Coralline's 20 gallon rescape

[CorallineAlgae]

You can use different mosses in a tank as long as you have a good seperation of space between them. I think when different mosses are used on the same piece and grow together they look like a jumbled mess.

I only have a little bit of Christmas moss tied to a few branches that was left over from making my daughter a tree for her Spec 5. I think I'll cut out a lot of the Java and if the Christmas moss takes off I'll remove the Java completely. Thanks again Rivercats. I wasn't sure about keeping two types together.

 

[Softie Guy]

Great pics of the 5 gallon tank! I had no idea you could make your quarantine and snail-breeding tank a show tank as well!

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Great pics of the 5 gallon tank! I had no idea you could make your quarantine and snail-breeding tank a show tank as well!

Thanks bro! I really wasn't going to make it a display tank at all. It just seemed to work out that way once I started to pile up spare plants, rock and wood that didn't fit into the other tanks. Wait till you see it in person. I can't quite do it justice with my silly camera.

Hey, if you get some pictures of your tank posted on reef central please send me an email with a link!

 

[Scottyhorse]

Could you post some pictures of your newt? I looked them up and they are really cute! I'd love to see yours Your 20 gallon is looking amazing, and your 5 gallon is looking great too. What's your secret to growing the baby tears? Mine are not doing anything, except dying

 

[Rivercats]

Dwarf baby tears need high light, CO2 or liquid carbon, and good ferts. Plus a nutrient rich substrate is a big plus for them.

 

[Scottyhorse]

Dwarf baby tears need high light, CO2 or liquid carbon, and good ferts. Plus a nutrient rich substrate is a big plus for them.

I've got Eco complete, dose dry ferts 3x a week, and I'm trying to get my co2 to work. Ironically, I have some (supposedly) in a 2 gal with low light, plain gravel, no ferts or co2, not even a heater. They haven't grown much, but haven't died, either....

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I'll try to get some pictures of the newt next time he comes out. I'll temp him with some bloodworms! He is in one or two of my old photos. Maybe I can find a pic.

Rivercats is right on. For the HC I use strong light, pressurized co2, root tabs and dry ferts mixed into two liquids as per the PPS-Pro method. I also often add Excell to help keep it mostly clear of algae. Even with all that it can be a slow grower. Not as slow as my dwarf four leaf clover and crypt parva though. Those are the slowest growing plants in the tank. Normal four leaf seems to grow quicker.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

The bloodworms got him to come right out!

Here's one from my album taken on 11-13-12

 

[Rivercats]

Seeing the pic's makes me miss having them in a tank! We actually got some red efts and kept them and watched them morph into their adult water phase. I haven't seen any Eastern Newts for sale in years around here.

 

[Scottyhorse]

He's cute! Maybe I'll get one for another tank.
I'm confused about the HC. I'm tempted to just take it out and buy a couple crypts or something. After I do my WC and clean the tank a bit I'll post some pictures on my build thread. It's looking pretty nasty right now, lol.

Sorry for hijacking!

 

[CorallineAlgae]

No, this is all relevant. You're using strong light, co2 and PPS-Pro same as I am. Your HC may just need some transition time. If you get more in you could try putting a root tab right under one patch and see if it grows more than spots without a tab or not. I honestly believe HC responds well to being lightly hit with a bit of Excell as well.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Lost my kuhli loaches.

 

[Brian_Nano12g]

Wow really? How many? Any suspects as to the culprit?

Perhaps your newt thought they were delicious looking worms!

 

[simplicitysarah]

Love your tanks!!!

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I suspect they weren't 100% from the store. The place where I shop does a great job of providing very healthy fish but I think they had a bad batch. It acted like they had ammonia poisoning that had damaged their gills, probably from shipping to the store or the wholesaler. The owner thought they had more than two but the guy bagging them said there were only two "left". The others may have died earlier in the week. If the owner had known he would've steered me clear of them. It's just a guess. I trust the owner and he's told me to wait on buying other fish in the past if he suspected anything wrong with a certain group of fish.

Thanks so much Sarah!

 

[CorallineAlgae]

I just found out that it was much more likely they had gill ich, which is difficult to detect. There's so much to learn about keeping fish. Still, my daughter just loves kuhlis so I'm destined to try again after I pick up some Seachem Paraguard to help deal with it (thanks Rivercats).

 

[callisto9]

Funny that I lost my two as well. I only had them about ten days. What symptoms did you observe before they died? Mine behaved very oddly - thrashing all over the tank.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Mine acted very similar. They were scratching their heads against the substrate but had no external signs of any ailment. It was only on the last day that they were acting odd. I was wondering if they were trying to burrow under the Eco Complete.

I'll get more of them after the ParaGuard comes in from Amazon. It's supposed to be safe in planted tanks with shrimp and loaches when used at half strength. My 20 had a lot of sand, rock and driftwood so I'll treat it as having 15 gallons of water, which seems about right from doing water changes, then apply a half dose for a 15 gallon tank. I also ordered StressGuard and may use that as well.

Will you be trying them again? My daughter loves them so I'm not getting out of this one!

 

[callisto9]

Nah, I don't think so. I'm 100% stocked, so I think it's best I just leave the tank alone for awhile.

 

[CorallineAlgae]

Hi all. Just a small picture update to show a bit of progress and hopefully figure out a few issues.

Here's a full tank shot showing a problem I'm having. Doesn't it look like the HC is afraid of the rock? It's like the stone won't let it grow up against it. Any ideas as to what I could possibly do to encourage it to grow right against the rock? Sorry for the blurry pic. I can't seem to get the right settings on the camera.

Here's my bristlenose pleco "Ed" in his absolute favorite spot in the tank. Had to use the flash for this one.

This is a close-up of the wood showing a zebra nerite snail and the red tiger lotus. No idea why I'm posting it other than the camera almost cooperated! lol

Rivercats recommended I get some ParaGuard before trying kuhli loaches again so I didn't hesitate. I've never used it but my daughter loves kuhlis and I want the next ones to have a better chance than the last two had. I also thought I'd show my PPS-Pro dossing bottles since few people seem to use glass. Small tanks are easy to dose with bulb pipettes that can measure fractions of a milliliter, and I use PPS-Pro on both the 20 and the 5.5. They're also the simplest tool I've managed to find for target dosing Excell.