# Oceania down under (75gal)



## NuclearArmedBarbies (Oct 3, 2015)

Excited to see where this goes!


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

NuclearArmedBarbies said:


> Excited to see where this goes!


Its going to be a bit of a wait. I am very early in the planning phase, but have a good idea of what I will do, and stock. stay tuned for more


----------



## Curt_914 (Oct 6, 2007)

Keeping an eye on this one noah. I am going to try to get back in with my 20 for now. Trying to keep it simple. Just looking for a good replacement light for it. And want to go LED. Cant wait to watch this progress.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Curt_914 said:


> Keeping an eye on this one noah. I am going to try to get back in with my 20 for now. Trying to keep it simple. Just looking for a good replacement light for it. And want to go LED. Cant wait to watch this progress.



Wow, got so busy I forgot to reply lol. progress is well. Not happening until the end of Dec. I've been thinking of how I want to scope the tank, and thinking of what species of bows I want. I will also have to reinforce the floor under the tank. not a big deal. But something I have to do.


I love the bml fixtures great quality! I'll have two on this tank. The 36" one I currently have on the 40b, and a 48" one.


----------



## Curt_914 (Oct 6, 2007)

Sounds good  I got the Finnex planted + 24/7 for my 20. Should be in today. When can I come get some plants from you?


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Curt_914 said:


> Sounds good  I got the Finnex planted + 24/7 for my 20. Should be in today. When can I come get some plants from you?


Plants may be a while lol. I only have really high light plants, and a couple swords at the moment. And the trims are being used to grow the bushes thicker at the moment. Once I get the 75 gal up, I am going to go after a bunch of plants I have not had yet, so there should be more than enough to go around. I think I am much closer to you now lol. I am off 120th and Glenco st. now.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Here is a quick list of what I am hoping for. 

Equipment list
75 gal. tank, stand and glass top (I always remove the plastic strip from the middle of the top to avoid any light drop off at that point)
250 watt Jager heater
cf500 Aquasun filter
70mm diffuser from Green leaf Aquariums
hydor Koralia 750gph power head
48" Dutch MC series Build My LED fixture with spliters so I can put it and my 36" light over the tank. I already have the solunar controller and its programmed with a nice sun rise / set schedule

I will be setting up a whole second quarantine tank as well. And after the tank is stocked it will be used as a grow out for babies. 

My preliminary fish list

non - bow species
Hypseleotris compressa (empire gudgeon)
Tateurndina ocellicauda (peacock gudgeon) 
Danio choprae (glowlight danio)
maybe a small loach species. Not sure though.

Bow species
m.parkinsoni
m.herbertaxelrodi
m.pygmea
m.garylangei
m.lacustrus (My wife REALLY wants these.)

exact quantities I have not decided yet. I tend to stock heavy so It will be a full tank lol

I know all of the species are going to be pretty easy to get, although I really want them from good quality stock with known lineage. It may not matter too much for lacustrus and herbertaxelrdi since the lines have not had a wild collection in a very long time. 

I may substitute a couple species as the tank starts to take shape. 

The scape will be a mixture of Dutch and nature. I love the look of Dutch, but don't want to have to trim every day as I did with my last 40b scape lol.

More later.


----------



## Audionut (Apr 24, 2015)

This link may be useful.

Clicking on the names will give an overview of general info, cultivation notes and distribution on the species.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Audionut said:


> This link may be useful.
> 
> Clicking on the names will give an overview of general info, cultivation notes and distribution on the species.


Wow, great thanks for the info. Its not going to be a biotope in regards to the plants, but I am very sure I will find some plants in that list that will make it into the tank. I know one plant for sure will make it in and that is the Franz stoffels sword created by florida aquatic. I have one in my 40b at the moment and its a VERY nice sword. Older leaves are green, but the new ones are very bright pink.


----------



## Audionut (Apr 24, 2015)

Did you scroll down for native invertebrates and fish?


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Audionut said:


> Did you scroll down for native invertebrates and fish?


I had not lol. Looks good. There was one species I am going to have to look into more. It was one of the glass fish


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update. Still here lol. Still planning. I did receive a Christmas bonus YEA!!!! The money is sitting in a safe place waiting until I get the go ahead to get the stuff from my other half. She really only wants one large tank, and a nano tank in the house. Soo... I agreed to hold off and get all of the aqua scape items before I even think about setting it up. So it may be a bit longer. I will start posting some inspiration pictures and more detailed list of stuff while I am waiting to get ahold of everything I need. I will spend one weekend just ordering EVERYTHING I need, which I know will make the credit card company happy lol.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update. Things are moving on, but at a very slow pace. Lots of house work getting done on our new house so I have not had time to do really anything at all with the tanks, or the planning for the 75g except longlingly stairing at the location where it will be. 

More to come soon, I hopefully will have some free time during the spring to get things moving a bit. I might order all of the small parts here soon so they are ready to go, and I so I can say some progress has happened.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

UGH!!!!!

Started doing my product list and to my horror found out buildmyled is no longer producing aquarium lights. So now I am in search of new lighting. I would LOVE for any help. 

Right now I am looking for a fixture (or two) that can get me into the low high light cat. 

I have on my list if I can find answers
(2) of the planted+ 24/7 not sure if it would give me enough light even with two fixtures over a 21" tank though.

ecoxotic e-series light (just now looking into) this would be a single fixture.



more options to come in the next couple days.


----------



## lasutaku (Jun 15, 2007)

I have 2 24/7 planted + on my 75G.

I'd say its low-mid light. 
Started with 1, but added 2nd a week later.

running 1 on a regular timer on max, running 2nd on 24/7 mode, so full blast only for a few hours.
I might end up doing both on max eventually, still feeling it out, as I've only had the 2nd light for a little over a week.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

lasutaku said:


> I have 2 24/7 planted + on my 75G.
> 
> I'd say its low-mid light.
> Started with 1, but added 2nd a week later.
> ...


That is great to know thanks!!! I will remove it off the list and start looking elsewhere. RI am looking deeper at the ecoxotic e-120 fixture at the moment. It might have enough par at the depths to grow what I want. 

I am going to start ordering parts and storing them until I am ready to put up the tank, I am hoping for mid april to get the tank up and filled. I will start collecting and getting the plants I want growing and hopefully by fall be able to get some bows from the local auction. Gary Lange came through late last year and brought a ton of eggs. They should all be a little older now and I might be able to get some great bows. 

If not, I will start ordering egg kits from other bow enthusiasts and hatch my own lol. I will start posting a few more plans and things going on here from now on.


----------



## lasutaku (Jun 15, 2007)

I don't think 1 ecoxotic would be better than 2 24/7 planted +

I think either way, you would have to get 2 fixtures.

Don't get me wrong, I could probably grow whatever i want with my 2 24/7's as well.
Remember, I'm keeping 1 of the fixtures on 24/7 mode, and everything in the tank is growing fine. Check signature for pictures.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

lasutaku said:


> I don't think 1 ecoxotic would be better than 2 24/7 planted +
> 
> I think either way, you would have to get 2 fixtures.
> 
> ...


The par data the manufacturer provides shows the par to be around 50-56 at 21". And since most manufacturers measure through air, it would be a little bit higher due to the lensing effect with the top of water. I have a topic opened in the lighting section asking for experiences with the fixture. the 120* spread on the light would be nice, the buildmyled fixture I have over my 40b is only a 90* spread which leaves some darker areas in the upper 1/3rd of the tank. 

dunno. I have to do a bit more research. I am going to start ordering the smaller and easier to store items here soon starting with a light.


----------



## lasutaku (Jun 15, 2007)

Let me know which one you go with, i was debating hard on which route to go with too!

Has some really good deals on the ecoxotics from time to time too~



Noahma said:


> The par data the manufacturer provides shows the par to be around 50-56 at 21". And since most manufacturers measure through air, it would be a little bit higher due to the lensing effect with the top of water. I have a topic opened in the lighting section asking for experiences with the fixture. the 120* spread on the light would be nice, the buildmyled fixture I have over my 40b is only a 90* spread which leaves some darker areas in the upper 1/3rd of the tank.
> 
> dunno. I have to do a bit more research. I am going to start ordering the smaller and easier to store items here soon starting with a light.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

lasutaku said:


> Let me know which one you go with, i was debating hard on which route to go with too!
> 
> Has some really good deals on the ecoxotics from time to time too~






I just had an idea lol. I could theoretically keep the BML as well and add some extenders on the end of it and use it as a mid day burst while putting it right behind the ecoxotic fixture on the 75g. The sides of the tank would not benefit much from the burst, but the plants in the middle would. I might have to explore this more. The BML fixture is easy enough to program for me to do just that.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Okydoky! 

I ordered some stuff lol. 

Sooo
I ordered the ecoxotic light, I figured it is very close to what I am looking for, and if needed I will supplement with my BML light. 

So coming on wed. 
Ecoxotic e-120
Aquasun CF500-UV (its a branded version of the sun sun filter, I have had one running for a couple years on my 40b)
Aquasun 250watt heater
Hydor Koralia 750gph power head.

I still need to get
75g tank w/ stand and glass top (will grab from petsmart here soon)
70mm in tank diffuser from GLA

and then all the aquascape stuffs!

I prefer densely planted tanks, with plenty of things for the fish to swim around and through. I plan to keep the same style here. 

The tank will mainly be a rainbow tank with some species that have been on my list for a very long time, and some species I would like to keep again. I have always wanted an empire gudgeon so I think I will add at least one. And a school of "glowlight danio" I think the scientific name is danio choprae. They are GREAT fish and have such color to them. 

I have been thinking of a bottom level fish, if anyone has some suggestions I am all open. I have a list posted above I still have to go through and do my research on, but that is in the plans too. 

the key is that it has to be from the oceanic region of the world Ie Australia, south east asia ect. if I could get a species of goby for the bottom that is not very high priced I would go for it (desert goby sell for 44.99/ea. here and they need to be in a group.) 


That's all for now, but things are moving forward nicely.

Ohh. I also purchased the 4x4 and precast conc. pad today at lowe's. As some of you know I design homes for a living. I have access to a structural engineer very easily. Since The tank will be located along the floor joist spans in my house, and the joists are all 2X8's I will have to support it mid-joist as it is going to be overloaded with the full weight of the tank essentially on one single joist. So I was given an option by my engineer. I could sister the joist (put a second 2X8 along side the existing one and nail them together) That option is out of the question, although it would be the best option. I have my water line and other services running through there and getting the second joist would be very difficult. So.. I have to go with his second option which is putting a single 4X4 mid span and placing it on a pre-cast concrete pad. I do have expansive soils on my lot, but I do not see any evidence that the soils in the crawlspace under our living room has had any movement. I will keep my eyes out though. I think it should be ok.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

AND AWAY WE GO!!!!!

Shipment came in today. I received my filter, heater, powerhead, and light. 

I pulled the Ecoxotic light out of the package and placed it over my 40b. not too bad, feels a little dimmer than the BML, but yet when I first set up the BML it seemed dim to me too. It will take some getting used to the 8000k vs. the 3800k of the BML fixture. The reds are just not near as red as they are under the BML light. Not a huge issue though. the light spread is actually not that bad at all. 


For now these pieces get put into my storage closet as I get ready to grab the tank and stand. I do have to place a fert. order thgrough GLA, so I will get the diffuser with that order. Then all that is left is getting the hardscape, etc. and when the tank is filled and running go get the plants. 

I am going to probably post tonight with an initial plant list. And a very preliminary fish list.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Forgot to add a picture of todays delivery


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

I have a preliminary plant list now. I have had most of these plants before, or other variants of them. I miss a few of the so I will get a good start with them, and then add a few exotic species as I get this thing going. 


Frans Stoffels
Indian red sword (echinodorus 'indian red')
Staurogyne repens
Hygrophilia pinnnatifida
Ludwigia inclinata 'cuba'
Ludwigia arcuata
Rotala macandra 'narrow leaf'
Alternanthera reineckii 'mini' tissue culture
Ludwigia senegalensis
Pogostemon stellatus 
Ranunculus papulentus
Echinorodus bleheri 'compacta'
Crypt. undulata

instead of doing wood in the tank. I am thinking of doing more of a stone scape with the plants. I will see what I can find at my local landscape shop. maybe some black lava rock to go with the black sand.... or not lol.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Here we go!!! 


