Scottyhorse's 25 Gallon Community Build

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Wow. I haven't checked out this tread in a while- it grew 10 pages! LOL. How is the tank coming along? (I'm too lazy to read through all the pages )

[Scottyhorse]

It's doing fairly well.... Not how it's supposed to though! LOL! Parameters are giving me a headache, wait, a migraine.... :shakeshead:
After my water change I trimmed the pennywort (I think that's what it is!) and planted the clippings. I am trying to get my plants to quit growing so tall and bare.. I also hacked the vals down to get rid of all the dead growth. Cambomba is doing well. The other day I had about 4 tall ones, so I trimmed them and planted the clippings. Now I have at least 10 that are about 5" or so. So that is going well! After my tank cycles I'll probably take the MOL and Wisteria out and replace them with something else. Not exactly pretty plants. I'll probably get a crypt, Amazon Sword, and something like the Cambomba and some more vals for the other side of the filter. HC and clover not so much.... Might trash at least the HC before it finishes dieing. LOL.

[DanTheGuppyMan]

Originally Posted by Scottyhorse

It's doing fairly well.... Not how it's supposed to though! LOL! Parameters are giving me a headache, wait, a migraine.... :shakeshead:
After my water change I trimmed the pennywort (I think that's what it is!) and planted the clippings. I am trying to get my plants to quit growing so tall and bare.. I also hacked the vals down to get rid of all the dead growth. Cambomba is doing well. The other day I had about 4 tall ones, so I trimmed them and planted the clippings. Now I have at least 10 that are about 5" or so. So that is going well! After my tank cycles I'll probably take the MOL and Wisteria out and replace them with something else. Not exactly pretty plants. I'll probably get a crypt, Amazon Sword, and something like the Cambomba and some more vals for the other side of the filter. HC and clover not so much.... Might trash at least the HC before it finishes dieing. LOL.

Lol! Not sure if you knew this, but I sell plants...could sell you some corkscrew vals and amazon swords if you like. I also will soon have some rotala magenta and telanthera rosefolia to sell. I am also selling some ludwigia inclinata ver. Verticillata if you want any of those, but you would have to wait a while on the vals since I have about 3 orders of them ahead of you and still need to grow some more I had some moneywort, but it all just melted and decomposed in the dirt lol. I cannot grow low light plants in my tank! But PM me if you are interested in any plants, I could hook you up with something

[Scottyhorse]

Yeah could you pm me prices and stuff! Thanks!!

[Scottyhorse]

Hey, why did you guys let this thread get to page three on the forums?

So an update!
Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate 1.>5.80-160

So I FINALLY got my dad to buy 2 five gal buckets! So I did a 75% water change to get nitrites/nitrates down.
My dad was at a sports warehouse wholesale place, and what do you know, Petsmart was a few stores down... Of course I went there too look at fish I was looking around, and I didn't see any upside down catfish or pitbull plecos. What would be another smallish clean up fish that I could add as my first fish?
I also saw this betta, I wanted him SOOO badly. If you saw him, you'd probably laugh at me. He was a small double halfmoon. He was almost all tail fin. He was active, but pretty much all gray in color. You could see splotches of color, but I think he just needed some good food and a nice tank.
So, I had a thought..... Please don't yell at me or think I'm crazy, but could I add a betta to this tank? If that little guy is there when I can get fish I would really like to get him. Can't stop thinking about him now! I was so tempted to buy him, and just put him in a 5 gal bucket for the time being....
So, yeah, anyways, that's the update for today! I'll test the water in a lil and tell you what it looks like

[CharlieKlein]

High levels!! That's good that your trates spiked! As for the clean up, your getting a bn pleco for algea right? Bottom you can always do kuhlis, Cory's, or shrimp. Don't bother looking for a single fish that's around 6 inches, I've literally seen/reserched every fish and none are suitable in my tank or yours! Stick to a school of Cory's, kuhlis, or Mabye dwarf chain loaches. And the betta, in interested to hear what others say, I say this beautiful dragonscale with real coloring and read along the fins! Would love to have him

