Thrills' Journey Back - Planted 46 Bowfront

[Thrills22]

I wasn't sure exactly how to begin this journal or how best to explain that over the course of 5 months everything that could go wrong with my aquarium, did go wrong with my aquarium. In short form and to bring you up to speed: House move in early December, hairline fractured canister, 2nd hand replacement canister from ebay broken by faulty electricals (power flickered on and off and killed the motor,) basic filtration for a few hours a day while the house is rewired, fish die, plants die, "all" shrimp die, lights kept off while wiring is dealt with, Christmas, still paying for Christmas in January, DIY projects, and a lack of time forcing, water changes to move from weekly, to fornightly to monthly, all combined resulted in the above tank.

In all honesty, I had decided to break down the tank in early March and give away the few remaining raibow fish I had. I had lost all 11 of my blue pearl shrimp to some type of fungus and two of the three bee shrimp I bought in late November. I assumed the third to be dead also but somehow, despite all the odds, this third missing shrimp must have been berried had managed to carry to full term and once I put the lights on I discovered 5 shrimp grazing on the algae buffet my tank had become... I scraped away some of the GSA and counted 3 more and promptly did a WC scraping away more GSA at the front and counted over 20 bee shrimp happily going about their business. Life had somehow found a way. And I decided that I "owed" it to that mother shrimp's persevereance to get back into the hobby. Breaking the tank down now just felt "wrong."

I don't expect this to be easy. Over the course of the past two weeks I've done 6X 50% water changes to combat the different types of algae and bought a new Ehiem Pro 3 filter. In truth I'm primarily relying on what I've learned up and until this point to kickstart this build. I have plants due to arrive today. A 3.5kg C02 cylinder but no solenoid or regulator at the moment. No hardscape planed out, just an idea of "contrasts."

My plant list is as follows...
Micranthemum 'Monte-Carlo'
Cryptocoryne albida 'Brown'
Pogostemon erectus
Staurogyne repens
Ludwigia repens
Micranthemum umbrosum
Tropica Alternathera reineckii 'mini'
Limnophila hippuridoides
Monosolenium Tenerum 'Pellia' Moss
Ludwigia sp 'Mini Super Red'
Hygrophila sp 'Red Cherry'

I aslo have: Hygrophila mini, Lagenandra meeboldii Red, & another Hygro (name escapes me) which survived in the aquarium and while alive, are in very poor health.

Filter: Ehiem Pro 3
Ferts: EI
Lighting: 2X T5 70 Watts total (Medium)
CO2: To be added

Dilemas: Firstly, what to feed the shrimp? I have removed their abunandent algae source but they have refused to touch the Ebi Dama & Dennerle shrimp foods. Secondly, thanks to Ziggy's blog I discovered a unique looking neon tetra. I plan to keeping them as a single species tank (perhaps 25) if I can source them (which is proving very difficult) but I doubt my filter bacs are upto par.

All advice welcome. Pics incoming later today.

[fishenthusiast]

When I had a high tech tank, I found that the key to success was good water flow, ample CO2, and a good water change schedule. You seem to have a good plan down.


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[Thrills22]

Originally Posted by fishenthusiast

When I had a high tech tank, I found that the key to success was good water flow, ample CO2, and a good water change schedule. You seem to have a good plan down.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm trying to narrow down a regulator and solenoid setup with pressure control. The hope is that I can raise the pressure to 3bar and use an atomizer/pollen diffuser which should help things along.

I bought a camera today and don't seem to be able to get the settings right for aquarium photos. Every pic has a yellow hue... But here's one of the bee shrimp. I bought a pack of Hikari pellets but the ingredients include several types of fish meal so I wont be feeding that to the shrimp again.



Some of the plants


I have three plants in quaranteeen because they're from a seller I've never used before. I'm basically testing for snails by adding an algae pellet to a large bowl and keeping the plants there over night to see what turns up.

50% water change and planting tomorrow.

[Fresh2o]

Congrats on the tank rebound. Glad you stuck with it.
Shrimp enjoy algae pellets that contain algae. They also eat blanched zucchini slices.
That's a nice plant list. Several of which I've not tried. I like the variety of tissue plants now available. They are quite hardy for shipping. My last order was supposed to take 2 days but a blizzard struck and they were "somewhere" for 6 days in the dead of winter. They did fine and one of them is taking over my tank (literally). That's the Glosso.
You should be able to dose Glutaraldehyde until you get your CO2 system setup.


