# First Father & Kids Tank - 20 High - 5/23/14 update! Ich Death recovery!



## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Hi all, I'm moving this tank to this subforum to track progress in the right place. This is actually a joint tank with my 9 year old son, we picked up the tank from Petco last week during the dollar a gallon sale, but seeing as how our mutual knowledge of this hobby is a tie, I'm going to read up and help him out. My previous two experiences were horrendous pre-internet affairs, knowing nothing and pretty much sprinting the fish to fish heaven when I was a teen.



So the subtrate is one bag of Fluval Shrimp Stratum and a bag of eco-complete. I had another bag of eco-complete that I guess is trade bait now, since I didn't need it - the stratum is the bottom substrate, and the eco complete tops it light in the front and slopes up higher to the back a few inches. Just some sand-colored gravel in the front right corner as a decorative psuedo-pond look too.



A Tetra HT30 was supposed to keep the water at 78 but never got there, so i swapped in a fluval with adjustable temp and the digital therm has the water at 77.8, nice. I may lower this to 77 to keep tetra happy, and Platys should be ok with that. Fishless cycling, so the fluval 30 is cranked at full speed - after cycling i guess i'll just keep it there unless the fish are swimming backwards, haha. Didn't use the carbon bag, just the filter and biomass. Actually just added a second filter in middle after cycling was done, the original filter left on the bottomost tier, biomass on top.



Speaking of biomass, I used Dr. Tim's One and Only, dropped Dr. Tim's ammonia in there (about 23 drops) and left everything to settle for 3 days. Before the ammonia the tap water after being treated with Prime was zeros across the board for ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Believe it or not, when I got back home after those 3 days the API tests read 0 ammonia, 0 nitrates and 20ppm nitrates! sheesh, quick cycle! I dropped some more ammonia in there last night to keep the bacteria fed while i went plant shopping after work today. (got back home, ammonia dropped from 2.0 to .5 in 8 hours, not bad) I did a 50% water change to get rid of the nitrates and lower the water level to plant plants, and filled it back up with tap w/prime once planting was done.



The foreground is dwarf baby tears with some crypt and bits of moss, and the middle ground is up in the air right now - maybe some anubis around the petrified wood that should be coming from eBay later in the week. 



The background is Cabomba, half are red which I fenced that lighter gravel area with. Incoming C02 tester from eBay too, and I have Flourish here and some liquid C02 booster - just put a thread and a half of booster in this morning, and the weekly flourish after the water change.



So far so good, but told my son we needed to take it slow, ten emperor tetra in there now and schooling fine, some of the plants came with green and black algae, so I was thinking of picking up some shrimp - my son wants red ones!



Any suggestions for something I missed? I'm going low-light on the plants since the Aqueon hood has a 18W full range spectrum bulb for 20 gal. I have a gravel vacuum but probably won't use it for a while since I don't want to disturb the bacteria on the gravel, and there's not much in the way of fish detrius yet (plus when there's a nice amount of plants in there I don't want to disturb them!). Using the vacuum just to suck water out for water changes at the moment.



Here's the tank - didn't have time to take a pre-planted shot since I actually swung by Win in Chinatown on the way home and got a deal on a bag of freshwater plants, and 10 emperor tetra. So here they are! Did a 50 percent water change first with prime, took all the obvious black algae laden leaves off, and left room for the petrified wood coming later this week (the pagoda was a compromise with my son, we're keeping it on the hill in the back to hide the heater). All ten tetra survived the ordeal, and should be enough to school i think. 














Edit: That is the below, following is the after, as of 12/7/13! Amazing, but since I upped the CO2, lowered the amount of light, upped filtration to a Fluval C4, and loaded it with Seachem Matrix - NO BLACK ALGAE. No joke, my bane is finally gone! And no fish deaths - nitrate has stayed nice and low! I have to keep getting in there and pruning stuff - this is after a recent pruning, already it's getting stuffed in there again roud: Following the pic is a video of our five new Lambchop Rasbora shoaling with the Galaxy Rasbora (Celestial Pearl Danio).





















