My 20G Planted Tank

[CorallineAlgae]

Sorry to hear about it. I just got 2 kuhlis yesterday myself.

 

[callisto9]

Sorry to hear about it. I just got 2 kuhlis yesterday myself.

Thanks. I am sure you'll have better luck with them. Wish I knew what the problem was. All other fish are OK. Well, my yellow guppy has something weird, but it's not the same thing as what the kuhlis had.

 

[Rivercats]

Thanks. I am sure you'll have better luck with them. Wish I knew what the problem was. All other fish are OK. Well, my yellow guppy has something weird, but it's not the same thing as what the kuhlis had.

It is very possible they could have had ich in the gills when you bought them and with the stress of being moved into a new tank increased them. I've gotten loaches in the past that turned out having ich in the gills when I purchased them and there is no way to tell since you can't see visual signs of them. Unfortunely this happens from time to time.

 

[callisto9]

Yellow fancy guppy bit the dust mid-last week. He had a red dot on him and what looked like bruises on his body. Quick decline.

All other fish seem to be fine.

Thinking of doing a moderate re-scape this weekend...

 

[CorallineAlgae]

That happens from time to time. I just lost one of my kuhli loaches.

 

[callisto9]

Awww, sorry to hear it. I don't know that I'll try kuhlis again. I think for right now, I'm just going to let things be.

 

[ktomminello]

Kuhli are VERY sensitive to climate changes, nitrAtes and phosphates. Probably from their tendency for ich now that I think about it

 

[callisto9]

Did a 50% WC today, trimmed and whatnot. Got a new gravel vaccum and between that and the filter cleaning (swished it in some exported tank water), wow, there's some gunk cleaned out!

I just found a bunch of nerite eggs today, so I'm debating what to do about that.

I kinda want to re-scape the tank... a little. That manzanita branch is always fuzzy and the nerites are eating it, which is fine, but it's making a mess below and it's hard to clean the tank with it in there. I always have to remove it to clean the tank.

Here's the tank as of today. I think it needs that branch in there, decor-wise, but I want to re-think the layout and add a different piece of wood.

Also, I have too many floating plants. LOL

 

[Rivercats]

I agree with both it looks better with the branch in and that you have too much floating plants for that size tank. Have you ever left the nerite eggs to see how long it takes them to drop off on their own? I rarely remove eggs and the most stubborn ones only see to stay on the wood or glass a couple weeks max. Now I do notice eggs laid on plants take long to dissolve. I have around 40ish nerites and just don't seem to get that many eggs. I wonder if it's partly due to my using a higher amount of Glut daily.

 

[callisto9]

I just saw the nerite eggs today, so no idea how long they've been there.

I did find a couple of cool snails I've never seen before in my tank. They are tiny, striped black and white. I moved them to my snail jar. I'll have to Google them.

 

[callisto9]

Whoa, it looks like it's an assassin snail! I've never bought any of those.

 

[Rivercats]

That is interesting. They must have come in on a plant. I'd keep a watch for more.

 

[callisto9]

Let's say I were to want to do a moderate re-scape...take the fish out? Or just slowly move things around with them in?

 

[Rivercats]

Let's say I were to want to do a moderate re-scape...take the fish out? Or just slowly move things around with them in?

I never remove fish I just go very very slowly and by doing that try not to stir up too much detris. Then a good WC afterwards is good.

 

[callisto9]

Thank you for the advice. I'm looking at driftwood now on eBay.

I tested my water tonight:
Amm: .25ppm
NtrAte: 30ppm
NtrIte: 0ppm

Wonder why I'm seeing higher than usual ammo and nitrate. I've done four water changes in the past 10 days.

Here's the snail:

 

[callisto9]

Here's my exciting driftwood!

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Sometimes when you rearrange things in a planted tank it releases mulm or root tab particles into the water that will raise your levels for a little while. If that's what happened then it's not surprising. Most people do a water change the day they move their plants then test the next day and find a spike. Another water change followed by cleaning out the filter pads in tank water will usually help things by the following day. The filter will usually be dirty again after a couple more days and need a bit more maintenance including a good cleaning of the impeller and even the tubes. lol

Yeah, I try not to change around my plants to often. That's a lot of work!!!

 

[callisto9]

The only time I move stuff around is on WC day. I have a new siphon which seems to be able to get tons more gunk out of the EcoComplete, but I'm still conflicted about if I should be deep vacuuming that in the first place. There's so much gunk in there, I can't help but want to suck it out.

 

[Rivercats]

As long as you can stay away from plant roots it's not going to hurt to get excess detris out if there is that much in there.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Right. Just stay away from the plant's roots and the places you've added root tabs. I actually never go into the gravel at all anymore. I used to go deep but considering many people actually use dirt under a cap of sand or Eco I just let it be and the tank has improved ever since. It drove me crazy for years though.