Tank and stand is purchased. I have all of the operating pieces for the tank now. I need some co2 hose for my co2 system, and a few more nets etc. But its about 99% here. The next steps will be to secure my substrate and get my hardscape together. I am going to get the substrate (black diamond blasting sand) from Tractor supply, probably 150 lbs of it lol and the stone I will be going to a local garden supply store and grabbing some lace rock unless I see something else I like. The wood I am going to scope out on one of my bike rides along the south platte river here in Colorado. There are some great old gnarly cottonwood trees that have dropped branches around. I will power wash them before thinking of putting them in the tank. 


I will start gathering that this next weekend, along with putting together the trampoline for my daughter. 


here is a pick of all the goodies so far. 





And Thanksgiving wandered in my neighborhood this morning lol. man these suckers are mean, They hissed at my car when I drove by to take a pic of them. Usually I ride past them through the nature preserve near my house on my bike at 20mph. I generally don't slow down because they chase lol







And lastly, I think I have my initial bow species decided on. I am not sure how easily they will be to get ahold of, but most are not very common. I still have to decide on quantities. 


My more center piece decision is a single Hypseleotris compressa. The theme of the tank is the oceanic area, so all of the fish I choose are going to be from there. I might do a small shoal of Danio choprae as well. And I am still trying to think of a bottom dweller to go with. 


Chilatherina alleni 'wapoga'
Glossolepis multisquamata 'red dragon'
Melanotania Garylangei
Melanotania rubrivittata
Melanotaenia picta


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

I have a preliminary plant list now. I have had most of these plants before, or other variants of them. I miss a few of the so I will get a good start with them, and then add a few exotic species as I get this thing going. 


Frans Stoffels
Indian red sword (echinodorus 'indian red')
Staurogyne repens
Hygrophilia pinnnatifida
Ludwigia inclinata 'cuba'
Ludwigia arcuata
Rotala macandra 'narrow leaf'
Alternanthera reineckii 'mini' tissue culture
Ludwigia senegalensis
Pogostemon stellatus 
Ranunculus papulentus
Echinorodus bleheri 'compacta'
Crypt. undulata

instead of doing a rock and wood scape. I am going to try a rock only scape. I have the starts of my layout and I kind of like it. Of course the sand will raise some of the rocks in the back. And they all have a GREAT look to them when wet. 

On another note. The 40b gets torn down Friday, and the floor reinforcing is being done next Saturday. So this thing is starting to come together.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Got the floors reinforced yesterday and spent the evening getting the equipment setup and the hardscape installed. 

next week I will order the plants, and as soon as they are in, I will fill this sucker, plant it and get this show on the road.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Ordered plants on Sunday, They wont ship until next wed. and should be at my house by Friday afternoon when I will plant and flood this sucker. 

This is the starting plant list. I will add or subtract some when I find others I want (like always)

Alternanthera reineckii "Mini" 
Cryptocoryne blasii 
Hygrophila Lanceolata Araguaia 
Hygrophila Pinnatifida 
Ludwigia guinea (Ludwigia senegalensis) 
Ludwigia inclinata "Curly" 
Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata 'Cuba' 
Pogostemon stellatus (Eusteralis stellata) 
Ranunculus papulentus 
Rotala Magenta (Rotala macrandra v. 'narrow leaf') 
Rotala Rotundifolia 'Green' 
Staurogyne repens 
Sword, Amazon Compacta (Echinorodus bleheri 'Compacta' 
Sword, Indian Red (Echinodorus 'Indian Red') Potted 
Sword, Oriental Sword (Echinodorus 'oriental') 

I have had most of these plants in tanks in the past. Excpet for the lnclinata 'curly tornado' Which was wayyy to expensive when it was first isolated. I have not had the 'oriental' sword either, but since I am having a hard time getting ahold of another franz stoffels sword I went with this one until I can get ahold of the one I want.


----------



## rebelbuck1993 (Sep 3, 2014)

Noahma said:


> Ordered plants on Sunday, They wont ship until next wed. and should be at my house by Friday afternoon when I will plant and flood this sucker.
> 
> This is the starting plant list. I will add or subtract some when I find others I want (like always)
> 
> ...


i see you wanted some Cryptocoryne undulata in a earlier post let me know if you still are wanting some, i have a few extra i still need to sell and they are all daughter plants from my mother plant i have had over a year.
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/153-sale-trade/1031666-crypt-undulata-amazon-sword-blow-out.html
send me a pm and i will take better photos of them today now that i have my camera working again, DAM batteries now days dont last


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Looks like it is going to be a beautiful tank. Very nice work and I look forward to watching the progress. Looks like you are making a nice home for your Bows!

Subscribed.

And by the way, you have a great deal of patience. I couldn't have the tank on the stand and not filled for more than 5 minutes.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

rebelbuck1993 said:


> i see you wanted some Cryptocoryne undulata in a earlier post let me know if you still are wanting some, i have a few extra i still need to sell and they are all daughter plants from my mother plant i have had over a year.
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/153-sale-trade/1031666-crypt-undulata-amazon-sword-blow-out.html
> send me a pm and i will take better photos of them today now that i have my camera working again, DAM batteries now days dont last


I will have to think about it. I have the full tank of plants on the way, I have to see how they will fill in first.



Greggz said:


> Looks like it is going to be a beautiful tank. Very nice work and I look forward to watching the progress. Looks like you are making a nice home for your Bows!
> 
> Subscribed.
> 
> And by the way, you have a great deal of patience. I couldn't have the tank on the stand and not filled for more than 5 minutes.


Thanks. I cannot wait! My patience is forced lol. I have everything set on a schedule so I wont regret any decisions. My last couple of tanks were thrown up quickly and I have always ended up with something I just did not like. This one I decided I wanted to set everything up, and think about it before moving to the next stage. 

So next is the plants, which I will let fill in a bit and get growing. all while cycling the tank from scratch. After that's done I will get an order in for the m.garylangei, and a male empire gudgeon. after that its just letting things settle in the tank while I wait for the fall Auction with the local aquarium club. The bows that show up are pretty good, and with Gary being here late last year I am thinking some of the little ones should be reaching a good size by then and I might score some of the bows on my want list.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

We are planted!!! 
Now to let things grow in. There are quite a few plant groups you cannot see because they are behind the rock work which runs down the middle of the tank at an angle from back left to right front. about 85% of the plants I ordered were tissue culture, so it will take some time for them to convert and grow in. 

Here are the post 1 hour photos lol. I will take some more clear ones tonight hopefully I will get a chance to take some close ups of the plants lol (not much to look at right now)

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...authkey=!AHueNRhCVi7SGeE&v=3&ithint=photo,jpg

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...authkey=!AJ6gZKg3BxXUlDI&v=3&ithint=photo,jpg

Bump: I will upload the photos to photobucket later too lol


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Update time. Its been a couple weeks now since the flood and we are lookin good. I have not had a chance to check water params yet so I am not sure how far the cycle is going. My guess is that its right in the normal range for being flooded for a couple weeks lol. Maybe traces of ammonia and climbing, and no nitrites as of yet. I should be able to tell here within the next week I will go grab a new water test kit. 

Anywho, here are the pics. The transition from tissue culture to full plants is underway as well as the transfer from being emersed to submersed. 









the swords are throwing up tons of new leaves and increasingly getting more colorful. the oriental sword is throwing these iridescent light pink leaves that slowly turn green, its quite a nice color. I hope as the plant matures that it will start pushing larger and larger leaves. time will tell. 









This is the first time I have kept Hygrophila Lanceolata Araguaia, its a nifty little plant. The old leaves are melting off and being replaced with these purply greenish leaves. They are also starting to spread a little bit. 









The Alternanthera reineckii "Mini" is also going through its melt phase, BUT has put out a good amount of new growth that is the same size, and color as the emersed stuff, its growing pretty darn well in its "nook" My pinnatifida is starting to throw out some side shoots. Hope the growth will pick up a little bit more here soon. There is a few more places I wanted to plant this "Velcro of the plant world" 









Great growth out of the Staurogyne repens, it has always been a very hardy plant for me. I have trimmed it twice now and started replanting the tops to fill in where I want the "bush" 









The Rotala macrandra v. 'narrow leaf' has put on the most growth out of the stem plants in the tank. The new leaves are twice the size as the emersed leaves and the coloring is exactly where I remember it. It always has this greenish red color to it whenever I have grown it In the past. This to I am hoping the growth will take off I really want a nice rounded bush right in that front right corner amongst the green "forest" of the ranunculus. 









the ranunculus has always been a very fast grower for me, and it is in this tank as well. I will have to start snipping the runners here soon to promote more outward growth so it does not get too dense in its current location. 









Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata 'Cuba' has been a problem child in my past. It grew really really well in a past tank, and then my last tank it would not grow at all for me. It is taking its sweet time converting to submerged life. The current emersed stems have grown a good 4" and have started to throw off side shoots, but they are growing slowly. I really hope they like this tank as its one of my favorite plants. 









and last but not least my stellatus!!! its starting to poke its head out from the back of the rocks and has had some good growth. This is by far my favorite aquatic plant. Its been in every high light tank I have had in the past. I am expecting a crap ton of this stuff as the culture plants have not melted, and the new plants are growing very very well. So..... Colorado people may have some free trimmings comin lol. 









And.... a full tank shot. Its not filling in quite yet, but there are signs it is. 


Fish are still on target lol. Starting with the m.garylangei, and a Hypseleotris compressa. Then I will hold off on any new purchases until the fall auction here with the local aquarium club. And then start filling in the gaps from what I cannot get from the auction. 

That's it for this post. I will update probably in a week or so unless something pops up. 

Ohh...... yea the lighting. I had signs early last week that the plants were not getting quite enough light. so I am running my ecoexcotic at 100% for 8 hours (on at 3:00, off at 11:00) along with the BML fixture offset to the right so the more light intensive plants on the right will get more light. It seems to be working, the BML is set at 75% for the full duration of the light schedule. I can dial it back if needed in the future. Right now it looks nice.


----------



## Cornishrooster (Mar 3, 2016)

Looks like a good start mang. Look forward to seeing what kind of bows you go with! Think I'm going to give the stellatus a try, easy to grow?

Cheers
Mike


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Cornishrooster said:


> Looks like a good start mang. Look forward to seeing what kind of bows you go with! Think I'm going to give the stellatus a try, easy to grow?
> 
> Cheers
> Mike


Thanks! Bows will start trickling in as soon as the tank finishes its cycle. 

I have never had a problem with stellatus, then again. I have a hard time growing some of the easiest plants in the hobby, and an easy time with some of the hardest. Give it a try and see how it does for you. its GREAT once it colors up.


----------



## Cornishrooster (Mar 3, 2016)

Noahma said:


> Thanks! Bows will start trickling in as soon as the tank finishes its cycle.
> 
> 
> 
> I have never had a problem with stellatus, then again. I have a hard time growing some of the easiest plants in the hobby, and an easy time with some of the hardest. Give it a try and see how it does for you. its GREAT once it colors up.




Funny you should say that, my Cuba is growing like wildfire and looks healthy despite the fact that my co2 isn't working properly, heard it's one of the hardest to grow. I'll def give the stellatus a try. 

Cheers


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Cornishrooster said:


> Funny you should say that, my Cuba is growing like wildfire and looks healthy despite the fact that my co2 isn't working properly, heard it's one of the hardest to grow. I'll def give the stellatus a try.
> 
> Cheers


Yea, Ludwigia cuba usually is a co2 hog. I think you would do well with the stellatus.

Quick update. Things are growing lol. I have a bit of stunting on the tops of some of the plants so I upped the co2, and am looking for other problems. I do have a little algae but manageable, and it comes with a tank that's near cycled  I just got in my ammonia test kit, and my co2 reagent so I will be keeping an eye on that. I hope to have fish in the tank hopefully by the end of the month. I am pretty sure after a couple months the tank has to be cycled by now, we will see when I do the water tests. 

I will post some pictures hopefully this weekend. Its been a busy riding schedule with my cycling because of week day storms so I have been spending a ton of time on the bike on the weekends.


----------



## ScubaSteve (Jun 30, 2012)

Subbed...I love 75 gallon tanks and I can't wait to see where your tank goes. Love it so far!


