starting over with small tank

[taylorodw]

Well I am glad, your cycle seems to have started quickly! Keep up the good work.

 

[Crepe]

I would break up that E. Tennelum to help it spread faster...

 

[design1stcode2nd]

Well I am glad, your cycle seems to have started quickly! Keep up the good work.

It does seem to be progressing much faster than I expected. I’m guessing the Eco-Complete has some of the necessary bacteria or there was still some on the java moss I transplanted. I figured the tap water rinse would have washed away any.

What I’m trying to figure out now and I posted this in the hardware section of the site is my Nitrite test keeps changing color after the 5 minute mark. So it looks all purple/magenta at the 5 minute mark so I’m figuring 2 or more ppm. I ask my wife what color she thinks it is and she looks at it maybe a minute later and it looks like .25ppm then another minute or so goes by and it looks like 0ppm.

I figure it’s one of those tests that you must make sure you check the color exactly at the time specified. Whereas with my ammonia test it stays the same color from about 2-3 minutes in until I clean the tube at 10 minutes.

So is the color at the 5 min mark correct or is it whenever it stops changing?

Ammonia is going from 4 or more ppm to 0 in 24 hrs or less now. I dosed with 3ml yesterday, didn’t check it again so I don’t know what that brought it up to. If I can have it handle a fairly high bioload from the get go then I’ll be able to stock more fish from the beginning. Still haven’t settled on a stocking list yet. Everything I like seems to not fit in a 20g or is sensitive to water parameters/illnesses. Thinking of starting with white mountain minnows. Saw them at my LFS and they were much more colorful than I thought they would be. Not nearly as nice as cardinal tetras but I don’t want fish dying on me so I want hardy ones initially.

I would break up that E. Tennelum to help it spread faster...

Do you mean the Micro Sword? It was potted in rock wool, I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to separate it. How many chunks should I make 2-3 for each of the 3 pots?

 

[design1stcode2nd]

Looks like I just had to shake up the nitrite solution. So I'm 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 5ppm Nitrate. Looks like the tank cycled in a couple weeks. That doesn't seem normal but hey I'll run with it.

 

[design1stcode2nd]

Added some fish over the weekend. One Ancistrus sp 4 pleco, max size is 4.5" which will probably take him a couple of years to reach. He seems the most out going. You can see him below next to the Zebra Nerite snail, added two of those.

Also got a pair of apistogramma cacatuoides double red which are very small, little more than an inch or so. They are very shy and I've only seen them a few times. They have eaten live blackworms but I want to try and move them to freeze dried foods if possible with live as an occasional treat. Hopefully I can get a shot of them soon.

General tank shots:

I've since added an airstone.

 

[Aquarium1]

Wow It looks beautiful! I love the aquascaping

 

[mommytron]

Wow It looks beautiful! I love the aquascaping

agreed, gorgeous

 

[DragonFish71]

+1

Ugh, really makes me want to get my river tank up and going but noooooooooo, I said I'd wait until after the wedding.

Is it October yet?

 

[design1stcode2nd]

Thanks everyone.

Seems like my heater is acting a little weird, it seems to range from 76.5 to as much as 79.5 degrees. I have been adjusting it slightly. What is the normal range on heaters I figured only a degree or two would be normal.

My pleco also seems much more interested in the plants, glass and driftwood than he does with the algae wafers. He seems energetic enough.

 

[Mark Hewitt]

Thanks everyone.

Seems like my heater is acting a little weird, it seems to range from 76.5 to as much as 79.5 degrees. I have been adjusting it slightly. What is the normal range on heaters I figured only a degree or two would be normal.

My pleco also seems much more interested in the plants, glass and driftwood than he does with the algae wafers. He seems energetic enough.

What's your heater set to? If your room is very hot I wouldn't be surprised if the water temperature gets above what's set on the heater, but it should stop the water temperature from falling more than a few degrees below what it's set to, if not then either your heater is faulty or it's of insufficient size for your tank.

 

[BigJim]

My tanks range a few degrees over the course of the day. I set the heaters to 72-74, depending on the tank, but the ambient temperature is warmer than that, so the tanks warm up a few degrees during the day.

 

[design1stcode2nd]

That makes sense, I think I will lower mine so it ranges between 75-79, hoping for a 77 degree baseline.

Can't seem to get the Apistos to eat anything except live worms, going to pick up some shrimp pellets and see if those work.

Also would Amano shrimp eat up leftover algae wafers? If so I think I'll need to get a bunch. The snails and pleco only seem to nibble on them.

 

[design1stcode2nd]

Just to update
The tank is doing fairly well. Nitrates are a bit up at 80ppm and if I can’t get them down further with the weekly 25% PCW I’ll go to twice weekly until they settle (some of it may be due to the plants decaying before the sprouted new leaves/shoots). The water sprite doesn’t appear to be doing well and I lost one just trimming it as it completely came apart. Java Fern, Anubias nana, Anubias Cogensis and Spiralis seem to be doing alright. The microsword is surviving if not doing well.

I’m going to look into a new light fixture. I’ve found a coralife strip with two 14w bulbs which would be good for my tank. With the driftwood, three inches of substrate, rocks and plants I imagine there is only about 18 gallons in the tank so about 1.5w/g almost doubling what I have now.

I’d like to get a carpet plant but nothing is going to grow in the .75-.85 w/g so I need to upgrade. Everything else I’ve seen is much too high in the w/g department not to mention price.

New additions to the tank went in this past weekend; 8 Neon Tetras, 4 Red Snakeskin guppies (1M:3F) and 8 Amano shrimp. The shrimp made short work of the small amount of algae growing in the tank. Very industrious critters, my driftwood and plants seemed spotless in only a day or so. I’ve been providing algae wafers as well since the snails, shrimp and pleco all eat algae.

I haven’t been able to get my Apistos to eat anything except live black worms although they will eventually have guppy fry to snack on. As I expected the guppies and neons are eating all the dry foods I tried on the apistogramma (FD brine shrimp, blood worms and flake). The guppies even go after the algae wafer sometimes (oddly just the females) and nothing eats the cichlid pellets. Of course they being the same color as my substrate doesn’t help.

 

[bluerose]

80ppm nitrate is really too high; 40 is the most you generally want to have in a tank, so as such I'd suggest a 50% PWC.

WPG is determined by depth as well as tank size-- so if you're in a 20H, it'll be slightly less functional WPG than in a 20L, for example. Regardless, upgrading your lighting will help.

 

[mommytron]

80ppm nitrate is really too high; 40 is the most you generally want to have in a tank, so as such I'd suggest a 50% PWC.

WPG is determined by depth as well as tank size-- so if you're in a 20H, it'll be slightly less functional WPG than in a 20L, for example. Regardless, upgrading your lighting will help.

what she said

 

[design1stcode2nd]

Lost my pleco last night. No idea as to the cause. My nitrates are down and all other parameters are within normal ranges. I made sure there was an algae wafer in the tank since I have snails, shrimp and the pleco so he should have had food. Did he need more than algae wafers like cucumber or zucchini? The water looks clear and I do water changes weekly or twice weekly.

I’ll have to do some research, I won’t get another until I know what was wrong.