ljlee256
Aquarium Advice Apprentice
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2014
- Messages
- 33
Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum (and new to tapatalk, so forgive anything that goes wrong posting this).
I have had a few tanks over the last 20 years, one as a youngin which started my interest, as well as a 5gal betta tank with 2 ADFs. Those both had all plastic plants and aside from the betta nothing special or significantly amazing.
My newest tank (3months old) is what I would call, a sign that I'm getting more enthusiastic about this hobby.
So far its a 30gallon standard shaped tank with 1/3 sand and 2/3 gravel substrate. Hair grass planted sparsely throughout the sand that I trim on occasion to promote spreading/carpeting, I didnt go hogwild on breaking up the grass and spacing it so the carpeting is slow, but prograssing (hehe, that was a typo but was hilarious so I left it). I have learned a fair amount about hair grass in the short time ive had it, so if you have questions please ask.
In my tank I have 2 mollies one black female and one silver male, it started with 4 but 2 succumbed to a difficult to diagnose illness in their first 2 weeks in my tank and died. There were no symptoms that I could see except weight loss (they ate, but very sparingly).
I also have 4 oto catfish that have been happy and healthy since day one.
And lastly 3 amano shrimp that are very new inhabitants of the tank, it was 4 but one darted out past the filter box about 30 minutes after being introduced and was never seen again. The 3 remaining seem happy (although fearful and skittish).
I have 2 mild algae infestations, green film type algae that the otos control, and a progressive green hair algae that I'm hoping the amanos will munch on.
My initial setup included 2 weeks with no filtration and 1/4 tank of water with mild dosings of ferts for the hair grass to establish, followed by 1 week of running the filter (single cartidge waterfall) and filling the tank discontinuing fertilizer dosings, after which the green film like algae showed up, added the otos, 2 weeks later added the mollies, and then just this week the amanos.
My nitrogens have been stable and near zero (nitrate around 5ppm) since the end of the fertilizer dosings, no spikes since. I'm using liquid test kits. I have been doing the very seldom and minimal dose of seachem flourish with the odd biweekly water change which I will probably discontinue with the amanos in the tank.
Cool well thanks for reading my novel lol.
Any questions please ask away!
Sent from my LG-E971 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
I have had a few tanks over the last 20 years, one as a youngin which started my interest, as well as a 5gal betta tank with 2 ADFs. Those both had all plastic plants and aside from the betta nothing special or significantly amazing.
My newest tank (3months old) is what I would call, a sign that I'm getting more enthusiastic about this hobby.
So far its a 30gallon standard shaped tank with 1/3 sand and 2/3 gravel substrate. Hair grass planted sparsely throughout the sand that I trim on occasion to promote spreading/carpeting, I didnt go hogwild on breaking up the grass and spacing it so the carpeting is slow, but prograssing (hehe, that was a typo but was hilarious so I left it). I have learned a fair amount about hair grass in the short time ive had it, so if you have questions please ask.
In my tank I have 2 mollies one black female and one silver male, it started with 4 but 2 succumbed to a difficult to diagnose illness in their first 2 weeks in my tank and died. There were no symptoms that I could see except weight loss (they ate, but very sparingly).
I also have 4 oto catfish that have been happy and healthy since day one.
And lastly 3 amano shrimp that are very new inhabitants of the tank, it was 4 but one darted out past the filter box about 30 minutes after being introduced and was never seen again. The 3 remaining seem happy (although fearful and skittish).
I have 2 mild algae infestations, green film type algae that the otos control, and a progressive green hair algae that I'm hoping the amanos will munch on.
My initial setup included 2 weeks with no filtration and 1/4 tank of water with mild dosings of ferts for the hair grass to establish, followed by 1 week of running the filter (single cartidge waterfall) and filling the tank discontinuing fertilizer dosings, after which the green film like algae showed up, added the otos, 2 weeks later added the mollies, and then just this week the amanos.
My nitrogens have been stable and near zero (nitrate around 5ppm) since the end of the fertilizer dosings, no spikes since. I'm using liquid test kits. I have been doing the very seldom and minimal dose of seachem flourish with the odd biweekly water change which I will probably discontinue with the amanos in the tank.
Cool well thanks for reading my novel lol.
Any questions please ask away!
Sent from my LG-E971 using Aquarium Advice mobile app
would love pic's! 