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[Thrills22]

Hey Fresh20

They have a decent selection on aquaessentials which is a uk store. I don't know what the gel they use in tissue cuture plants is exactly, but it seems to do the trick.

Unfortunately my little snail test found a bunch of those little pinkish ramshorn snails. They are asexual and I've seen complaints about them overrunning other tanks so I delayed the planting of my tank by a day and planted on saturday. That said, I really like snails and understand how beneficial they can be to a planted aquarium but these (not my pic)


I consider a pest. They also drag their shells flat against the surface.

Hopefully I'll get a decent pic of my tank up today. Fair warning, at the moment it's pretty barebones in terms of plant coverage and the way I've scaped it emphasises how empty it is but it's a starting point.

[Fresh2o]

Every tank starts somewhere; no judgement here.
I've seen those snails. Found them in a small pond out back and they managed to get into my tank via some plants. Miniature Rams horn but carried the shells flat along the surface. I saw them for a bit in my planted tank but they disappeared over time. I think my water is not too snail friendly. The tips of the MTS shells turn white. I believe this is from a calcium (or other mineral) deficiency. I do add Montmorrilonite Clay from time to time as a calcium supplements to my tanks (mostly for the shrimp).


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[Thrills22]

My water isn't good for snails either. I want to add an apple snail sometime soon but I need to research into keeping the shell healthy as the previous apple snail in my old build didn't last for more than a few month and the shell deteriorated. I guess I need a calcium source that doesn't effect the parameters. This is perhaps a little more difficult using EI dosing.

[Thrills22]

Two Steps Forward & Three Steps Back - Mini update

Two Steps Forward: I added a few plants...
Echinodorus parviflorus
Hygrophila “Araguaia”
Hygrophila pinnatifida

Although I have never grown pinnatifida successfully I really like the look of this plant and so I'm going to try a different approach in terms of my EI mix. On Friday I got my diffuser and regulator with pressure gauge.


My EI macro and Micro ferts have been mixed and allowed to rest for 24 hours and so on Monday I start CO2 and dosing.

Three steps back:
My filter bacs are low. I tested my nitrate using nutrafin test kit and it barely had any indication of nitrates. The 7 blue eyed rainbows are too small to really have any bio footprint so I need to do a fishless cycle on my spare 30gal. I'm not starting from scratch, the sliver of nitrate means at the very least I have small quanties of ammonia and nirtie consuming bacs. so I anticipate the cycle taking 2 weeks at most.

The gold neon tetras are impossible to find! Most fish stores have never heard of them and because of that want to up the price to £3.00 each because it's a "special order." For comparison, Green, Black, and "regular" Neon tetras all retail for £1.20 each. So it's back to the drawing board in terms of shrimp safe and active tetras to go along with my shrimp.

Lastly the camera I had had to be sent back. That "yellow hue" I mentioned earlier was persistent and is the reason I haven't posted any pics yet. I have a replacement of a differen't model being delivered to work tomorrow so hopefully I can get a pic of my aquarium up.

Any advice on a single species to keep with my shrimp would be appreciated.

[Thrills22]

so I think it's best to apologize for the pics in advance. I'm really crap at taking them and this "bridge" camera has way too many settings. But today I finally added some CO2 to the tank and I figured before I do that I should document what the tank looks like prior.

The black background needs to be changed but here are a couple tank shots.



On the left the tank looks quite bare but the Lagenandra meeboldii Red should fill out a lot of it. The pink shoot and pink leaf behind the row of hygro mini are all that's left from my old scape. It grows quite fast in optimal contions unfortunately my tank isn't near optimal just yet.


The monte Carlo is in the centre and all from a single pot. To my suprise it has started to carpet without ferts or co2?


On the right hand side although there is more plant coverage this needs a lot more attention and I'm currently looking at what to add behind the initial curved row of plants.






The goal still is to create contrasting colors from plant to plant but I haven't fed the plants once since planting. Either with CO2 or the EI mix. After getting my regulator and setting up the co2 I found that my bubble counter wouldn't take the pressure needed to power the bazooka diffuser. I'm not sure whether damaged tubing contributed so I ordered new tubing also and today was the first CO2 injection.

