70gal FW Journal - NEW PICS 05/30/06

[Tiffi]

First of all some tank stats 8O 8O 8O :

Tank age: 8 months
Tank size: 70gal
Light: 130W CF, Dual Daylight (6500 & 10000K), 1.86wpg, 10.5 hours a day
Tech: Fluval 304, Eheim prefilter, 200 & 250W heater
CO2: pressurised, ~20mg/l, power reactor
Substrate: Tahitan Moon Sand, laterite, flourish tabs, pool filter sand, 2.5 to 4"
Fertilizer: once a week Flourish potassium (10ml), every two weeks Flourish (5ml)
Plants: Cryptocoryne beckettii, C. wendtii"red", C. petchii, Giant Vals, Nymphaea lotus "zenkeri", Anubias nana, Echinodorus "ozelot" (currently a lot of it), dwarf sag, Rotala rotundifolia, Hygrophila polysperma, Limnophila sessiliflora
Fishes: 1 trio Microgeophagus ramirezi, 1 pair Pelvicachromis pulcher = offspring (lol), 4 Otocinclus vittatus, Endlers

I never had a tank with artificial plants and I am never going to! IMO besides colored, jumbo sized marbles artificial plants is the worst you can do to your aquarium. I always wanted the tranquil, natural look with colorful and happy fishes. Further, I was always exspecially interested in biology and I am now a biotechnology student and just have to have a tank as close to a functioning ecosystem as possible.
I guess my fishes are thankful for that .

Now some pictures :

This is my tank after only six weeks and some plants from a different place.

My tank in January. Yes, I like to rescape a lot .

My tank right now. I really have to do some rescaping soon . Just recently I had some plants give up on me maybe because they got too crowded with the Echinodorus ozelot. I currently have 7 ozelot plants in my tank. They are all "offspring" of my first plant, growing great and I don't know what else to do with them.

This is my CO2 power reactor that I have made myself.

The E.ozelot when it flowered the first time. Some people say they flower shortly before the plant dies, which is absoulutely not true! My plant has flowered twice so far and is still strong and healthy as you can see in the above pictures.

And a pretty picture of a plant from above .

That's it so far. If you have any questions or tips how to make my tank look better just reply .

 

[rich311k]

That is a fabulous tank. Everything looks nice and healthy, and I like your arrangement very much. I love the full over grown look.

 

[Tiffi]

Thank you very much, rich311k. I always like the pruned/very scaped look. That's why I have to go back soon and rearrange some things lol.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

One small tip is move some of the wandering vals back to the back again. I had that problem of the vals sending shoots to the front of the tank. I just removed the ones that were out of place, and they are starting over again, lol.

 

[Jchillin]

Nice journal and the flowering sword is priceless, nice job.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Do all swords flower if above the waterline? I have a shoot that comes out of the water and almost touching my light, and keeps getting longer.

 

[Tiffi]

Normally it should, I couldn't imagine why nature would otherwise have it develop a shoot. It might take a while though until it gets bigger buds, starts flowering, develops leaves around the flowers and then roots if you keep it hanging on the water surface. At that time you can cut off the single plants and plant them into the gravel.

Thank you for the tip, Lonewolfblue. Sometimes you're just looking at it and can't see what is wrong with it. I'm going to do that as soon as possible. Thanx.

I would probably also have to get rid of some E.ozelots and maybe get some more reddish stem plants or so. The way it's right now it is just too crowded on the bottom for anything to grow nicely I guess.

 

[BrianNY]

Excellent job Tiffi. You can gain a more "scaped" look by pruning some of the stem plants to mid level.

 

[Tiffi]

Thanx for the tip Brian.

I've been to the LFS today, brought them 10 Kribensis and 3 little Echinodorus ozelots. I got $34 store credit for that (!) and bought 5 panda cories and a nitrate and phosphate test kit.

 

[Tiffi]

Tested Phosphate and Nitrate levels today, because I had problems with hair algae.

Nitrate ~0ppm
Phosphate 0.1ppm
(last pwc on Saturday)

As you can see this was definitely my problem; too little Nitrate and Potassium.

I've ordered 2lb Potassium Nitrate, 1lb Mono Potassium Phosphate, and 1lb Potassium Sulfate from www.gregwatson.com. It's really a whole lot cheaper than buying Flourish products, although I still have 500ml Flourish Potassium and about 200ml Flourish. So I guess I'll use that first.

Next I will have to figure out/calculate how much to dose.

 

[czcz]

You might want to give it a good hack before dosing. Your new growth should be even more lush.

Very attractive tank.

 

[Tiffi]

Thank you, czcz, but what do you mean by "good hack"?

 

[czcz]

Sorry: a large trim and prune, as opposed to shaping it out for the 'scape, since you'll probably want to shape the lusher growth after fertilization.

 

[Tiffi]

, that sounds like a good idea. I'm going to do that tomorrow and make another picture to put it up here. Then we can have an absoulute before and after comparison how it looks with more (balanced) ferts!

 

[Tiffi]

Recieved the fertilizer from www.gregwatson, that I've ordered the other day.
Added 4g Nitrate, which should give me about 9.25ppm and 0.1g of Phosphate, which should give me 0.26ppm Phosphate extra.

Made a 50% pwc and tested my nitrate and phosphate levels after the pwc before adding fertilizer:

Nitrate ~ 6ppm
Phosphate 1ppm

I did not add any phosphate, but added 3g of Potassium Nitrate (7ppm) and 8g of Potassium Sulfate (13.55ppm).

I've also cut my plants the other day and this is what it looks like right now:

I've found the tiger lotus in the back, put the driftwood closer together and more upright and made a little street coming out of the middle, pruned most of my plants and regrouped them. I still have to prune and replant the Hygrophila in the left background. But I wanted to let it get some new growth first. Maybe I am going to get a different stem plant for that corner anyway.

I also need some carpet plant for the front. I thought about Hemianthus callitrichoides, but hadn't figured out yet where to get it from.

 

[HiFi]

Thats some Lush growth as it is. Very Beautiful.
I love the Street you made, a carpet would look really nice leading up it into the middle.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Is that a small female GBR on the far left? Pretty coolllllllll.......

Love the tank.

 

[Tiffi]

Thank you guys! Yes, that is one of my two GBR females. She's actually the boss and was the first one to eat out of my hand.

 

[Lonewolfblue]

Cool...

I have a little girl and a little boy. The little boy thinks the whole tank is his, lol. And is always first to be fed. And if another GBR gets the food first, he attacks them, lol.

Now for the little girl, she's not one bit shy. When I'm pruning, she has to be right there watching, next to the scissors, lol. And when I do gravel vacs, cleaning some muck off the surface of the Eco, she has to be right there as well, and watch what goes up the tube, lol. The baby male attacks the gravel vac, lol. Doesn't like it at all.

They do have quite the character.

Here's their pics.....

Together:

 

[Tiffi]

That is an absoulute wonderful picture! Beautyful fish that you've got there! I think it's amazing that fishes can form such a trusting bond.

My GBR have to be always right there as well, so I always have to be careful with the scissors. And when I want them out of my way I first have to PUSH them aside.

Here are some pictures of mine:

And the Kribs:

Some of my Otos:

And finally some panda cories that I've just bought. They are really cute, not scared at all and I think it's so sweet that they can blink.

I don't have any pictures of my Endlers. They always move so fast that I never get a good picture of them at all.