5/23/14: ich wipeout. Added a balloon ram that had ich, wiped everything out except 4 Lambchop rasbora, that one neon tetra that must be Wolverine, the Pleco, and two amano shrimp. Since the tank has gotten to the point where all the ich is gone and off the current fish, might as well intro new fish during treatment since I would treat them for ich anyhow. Thought we got ten rummynose tetra but one snuck in there that wasn't- the January Tetra. 

http://www.inaquarium.com/hemigrammus-hyanuary.php

It loves to school with the rummies so this is fine. Before adding them, here is a shot with the new driftwood the store gave me as a mea culpa for the fishocalypse:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

OK that first post is technically 4/29/13, today's post is 4/30/13. Checking the water as A-OK after the ten tetra have settled in (with no problem at just under 78 degrees either, which is good for future platys in a week or two), I decided that 10 Sakura shrimp isn't too much of a bioload to introduce today either, what with all the plants doing their thing too with algae ready to be chomped on. I was thinking of feeding the fish twice a day, but until I'm sure the bacteria is caught up on 10 tetra and 10 shrimp within 48 hours, I'll keep it at one feeding and monitor ammonia levels. I'll do another water change, probably 20% when the petrified wood arrives, probably on Thursday. For the shrimp, it'll be 10 juvies from this tank:


















These are the petrified wood that are coming, about 20 pounds total in weight so I think it's fine without a foam cushion on the bottom of the tank. It's Nazlini from Arizona, so none of the color should leech out, it's been inert for like 200 million years, haha. Here it is wet, to give an idea of how it'll look in the tank. Four look mountain-rangey, two look good leaned against each other for a bridge type thing, and the one big one should do well in the back right corner hiding the thermometer, maybe with a tall plant or two peeking out from behind:










Hmm, one of the swords has pretty bad BBA, I had to prune about half its leaves already. I should just dump that plant before the BBA spreads to other plants. The other sword has fuzzy bright green algae that actually looks kinda nice behind the pagoda, I'll keep that. But yeah that BBAed sword is freaking me out - what a thing to introduce to a new tank! I think I'll get a marimo ball for the shrimp too, maybe park it solo in the light gravel corner to stand out.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Ok, enough fauna intro for a few weeks, probably just get 3 Platys more then that's it. The count currently is 10 Emperor Tetra, 10 Sakura Shrimp, 6 hitchhiking snails. Fauna foreground is dwarf baby tears with a few pygmy chain swords hiding in there, the main mid plants are green and red cabomba, and the back I removed that nasty grass one with the black beard algae and bought an amazon sword and a back fence of Anacharis that will quickly fill out I'm sure. The Sakura Shrimp seller included a few floating plants - giant duckweed, some a very nice red around the edges - to help suck nitrate and do pH balance. And the coup de grace, a a Marimo moss ball for the shrimp to play with in the open waters. I stuck a post-filter sponge on the intake tube as a pre-filter until the more attractive small black Fluval pre-filter sponges come.

So here's the tank before the petrified wood is put in - it got delivered today so my son and I will plan placement and all that. Since my son's 9, don't expect graceful, but do expect playful! (his idea to stuff the two tufts of "firey looking" java moss into the windows of the pagoda to make it look like it's green fire haha). Here are the pics from this morning, May 1:










Here's a side shot to show the low-medium-high front to back gradation of the 'scaping:










And here's a pic of the pagoda. The Amazon sword in the back will hide the heater and cables when it's bigger, and the pygmy chain sword in the front of the pagoda's just a lawn ornament for the "courtyard" according to my kid:










Once the petrified wood is situated, I might get one more round of red stemmed plants to offset them, either tall behind or short in front.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Isn't this a great way to frame cabomba? I think I'll try something like this with the petrified wood and the red cabomba to the right, behind the marimo ball.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here we go! My son picked out the right two to be the bridge, and the biggest piece we had the hardest time deciding the orientation but this way makes a mini alcove-grotto so it's nice. The side pieces were the quickest and easiest to place. I love how the "bark" parts make for a great mountain rangey feel, but then some unexpected color pops through. What a difference from no petrified wood to adding it! I have a few more plants coming to add red stemmed fencing to the far back, but the cabomba idea 'tween the rocks worked well. Here are the pics!





































