaves growing. The new leaves have reddish edges. All the Crypts are doing well, and I moved the Balansae over a little to take the Angistfolia's place by just sliding it through the Flourite a little. I know they don't like to get moved, but I think it had to be done to get out of the Sword Plant's way. I clipped an original bad leaf off the Sword recently, that plant takes up a lot of room.

The Lace Java Ferns have a little decay on them still but it isn't getting worse since I put them on the rocks. I was hoping the snails would eat it, but nope so far. They otherwise seem well, and have healthy looking rhyzomes. The snails are still at a very manageable level, and are growing slowly.

I did a full range of tests tonight. 4 degrees hardness, 7.8 pH, 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 20 nitrates. This is all very stable, and it makes me happy. The fish seem as happy as pigs in the mud.

The Gourami is getting a little aggressive sometimes now, but the Harlequins are way faster and don't seem to mind. They just go right back to their business. I'm glad I didn't get two males now.

The Harlequins are developing more red coloring, and the bronzish color is coming out better. Elvis, the king, is vivid. The Cory's never stop, do they ever sleep?

[troj]

Marine aquariums can be as hard or as easy as you want to make them. I hardly spend any time on mine now that it is more established. I may spend a total of a half hour a week max on it and it is still a rather juvenile tank. Some people turn it into a damn job, but it doesn't have to be at all.

A marine aquarium that's a lot of work and takes a lot of time is setup wrong. Invest up front in the getting it setup right, and it's not much work.

-Kevin

[DM1975]

A marine aquarium that's a lot of work and takes a lot of time is setup wrong. Invest up front in the getting it setup right, and it's not much work.

-Kevin

That's true Kevin, but with the different methods out there today to run a reef tank some people obsess over nutrient poor water. Bare bottom tanks and siphoning daily to me is just more than I want to deal with, but for the toughest acropora's I guess it is good to do. Personally my tank is ran kinda German style with a shallow sand bed. I still siphon detritus out but only once a month. Problem with that is sand beds are prone to crashing.

Now if you are talking a fish only with live rock then that's a whole different thing and is pretty easy to keep as long as you don't over crowd the tank. Great thing about marine tanks is their is less filtration to buy, bad thing is that their is more filtration to buy, lol. Depending on how you want to run things. Their is no hard fast rules on them.

[DM1975]

Just a few shots of some of my coral and fish. Some shot under actinic and a few under full spectrum. Some of these are old and show the tank going through algae blooms. All shot with my iPhone.

The colors are not representative of what they look like in real life. In reality they are MUCH brighter and colorful and fluoresce under the actinics.

hammer coral


Yellow watchman goby


Red Sea Sailfin Tang being cleaned by a shrimp


Candy Cane Garden


Zooanthids


More Zooanthids


Green Star Polyps


Favia Brain Coral


Ricordea


More Ricordea


Torch Coral


Another breed Hammer Coral


Brain Coral Again full spectrum


My black false percs, black capped basselet, and one of my chromis.


One of my Firefish


Green Mandarin


Black Cap (Daggermouth) being cleaned by shrimp


Almost Half Tank Shot


Filtration (55gallon sump with skimmer, baffles, UV sterilizer, GFO reactor, heater, and return pump)

[Peartree]

Beautiful! I also applaud your efforts to make the fish feel at home, but where to you get the tiny little bottles of beer for the fish bar in the picture?

[DM1975]

Beautiful! I also applaud your efforts to make the fish feel at home, but where to you get the tiny little bottles of beer for the fish bar in the picture?

Lol

[Doggonewild]

That is one cool aquarium, very impressive. Are those fiberglass rocks? I don't know much about marine tanks. Peartree, that is a classic. I didn't even notice the fish pub the first time looking at the pictures. I'm still giggling.

[DM1975]

Thanks, those are real rocks. I put a lot of base rock in and several large chunks of live rock as well. A lot of the base rock I broke up and glued to plastic gutter guard to cover the overflow boxes on each side. The aquarium is set up as a peninsula in myaster bedroom, as you guessed it I have a small bar on one side.

