Diary of the 75G planted tank.... New pics 6/26/06

[Lonewolfblue]

Well, looks like my big pleco is getting bigger, lol. Just growing too fast, lol. I think I finally got a name for him. I kind of liked Cliff, but others have it and don't want to have too many Cliffs floating around. So here's his name......

Felix the Pleco.

Edit:

New Pics:

See the pleco's head in the middle of the picture? The head is as big as the ram, lol.

Edit:

My large pleco finally found my zucchini half. It's not going to last long now, lol. He's going to town on it, lol.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Well, the update for today. Losing the battle against hair algae. I missed the dosing this morning, and thought it would be ok. So I got home from work and guess what? Hair algae all over the place. Got 4 inch strands going out from the spraybar in the current, all the leaves look sickly covered, and the anacharis is loaded with it. Shame on me, lol.

I'm lowering my lighting once again. Only going to run 130W in the back and 130W up front. Nothing else, not even actinics. And going to do a dosing tonight, and add a touch more in the morning. My nitrates are just being sucked up so fast, can't keep up with it. And I don't want to shock the fish by dosing 40ppm nitrates, as I'm already dosing 20ppm daily, and sometimes 25ppm. And that's not enough, lol. So we'll see how things slow down with only half the light.

 

[nitrous]

why dont you try a full blackout for 4 days, it worked for my blue green algae and my plants were fine. i just left my co2 running and my plants seemed to sprout up as if growing more would help them reach light.

 

[Glenc]

I ran into the same problem in my high light 20 gallon. Nitrates were being sucked up faster than I could put them in. By the time I got home from work, they had bottomed out again. Reduced my light to 4WPG and cut the time on down from 12 to 10 hours a day. Definitely more managable now, though I liked the tank better at 6WPG, bright and beautiful!

 

[Lonewolfblue]

why dont you try a full blackout for 4 days, it worked for my blue green algae and my plants were fine. i just left my co2 running and my plants seemed to sprout up as if growing more would help them reach light.

Not too sure if a blackout would help. The only algae is the hair algae. The BN plecos and sailfin has all others under control. Driftwood is bare and they are now starting on the plants. I think the Bolivians stopped breeding because I added 2 more and there's just too much bottom fish now. Rethinking my setup now. Time to remove some cories to my 26G? Not sure yet, and will be tough to catch if I do.

Going to wait til this weekend to mess with my electronic timers. I think I'm going to cut the light down to 10 hours on all my tanks. I think I just have them on way too long. That may be a big help as well. I amy also get another timer, andset my lights so I get ultra-high light (390W) only from 11-1, and just have the 260W the rest of the time. I'm going to need another timer anyways for the 20G I'm wanting to do as a planted breeder tank, if my bolivians decide to do it again. Will move the wigglers to the 20G planted.

 

[travis simonson]

I've had this same problem before: NO3 seems to be bottoming, can't keep it high enough. Turned out I had a bad NO3 kit. I know I harp on this a lot, but my recommendation (and I know you've put a load of money into this tank) is to get a LaMotte NO3 kit. I suspect that your NO3 is much higher than your kit is reporting. If you've got $40-50 to spend, a LaMotte Low-level NO3 kit may be your ticket. I had the same damn problem. No matter what I did NO3 kept testing at zero. As soon as I got a LaMotte kit, it told me that I was overdosing NO3 and that I had too much nitrate.

I know this may sound stupid, but I know how much you've put into this tank LWB. Consider ordering a quality NO3 kit and it may show you something. It sure saved me.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I was thinking about that too, as well as the phosphate kit. But I think my nitrates are bottoming out, as when I dose the Potassium Nitrate, it was starting to look better, but the day I miss dosing, wham. Guess I'm not cut out for 390W just yet. lol. I cut back on lighting again and will dose again in the morning. Did some pruning, as well as a 60% PWC tonight, and did my standard dosing after a PWC. Will just do a small dose in the morning to kick off the day, as I did the dose tonight.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Some new pics.....