None of the plants are in great condition but they are alive, so there's hope. If you're wondering how they got nutrients that would be from the gift and the curse I call London's tap water. Apparently each glass of tap water in my city has been processed upto 20 times. But I digress... My TDS from the tap is roughly 450. My last water change was on Monday and the TDS reading then was 462 but I attribute the extra 12tds to the fact that some plants were dislodged stirring up the substrate. My TDS on wednesday was 414.

In the near future I have to remove the ehiem canister and carry out the cycle I mentioned previously. My aim is 5ppm of ammonia (and the resulting nitrite) consumed in 12 hours or less. But again, I'm not sure how long that will take.

I still want to stock a single species. My lfs has threadfins in stock but I'm not sure if they're shrimp safe.


I should also add that I'm getting some hair algae. It's mainly on the Limnophila and coincidentally this is the plant that is struggling the most. I hope that as the tank becomes more balanced the plant will simply outgrow it.

[fishenthusiast]

Threadfin Rainbowfish are definitely shrimp safe. I say go for it!


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[Fresh2o]

Don't apologize for the pics...they look great! Nice selection of plants.
The lack of CO2 may be contributing to the algae you are seeing on the limno. I went almost a week without CO2 and have been rewarded for it with a short, green, fine haired algae on most of my plants. I should have reduced lighting during that time.


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[Caliban07]

Looks good! I knew you were in the U.K. And I was just going to ask (and presumed) that you were from London when you said the monte carlo was carpeting without co2.

I notice a lot of the folks on Ukaps that have managed to pull off no co2/fert tanks are from the south.

My tank reads 250ppm TDS at the week end of EI fert dosing. It's about 40ppm out of the tap. It is extremely soft. I live in Manchester. My thoughts would be that aquatic plants benefit from the bicarbonates and nutrients in harder water and use these as a form of co2. I think algae can use bicarbonates too.

I've struggled to grow nearly all plants without co2 supplements. I reckon this tank will be rockin in a few weeks from now.

Following...


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[Thrills22]

Hey guys thanks for the comments and feedback. It really helps to build confidence that I'm heading in the right direction

Originally Posted by fishenthusiast

Threadfin Rainbowfish are definitely shrimp safe. I say go for it!

Thanks. I'll add them to the shortlist. I don't mind losing a few shrimplets just want a species that won't attack the adults. Do you have anymore shrimp safe suggestions? I wont be restocking until the (hopefully) mini cycle is complete.

Originally Posted by Fresh2o

Don't apologize for the pics...they look great! Nice selection of plants.
The lack of CO2 may be contributing to the algae you are seeing on the limno. I went almost a week without CO2 and have been rewarded for it with a short, green, fine haired algae on most of my plants. I should have reduced lighting during that time.

I think I've become so accustomed to using my phone for pics that I was completely lost with the settings. At last count there were a total of 8 strands of this algae in my tank. Not a lot but we all know how quickly these things can bloom. My 2X T5HO's are on for 8 hours a day, how long did you leave yours on for? DO you think I should cut back?

Originally Posted by Caliban07

Looks good! I knew you were in the U.K. And I was just going to ask (and presumed) that you were from London when you said the monte carlo was carpeting without co2.

I notice a lot of the folks on Ukaps that have managed to pull off no co2/fert tanks are from the south.

My tank reads 250ppm TDS at the week end of EI fert dosing. It's about 40ppm out of the tap. It is extremely soft. I live in Manchester. My thoughts would be that aquatic plants benefit from the bicarbonates and nutrients in harder water and use these as a form of co2. I think algae can use bicarbonates too.

I've struggled to grow nearly all plants without co2 supplements. I reckon this tank will be rockin in a few weeks from now.

Following...

Thanks for the follow Caliban I think our water is far from ideal for tanks. While yours is softer (I'm envious of the shrimp you can keep at 250tds) I doubt balancing out the parameters is any easier in your aquarium. I've seen people try to tinker with the params and it always results in crashes and loss of fish/plants once the organics/metals overwhelm whatever they've used to adjust the PH, KH, Phosphates, Nitrates etc etc

I remember using a product to reduce silicates or phos and it was supposed to last me 6 months. It lasted a little more than 3 weeks so I decided to try and balance it by eye and spend less on tank/filter additives that my water params will overwhelm shortly after.

[Fresh2o]

Originally Posted by Thrills22

Hey guys thanks for the comments and feedback. It really helps to build confidence that I'm heading in the right direction
I think I've become so accustomed to using my phone for pics that I was completely lost with the settings. At last count there were a total of 8 strands of this algae in my tank. Not a lot but we all know how quickly these things can bloom. My 2X T5HO's are on for 8 hours a day, how long did you leave yours on for? DO you think I should cut back?