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

ScubaSteve said:


> Subbed...I love 75 gallon tanks and I can't wait to see where your tank goes. Love it so far!


Thanks, I will try to get some updated pics tomorrow after the muck from the water change clears. I finally got my drop checker in to get the co2 dialed in a bit more. so far its on the far right side away from the diffuer and I had to up the co2 significantly lol. 

I did an ammonia test last night and it came back 0. Now to pick up a Nitrite test to make sure its at 0 as well. It would be a waste to check my nitrate levels since ya know. I dose a butt load several times a week lol. The tank in my opinion is ready for fish. I just need to find some time to take a day off of work and order them.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Wow, not sure what happened, but something was spamming the forums trying to log me in..... which locked me out. Finally got it sorted out and was able to log in to post some pics. 

I finally figured out what was causing the cuba to stunt. Apparently my co2 was running high enough pressure that it popped the hose loose at the regulator and was pushing a little co2 into the tank, but letting out more at the hose. I changed the barbed fitting to a pressure fitting and that solved the issue. I am getting insane growth now out of the plants, and the cuba seems to be getting better. 

I just need to find the right day to take off and order the first group of fish. The tank is cycled, growing well and ready for fish!!

I might try late next month to find a day to do that. 

Anywhoo, Here are the pics. Once I get enough growth and what not I will start to get some shaping in and figure out which plants I can add. I might do a very low carpet to take over the front and allow the other mounds to just sit where they are. 


Stellatus is starting to color up. I will have a TON of this stuff soon to give away to some Colorado people. There is just way to many juvi stems to keep in this tank. The plant usually gets to 5" wide at its leaf tips so about 10 maybe 15 stems is all I need. 


non stunted cuba, its starting to perk up in color at the center of the crown too. 


stunted cuba, I trimmed the crowns off all of these to force some side shoots, which should force side shoots. 


Ranunculus papulentus, this stuff just as I remember it is a BEAST. I have trimmed out half the mass a couple times. I will start giving away some of it to other Colorado members here soon. 


Staurogyne repens, growing very well now. I love the bright green of this plant. I will eventually mow it down and start training it to spread a bit more.


Rotala macrandra v. 'narrow leaf'), is starting to recover from the co2 as well. I am starting to get mucb better coloring and much larger leaves.




Hygrophila Lanceolata Araguaia, this is the first time I have grown this plant. I LOVE the light purple hazy tint to the leaves. 


And a full tank shot



more to come!


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Wow it is starting to look just spectacular. Everything lush and healthy.

Looks like you have the gift of a "green thumb", and a good eye for aquascaping.

Keep the updates coming. What is your fert schedule?


----------



## ScubaSteve (Jun 30, 2012)

Looking awesome!


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Wow it is starting to look just spectacular. Everything lush and healthy.
> 
> Looks like you have the gift of a "green thumb", and a good eye for aquascaping.
> 
> Keep the updates coming. What is your fert schedule?


Thanks. This is well..... my 7th planted tank lol I only have two running in the house at one time a Nano and my large aquarium per my deal with my other half. 

I have always had an easy time with the harder plants, and a hard time with the easy plants. The cuba is being a pain with its slow recovery from the co2 deficit. 

I want the tank to fill in a ton more before I will be happy. Its slowly getting there. 


I dose EI. My schedule is usually a water change on Friday nights which starts off with the KN03 (1tsp) and Kh2p04 (1/4 tsp.)
then Sat. CSM+b (1/4 tsp.) and then of course switch off every other night and leave Thursday as a "left overs" night for the plants. It has not failed me yet. Occasionally I will put 1 tsp. of buffer in the tank. 

I am a bit peeved that one of the plants brought snails with it, but ohh well. I know once I get the bows in there they will start to disappear over time. I still am not sure which bow it was in my 36g and 40b that did it but the tank just stopped having snails. I think the bows were finding and eating the snail eggs and the high co2 killed the rest over time by eroding the shells. 



ScubaSteve said:


> Looking awesome!


Thanks! 


I will try to get some pics tomorrow, this chop job tonight went cleanly. I know in a few weeks to a month someone In Colorado is going to be happy with the amount of stellatus I am going to hand them lol. 



I started working on gathering some bows. My initial plan was to order some m.garylangei from wetspot, but a local guy has some good m.trifasciata 'wongo creek' he got from Gary last year when he was out here. I might spring and get them first instead, and order the garylangei afterwards. We will see.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update.

WE HAVE FISH!!! 

lol I went to visit with another fish breeder here in Colorado. He offered me some fish, so I took him up on it. 

he had some m.trifasciata 'wonga creek' and some m.herbertaxelrodi and I got them at a GREAT price. A group of trifasciata was on my "want list" of bows. I really did not care which river system they were from, but man these things can produce some great colors. they are just starting to color up, but already I can see the potential for when they are a little older. The herbertaxelrodi were on my secondary list, but I was quick to grab them. So I have 3 males, and 2 female trifasciata, and 1 male and 2 females of the herbertaxelrodi. 

Here are a few pics I was able to grab, these things have not stayed still for longer than half a second since they acclimated.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

A couple more pics of the bows. Man they are BEAUTIFUL!! they just GLOW when the light hits them right. which seems to be in the spot they tend to hang out. 

The group. I ended up with what looks like 4 males and 1 female. I hope to breed them once I get some breeding tanks setup. 



Here is one of the males.


----------



## fishboy199413 (Jan 20, 2010)

Those are amazing! I will definitely have to hit you up if you breed them.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

fishboy199413 said:


> Those are amazing! I will definitely have to hit you up if you breed them.


I certainly hope so. I have one female of the species in the tank so getting eggs is going to be pretty important. I need to get my breeding tanks up and running this fall and get some mops.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Beautiful Bows, plants, and photography. 


Your tank is really turning out to be spectacular. Nice work!


----------



## burr740 (Feb 19, 2014)

Really like those rocks. Plant groups filling in nicely, its looks great.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

burr740 said:


> Really like those rocks. Plant groups filling in nicely, its looks great.


Thanks, once I get some time and this dang bacterial bloom under control I will get some more pics up. I have been a little absent lately, trying to get as many miles in on my bike before the fall hits and it gets too cold to get my evening quick rides, and my long weekend rides in. The winter will be spent getting my tanks all up to par. I have a fluval flora full of shrimp that I have not really touched in a year, its just been growing and surviving with little changes. Late next summer I might rescape the 75g with more twisty woods, but for now I am loving the rocks. 



Greggz said:


> Beautiful Bows, plants, and photography.
> 
> 
> Your tank is really turning out to be spectacular. Nice work!


Thanks. The bows have been Great. I am hoping to get some more bows this year at the fall auction. that depends on when it is though. I am going out to Hawaii at the beginning of oct when the auction generally is. So, if I miss this one, I will hold out until the spring auction. The plants are just doing great. I do have some random stunting in a couple of the plant groups which I have not figured out yet. But otherwise they are growing well. I do want to add some more plants, and will do that once I get the current arrangement where I want it. 

I am only using my cell for the tank pictures lol. I am a Windows phone fan, and have been using my Lumia 950xl for the pictures. It is regarded as having one of the best cameras you can get in a phone.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update. 

The tank has become a challenge. I have one fish that is showing some strange symptoms, I decided to med the whole tank to make sure it does not spread. It started while I was out on vacation. One of my male trifasciata is doing a shimmy, looks kind of like a seizure. From all my research it seems to boil down to a couple of things. Water quality, or possibly cotton mouth. The water quality I do not think is the problem. I did a huge water change right when I got home, and the shimmys continued. I have been dosing ethromiacyn and hope to see some improvements here soon. (praying) 

The other issue is BBA!! I lowered the co2 just a tad in the tank while I was gone.... well that was a bad idea the tank is riddled with it. I am upping the co2 and will do a massive trim this Friday.


----------



## JerrySingh (Aug 15, 2015)

Wow awesome scape and best choice on fish


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Sorry to hear about the sick Rainbow. 

Unfortunately, in my experience, once a fish shows symptoms like that, they very rarely recover. 

This may not be popular, but I would be fairly quick to euthanize if it continues.

If it's columnaris, the sooner it is removed from the tank the better. Good luck I wish you the best. I know you have been enjoying watching this batch mature and color up, which makes it even more painful.


----------



## JerrySingh (Aug 15, 2015)

Noahma said:


> Quick update.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




i also had that issue (cotton wool disease) when I first started up my rainbow tank also treated the entire tank and the quarantine tank with rid-all, cotton wool cleared up after a few days but still lost that fish a few weeks later, haven't lost a fish since praying you have better luck than I did


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Ive used a couple products now and its not getting any better. not getting any worse either except that I have two of the bows now with the shimmy. I figured after the ethromyacin it might be a pre-ich thing so now I am doing a rid-ich treatment and its not changing things for the better. I might just pull out the big guns and do a heavier antibiotic treatment. Since I am pretty sure its all over in the tank I have decided to treat the whole tank instead of pulling out the Q tank and getting a couple fish in that. 

The strange thing is that I have not added anything to the tank since I got the bows. Not sure if the city did something with the water, or if something came in on my hands while out and about.

Bump:


Greggz said:


> Sorry to hear about the sick Rainbow.
> 
> Unfortunately, in my experience, once a fish shows symptoms like that, they very rarely recover.
> 
> ...


I am about at that point now. I figured I would pull out the big guns and see if that does anything. If not the two that seem to be having issues will go to fishy heaven. I have clove oil on hand for these occasions and they do go peacefully. 

I was hoping to pick up some more bows at the aquarium auction on Sat. but I think I will wait until the spring auction to be safe.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Well, I put the one that was worst effected down a little bit ago. I hate to put any living thing down because I was essentially charged with its care. But it was for the better, he was just not getting better, and putting the rest of the tank at risk. The second one that was starting to show symptoms has not since my last post. He is acting just as he should. I am going to continue the kanaplex treatment for one more dose just to be sure its gone. I think I might have beaten it. 

The BBA is in retreat now as well. Its still pestering some of my stem plants, but its not growing near as fast. I should have it under control soon. 

The Colorado aquarium auction is tomorrow so I am now frantically looking for where I have my Q-tank stuff packed and soaking it in alcohol for the evening so it will be nice and clean in the event that I find some bows I know I will not be able to get again. I am really going for the plants, but I figured I would be prepared just in case.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update. Things have stabilized. I ended up having to put the second male down. he was just not getting better either. The remaining two males and female are healthy and happy laying eggs all over the tank (which means soon It will be time to set up a breeding tank and replenish numbers!!!)

My herbertaxelrodi are just doing their own thing. also laying eggs in the tank, of course none survive. 

BBA is in full retreat. It is present in some areas of the tank, but not growing, and the other stuff is slowly fading. 

I had my UV sterilizer running full time on the tank for 2 weeks straight. This means white plants!!! lol IV pulls the iron out of the water, and puts the plants into a lack of iron which causes the plants to grow white when they should have some color to them. I turned it off on Friday and the stellatus and inclinata are already coloring up. 

the Auction was a bust. I came home with a few plants, but there was not ONE rainbowfish to be found  Hopefully in the spring. 

as of now things are going good. I am trying to find a good source for a healthy empire gudgeon. and possibly some bottom fish. 

The next few weeks I plan on finishing my nano tank conversion to a black water tank. If I get time I will update that journal as well. I get soo busy I forget to update these things lol





Here are a few pics.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

The tank is filling in and looking great. You've created a very nice scape, and plants are looking healthy.

Sorry to hear you lost another Bow, but these things happen, and sometimes are hard to explain. The good news is your remaining Axelrodi's and Wonga's both are starting to mature nicely.

I've got to hand it to you. You had a vision of what you wanted and have executed it beautifully. One of the nicest planted Bow tanks around. I have enjoyed your thread and look forward to more updates.

And one more thing.....I'm surprised you have the patience to wait until spring to get more Bows, as I know I would have that tank filled up ASAP!


----------



## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Great looking tank! Nice to see another planted bow tank. I think it was Gregg's original video that kinda got me hooked on rainbow fish. Sorry to hear about the 2 sick rainbows :-(


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Immortal1 said:


> Great looking tank! Nice to see another planted bow tank. I think it was Gregg's original video that kinda got me hooked on rainbow fish. Sorry to hear about the 2 sick rainbows :-(


Same here, Greggz and Sanj's tanks sealed the deal with bows for me lol. 
It happens, but still hurts when I loose a fish. Hopefully these ones will be with me for a very long time. 