Is the above and below pic a male? His whiskers are much longer than the others, and also a row starting to develop going towards the forehead up the middle. The others have very short whiskers just around the lip.

Also, see the algae below? That's my problem, lol.

 

[nitrous]

very nice pics, i like the plecos i am going to get 2 for my 55 gallon soon, also i see you have a red tailed shark, is he agressive at all? i always thought they were more agressive than rainbow sharks but my rainbow seems to be chasing all my cories around and theres only one of him so i dont think its territory butg i may be wrong

 

[Lonewolfblue]

They are more aggressive than the rainbows, but only towards other sharks. I haven't had any problems with mine chasing any other fish, very mellow dude.

Oh, and that is my BN Plecos. I was only taking pics of the one I think is male. My other 3 are female I'm sure. If your 55G is planted, I'd get at least 3. They do an awsome job.

 

[FreshwaterJeff]

Gorgeous BN's, LWB. I'm almost set on rummynoses, GBR's, and a bristlenose for my planted tank (and perhaps a few YoYo or Kuhlii loaches), so there's little surprise that I love your tank!

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Gorgeous BN's, LWB. I'm almost set on rummynoses, GBR's, and a bristlenose for my planted tank (and perhaps a few YoYo or Kuhlii loaches), so there's little surprise that I love your tank!

Wait til I get my angels to finish off the stocking, unless my lfs can get a hold of Roseline Sharks. If they can, it will be a bonus. I may be getting 3 or 5 angels. Then the tank will be complete.

 

[Glenc]

Nice pics LWB. Love your plecos!

 

[nitrous]

no it is not planted, it just has driftwood and some rocks but i was going for a different look since i already have a planted tank. i was going to try and get 2 to start because i dont know how big of a bio load i have.

as for the rainbow sharks, i read that they only go after their own species but he was chasing the cories today and they didnt seem to like it, but why would they? so ya i just hope he goes back to cleaning the tank because he does a great job at cleaning it.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

The shark won't bother them too much. In fact, my male (i think) BN Pleco chases my cories more than the red tail shark does. He's a real meanie, lol. Chases the other BN Plecos away from the algae wafers I drop in too. Thinks he's God, lol

 

[Purrbox]

The problem algae that you pointed out in some of the most recent pics, looks like staghorn algae to me. After some search the main suggestions for treatment were bleach dip, Flourish Excel spot treatment, and H2O2 treatment. I did find one thread that recommended getting you NO3 and PO4 into balance and bringing the iron and other micros down a bit.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

I could be doing too much trace, so I'll cut back a little. Nitrate and Phosphate are in line. But will be getting a better test kit to verify this. I've been using both Hagen and AP, with completely different results. Looking at getting LaMotte for Nitrate Low and Phosphate. My AP test for ph id dead on with my controller, so I'll keep using it. And I use Hagen for my kh. Also been adding Excel on occasion to see if it helps. Did a PWC yesterday, and will do one more today to reset everything, as my nitrates are a little high, but not bad.

I also made a pre-sponge on the intake of my XP3 intake. Been getting alot of plant stuff in the cannister, plugging it up. So hopefully this will help. I took one of my spare coarse sponges, and with a pair of scissors, cut into the side of the sponge just wide enough for the intake to fit in nice and tight. Then I cut it down to size. Works great. Now any plant stuff is building up on the pre-sponge, which I can clean weekly with my pwc. Hopefully that will extend my cannister maintenance to every 2 or 3 weeks rather than weekly. Also been trying to suck the stuff up off the bottom during the pwc's, but there's places I can't get to, lol.

 

[czcz]

Great looking fish.

 

[sherry]

if you are using ap for nitrate test, make sure you shake the heck out of solution number 2 and then again in your test vial. makes a huge difference.

I don't dose nitrates at all, and they show up fine on the ap kit tho I'd love to get the lamott to REALLY know my number.

I saw a friend test her tank at near 0 and I then took the same kit and redid the test shaking it all madly. her nitrates were near 60

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Yup, that's what I do. I shake the crap out of both the #2 solution and the vial. My arm almost falls off when I'm done, lol.