Oh, and those 11 Sakura Red Shrimp can hide like NOBODY'S business! Max I only see 6 at a time, today just 3, haha - but then peekaboo you see one emerge!


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## Jayme (Nov 27, 2011)

Those plants look very healthy! Love the petrified wood, the stuff I have doesn't have nearly that much character.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! And agreed, the petrified wood captures all the surprising angles of something organic, yet it's rock - very cool! Just a few minutes looking at it and you see something else you've never seen. Here's another shot, and the view changes on you again!


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## jimmytruong87 (Oct 16, 2012)

petrified wood can increase PH of water, so I suggest you should tie moss on that Rock


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Ill keep an eye on the pH, and run a test tonight too.

Oh, and I put the carbon bag in the fluval filter after putting the petrified wood in, just in case there's more than just a trace of minerals on there - I did scrub them all before putting them in though (my son actually helped with that too, thanks!) so no strange Arizona dirt should be floating around there, but you never know. I'll keep the carbon in there for a month then toss it if everything looks a-ok.


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## Big Dog (Nov 4, 2009)

Looks real good.


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## BarbH (Feb 27, 2013)

*Re: First Father-Son Planted Tank - 20 High*

Nice looking tank.

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## dukebalt (Jul 24, 2007)

Nice! Everything looks good! Glad you and your son are both doing the project together and enjoying it! Are all your tetras still there? Haha. I was reading that when the emperor tetras get bigger they can actually eat the shrimps... Hopefully you have a large enough community by then!

What other fishes do you plan on getting? Anyways, GL!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Yep the ten tetras are happily schooling around! I intentionally asked for juvie shrimp so they'd grow up used to this tank, but yeah I hope the tetra don't develop a taste for them before the shrimp molt up a few sizes! Actually the biggest shrimp female is pretty bold, just walks out there into the open and eyeballs curious tetras (who thankfully don't nip at her).

My son's having so much fun with the tank, that my daughter wants to get in on the action - in a few weeks we'll head to Pacific and let her choose a few Mickey Mouse platys, and then that should be it as far as fauna in the tank - a 20H shouldn't hold much more than that, right?

Oh, and I forgot, if the pH is too high and the water starts getting hard because of the petrified wood, I can always up the CO2 booster since right now I'm only putting in half the suggested daily dosage.

Oh, and just in case I forgot, the little gal left this message for me on our "to do" board this morning:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the tank is definitely not ready for more fish yet. Bacteria is having a hard time keeping up with the addition of tetra and shrimp. Since they've been added it's been a daily water test, seeing the ammonia at .25-.5 and nitrates 30-40. I did 20% water changes. However today I had to be away from home, and of course when I finally got home near midnight the shrimp were hiding and the fish were not swimming right and the gills had streaks of blood yikes! Poisoning! Instantly did a test, ammonia was .5, nitrates 40, and oh no I even saw some nitrites! Did a 40 percent water change immediately with prime and got the levels to .25 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 5 nitrates. I thought it might have been the petrified wood but i did a pH test before the water change and it was 6.8, after water change was 6.6, both seemed fine. Probably it was what i initially thought - the bacteria just hasn't caught up yet. I also took all debris off the prefilter and out of the filter, and just tossed the carbon filter, that thing wasn't helping. It's been an hour now since the water change and everything looks fine, guess I'll sleep on it and make certain I'm home to do water changes each night before it's too late!

BTW the hiding shrimp came out of hiding after the water change - I'm glad they made it!


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## hobo717 (Apr 11, 2013)

*First Father-Son (and soon Daughter) Planted Tank - 20 High - Petrified Wood is*

Gotta get that Mickey Mouse platy. Can't wait for more photos.