Greggz said:


> The tank is filling in and looking great. You've created a very nice scape, and plants are looking healthy.
> 
> Sorry to hear you lost another Bow, but these things happen, and sometimes are hard to explain. The good news is your remaining Axelrodi's and Wonga's both are starting to mature nicely.
> 
> ...


Thanks! Coming from you that is a huge compliment. I generally get bored with a scape every couple years. My plan next winter is to redo the tank with wood this time. During my summer I plan to wander along the south platte river for some twisty wood to use in the scape. I know of some great places from my cycling trips. 

The plants are getting healthier, the meds and lack of iron took a bit out of them. I have the minimum light needed to grow them so I can enjoy the plants and not have to trim them every week lol. 

I am super paranoid about getting any fish with Myco, so that helps with the patience lol. I love what some of my LFS can get in, but get a bit worried. So we will see what I can get in the spring auction from guys I know that have very healthy tanks. Larry is a legend here in Colorado with his bow tanks. He ended up with a great deal of Lori's stock when she left the hobby and has added to it. I think he said he had around 35 species of bows at the moment. he chooses a couple species each year to breed, although lately he has been into breeding his live bearers. So it may be a tossup if he brings bows to the spring auction or not. If I can pull together the funding sooner than spring I might do an online order, it is supposed to be a pretty mild winter here in Colorado this year. We have yet to have our first snow, and that usually happens around late Oct.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Update: lol its been way too long since I posted last, Been very busy, and the dang tank had an algae problem and was not in a condition to post pictures. I now have the BBA in retreat, finally. So here are some pics. The bows are doing great, and getting bigger. The herbertaxelrdoi has a much more noticeable deeper body now, as well as my dominant male wango creek. I am finding eggs everywhere, so they seem to be happy in the tank. AGA is going on at the moment, and the Auction is tomorrow. We will see what kinds of fish are going to be around, I suspect it will mainly plants, but we will see. If there are no bows I will make a trip up to a great LFS in northern Colorado and see what bows they have. I am starting to get impatient lol. 

My focus this spring has not been on the tank that much, I have been training for the MS150 A charity bike ride, which will bring me 150 miles over 2 days. I am getting there with the training, up to 60 miles per trip on the bike. The ride takes place on June 25th I think lol. After that I am going to be scaling back my riding, and spend some more time with the tanks. My nano is in a very sorry shape at the moment and I want to get it converted to the black water nano I have been planning for over a year. Might open a journal for it as well. 

Anywhoo, here are the pics.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Noahma said:


> I now have the BBA in retreat, finally. So here are some pics. The bows are doing great, and getting bigger.


Noahma good to see an update. The Rainbows are maturing nicely.

Sorry to hear about your battle with BBA. Just curious, what steps did you take to get in retreat?

Good luck at the auction, hope you find some nice Bows there.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Noahma good to see an update. The Rainbows are maturing nicely.
> 
> Sorry to hear about your battle with BBA. Just curious, what steps did you take to get in retreat?
> 
> Good luck at the auction, hope you find some nice Bows there.


I pestered the crap out of it. lowered the light levels, and brought my dosing back to the lower levels I had when I first set up the tank. It disappeared from the hardscape first, and now is slowly retreating from the plants. I have had an outbreak of diatoms though, Not sure where they are coming from, I suspect the city might have silicates in the water as they have recently switched to a secondary water plant to do repairs on the main plant. They are not a huge issue though, just an annoyance. 

The auction was VERY good. There were no fish as I suspected there would not be, as it was a plant convention. I was able to get ahold of the top three plants I wanted. I got a very nice Franz stoffels sword, I really missed one I had in my 40b. I was able to get a little pot of rotala 'bonsai' from Tropica. And a package of didlipis diandra. I have not had it in many years, and have wanted it again. 

as for fish, I have decided to see what a LFS can get that is an hour drive north of me. From what I hear, they actually quarantine their newly arrived stock before they sell. The store itself is very nice. So we will see what they have, and what they can get. I am hoping they can get m.garylangei I really don't want to spend almost as much for shipping as I do for purchasing the fish.

Bump:


Greggz said:


> Noahma good to see an update. The Rainbows are maturing nicely.
> 
> Sorry to hear about your battle with BBA. Just curious, what steps did you take to get in retreat?
> 
> Good luck at the auction, hope you find some nice Bows there.


I pestered the crap out of it. lowered the light levels, and brought my dosing back to the lower levels I had when I first set up the tank. It disappeared from the hardscape first, and now is slowly retreating from the plants. I have had an outbreak of diatoms though, Not sure where they are coming from, I suspect the city might have silicates in the water as they have recently switched to a secondary water plant to do repairs on the main plant. They are not a huge issue though, just an annoyance. 

The auction was VERY good. There were no fish as I suspected there would not be, as it was a plant convention. I was able to get ahold of the top three plants I wanted. I got a very nice Franz stoffels sword, I really missed one I had in my 40b. I was able to get a little pot of rotala 'bonsai' from Tropica. And a package of didlipis diandra. I have not had it in many years, and have wanted it again. 

as for fish, I have decided to see what a LFS can get that is an hour drive north of me. From what I hear, they actually quarantine their newly arrived stock before they sell. The store itself is very nice. So we will see what they have, and what they can get. I am hoping they can get m.garylangei I really don't want to spend almost as much for shipping as I do for purchasing the fish.


----------



## sdwindansea (Oct 28, 2016)

Great looking tank and rainbows. I've been fighting BBA for a couple months now. I have it under control but cannot seem to get rid of it completely. It is definitely my nemesis. Good luck with the cycling!


----------



## Grendel (Jan 17, 2003)

Noahma said:


> as for fish, I have decided to see what a LFS can get that is an hour drive north of me. From what I hear, they actually quarantine their newly arrived stock before they sell. The store itself is very nice. So we will see what they have, and what they can get. I am hoping they can get m.garylangei I really don't want to spend almost as much for shipping as I do for purchasing the fish.


I see you are in Thornton (I'm in Fort Collins) and would love to know what LFS you are talking about. I've inquired about ordering specific fish from one nearby in the past but they seemed pretty uninterested in helping me out. If you have some luck I might need to follow up with them as well.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Grendel said:


> I see you are in Thornton (I'm in Fort Collins) and would love to know what LFS you are talking about. I've inquired about ordering specific fish from one nearby in the past but they seemed pretty uninterested in helping me out. If you have some luck I might need to follow up with them as well.


Fish crew seem to have very healthy fish. I have not purchased from them since they opened though. If you want to get a specific specie go over to Aqua Imports in boulder, they have a "wish list" you can add the specie name to and they will do their best to get it for you. They can do that with plants as well.


----------



## Grendel (Jan 17, 2003)

Noahma said:


> Fish crew seem to have very healthy fish. I have not purchased from them since they opened though. If you want to get a specific specie go over to Aqua Imports in boulder, they have a "wish list" you can add the specie name to and they will do their best to get it for you. They can do that with plants as well.


Yeah, Fish Crew is pretty excellent. I've always had good service there and the fish are definitely well taken care of. They are the place that didn't seem very interested in trying to get in requests, though.

I've been to Aqua Imports once before - lots of different, cool fish at the time. Good to know about their wish list - thanks.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Update! lol, its been a while, very very busy summer this year. 

On June 24th and 25th I participated in BikeMS (MS150) and did 150 miles on my bicycle over 2 days to raise money for the Multiple Sclerosis society, what an amazing experience. I did all 150 miles and wish I could have done more lol. I had been training since mid January, and I may have over trained because It was not as difficult as I had thought it would be. The weather was great, a little on the chilly side, but it would have been much harder if it had been the typical 90-95* weather instead of the 60-75* weather we had. 

I belong to team "Coneheads" and wear mini traffic cones on our heads (they are not designed to go 41mph down a hill lol) 

This is my Son and I at the finish line. 



Now that that goal is accomplished I have spent the rest of the time up to last weekend getting things done that I had to neglect to get my training in. Mainly redoing my rotting deck, and other yard things. 

My cycling season is all about fun rides now so I have more free time to spend on the tanks instead of just maintaining them. So..... I am starting to ramp up on the tanks again. 

My bow tank is close to what it has been. I have not had the fundage or time to add more fish yet. So I have the 6 fish happy and healthy in the tank. Once I build a little fish money I plan on adding a couple more species of bow, and I really really want to get an empire gudgeon in there. The tank has been giving me a little problem. I had BBA come roaring back, but I punched back with some heavy Excel dosing until it all died, and now I have been adding that new Florish Advance (hormone) treatments into the tank, and I have to say, its doing something. The root systems are much stronger and the plants have been growing much better than they had. Once I am out, we will see if the tank continues to grow well. I suspect it will, but who knows. 



My main goal was to redo my neglected Nano, I had when I tore it down to rescape it 3 fish remaining and handful of shrimp. I have since lost two of the fish, and most of the shrimp. I think they just could not handle the stress of the rescape. They were VERY old fish, Like 6-7 year old nano fish (one ruby, and two green neons) which is ancient in their lifespan of a usual 2-3 years. I have since added 15 more ruby tetras to the tank, and they are happily living in the new scape. I went with a black water scape this time, easy to maintain, and it looks darn neat. 

Here is a quick photo. 


I have been using black water extract in my normal water changes, but may switch to something a little more hands off. The tank is hopefully a low maintenance tank. We will see. 


If I don't forget, which I usually do I will get some more pics up


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

The tank is sparse no more!!! I picked up a good group of bows from a couple that were tearing down tanks to move. I managed to snag 
(2) G. wanamensis
(3) (1f)(2)m C. Bleheri (or as I have been calling them, sherbert fish)
(2) herbertaxelrodi to keep my others company
(1) m. fasciata 'skull creek'
and (2) true SAE's lol

They are doing GREAT in the tank as well. The largest is one of the bleheri, he is about the same size as my oldest wongo creek. 

I can now see why the wana's are some of the most sought after rainbows. Mine I am sure are the LFS variety, I cannot imagine what the true versions look like in person. 

I have a few pics to throw up, they will be a link, don't worry they are safe links to my cloud storage, I am not an easy to upload computer to photobucket lol

Ohh, the photos are not the greatest, these things will not stand still long enough to get a clear picture. I did get a couple good ones though. 

https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ars3kKUevsML-chkflRRL4I3nXesTQ

https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ars3kKUevsML-choteqwkbqgViC0Xw

https://1drv.ms/i/s!Ars3kKUevsML-che-egNKiro5Mt9UA


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Nice pick up on the Bows. They look great. Almost impossible to find some with nice color and size like that. 

Looking forward to hearing more and some FTS would be nice.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Nice pick up on the Bows. They look great. Almost impossible to find some with nice color and size like that.
> 
> Looking forward to hearing more and some FTS would be nice.



I will try to get some in the next couple days. I really lucked out on these guys. The others were taken pretty quickly.


----------



## Curt_914 (Oct 6, 2007)

Nice tank Noah,

Looking good. How have things been? Also what's your plant stocking look like right now?


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Wow again life caught up with me. I keep forgetting to update the journal. 

Well I have pictures, I am using onedrive to share the pictures, Could not get photobucket to upload my photos. 

Fish are doing great, no new additions, but I am loving the last additions. They have settled in nicely. My Wanas are the best for photos, they actually swim still for a second to get some good photos of them. The others don't care to have their picture taken, just want the food. 

A major rescape is coming. I snagged a couple of old tree stumps and they will both be going in the tank! I am going to grab a big container to get them waterlogged here in the next couple days. 

Here are a few pics. 

FTS









Wana (loves the camera)









Some plants



















Don't know why, but the Camera added a little bit of a yellow tint to the pictures. Next time I will spend a little time correcting it. 

Till Next time. 
(hopefully right after the rescape)


----------



## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

That Wana is incredible! I've never seen anything like it. Between you and Greggz I will never be happy with my Rainbow collection. My LFS got me most of my Rainbows as a favor... but it seems every week I am asking for more. Ive got an 11.4 with Gertrudes, a 75 community with 12 - 15 Celebes, and another 75 with Bosemani, Goyder River, Kamaka, Red Laser, Herbertaxelrodi, Maculloch's, Milleniums, Dorityi, and maybe another I am forgetting? Now I need Bleheri and wanamensis... have to have them...

