20g L progression Journal

[SoveriegnR]

Plants are in.

Don't really have room sadly for the hydrophilia ;-; I tried it various spots and it just made the tank look WAY to crowded and actually messy. The guy also gave me a TON of pennywort, more than I thought I was getting so I have a bundle of like 8 clippings that have no home. I'm hoping my LFS will take them and give me something for em'. Be it actual cash or store credit. If they will, I'll trim the pennywort in my tank. It's a bit too long haha

 

[TMaier]

Sometimes one species doesn't make it. You may want to hold on to your extras to replace dead bodies.

 

[SoveriegnR]

Good point. I'll probably hold onto them till the cycle is done, that way if the store WILL give me in store credit or something, I can put it towards the fish. P:

 

[SoveriegnR]

WOO!!! The day I've been waiting for! Woke up just now (Yes I sleep late, I work night shifts so yeah) and my water is cloudy. Bacteria bloom FTW? It was nice and clear last night before lights out soooo

 

[murph3400]

What substrate are you using and what will you be keeping when cycled?

 

[SoveriegnR]

Its pea gravel from Home Depot.

I'll be keeping a school of Bloodfin Tetras, a pair of Dwarf Cockatoo Cichlids, a school of False Julii cory's and a bristlenose pleco.

Why hello Nitrites, I've missed youuuuu

 

[SoveriegnR]

When all you can do is just sit back and watch as one of your most anticipated plants just melts away (Proserpinaca palustris). -dies-

 

[Fresh2o]

When all you can do is just sit back and watch as one of your most anticipated plants just melts away (Proserpinaca palustris). -dies-

Any chance that it was grown emergent prior to shipping? I bought Pogostemon erectus grown out of the water and experienced about 90% melt over the next few months.

 

[SoveriegnR]

I don't think so, cus it's leaves are more round when grown emergent right? These ones were spikey.

Outside of that I don't know, the website didn't say whether they were grown in or out of water...

The stems thankfully are still solid... it's just the leaves withering away. So I'm hoping it'll bounce back. And even then, it's just the duller, brown/red ones mid way down the stems. The bright green leaves on the tip top of each clipping, have yet to show any sign of decay. -crosses fingers- here's to hoping

 

[SoveriegnR]

More nitrites. Still waitin' for the 'trates (my tap naturally has 5ppm of 'trates). Making sure to watch that ammonia carefully so I don't starve my bacteria.

I suspect by the end of next week I should be good to go.

 

[murph3400]

Looking good

 

[Fresh2o]

I don't think so, cus it's leaves are more round when grown emergent right? These ones were spikey.

Outside of that I don't know, the website didn't say whether they were grown in or out of water...

The stems thankfully are still solid... it's just the leaves withering away. So I'm hoping it'll bounce back. And even then, it's just the duller, brown/red ones mid way down the stems. The bright green leaves on the tip top of each clipping, have yet to show any sign of decay. -crosses fingers- here's to hoping

That's is encouraging that the new growth is looking good. At some point you may have to trim the tops, remove the bottoms, and replant the tops. Once older leaves decline, no telling if they will bounce back.

 

[SoveriegnR]

I was thinking about doing that this morning but wasn't sure if it would be wise. Less plant means more resources it can put towards new growth though. I'll probably trim them this m onday when I have a full day to deal with it and no work.

 

[Barliman]

I don't think so, cus it's leaves are more round when grown emergent right? These ones were spikey.

Outside of that I don't know, the website didn't say whether they were grown in or out of water...

The stems thankfully are still solid... it's just the leaves withering away. So I'm hoping it'll bounce back. And even then, it's just the duller, brown/red ones mid way down the stems. The bright green leaves on the tip top of each clipping, have yet to show any sign of decay. -crosses fingers- here's to hoping

Any signs of new growth?

 

[SoveriegnR]

Well, the Procer. was the only plant that was melting. Some of the pennywort did have a few issues but there's so much of it that i just trimmed off the effected bits and called it good. Nothing else is melting, if anything, I'm seeing growing leaves and root shoots.

I did decide to just go ahead and trim the Procer. up. There are actually about 4 stems that have sent out roots! ! and have showed no signs of melting! The rest? I cut off the tops and replanted them. I don't think they'll make it, but I know I have 4 healthy stems showing signs of growth that, when the time comes, I can just trim and replant to have more.

 

[SoveriegnR]

Ammonia is going from 4ppm to about 1-2ppm within a 24hr period. my nitrites are as high as the test will read. Now I'm just feeding ammonia and waiting for nitrates to start rising.

Looks like I'm starting to get algae on my rotala @_@ I'm gently pulling it off as I can, but the rotala still isn't rooted yet so if I pull to hard or disturb it too much it comes up from the gravel. Should I just trim off the effected bits? Or leave it be? Should I just cut the light until my tank is cycled and I got fish in there? With the cutting off of the light hurt my plants who are all showing amazing growth signs? ;-; I don't know. I've never had to deal with algae during the cycling process before, let alone at all in my previous tank. I know the common ways to get rid of it is to black out the tank, but I don't want to damage my plants which need to grow and take root.