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## Bananariot (Feb 28, 2012)

Did you cycle the tank? or use some cycling supplement? I would recommending tetra safestart or seachem stability asap and follow the dose on the bottle. 

The biggest issue I could see is the sensitivity of shrimp to ammonia, with any amount its almost guaranteed death either over time, instantly, or on the next molt. Once that happens nitrites will spike with a dead body hiding somewhere. 

I use TSS or stability regularly with no issues. Some would say CYCLE the tank....but that's clearly not an option at this point


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Yep it was fishless cycled with Dr.Tim one and only, it was ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 20 i think when i introduced the tetra. i think i found another problem - my aquaclear 30 was BLASTING so the poor tetra had no rest - they might have shown stress and blood vessels near the gills because they were popping veins trying to swim against a too strong current all day long. could be that over a water quality thing, since the shrimp seem just fine, and those lil fellas could rest on the ground away from current. well i turned that way down and that seems to have the tetra less frantic, and the plants beneath the flow unbowed.

Probably all of them put together - poisoned, tired and stressed from too strong a filter current flow.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Wow, amazing what one emergency 40% water change (and lowering the power of the filter flow) can do! Overnight the cloudiness on the bodies are gone and the red lines are too, and the tetra are zipping around totally normally. WHEW. I thought I'd lose all my tetra all at once! 

And I spotted three shrimp this morn, doing their thing. They seem to not have been affected at all, and I'm not worried about the rest I can't see, since those were the smallest and have been hiding since minute one.

Water change came with Prime, and I put CO2 booster in this morning. A bit of Flourish too since I figured all that daily water changing probably took lots of nutrients with it too. Tossed the carbon filter last night, just one sponge filter and the biostones in there now.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well this morning I saw that one tetra had a red looking string thing sticking out of its anus - Camallanus Worms is the worst case, I'm not taking any chances, probably that fish in all the stress and poor health is succumbing to that worm, so I'm ordering the dewormer flake III with Levamisole for all the fish from Angels Plus. Not sure if it's from the fish food I got from Win, or just a parasite in the tank of Emperor Tetra from Win, but either way I think I better toss that fish food and medicate these fish ASAP!

Now I'm thinking the listlessness and red streaks may be from worms? Which would mean they ALL have it? I'm paranoid! The medication can't get here fast enough!! Yeah those platys aren't coming into the tank until this thing is taken care of!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I couldn't wait. I swung by Petco to start the meds - mixed freeze dried bloodworms with this:

http://www.petco.com/product/105336/8-in-1-safe-guard-4-Canine-Dewormer.aspx

Once it was nice and absorbed (a tenth of a gram for a 20 gal tank plus whatever bloodworms the fish felt like sucking in) I left it alone for a few hours - now, I can't even tell which tetra was the one with the worm sticking out of it. I'll re-do the dose for 2 more days and that should get me to the flakes of the other meds I ordered for next week's medicating.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Checked on the fish today they all seem fine. Installed a CO2 drop checker last night and it was still blue, but I put some booster in anyhow. Skipping feeding in the morning, will give medicated bloodworms in the evening after a water test and maybe another water change. I wanted to gravel vac but everything is surrounded by flora- I did vac the marimo ball area tho.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

The meds are definitely working as intended - snails dead due to meds in water (so i know it's in the water and effective), no more red worms, and fish are pooping out white shriveled up worms like crazy. Can't gravel vac those up since plants in the way, but I'll leave it to the water dosing to finish them off. Round two will be the medicated flakes with the lev-something coming later this week. I'll do one more dose of this dog med tomorrow. 

On a happier note, new Ludwigia Repens x Arcuata and Hygro Difformis came today thanks to Doc7 - planted them and looking good. Took that chance to 'scape a bit, adding some more light gravel as a path to the pagoda, and eco-complete behind the rocks for more plant anchoring.