[Scottyhorse]

I was thinking a BN pleco, but I am worried about that because most of my plants (stem plants, so rootless trimmings when I bought them) don't have roots yet! So I don't want to have this huge fat fish just wiggling around my tank destroying all my plants
I am going to add my 2 amano shrimp along with 3-4 more just for fun
But for clean up, I'm not sure.... I don't want other fish to have to compete for floor space with the rams.... I was thinking maybe otos? I just don't want them to starve

The only fish I am concerned the betta might go after is the ram. I've been reading lots of yes and no's about that.

Ugg.

[CharlieKlein]

Originally Posted by Scottyhorse

I was thinking a BN pleco, but I am worried about that because most of my plants (stem plants, so rootless trimmings when I bought them) don't have roots yet! So I don't want to have this huge fat fish just wiggling around my tank destroying all my plants
I am going to add my 2 amano shrimp along with 3-4 more just for fun
But for clean up, I'm not sure.... I don't want other fish to have to compete for floor space with the rams.... I was thinking maybe otos? I just don't want them to starve

The only fish I am concerned the betta might go after is the ram. I've been reading lots of yes and no's about that.

Ugg.

I think if you have dense enough planted tank 4 Cory's will be good. They are pretty quick to get away. If you don't do a bn pleco, nerite snails work well

[Scottyhorse]

Yeah they had lots of cories there but no small ones... Pandas, Emerald, Green, and maybe one other? Yeah, really informative names.... lol
If I do get the betta, I have a 2 gal tank but no heater or filter.... It was my first tank, okay? Didn't know what I was doing....

[CharlieKlein]

Panda actually stay fairly small, under 2" and would be a good choice, the only thing is I'd suggust bringing the school down to 8 Mabye, if you want 4 panda Cory's. well the betta wouldn't do great in that tank, but if you got a filter and heater it would be a ton better than that cup at petsmart. Hopefully, others will help with the betta in the community

[Scottyhorse]

Yeah, if that betta is there when I get fish I am going to beg my parents to let me buy it, lol.
SO. Test results!
Ammonia: .25 ppm
Nitrites: 1 ppm
Nitrates: 20 ppm

Yes, the nitrites are actually registering! Hopefully it will finish the cycle up pretty quick.

[CharlieKlein]

Hopefuly!

[Scottyhorse]

Tested this morning:

Ammonia: Almost zero
Nitrites: Spiked again
Nitrates: 10-20

[severum mama]

Yeah... that's how it goes... unpredictable.

[Scottyhorse]

Yeah. I've learned that all too well with this thing.... Should I do a water change to get the nitrites down, or leave it since nothing else is high.
Have the nitrites spiked because the ammonia is going down?

[CorallineAlgae]

That's it. Nitrites rise as ammonia falls then nitrates will rise as the nitrites fall. If you have fish you can do a water change otherwise you don't need to.

[Scottyhorse]

No, no fish here.

Here are tonights test results. I never got around to doing a water change, so that will (hopefully) happen tomorrow.

Ammonia: less than .25 but not zero. Note: I know the test is infact working, I tested my tap water and ammonia was a nice yellow.
Nitrites: .5-2.... Couldn't tell for the life of me! I'll try and post pics in the AM.
Nitrates: 5

[Scottyhorse]

Ammonia: .25
Nitrite: .50
Nitrate: 5

I'll post results after water change.

[Scottyhorse]

Okay, I haven't done the WC yet because I am 'working on homework' but I was wondering, would it be possible to add either 2 guppies or 2 GloDanios to the tank? For some reason I REALLY want to add them to the tank... Lol...
Or would it be too much of a bio load? I was thinking that would be a good first 2 fish too add to the tank.

[CharlieKlein]

I think guppies have a large bioload. And the glo danios need schools of 5+ and I think 3 schools of fish plus rams is pushing it