 

[SoveriegnR]

cut my lights back from 7-7 to 10am to 4pm to hopefully kill the algae that's beginning to grow on my rotala. Once it's gone I'll increase my light from 10am to 6pm and that will give the tank 8 hrs of light. My fault with the algae as I was having the lights on fo 12 hrs (7am-7pm), its the same time that my reptiles' lights come on so I kept the same time, but soon realized that they should only be on for about 8 hrs LOL. OOOPS!

I'm picking/shaking it off as I can, but the rotala doesn't even look phased by it. I'm getting TONS of bright red 'buds' shootin out of the stems so that's good.

My mermaid weed as they call it(Proserpinaca palustris) is just barely hanging on. A LOT of it melted away. i snipped the healthy looking tops off most of them and replanted, I'm hoping they take root but it's not looking too good. There are 3 full stems of it left that have sent out roots. They're not looking too hot either, but I like to think that the development of roots will help them bounce back.

The pennywort is going bonkers, lots of new leaves, more new leaves than ones that are dying back. I'll have to remember to keep it in check heh.

I plan to pick up another nice piece of driftwood either tomorrow or wednesday (prob wed.) that I'll tie my Anubis too (it's currently in the substrate).


My nitrates are starting to climb, ammonia is almost being cleaned out in a 24hr period. No drop in nitrites yet, but it's comin'. This tank is getting a BIG cleaning after my cycle is done omg. It's so nasty. Thats what happens kids when your 'house' has no hose to clean the gravel with and you need to do it by hand it buckets. LOL!

Once it's fully clean I'll run it for a week dosing ammonia, just to make sure the bacteria bounce back after the deep clean before adding fish. I know ya' shouldn't super vacuum substrate, but there's so much DIRT balls in it right now that if you just bump a rock, a giant cloud of debris flies up into the water @_@ So it's getting sucked.

On another note... there's duckweed hiding in my pennywort... >_> I will find you... and when i do... I will kill you.

 

[Delapool]

Good luck with the mermaid weed! Would have to check if I have the same one - seems to sit there sulking, have a growth spurt and then who knows. Slow growing in mine. I trim it much less than other stem plants.

 

[SoveriegnR]

Been awhile since I updated this... a lot has uh... happened since my last post.

To start things off, my cycle stalled. I did a huge WC and gravel cleaning (nasty home depot gravel was covering the whole tank in dirt. Never again) about 3 weeks ago. Since then, my cycle had gone from daily changing to nothing. Complete standstill. I thought "Well, crap, I cleaned too much." but when I reached out for answers, someone recommended I test my pH. My tank pH was 6.4........... my tap was between 7.5 and 8. So I had just dumped high pH water into a tank with bacteria that was colonizing in 6.4 water. Well poo.

Worried that something more than just my cycle was lowering my tank pH, I gutted it. I dumped the gravel, took out the rocks, and last week I refilled the bucket I put my driftwood in daily with super hot water. This week I've just let it sit. The pH of that bucket is 6.4 funny enough LOL. So I'm sure my driftwood had contributed more to my pH than my cycling. My pH in my tank though has stayed at about 7.5.

Went most of last week staring at negative tests. Ammonia, but no NO2 or NO3. Well, last night I decided to test for NO2 and there it was. LOL Not a lot, but it was a little bit and renewed my hope.

Tested again today, slightly darker purple. NO3 is readin between probably about 30-40ppm (not as red as the 40, but not as light orange as the 10ppm). Still got some dark green ammonia reading. I'll have to do another 5g WC tomorrow since I don't want my ammonia reading that high.

My plants are just sadly floating around the tank until my substrate arrives monday.

I'm debating though whether I want to re-add my driftwood or not yet, for fear of effecting my cycle again @_@ I may just add the substrate to get the plants rooted again, and let the tank finish before adding my decor back.

I love driftwood @)@ would hate to remove it, but if I keep it in, it means I'm either ganna have to do daily (or every other day)5g WCs to keep it from effecting the pH or I'm going to have to pre-treat my water for WCs every week by filling up 2 buckets with driftwood to soften the water before adding to my tank, which THEN means I need to go get a small heater to raise the water temp again since if I were to leave it sitting around for a week that water would probably be about 65F in comparison to my 76F tank water lol.

I need wood for my bristlenose though hahaha

So let me know your thoughts!

Do I keep the driftwood and just pre-treat the water? (drip systems aren't an option for me as my water tank is UPSTAIRS... yes odd... and there is no easy way to 'dump' the water removed from the fish tank).

OR

Do I remove all but a small piece of driftwood for said pleco and just keep my rock decor?


PS: Now, the fish I am planning on keeping in this tank ARE amazonian fish, so soft water wouldn't necissarily be a BAD thing for them. I'd like to provide them with it if I can.... SAFELY. If I can safely prep water for WCs... that I think that route would be best

 

[TMaier]

I would add some coral/aragonite to your filter. It will allow you to have your driftwood without your PH dropping.
This is my 29g. That's a large piece of wood on the left. Just a 1/2 cup of the coral/aragonite keeps my PH at 7.4-7.6.