Edit - 2 hours after meds and the Tetra are definitely doing much better. All signs of red lines on the bodies are gone, they are expelling dead white worm chunks like nobody's business, and the shrimp are doing fine - heck i even saw 2 snails moving around. Tomorrow will be the last dog dose for sure.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here are the pics - btw, strangely my son didn't seem bothered at all about the fact that the fish had worms, he thought it was cool that we were using bloodworms to soak up the meds, then the fish ate the bloodworms, then dead worms came out. Fascination with the macabre begins early, I guess! Oh, and the fluval pre-filter came, far more ninja than the big yellow filter i had on there before. Here are pics!










We found a big rock in the gravel, so we just gave the marimo ball a little hat:










forgive the bit of milkiness in the water, that's a combo of just putting in the new gravel and eco-complete, and probably a bit of bacterial bloom too until the cycle catches back up. I found one more of the bigger snails still moving about too, so i guess the dog meds didn't wipe them all out!










And here's a shrimp shot - that pagoda courtyard shows off how much green type detrius is probably covering the substrate too - but i can't vac it up without sucking up the plants! Well the shrimp sure seem to like eating that layer anyhow.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here is a pic of a dead worm on the way out. Gross! Good news is all tetra still have a great appetite so I got them tided over until the levi flakes come, for round two.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Whoa nitrates only 5ppm today? The water wisteria must be seriously sucking it up? No water change needed today!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Haven't seen any shrimp since the last dog med dose, but the fish are definitely benefiting - three tetra all expelling worms at the same time, it's a wormocalypse! I'm sure the shrimp are fine, they're just good hiders.

So that's 3 days straight with the fenben. The Levamisole flakes should be coming soon, I'll do a water change tomorrow to get rid of what worm bodies i can, and Charles just got back to me about the water column Levamisole, so by the end of the week i'll be able to do that 3-day treatment too. I'm going to attack this thing and wipe it all out! Big worms are tough on little tetra!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Hahaha, I just have to laugh - getting this tank up to speed is a never ending thing! I think I left too many uneaten medicated bloodworms in the tank - I scooped up all the floaters but I'm sure some drifted down and are hiding. Result? Heterotroph buffet! Yep, milky water this morning. I'm going to skip feedings until the Levamisole flakes come anyhow - that should cut down on uneaten food, should give the Tetra time to expel pure worm, and starve those Heterotrophs a bit. I'll gravel vac tonight too, to get what i can of uneaten food and expelled worm.

Also, the CO2 checker has been on blue since day one, my son pointed out. The CO2 booster doesn't seem to make that budge to green. Good news is that the algae seems to be pretty much dead. The bad news is that with low light too, I'm worried that the flora will soon follow unless I get more CO2 in there. Maybe it's time to think a bit high tech, invest in a paintball setup?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I eschewed paintball and went with the full size tank, 5lb co2 with bettatail regulator+. Once it's all set up ill take a pic!


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## Shimagoma (May 15, 2012)

hey more snacks for the shrimp 

also ohh yeah! wisteria SUCKS up nitrates like no other! That and floating plants just gobble it up (sometimes i have to fight with the wisteria to not take all of it from the other plants!) 

looks cute!


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## Redtail84 (Nov 27, 2012)

CO2 liquids won't change your drop checker in my experience. only actual CO2 injection (bubbles) will effect the drop checker. Good call on the 5# tank. I can only use a paintball due to space constraints, and it's getting to be a bit of a PITA.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Oh yeah! Between the water wisteria and the floating duckweed, the nitrates went from 20ppm to 5ppm - the only reason I did a water change yesterday was to do a gravel vac for dead worms, yuck! Well at least they're dead worms, not live red ones anymore. But still, just in case, can't wait for the Levamisole to get here! The fish are on day two of a fast to help with constipation, if the medicated flakes aren't here by tomorrow I'll feed them boiled peas to speed the expelling of worms along. 