The overflows were kinda unsightly but I like having a drilled tank. I built wooden covers to go over the outside of the overflows to hide the stand pipes and returns and then built the rock walls on the inside to make it look like reef shelves were coming out of the framed in areas (overflows) if that makes sense. Here are a few photos.

Please remember the algae is just now subsiding and these are older pics. Plus I have been remodeling the bedroom so things may look kinda crappy...

I built these...


To cover these...


My framed in ocean from one side...



And the view from the front...


Side...


My redneck reef controller...


My bubble coral Fred...


Outside vent to my skimmer (raises ph)...


And this is a plate of nachos...

[Doggonewild]

Very cool, thanks a lot for the pictures. I still don't know what you are talking about most of the time though. Where are the jalapenos on the nachos?

[DM1975]

Very cool, thanks a lot for the pictures. I still don't know what you are talking about most of the time though. Where are the jalapenos on the nachos?

Don't worry, I don't either... I just kinda make the stuff up as I go

I had to give up the jalapeños due to acid reflux. I still get them on my burgers from time to time though.

[Doggonewild]

Don't be shy. If you have the time, explain what base and live rocks are, what a skimmer does, etc.

That's too bad about the acid reflux, pickled jalapenos are one of the finer things in life. I thankfully have a cast iron stomach.

[DM1975]

I had a cast iron stomach once too...

A skimmer is kinda the heart and soul I think of a marine tank. It is a foam fractionator. It basically creates a large froth of bubbles and separates dissolved waste out of the water and attaches them to the bubbles, raising them up and out I to a collection cup. It pulls a bunch of brown nasty stinking crap out.

Live rock is simply rock from the ocean (or aquacultured) that is full of microbes, worms, bacteria, critters that basically act as your filter. It processes the waste. Their is a lot more to it and many many methods to all of this. I will leave that research up to you...

Base rock is rock that once was live that is usually an aragonite base and is dry and free of all the good stuff. It is cheaper than live rock. Way cheaper. If put in with some live rock it will seed out and become live rock itself.

GFO Reactor is a fluidized bed reactor, or up flow chamber that holds granulated ferric oxide. This removes phosphates from the water making it more healthy for corals and causes algae to not grow as bad.

UV sterilizer is a chamber with a UV light that runs water through it that kills microbes making the water more ear and more healthy.

Their is a bunch of other stuff too. I don't know... I'm just kinda geeky and doped up on my meds right now. But the web is full of answers out there.

Hope that decoded it some for you though.

[Doggonewild]

That was great, thank you. Knowledge is power.

[DM1975]

My pleasure. I'm glad to help, I'm just kinda out of it right now.

[sodmeister]

DM1975 ,that is a wonderful looking tank set-up.I like your live rock structure and your choice of fish and corals !!

Cheers

Paul T

[DM1975]

DM1975 ,that is a wonderful looking tank set-up.I like your live rock structure and your choice of fish and corals !!

Cheers

Paul T

Thank you Paul, I am far from done with the coral but I added my last fish a couple days ago, a foxface rabbitfish. As for the rock structure I deplore the usual "rock wall" that is commonly seen and wanted to add some feel of depth and diversity in the whole geometry, or whatever you would call it. It has been a work in progress and still has a few holes needing to be filled, but water quality is my number one concern over everything else.

[sodmeister]

Thank you Paul, I am far from done with the coral but I added my last fish a couple days ago, a foxface rabbitfish. As for the rock structure I deplore the usual "rock wall" that is commonly seen and wanted to add some feel of depth and diversity in the whole geometry, or whatever you would call it. It has been a work in progress and still has a few holes needing to be filled, but water quality is my number one concern over everything else.

Indeed ,what you are doing with your rock is perfect ! My buddy has a nice tank with live rock ,much like yours ,but he has a bad aiptasia problem ,causing him much grief !

On my own aquarium note ,2 of my fish went to that big Fillet O Fish place in the sky ,so looks like Cichlids in the tank will be happening soon ,just 3 fish left ,but who knows ,they may last for months ......and that`s OK


Paul T

[DM1975]

Sorry to hear of the losses Paul. On the aptasia a couple peppermint shrimp will keep em eaten down, and the big ones can be killed by injecting their mouth with boiling water. I had aptasia on some live rock when I started the tank up but none now after the shrimp.