Your tank is looking awesome!


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Good to see an update on your tank. Plants and Bows all look healthy and happy. And that Wana is a very nicely colored male. 

Looking forward to seeing the new scape, and hopefully some more Rainbow pics.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

The Dude1 said:


> That Wana is incredible! I've never seen anything like it. Between you and Greggz I will never be happy with my Rainbow collection. My LFS got me most of my Rainbows as a favor... but it seems every week I am asking for more. Ive got an 11.4 with Gertrudes, a 75 community with 12 - 15 Celebes, and another 75 with Bosemani, Goyder River, Kamaka, Red Laser, Herbertaxelrodi, Maculloch's, Milleniums, Dorityi, and maybe another I am forgetting? Now I need Bleheri and wanamensis... have to have them...
> 
> Your tank is looking awesome!


Thanks! I absolutely love the Wana and the herbies. they are two of my favorite species. I REALLY want to keep Nigrans again. I will have to track them down. The dorityi was a bit of a jerk at first, but he has calmed down, his younger companion is more interested in chasing girls than trying to obtain tank dominance. My herbies tend to stick to themselves. They only care when its feeding time, or mating time lol. Keep your eye on wetspot aquariums website. They get in some of the more rare bows during the summer. And on Aquabid, If you see any species posted by a screen name of "Rainbowfish" that would be Gary Lange's stuff, He has one species named after him (m. garylangi) and has gone collecting bows. Very interesting guy. He is THE American Rainbow guru lol. 

I fell in love with bows when a couple of giant tanks on here popped up by Sanj. Then I found Greggz tank lol Still many species I have not kept, but I have had my fair share of them. I have kept but currently do not have Nigrans, Kamaka, Lacustrus, Pygmeay (very under rated little fish) Bosemani. Many many many more I have not kept yet. 

Take a look at Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae It has been updated to show the most recent finds lol. most are unobtainable at the moment. 




Greggz said:


> Good to see an update on your tank. Plants and Bows all look healthy and happy. And that Wana is a very nicely colored male.
> 
> Looking forward to seeing the new scape, and hopefully some more Rainbow pics.


Ohh yea, I will be adding more rainbows. Christmas bonus was particularly good this year lol I have to get a lighter wheelset for my bike, but after that it is going to plants and fish. I need to find m.garylangei again. Wetspot had them last summer, but I was unable to get them. I REALLY want some of those multisquimata 'dragon eye' that Gary has. I am sure I will find some somewhere. I want to get some more wanas and hopefully find and get a good group of Nigrans going again. I really miss that fish.

Bump: and I just realized, I murdered the spelling of most of those species. Ahh well I will fix em later.


----------



## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Unfortunately I think my 75 gallon is at its limit. It will be several months before the 265 is up and running especially given the cost of ancillary items. Each day I am closer and closer to rehoming my Africans so I can use the 150 for my Rainbows. I wanted to have some nicely colored adults for the 265 given the substantial stocking I have in mind.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Well, the rescape was scheduled for a couple weeks from now.... until I lost a fish. I tend to feed my fish just before lights out so they usually poop when the lights are out. I noticed a few days ago that both my Wanas were a bit listless and hanging out in the back of the tank and had no appetite. I started to observe them a bit and noticed a bit of white poo being passed from one. I figured a little constipation. Let them be for a few days until the smaller one started darting around the tank. They were both removed from the tank and put in Quarantine so I could figure this out. Well, Lost the smaller one last night, and the larger one is not doing so hot either. I have him floating in a net so he does not hurt himself and I could glance him over carefully. Looking at his under carriage I notice something around his anus....... Little red things..... AHHH crap I have a Callumanus infection in the tank. I have prazipro in the tank right now, and what I understand it just paralyzes the parasites. I have on the way from Amazon some Levamisole on the way, should be here by Saturday. So for the next couple months I will be doing a treatment to save all of my fish. My big guy is pooping normal, and some white occasionally so I am fairly certain he is infected. I am going whole treat on the 75g along with water changes. Eggs are not killed by the Levamisole, which by the way is harder than hell to find. So I have to do multiple treatments every couple weeks for a couple months to get the tank clear. 

I am not sure how I got the infection, or when. The last bows were the group posted about above including the wana's. They were added roughly 4 months ago, I guess they could have been infected at that time and I would not have known about it until the infection got more severe. I added a red tiger lotus last month, not sure if they could have come on that? ugh.. I hope the treatment works I do not want to start the tank over again and loose my little scale bearing friends


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Confirmed. It is callumanus worms. My larger male wana just passed away, I decided to grab some fine tweezers I had and do a little investigating. I pulled quite a few worms out of him, and there were still a ton more left. 

I am pretty creeped out at this point. I think the guys I got the bows from had the infection and did not notice it. From what I had been reading it takes two months for the worms to mature and start multiplying, and then a couple more months for them to start killing. So hopefully I can get this under control. I am going to start tossing plants I do not plan to keep for the next scape, and I will be doing a bunch of water treatments after the worm treatment to clean up anything that falls out. I pray I can get this under control, if I do end up loosing my bows I will be taking a step back from keeping bows and move into Amazon fishes for a while, bows are just to expensive and I get too attached to them to go through this again.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Wow I am really, really sorry to hear that.

I hope the treatment works and you are saving your other stock.

I have heard this can be a tough battle, good luck.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Wow I am really, really sorry to hear that.
> 
> I hope the treatment works and you are saving your other stock.
> 
> I have heard this can be a tough battle, good luck.



Thanks, It will be a battle, but I think I will be equipped to fight it. It seems the biggest part of the battle is getting ahold of the mentioned medication. It is a sheep dewormer, and luckily Amazon happens to carry the exact thing I need. I could also probably get it at one of the farm supply stores near by, I will check that if the shipment is late. 

The directions I found by someone that is mentioned in almost every thread about this nasty bug seems straight forward. I will treat for 3 weeks, right after water change I am supposed to add a dose mixed in water to the tank. within the first hour the fish will start passing the dead worms. I am supposed to go and vacuum them out as I see them over the next few days. Then do a water change. The directions say to redo the treatment two weeks after to clear out any remaining, but I will do the treatment each week for 3 weeks, and then most likely just a few weeks after that if I have enough remaining powder. The treatment is 5mg per 100 gal. 

The only thing that may create losses is in the passing of the worms. they have hooks at the mouth end, and they can get stuck in the fish after the worm dies leading to infection. I pray that does not happen. I think I caught this quickly after the first two were lost. I am certain that I got them through the guys that sold me the bows they had. I do not think they knew they had them. It could take 4 weeks or longer for the worms to start getting to a bad level in the fish, so it explains why they got through my Quarantine process. I might just start treating for worms by default when I get new fish, and possibly plants. The larva has to be in a host (like snail or shrimp etc.) to live. They hatch in the water column, infect another living thing for a while, then move on to the fish, and the cycle goes on and on until stopped. 

I will post back as this progresses. I figure if I god forbid loose all of my fish, I will nuke the tank and set it up with cheap fish for a while. I have never had a large aquarium with 200 neon tetras lol. 

I am a bit more positive today after doing more research on how to fight this thing. I think it Is winnable unlike a previous tank that I had to almost burnt to the ground that had what I suspect was Myco. I went all out on that one and turned that tank into a planter in the back yard, as well as throwing EVERY bit of equipment from that tank in the trash. Ruined fish for me for a very long time. My nano though might be a total loss. I am certain that it is also infected. It has a couple ruby tetras and a very very old oto in it. I might just nuke that tank and take it down tomorrow. It is a very inaccessible tank due to the scape that is in it. And its been a little neglected.


----------



## CharlesV (Dec 24, 2017)

You could also try fenbendazole if you can’t get levimasole (or it doesn’t work). I’ve used it to great effect in SW fish (but it does kill some inverts, including snails).


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

CharlesV said:


> You could also try fenbendazole if you can’t get levimasole (or it doesn’t work). I’ve used it to great effect in SW fish (but it does kill some inverts, including snails).


I do have some levimasole on the way. It should be here tomorrow. I do have a backup plan of getting some fenbendazole if I need too. I only have the bows, so the only inverts I would lose are the pest snails lol

Sent from my LG-H871 using Tapatalk


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Ok, first treatment is in. I am now bleaching all of my equipment. From what I have read, these little buggers cannot live outside of water, so within 3 days they die. My dry stuff is getting a Clorox wipe, the stuff that gets wet including my siphon and hoses are all getting soaked in a 9:1 water / bleach bath. That should do the trick. 

So far my SAE's are not a fan of the meds, they are swimming against the glass. The rest of the bows are agitated, but not overly stressed. They say I should start to see dead worms coming out as early as the first hour. We will see.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Noahma said:


> Ok, first treatment is in. I am now bleaching all of my equipment. From what I have read, these little buggers cannot live outside of water, so within 3 days they die. My dry stuff is getting a Clorox wipe, the stuff that gets wet including my siphon and hoses are all getting soaked in a 9:1 water / bleach bath. That should do the trick.
> 
> So far my SAE's are not a fan of the meds, they are swimming against the glass. The rest of the bows are agitated, but not overly stressed. They say I should start to see dead worms coming out as early as the first hour. We will see.


My goodness that sounds horrible. Good luck with the treatment, keeping my fingers crossed for you.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> My goodness that sounds horrible. Good luck with the treatment, keeping my fingers crossed for you.


Thanks, so far its going well. Its been +1 hour, I read that it could take as little as an hour, or as long as 4 to start seeing any passing. The SAE's are acting normal again, the fish are doing what they do (begging for food when I enter the room) Maybe I got ahead of this before it got bad, and the two wanas were the "carriers" if you will. We will see, I know of at least two that were also pooping clear besides the wanas, so we will see what they produce. They still had normal stools with the occasional white as well. 

I must say... it is very hard to fill a 50' long hose with bleach water lol. Took myself, wife and daughter to get the sucker filled with the water so it could soak and clean out. About an hours work. 

I should be all cleaned up except for treatment here in a little bit. Everything is soaking at the moment.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Day 2:

Fish are noticeably agitated, they are darting around the tank when they see movement outside the tank. Quite a few are hiding, and my Bhleri large was having the worst of it. This is still pre-lights, so we will see how they do when the lights start to come on at 3. Usually at this time, they are enjoying their daily flash fest. I am thinking of covering the front of the tank so they cannot see anything moving outside the tank. I plugged the co2, and my brightest light so they wont have to deal with that today. Tomorrow evening is the water change to remove the meds, then a week between the next treatment. Hope all goes well the rest of the day today. 

There is quite a bit of poop on the bottom of the tank, most of it is normal, a few are white, hopefully I got to this quick enough that none of the worms were able to grow to any substantial size, and that is why I am not seeing a bunch of dead ones on the tank floor.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

All of the fish have now calmed. They are still looking a bit stressed, but no longer flying all over the tank. I hope they eat tonight, I need to get more poop out of them lol. Water change tomorrow evening and then we wait a week and do it over again next Saturday.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

First treatment is now done. The fish are all acting normally, still a little stressed, but eating like mad fish (I have been feeding them frozen brine shrimp the past few days to keep their strength up, and to help clear out the guts. I picked up some poop, only a couple that were white, I am thinking that I may have caught this fairly quickly and only two of my fish happened to get far enough to have adult worms in them. Or, the worst case scenario is that they are all blocked up and I will eventually loose some to sepsis as the worms rot in their gut. I am an optimist, so the second thought is now out of my head, especially since they seem to be pooping just fine. 

Now I take a week off, and come back next week with the second treatment which should finish the course per the instructions I found by what he keeps getting called, and expert with this worm. 

Fingers crossed. Then I have scheduled mid month next month to do the rescape. That's when I hopefully will start posting more pictures. I plan on getting a group of wanas again. Such great looking fish, even the LFS strain of them!


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Treatments are all done. The fish pulled through them very well. They were VERY irritated the past couple days. My big bleheri would have tantrums. I would accidently scare him, he would swim around the tank at a faster pace, then disappear behind the stone for a couple hours. He would then come back out slowly and the process would start again. 

