29 gallon tank journal

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My two bn plecos are tiny - both around 1". They are adorable and working like mad to clean the tank.

My test kits are nutrafin kits. I have been meaning to test the tap water. I will do it now. Anything is better than marking essays! :)
 
Well, either there is ammonia in my tap water (a known problem in the city just now anyway) or my test kit sucks. Same ammonia reading on the tap water as in the tank.
 
I'd take it in and get it tested by an LFS, then you'll know if its the tap or the test for sure.
 
Well, I know my test kits are working. I just realised that my son's fish isn't as well as he could be. I did a water test and his tank is definitely cycled. He has traces of ammonia, nitrates, but no nitrites. I did a water change anyway. Turns out that I had turned the tank temp down a bit too much. So, I have turned up the temp a little and I will monitor him closely. But, at least I know that my test kits work.
 
Its good that you know that. You might want to consider using some bottled spring water for a bit, till things settle down and get back to normal.
 
Added some new friends a few days ago. They make me happy! 5 cardinal tetras to go with my 3 neons. They seem to school quite happily together. I need to rethink my stocking plan now though, as I hadn't intended to get these guys. I wanted embers, but my LFS was out of embers and there were 5 of these guys left. The store said that they were very healthy, had been selling really well, and no one had reported any problems with them. Back at Christmas, when I first started thinking about what kind of fish I wanted, these were actually top of my list, so I guess I have come full circle.

What now though?

I have 2 bn plecos, 3 neons, and 5 cardinals. Tank is 29 gallons.

I really wanted panda cories, but if I go with 5 of those, I will be coming awfully close to capacity... And the 8 tetras, while beautiful, don't really fill the middle to top range of the tank well on their own. Any suggestions?
 

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Sillyfishies said:
IMO if u adds the 5 pandas u still won't be close to capacity. Maybe add 1 dwarf gourami and 2
Blue rams?

I was more worried that I would be hitting capacity if I added the embers AND the pandas. I was wondering about maybe doing a centerpiece fish instead of the embers... I have heard that blue rams can be tricky to keep though. This is my first non-betta tank - I want to be careful on my stocking.
 
ErinMcG said:
I was more worried that I would be hitting capacity if I added the embers AND the pandas. I was wondering about maybe doing a centerpiece fish instead of the embers... I have heard that blue rams can be tricky to keep though. This is my first non-betta tank - I want to be careful on my stocking.

Yes blue rams are. Known to be quite tricky to keep. You need stable water quality. Mine are kept in pH: 7:6 ammonia: 0. Nitrite: 0 nitrate:5
 
ErinMcG said:
I was more worried that I would be hitting capacity if I added the embers AND the pandas. I was wondering about maybe doing a centerpiece fish instead of the embers... I have heard that blue rams can be tricky to keep though. This is my first non-betta tank - I want to be careful on my stocking.

Ok. If u have the embers in my opinion you could still add a dwarf gourami and instead of blue rams you could do Bolivian rams.
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I will look into the species and see what takes my fancy. :)
 
Well, it's been a year since I first started my tank and a lot has happened. I lost track of my journal some time ago, but miss tracking my progress, so hopefully I can start it up again.

The plants are thriving. I have to prune some of them regularly, but I don't mind. It's relaxing. I keep thinking about selling or giving away cuttings from the plants, but haven't bothered so far.

I have ramshorns and assassins and they seem well. The assassins are happily eating the ramshorns and the ramshorns keep breeding. I even spotted a wee baby assassin today too.

I re-homed one of the bn plecos because he was aggressive and keeping the other away from the food. I see the other one a lot more now.

The schools of neon/cardinal tetras and the glowlight rasboras are doing well.

I'd like to add the pandas next month, but I may need to replace my heater first. It almost looks like there's water in it, but I'm not sure yet.

I just replaced my filter (again) after having a filter failure. But that's another thread.

It's really neat to look back through this thread and see the changes to my tank over time. It's weird to think that this time last year it was bare!

That's all for the moment. Let's see if this actually posts! If it works, I'll add a picture too.
 
Here's a link to the tank now, so you can see how much the plants have grown.
 
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