I use my iPhone and try to use the auto white balance to reduce glare and bright spots. I would be clueless using an SLR.
As long as the algae is not getting worse, I would leave the light duration as is.
I run two LED fixtures: one for 5 hours and the other for 4.5 hours with a 1 hour overlap.
Light #1: 3:00-8:00 PM
Light #2: 7:00-11:30 PM
The overlap period was longer but I reduced it to slow down some rampant Glossostigma growth.
Running high medium to high light can be like walking on a tightrope.


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[Thrills22]

Originally Posted by Fresh2o

I use my iPhone and try to use the auto white balance to reduce glare and bright spots. I would be clueless using an SLR.
As long as the algae is not getting worse, I would leave the light duration as is.
I run two LED fixtures: one for 5 hours and the other for 4.5 hours with a 1 hour overlap.
Light #1: 3:00-8:00 PM
Light #2: 7:00-11:30 PM
The overlap period was longer but I reduced it to slow down some rampant Glossostigma growth.
Running high medium to high light can be like walking on a tightrope.

Things do change fast. As for the SLR I'm using a point and bridge camera which is basically a point and shoot with too many bells and whistles that don't really add anything. But I got it for £100 so I can't complain too much.

[Thrills22]

Bazooka Diffuser update

At 1bps with a bazooka diffuser is turning up some curious results. I say curious because I've never used more than 1bps in my tank in any setup but apparently this is too much because the CO2 saturation is more than I anticipated. I know micro bubbles = faster diffusion but at 5/6 hours into my light cycle 1bps is more than my plants can handle.

Even plants that are really close to the substrate.

[Caliban07]

Did you do a water change? Sometimes the plants collect the bubbles after this.

What makes you think this is more than your plants can handle? I use the same diffuser and I enjoy the fact that the co2 bubbles are clinging to my plants because this means they are getting a healthy hit.

Check you ph and monitor fish/plant health before altering anything. If the bubbles are annoying you then you may need to think about inline injection/diffusers. Alternately you can feed the bubbles directly in to the canister intake so the bubbles are further reduced. Allowing a touch more surface agitation will stop co2 bubbles creating a obstructive layer on the surface which tends to hold the bubbles in the water longer which tends to block adequate gas transfer at the surface.


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[Caliban07]

Originally Posted by Caliban07

Did you do a water change? Sometimes the plants collect the bubbles after this.

What makes you think this is more than your plants can handle? I use the same diffuser and I enjoy the fact that the co2 bubbles are clinging to my plants because this means they are getting a healthy hit.

Check you ph and monitor fish/plant health before altering anything. If the bubbles are annoying you then you may need to think about inline injection/diffusers. Alternately you can feed the bubbles directly in to the canister intake so the bubbles are further reduced. Allowing a touch more surface agitation will stop co2 bubbles creating a obstructive layer on the surface which tends to hold the bubbles in the water longer and can block adequate gas transfer at the surface.


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[Thrills22]

Weekly water change is Monday I plan to move that to sunday after the "mini" cycle. I've heard stories of CO2 in canisters causing problems, particularly with the impeller so I'll have to do more research into it. I don't mind the fizz look but might move to an inline (return flow) diffuser at a later date. I also want to get a hydor inline heater but as it's getting warmer it seems like an unnecessary purchase for now.

Fish and shrimp seem happy and there isn't any gulping for air at the surface. I've angled part of the spray bar to cause more surface tension just in case. I guess I'm just surprised what 1bps can do with the right diffuser.

[Thrills22]

This is the part of the build that I have been dreading aka the "mini" cycle. I mentioned before that I have no idea what the stregth of my bac colony is at the moment. I'm aiming for the standard of my original cycle a few years back of 5ppm converted through to nitrite and then nitrate in 12 hours or less. But realisticly if I get the 5ppm I added this eveing down to 4ppm I'll be very happy.

That would mean my colony stregth is 20% right? If we use each 1ppm as 20% and clearing 5ppm (100%) is the goal. Anyways some very basic but part of the process pics.

I repaired the hairline fracture on my 2215 and that will be on the main tank while the pro 3 does the cycle.


Backup emergency 125L/33g



I have my fingers and toes crossed that the results are good tomorrow morning.