The only risk I see now is if the fish were unable to pass any worms and they become an infection. I will keep a close eye on the fish. I can say, they are eating a WHOLE bunch more than they were. 

I may not be totally out of the woods yet, but I am pretty close.

My near plans are the rescape, that is scheduled for the 3rd of march. I have started gathering plants, and holding them in the 75 gal. until then. I have two more trips in the next couple weeks hopefully to get the last of the plants on my list. I have been really wanting to try lagenandra meeboldii so I have one of my LFS on the search for one. There are a couple of more common buce I want to try, and then a bunch of regular species including some mosses. 

The list so far includes:
hygrophila corymbosa (existing)
ludwigia repense (existing)
pogostemon stellatus (existing)
cryptocoryne undulate (existing)
echinodorous 'oriental' (existing)
cryptocoryne parva (existing)
mycrosorum pteropus 'narrow leaf' (existing)
elocharis aciularis 'mini' 
staruogyne repens
taxiphyllum 'spiky'

it would be nice to try 
gratiola viscidula
rotala 'bonsai' (the true plant)


Lets see what I can get ahold of. Some may come later when I can get ahold of it. 

The two tree stumps have sunk. I am trying to figure out how to break down the larger lava rock stones I have so I can use them. A few have broken down into smaller chunks, but I want more lol. 


Longer term stocking for fish. 
3-4 G. wanamensis (I miss my two that I lost to the damn worms)
2-3 m. garylangi
and possibly a few g. multisquamata 'red eye dragon' But I need to keep an eye on my stocking levels
I would love to have a small group of danio choprae too, they are from the same area of the world, and look great in a planted tank. We will see.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

lol I am a pushover. Went to a LFS that was having an anniversary sale and grabbed some plants. they sort of were on my list, but not exactly. 

I grabbed 2 tissue culture pots of the short hair grass, 1 culture pot of weeping moss, and a Buce wavy green (pretty little plant) I have the Laganandra meeboldi on order (hopefully they get it on Wed.) and will slowly be picking up the others over the next couple weeks before the rescape. Things seem to be falling in place. I do have one problem I am trying to figure out. I got a bunch of larger lava rocks with the idea that I could break them down into smaller parts..... That has not worked as planned, two of the rocks broke down well, the others just make a loud smack when I try lol. I will figure something out. 

I have the sponge filter inside my canister to get the Q-tank for more fish after the rescape is done, and the fish are at home again. 

Here is a quick pic. It is of the tank pre-worms. I will try to get some more tomorrow after lights turn on. I have ripped some of the plants out and I lost all of my cuba from playing around with the fertz. everything else is growing MUCH better. I lowered fertz almost across the board. My micros are the same, I added 1/32 teaspoon of iron with the micros. Both of my macros are about half of what I was dosing.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

update on the fish:
Worm crisis seems to be over. All the fish are healthy, happy and pooping like champs lol. They endured the treatment very well. 

And tomorrow We are ready to rock and roll on the rescape. 

So... my plant list did not completely happen as it was planned.

So, this is what is going in the rescape, most I have had in the previous scape. 

echinodorus 'franz stoffels'
hygrophilia corymbosa
pogostemon stellate 'broad leaf'
ludwigia repens
some lotus
echinodorus 'oriental'
crinum callistratum
Proserpinaca palustris (my white whale, never been able to get it to grow well)
crypt. parva
crypt. (not sure lol)
java fern
eloclaris mini
anubias nana 'petite'
and my first time trying
Bucephilandra 'green wavy' (growing darker green leaves with a metallic red sheen to them, awesome plant!!!)
bucephilandra 'deep purple' (still has emersed growth)
bucephilandra 'black centipede' (new leaves are growing in VERY dark green)


For hardscape I have 2 well weathered small tree stumps. 
black lava rock to go with my black blasting sand substrate. 
Bag of small lava rock to add to blend the sand and larger rock together.

Last couple pics of my scape before I dig in tomorrow morning. I will attempt to take pictures during the rescape lol










The big guy was being very photogenic the other night.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Looking forward to seeing the next rendition of the tank.

And that Bleheri has outstanding color. 

They can really turn it on when in the mood.


----------



## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

That is incredible that you were not only able to rid your tank of camulanus, but do so without nuking it. It is substantially more impressive that you were able to save all but the originally infected fish. Once a parasite undergoes it's full reproductive cycle in a host it's all but futile to get ahead of it... at least in fish. 
Your Rainbow collection is truly beautiful. As to the idea of packing a tank with 200 Neons... it's a gorgeous sight (I'm not quite there), but it packs every bit as much difficulty. Ive got about 70- 85 Cardinals/Neons in one of my 75 gallons.. I want more, but it got to the point that the risks of adding new stock even through QT was not an enjoyable thought. I have about 100 Neons in my 150 along with several other large groups and I'm now at the same point. I won't buy them unless I inspect each one. My goal is 120-140 In my 75 and 200+ in my 150. So I'm going to try breeding them. I can't really be confident looking at more than 40 at a time.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Looking forward to seeing the next rendition of the tank.
> 
> And that Bleheri has outstanding color.
> 
> They can really turn it on when in the mood.



Yes they can. My Herberts just GLOW when they are happy. The Bleheri is the big man on the block. He always stops for his picture to be taken, all the other fish can not be bothered to. 

I did have an accident during the rescape. I used a 35 gal. tub to temp the fish in during the rescape. I had a bubbler and heater in there with them. Well I did not have the lid on tight enough, and even though the tub was only about 1/3 full several managed to jump and squeak through the opening. It took me a bit to notice, One of my wongo creeks, an SAE, and my young male bleheri (not the big guy) jumped at I think different times and I did not notice. I managed to grab the wongo creek, and the SAE in time, but unfortunately by the time I noticed the bleheri he he was gone. I was certain that the water level was low enough that they could not jump, but I was horribly wrong. I am kicking myself for loosing him. 

The fish have settled back in very nicely and are exploring the new scape. Pics at the end of the post. For the most part the rest of the rescape went well with the exception of the accident. 

I am going to our local spring auction, and there is a guy here in Colorado that has an incredible bow collection. He took Lori's entire collection when she left the hobby and has a ton of gary's fish as well. He usually has some great bows at the auctions so I will bring a bit of change and see what I can get. I really hope he has bred his m.nigrans again. I had some several years ago from him, and man they are beautiful. 



The Dude1 said:


> That is incredible that you were not only able to rid your tank of camulanus, but do so without nuking it. It is substantially more impressive that you were able to save all but the originally infected fish. Once a parasite undergoes it's full reproductive cycle in a host it's all but futile to get ahead of it... at least in fish.
> Your Rainbow collection is truly beautiful. As to the idea of packing a tank with 200 Neons... it's a gorgeous sight (I'm not quite there), but it packs every bit as much difficulty. Ive got about 70- 85 Cardinals/Neons in one of my 75 gallons.. I want more, but it got to the point that the risks of adding new stock even through QT was not an enjoyable thought. I have about 100 Neons in my 150 along with several other large groups and I'm now at the same point. I won't buy them unless I inspect each one. My goal is 120-140 In my 75 and 200+ in my 150. So I'm going to try breeding them. I can't really be confident looking at more than 40 at a time.


I personally am surprised as well. I am keeping a very close eye on the tank, and will treat again if needed. I noticed a common theme when searching about the worms, a name that I cant remember off the top of my head at the moment. Apparently he is known for research on this particular parasite. I followed his directions to a tee, and completely sanitized all of my equipment each and every time it touched the water. I think the anal nature of how I went about treating the tank helped. We will see in the long run if I was successful. 

One of these days I might give the large group of neons a try. My wife and I have an agreement, I can have one large tank, and one nano tank. I tore down my nano tank because of the worms (the ruby tetras were infected as well) It was going to be a huge pain to try to treat the 6 of them like I did the big guys, so I euthanized them with clove oil and took the tank down. It might find its way back as a nano salt water (my daughter has been bugging me for one) But for now its nice only to have one tank to focus on. I am still very very enthusiastic with my bows so, I think I will keep them for a while longer. 


Some pics. (plants may move or change over the next couple months)

Lets get started:









During the rescape:









From the top:










Buce 'green wavy' upper left, and buce 'deep purple' lower right they are still working at growing submerged growth. There are a couple leaves on the green wavy with a red metallic sheen to them. Awesome plant. 









Buce 'black centipede'









ludwigia repens and my lotus









Full tank shot, little less exposure:


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Pictures, pictures pictures!!!

Quick update. things are growing. The emersed growth is all dying, and I am pulling it out as it does. My buce are growing very slowly. I have some new growth though, and it is great!!! Some algae around the tank, light GDA and light diatom algae, and a little bit of black brush algae, which was left over from the previous scape. I am attacking that with a fervor. As usual I lost all my mermaid weed lol. I will try it agin eventually, This time it lasted longer than previous and actually gained quite a bit of height before it jumped off the cliff. I have soo much lanagandra now lol My tissue culture pot had at least 30 plants in it, and my LFS was able to get some more mature stuff in for me, which had another 4 larger plants. I will start giving away the small plants when they fully convert. 

Our local auction is on Saturday, I hopefully will grab some new bows, the Quarantine tank is up and running. I have cycled media ready to put in to get things rocking. I will of course check out any plants available too and see what I can get, there are a few areas I want to put some stems. I have not had rotala rotundifolia 'green' in a long time and hopefully will find some there. 




























https://lluspq.ch.files.1drv.com/y4...NpYygWsEg?width=1024&height=576&cropmode=none


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Auction was ok. Lots of low light plants, more typical stuff. not many bows, which had me a bit bummed, but what was there I grabbed lol Well I passed on the boesmani, but won 6 M. rubrivvitata (sp?) aka red lazers. They look GREAT. They apparently will be the smallest bows in the tank when they mature. They are all relaxed in the Q tank until May 5th. I will automatically treat for parasites. But other than that, it will be just some monitoring. Pictures to come later tonight. Right now I am resting my legs lol Got home from the auction and did an unscheduled 40 mile bike ride.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Here are a few pics of the new bow. The pics are not the best, The Quarantine tank is in essentially a closet lol. my wife calls it the Man closet. Its big enough to have a desk and what not, but not big enough to call a room lol.


----------



## vanish (Apr 21, 2014)

Well, that makes me feel better about not being able to go to the auction!

Congrats on the new bows.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update, no pictures yet. I still have the rubrivittata in the Q tank. I was unsure if they were of breeding age so I tossed in a breeding mop...... And we had eggs lol They hatched way sooner than I was ready for them to, so I have about 5 fry in a net floating in the tank while I wait for the breeding box to show up. I am pretty sure the adults are healthy, just going to wait it out and get the full 6 weeks in, hopefully to collect more eggs. I am not sure how many fry got eaten as this was not the plan off the bat, more of a spur of the moment type thing. The box should be here tomorrow, and I will move the mops into to the box and see how many total I get. I have enough baby food from the last group of fry I raised out of a now gone fluval flora (they were CPD's that hatched) So they are good for now. pretty excited to get more of these little guys.


----------



## The Dude1 (Jun 17, 2016)

Noahma said:


> Quick update, no pictures yet. I still have the rubrivittata in the Q tank. I was unsure if they were of breeding age so I tossed in a breeding mop...... And we had eggs lol They hatched way sooner than I was ready for them to, so I have about 5 fry in a net floating in the tank while I wait for the breeding box to show up. I am pretty sure the adults are healthy, just going to wait it out and get the full 6 weeks in, hopefully to collect more eggs. I am not sure how many fry got eaten as this was not the plan off the bat, more of a spur of the moment type thing. The box should be here tomorrow, and I will move the mops into to the box and see how many total I get. I have enough baby food from the last group of fry I raised out of a now gone fluval flora (they were CPD's that hatched) So they are good for now. pretty excited to get more of these little guys.


I don't know how I missed all of these updates.. wow!! The rescape looks fantastic!! I am beyond jealous that you were not only able to attain such a nice group of Red lasers, but you got fry by tossing a breeding mop into the QT tank?! I would absolutely love to have a larger group of smaller bows in my rainbow tank. I was able to find 2 nice healthy Red Lasers... but that was it. I do have 4 very nice Kamaka's that I'd love to try breeding... anything special about water parameters in your tanks? Whats the pH and temp? I always preferred the idea of using moss instead of mops, but with all these success stories utilising mops perhaps I should try the established method.
Are you feeding the fry yet? What do you plan on feeding them? That's going to look killer with that group of Red Lasers in there.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

The Dude1 said:


> I don't know how I missed all of these updates.. wow!! The rescape looks fantastic!! I am beyond jealous that you were not only able to attain such a nice group of Red lasers, but you got fry by tossing a breeding mop into the QT tank?! I would absolutely love to have a larger group of smaller bows in my rainbow tank. I was able to find 2 nice healthy Red Lasers... but that was it. I do have 4 very nice Kamaka's that I'd love to try breeding... anything special about water parameters in your tanks? Whats the pH and temp? I always preferred the idea of using moss instead of mops, but with all these success stories utilising mops perhaps I should try the established method.
> Are you feeding the fry yet? What do you plan on feeding them? That's going to look killer with that group of Red Lasers in there.


Thanks!!! I have wanted to do a stump scape after running across Sanj's bow tank years ago. I finally found some tree stumps that fit the tank. 

The bows were just a coincidence. they happened to be at the local spring auction and I bit. I have never had these guys before and was not sure how long it took them to get mature enough to breed lol. I was very surprised to see the fry in the tank. I don't think many have been eaten, these guys have been sticking towards the bottom of the tank. The fry have been moving to the opposite end of the tank from the sponge filter, and its pretty dim there. I am up to 5 fry now. I looked over the two mops carefully this evening and moved the one that I had hanging into the breeder box that finally came in. I think there is about 10-15 eggs that I could actually see, and a few fungused ones that I removed. 

These guys seem to like the vertical mops. There were no eggs in the mop I have on the bottom of the tank. 

The red lasers have reached the major suppliers now, and many of the LFS can order them now. They are not cheap though. They had them on wetspots site a few weeks ago at around 15 / per I think.

The mops are easy and cheap to make. I only have weeping moss in the display tank, and not much of it yet so I could really only use the mops. I know the color does not matter, but I tend to lean to the greens lol. 

I really don't know the params at the moment. Its been a while since I have checked them. Last time I did the water was coming in around a ph of 7.4. I keep the water at 76*. 

I will update when I see more fry. hopefully with more pictures. I did a major hack job on the tank tonight, so things are going to be very short lol.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update. Just moved the rubrivittata to the 75 gal. They are settling in quite nicely. I really am surprised at how small they are compared to the other bows lol. They really look bigger in the 10 gal. The other bows completely dwarf them. Once things are settled I will upload some pics. The coloring on these little guys is very intense. 

On a side note, I need to highly recommend cleaning your co2 diffuser regularly. I have not done it for a while, and well I almost gassed my fish........ I came home the day after cleaning the diffuser to all of my fish at the surface, some beginning to do the death roll....... I pulled those guys out and put them in a bucket of fresh water, I brought the powerheads and spray bar to the surface and started to do small bucket at a time water changes. Things settled down, and all survived. I will get in the habit of doing that once a month now. 

The next issue is going to be redialing in the co2 over the next week, and dealing with the resulting algae until its at that right point again.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Here are the pictures. Man these little guys are just hard to photograph lol. This is the best I can get at the moment.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Tank is looking great.

Very nicely presented, and I really like the layout.

Looks like a great home for those healthy looking Bows!


----------



## Immortal1 (Feb 18, 2015)

Have to agree with Gregg - tank is looking very nice!


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Thanks. Things are growing nicely except for the hair grass, its just sitting there lol. I got a plant I have not seen before, kind of neat its pogostemon stellatus 'octopus' It grows very similar to stellatus, but stays green, and the leaves are longer and narrower. I am trying to get a few more stems of it to fill in. Its just to the right of the normal stellatus. I want something on the very far right, just not sure what yet. The Buce are starting to fill in. The black centipede is really neat looking, almost black leaves. The deep blue is getting some nice bluish metallic color to the leaves. Nice little plants.

Bump: Thanks. Things are growing nicely except for the hair grass, its just sitting there lol. I got a plant I have not seen before, kind of neat its pogostemon stellatus 'octopus' It grows very similar to stellatus, but stays green, and the leaves are longer and narrower. I am trying to get a few more stems of it to fill in. Its just to the right of the normal stellatus. I want something on the very far right, just not sure what yet. The Buce are starting to fill in. The black centipede is really neat looking, almost black leaves. The deep blue is getting some nice bluish metallic color to the leaves. Nice little plants.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Been a while since I last updated. Got busy with cycling this summer. 

Tank is doing VERY well. Algae is now down to almost nil. The BGA outbreak I fought with all summer finally gave about a month ago. Since then, only a little green dust algae on the glass each week. The plants are finally growing well. I only have 1 that is not doing soo great, not sure what is going on with it. I added a few more plants, a few swords (I love my hadi red pearl!!!) And some species of bacopa that gets a very nice pink color on the leaves. The bows are doing fine. I did loose a herbertaxelrodi to a fungus infection that I treated the whole tank for. But the others are doing great. I am very happy with the rubrivittata, they are stunners. deep blue glow. If I get a Christmas bonus I have my eye on some wanamensis that can be traced back to Gary Lange, we will see if I can get ahold of them though. 

Anywhoo, here are a few updated pictures. I upgraded my phone, and man its taking some incredible pictures (Pixel 3XL)

https://photos.app.goo.gl/vTN9XS6rTBiu9vu37

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WCtUSNtumXFpiSXw8

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4TCyc3Ny5gbEbqf59

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JtXfXFWCReEJ1YFS9

https://photos.app.goo.gl/FLbbG6fTa5aZJQGD7

https://photos.app.goo.gl/SeuPmuaA14JAFhjDA

sorry for the links to the pictures. I will try to get them imbedded at some point.


----------



## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Nice tank and the fish photos are great! Good to hear the BBA as been reduced substantially.


----------



## jahmic (Jan 30, 2011)

Hello old friend 🙂

Tank is looking great! Glad to see that you are still enjoying the hobby. We settled into a new home a couple years ago and I decided to jump back in...the new tank is up and running.

Look forward to following your build.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Hiya all . I am still around, just have been busy again this summer with cycling. 

The tank is in a poor state at the moment. I tried a new fert. strat., and well... umm..... I lost about half the plants before I could correct it. I just received a delivery of new plants, so that should be back on track here shortly. 

I also have been fighting something in the tank. It has taken out about half my bows. It is presenting as columnaris, but it is slower moving, and attacking mostly the mouths of the bows. I just recently think I might have won the battle, I will see over the next couple months. 

Its been a trying time for the tank, but I will get it all back in order as fast as I can. The remaining bows seem to be happy and healthy, they are laying eggs all over the tank, which I always take as a good sign. My plan over the winter is to get the stock back up on the bows, and get some other species from the oceanic area of the world in the tank as well. 

No pictures at the moment, I am a bit embarrassed at the state of the tank. More to come at some point lol. The winter is going to be dedicated to my tank more, and My cycling will end up at the back burner until warmer weather. (I HATE riding my trainer in the basement ughh...)


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Hey good to hear from you.

We all have set backs....it happens.

Looking forward to more updates and pics.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Hey good to hear from you.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Its been trying that's for sure, hope things are looking up. Got the new plants in, and settled. Now let's see how well they grow. Most were in the emersed state, so it will take some time to transition. I shifted the stump on the right further back and to the right. Giving me some more room for plants, and hopefully in the near future some bottom dwellers.























Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Well, My first post in over a year! I have been on auto pilot with the tank. In February, I had a very aggressive attack of columnaris. It started with my herbertaxelrodi, and very quickly swept the tank. Out of all of my bows, I managed to save one single rubrivitatta male, and two SAE's. I have been soo depressed that I lost almost all of my fish that I just did the normal maintenance and kept things up and running. 

Well, I decided it was more depressing looking at a mostly empty tank and I decided to change that. I dont think I will do bows again for a while. The expense, and energy spent to bring those little fish to the beautiful colorful grown fish is just not with me for now. Soo... I will move to a more community tank for a while. I have always wanted to jave a tank of a few species of tetra, so I think the final stocking will be as follows. 

10- Congo Tetras
40 - Neon Tetras (I am really looking forward to this part of the tank!)
10 - Oto's
20 -Serpae Tetras
A pair of Apisto's (species to be decided)
and possibly some Cory's

I will keep the SAE's (named Bert and Ernie) in the tank, they keep to themselves, and mostly stick to the back of the tank until the lights start to dim. The Rubrivitatta seems happy at the moment, full color, active in the tank. I will keep him, and hope that other fish in the tank will not stress him out. If that happens, I will give him to another bow keeper in Colorado. 

I replaced the lighting tonight on the tank as well. There were too many dark areas of the tank with the 30" BML light, and the Ecoexotic light was pretty darn dim, So I opted to put (2) Finnex planted 24/7 ACL's on the tank. We will see how well they work, the are VERY noticeably brighter than the lights that came off. I have set up my own programming, and have roughly the same light time period as before as well. 

I am going to go pickup some Congo tetras on Saturday if my LFS still has them in stock. They had a tank of them a couple weeks ago. The Q-tank is up and running and a seeded air filter is ready to go!

Lets see if I can keep up with journal entries this year. 

Anywho here are a few links to some pictures I took during my minor rescape and new lights. 

Before the new lights after the rescape
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ars3kKUevsML--kPWcu9-qGeeWFQJA

After the new lights!
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ars3kKUevsML--kzE9jrsYG7as2GzQ


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Update. 

I am enjoying the new lights. The custom 24/7 feature on the light seems to work well. No algae as of yet. I will adjust the light levels if needed. right now I have the schedule set as 

12Pm - 3Pm - 10% red, 10% white
3Pm-6Pm - 100% all colors
6Pm - 9 Pm - 100% all colors
9Pm - 12Pm - 10% Blue, 10% Green, 0% Red, 0% White
12Am- 12pm - 0% all colors.

The transition between each time block is smooth, and produces a very cool effect. 

I also picked up 10 Congo Tetra's They look great. Currently housed in the Quarantine tank. They should be ready to go into the main tank on Christmas. 


Took a few pictures tonight as well.


----------



## WaldoDude (Jul 4, 2019)

Hey the tank is looking very nice! 

If you ever decide to go back to an oceanic theme, an option for crustaceans are some Australian Algae Shrimp. There's Darwin and North Queensland Variants but they grow much bigger than cherry shrimp and are usually compatible with rainbows and other similar sized fish. We also have the so-called "Australian Amano" which is the Caridina Typhus, itself a bit bigger than the other algae shrimps. Since we cant import true amano shrimp here, those shrimps I've mentioned are ones we rely on as an alternative. Although I am not sure if you can get your hands on these guys in the states! 

Example Darwin algae shrimp: https://algaeeatingshrimp.com.au/products/australian-algae-eating-shrimp

Example Australian Amano: https://abquatics.shop/products/aust-amano-shrimp-rare


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

WaldoDude said:


> Hey the tank is looking very nice!
> 
> If you ever decide to go back to an oceanic theme, an option for crustaceans are some Australian Algae Shrimp. There's Darwin and North Queensland Variants but they grow much bigger than cherry shrimp and are usually compatible with rainbows and other similar sized fish. We also have the so-called "Australian Amano" which is the Caridina Typhus, itself a bit bigger than the other algae shrimps. Since we cant import true amano shrimp here, those shrimps I've mentioned are ones we rely on as an alternative. Although I am not sure if you can get your hands on these guys in the states!
> 
> ...


Thanks! The new lights really seem to have put a punch in the plants. They seem to be doing really well. 

I do plan on going back to setting the tank up with bows and species from that part of the world again at some point. They are just to enticing not to. It was just too painful to loose all but one bow (pictured above), so I figure I will go a bit with a general "community" tank, and setup another bow tank at some point, too many species of bow I have not had yet, and I REALLY want to get my hands on some m.nigrans again. 

I made note of the shrimp species in my aquarium notebook, I might have to look for them even before I head west with the tank again


----------



## gjcarew (Dec 26, 2018)

When those congo tetras color up they'll be stunning. Those, dwarf neon rainbows, diamond tetras, and bleeding heart tetras are all on my shortlist for medium-size schooling fish for whenever I get a bigger aquarium. There's a person who goes by Triport with an African tetra tank that makes me want to try alestopetersius brichardi as well, I've never seen them as colored up as they are in his tank.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

gjcarew said:


> When those congo tetras color up they'll be stunning. Those, dwarf neon rainbows, diamond tetras, and bleeding heart tetras are all on my shortlist for medium-size schooling fish for whenever I get a bigger aquarium. There's a person who goes by Triport with an African tetra tank that makes me want to try alestopetersius brichardi as well, I've never seen them as colored up as they are in his tank.


Highly highly highly recommend getting m.rubrivittata over the praecox (neon rainbow) They are MUCH MUCH MUCH more colorful. The lines of praecox has been dulled over the years, and ther rubrivittata have only been known to science for a few years, and the lines are very bright. They are GREAT little fish.

So far the Congo tetras are absolutely stunning even in the Q tank. I have wanted to keep them for years, but was always in the hunt for new bow species I had not kept. I might have to find some alestopetersius brichardi at some point too. 

Eventually I will start back with bows. But for now this is giving me some fun!


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Two updates. I will do them in separate posts to keep my photos on track. 

the new lights are BRIGHT. And my couch is low... like right at the eye level with blinding LED low. So. I asked my Wife's cousin's husband to build me a hood for the tank. And he did a great job. The last photos with the hood on the tank have a little bit of light bleed around the hinged portion of the hood, We later fixed that by adding a brace inside the lid to deal with the slight warp in the hood. I had no idea how much light was being disbursed into the room, its much darker now with it on, but the tank is much more of a focal point. 

My job tomorrow is to put some paint on it tomorrow, and go grab 20 Neon Tetras... more info in the next post.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Ok, fish post no. 2 for the night. the Congo tetras went through Quarantine with no problems. So yesterday morning I moved them up to my 75 gal. They took a bit to come out of hiding, but now they are all over the tank, feeling comfortable. 

The coloring on them is just plain awesome. Started with co2 on half the day yesterday, and full co2 today, they barely noticed. the plant growth is short of amazing. Slight algae starting to pop up in areas, but I will modify the lighting a bit to help with that. We will see if that does anything here shortly. I also increased my fertilizers a slight amount as well. 

My Rubrivittata seems ecstatic that there are other fish int eh tank with it now. The congos are following him around like lost puppies, its quite humorous. 

Next step is to start getting the Neon tetras. I will pick up 20 tomorrow, and once they are out of Quarantine, grab 20 more. 

Steps after that is to get ahold of the Serpae tetras, then oto's and then finalizing on a pair of apisto's (species to be determined) I am having fun with this tank again!

Some photos now. The last few my daughter took on her Christmas present lol.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Near miss!!!! 
Sunday night I went to go do some adjustments in the tank and the water felt quite warm. So I dropped in my Thermometer to get an idea of where I was at. 84 Degrees!!!! I typically keep this tank at 74. I figured the new hood along with the glass tops was holding in heat, so I removed the back plastic of the glass tops, and left the hood open along with turning down the thermostat a bit to see if it would come back down. Fortunately that worked, and by Monday mid-day the temps were back to where they should be. The reason for the temp change was not what I thought it was though. I noticed Monday night that my plants did not seem to be swaying near as much. So I did a little investigation. My circulation pump had seized. The motor was cracked, and I think it was the reason for the water heat up. 

Sooo..... I had to replace the circulation pump that I had. I decided to go with 2 of the sicce voyager nano's. I have one in now, and man it moves some water! and its tiny. especially compared to the Hydor pump I had before, the second one should be in on Thursday. 

On the plant front. I am getting a little bit of dust algae, and still getting green spot algae, and a tiny bit of staghorn. Its manageable at the moment but I want to nip it in the butt. I brought down the lighting to 80% of max during the high time of the lighting period. And I have a different type of Iron on the way, My Ludwigia inclinata is showing signs of iron deficiency. I think with my higher PH that the plants are having a hard time pulling iron in from the chelated version I am dosing. 

I now have figured out that my Heteranthera zosterfiolia is most likely alien in origin.......
I did a massive trim on the suckers on Wed. of last week (3" off the substrate). By Saturday they were about 3/4 up the tank again! And by tonight when doing a quick trim, they were at the tanks surface. Thats a foot + in a full week.......... I think if I watch closely I can probably see it growing. The other plants are much more manageable, and only require trimming once every week to two weeks.

The fish are doing great! I think my rubrivittata has decided that the tetras are like a bunch of college students moving in next door. At first he was hanging around them, and seemed to be pretty enthusiastic about them being there. he has changed his tune, he mainly ignores them now. I am thinking about getting a few more of the rubrivitatta so he is not alone. I will have to see I can get ahold of a few. 

The Cardinals I have in my holding tank are doing great as well. Its amazing how quickly they group up when something they don't understand happens. Saturday is the last day for them before they move up to the 75 gal. Then its off to the LFS to get another group of a few choices. I can go get the last 20 Cardinals, grab the 15 or so Serpae tetras, possibly grab the 10 Oto's, or if one of my LFS has a nifty apisto, grab a pair of them. We will see what I find when I am out and about. 



Here are a couple pictures, and a couple videos. I took these as the lights were working the way down for the evening. 



















And the videos

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ars3kKUevsML--t9kCflN9p1srCAgQ

https://1drv.ms/v/s!Ars3kKUevsML--t7m24wZc4DzVdmLg


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick update. The first 20 Cardinals just finished Quarantine, and have been moved up to the 75 gal. Man I forgot how bright their colors can be. I am not sure I will add another 20, still deciding. They are certainly adding to the tank. Everyone else in the tank is doing great! The congos are funny little things, they like to play in the flow from the current pumps. Plant wise, I just started dosing the Ferrous Gluconate, We will see if this does any good. Still trying to figure out how much, and if I should just dose once per week, or with my micros. Any ideas are welcome. The first dose I did 1/4 tsp. with my micros. 

If the Eichhornia diversivolia grows any faster, I might have to get a bigger tank. At this point, I am trimming it twice a week. Usually down to abotu 4" off the substrate. I have been replanting most of the tops, so yea thats taking over the tank. I added a couple new plants, nothing too special. Rotala Rotudifolia (for some strange reason, I have ALWAYS had problems growing this lol.) and I plopped a red tiger lotus in the right front side. It has already put out 4 leaves, I picked it up as a forgotten bulb in the back of a LFS plant tank with one penny sized leaf. 

Keeping on my stocking up. I went to a further away LFS yesterday, and was able to grab 9 Serpae tetras, and my normal LFS also got a shipment in of them a few days ago, so I have a group of 20 in the Q tank. After that, I will probably go grab the 10-15 Oto's, and then once they are in the main tank, its time for the Apisto's still unsure of which ones to get.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Been a bit since my last update. The Serpe tetras are in the tank and man the are colorful. Bright red, feisty little suckers too. They tend to keep to themselves, chasing and nipping at each other. 

Another addition to the tank, that JUST moved up from the Quarentine tank was a pair of Apisto agassizzii. Its been YEARS since I have last kept apistos, and I forgot how much personality these little guys have. So far my female has been wandering all over the tank, absolutely fearles... My male? yea, hiding deep in the plants, and freaks out any time a serpae tetras gets anywhere near him lol. Now that the lights are down on the tank, he has moved from the corner to somewhere else in the tank. 

I switched out a few plants as well. Finally got some Ludwigia cuba again, and added some rotala rotundifolia again. Everything seems to be growing well. I have a little staghorn on a few plants, and some green dust algae. I have made adjustments to my cleaning to hopefully get that under control. 

I should have some pictures of them with my next update. 

Here are a few of the tank from the past week.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Quick little update. The Apisto. pair have moved up to the 75 gal. The first day they were pretty shook up. They hid most of the day, occasionally poking out to the front of the tank. My female was the first to calm down. She decided that the other fish in the tank were beneath her and would chase them off if they got to close. The Male was scared of everything in the tank. When one of the other fish got anywhere close to him, he would run and hide in the plants. 

Today, he has really changed his behavior. He seems to have established a small territory around the right tree trunk. He has a little hidey hole along the side between the two here he goes and "rests" he has a path he makes to check on the territory every once in a while lol. They seem to recognize me as the "food bringer" and tonight they would come up to the front of the tank and watch my hands to see if I had grabbed the food bottle, and if they see that. They go a little nuts. 

The male has taken on a pretty overall deep purple color. In the Quarantine tank he was MUCH lighter. I am assuming he is doing ok, and has taken on the darker color because of less stress, and a dark substrate. The female has taken on a light cream color. (not quite breeding yellow, but hopefully soon). 

Fun little fish. Its been 12 years? around that since I have last had Apiso's in one of my tanks. 

Plant wise, I have been playing around with my fertlizers. I seem to have less green dust algae with my current dosing. I am still not happy with it though. I still have staghorn on my slower growing plants, I just cant seem to shake that. I have been doing deeper cleanings on the tank and really working at cleaning out the organics to see if I can coax the staghorn away. 

I ordered some NilocG thrive to see if changing to that will help a bit. I can start with that, and I have plenty of my dry fertz to suppliment in specific areas if needed. My cousin has been using it in his 29 gal. tank with great sucsess. 

A few pics.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Figured I should post an update. Cycling season is starting so more time is going to be spent in the saddle and grinding up hills. But the tank is in pretty good shape. 

the switch over to NilocG's fertz seems to have been a decent move. Plants are doing great. The greens seem deeper, and the growth rate has ticked up a little. I did a massive trim this past water change, and well my staurogyne repens was looking pretty sad, so i topped that and left the bottoms. We will see if they bounce back, or if I will have to break up and spread the areas I did not trim. I still have some staghorn on older growth on the swords, its annoying, but slow growing. I just need to focus on getting the tank cleaner. Green Dust algae is another annoyance. Again, its not much, and it is growing slowly, so I need to figure out where I need to make changes to get that under control. 

I shifted some plants around and things seem to be going in the right direction. 

We named the apisto's Archie and Edith. They are little firecrackers. Constantly begging for food, and they like to come to the front of the tank and watch whats going on in the room. Everyone else is happy, healthy and doing their thing.


----------



## Greggz (May 19, 2008)

Tank is looking great!

Nice work.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

Greggz said:


> Tank is looking great!
> 
> Nice work.


Thanks! I am putting a little more time and work into it. I am very happy with how things are growing. Just got that little bit of algae to take care of, but This is very enjoyable again!


----------



## xrayguy (May 11, 2019)

you've got some beautiful colours in there, both plant and fish


----------



## gjcarew (Dec 26, 2018)

Those swords are stunning, as are the apistos! Large plants seem out of style at the moment but I love the way the huge leaves contrast with the smaller aquatic plants.


----------



## Noahma (Oct 18, 2009)

xrayguy said:


> you've got some beautiful colours in there, both plant and fish


Thanks! I am pretty darn happy with the way the tank is developing. There are a couple algae issues I need to tend to, but overall its growing well. 



gjcarew said:


> Those swords are stunning, as are the apistos! Large plants seem out of style at the moment but I love the way the huge leaves contrast with the smaller aquatic plants.


I have not known to be in style lol. There are 4 swords in there at the moment. 

I have an echinodorous 'kleiner bar' in the back behind one of the logs. I need to find a better place for it, the leaves it is producing are a brilliant burgundy. 

An echinodorous 'oriental', which is the one you see smack dab in the middle. That sucker GLOWS when the other LEDs start winding down, and the reds remain up. It grows fast as well, I think there are a couple babies growing around it. 

There is also a mini form (if you can call it that) of the amazon sword just to the left of the oriental. 

And a echinodorous 'hadi red pearl" right in the front left side. That one pops a few red leaves in the center of the rosette, but they pretty quickly turn dark green. 

I have a Barclay longifolia 'red' in the back right side of the tank too. I am unsure if I want to keep it. If I don't spend a ton of time trimming leaves, they quickly overtake the top of the tank and shade the rest of the plants. Last time I let it run wild I ended up with a handful of 40" long leaves!

I am looking for a good large diameter stem plant to put where I have the hygrophila corymbosa 'angustifolia' It is VERY prone to staghorn, and I am tired of dealing with it. I am open to suggestions.


----------