Water is less cloudy today with heterotrophs, since yesterday the curved scissors and angled tweezers came in - I manicured everything and plucked all the dead stuff and algae-laden stuff out of the tank. The funny thing is that the tweezers are fine for placing shallow rooted plants, but I feel like I'm smashing the thicker longer stemmed plants when planting deeper into the substrate in the back of the tank - plus, I lose "feel" haha. So for those I still plant with my fingers. One wisteria had a runner with plenty of roots waiting to hit soil, so I snipped that and planted it as a solo this morning. BTW that HC lawn really needed a mowdown - I discovered two more dwarf swords hiding in that matted mess after clearing it out!

Fauna count - snails still hanging in there, I saw a few shrimp still around (still have no idea where 8 of the male shrimp are still since day one, hah) and all ten of the tetra are still with us. One tetra however is very aggressive, and struggling to swim constantly and sinking tail down all the time, even when all the other fish are hovering asleep. I'm thinking this latest bout with worms damaged something internally, so sad. He's still eating though, which is good, but I'm not sure that he'll recover.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

One tetra didn't make it today, the swim bladder problem guy. I made sure to scoop him out when my kids were asleep. I fed the rest some frozen peas, thawed out de-shelled and smashed up into edible bits - they all had a good appetite for those. I'm hoping whatever they can get rid of will start moving out before the medicine comes tomorrow. Can't get here soon enough for me!

BTW no need for a water change today, the nitrates were almost zilch - that water wisteria is really amazing! If anything, after the worms are all gone, I need to put some more fauna in the tank to produce enough ammonia to keep the cycle pumping. No way I'm putting anything else into the tank before the worms are definitely gone for at least two more weeks.

Well on a happier note, the fish have gone to bed, and the shrimp are now roaming - those same three females - man, those other 8 might be dead or something! Maybe in a month when they are bigger they'll all pop out. Anyhow the shrimp aren't going for the leftover peas yet, but they'll stumble on them soon I'm sure. The flora carpet behind it shows some green algae, after this pic I manicured out as much as I could. Here's a pic before lights out!











Haha just noticed two leaves of Echinodorus tennelus apparently survived my culling of the parent plants due to BBA, and here they are popping up out of the gravel. Nature finds a way! The sprig to the left just floating and hanging by a root has that green algae fuzz all over it, I plucked that out of the tank after the pic.


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## RWaters (Nov 12, 2003)

Jahn said:


> Thanks! Yep the ten tetras are happily schooling around! I intentionally asked for juvie shrimp so they'd grow up used to this tank, but yeah I hope the tetra don't develop a taste for them before the shrimp molt up a few sizes! Actually the biggest shrimp female is pretty bold, just walks out there into the open and eyeballs curious tetras (who thankfully don't nip at her).
> 
> My son's having so much fun with the tank, that my daughter wants to get in on the action - in a few weeks we'll head to Pacific and let her choose a few Mickey Mouse platys, and then that should be it as far as fauna in the tank - a 20H shouldn't hold much more than that, right?
> 
> ...


I recall about 15 years ago, my kids wanted those mickey mouse platys as well. We also had white platys with black spots that were called (at the time) dalmation platys. I had forgotten those fish until I saw your little girl's message. Come to think of it, I don't see those dalmation platys anymore. Or maybe they're calling them panda platys now! :hihi:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Haha yeah she's still bugging me about them! But it's hard to say something like "not until the parasitical worms are gone for good, kiddo!" we saw some dalmation platys at petsmart, but no way am i getting fish from there.


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## handlebar (Feb 7, 2013)

I've had 0% death rate from my Petsmart with my Bolivian Rams, Ottos, Pleco, Shrimp & Danios. Maybe yours is different.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

handlebar said:


> I've had 0% death rate from my Petsmart with my Bolivian Rams, Ottos, Pleco, Shrimp & Danios. Maybe yours is different.


I've just heard horror stories from big box store purchases, but good to know there's an alternative experience. Actually, my tetra were from a LFS closing up, so score one for Petsmart, 0 for LFS so far then, haha. Darn worms. But the Levamisole came today! I'll start the meds when I get home tonight. 

Oh and the shrimp were from craigslist, a private breeder, and those lil fellas are still doing fine (although 8 are still AWOL!).


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## BarbH (Feb 27, 2013)

*Re: First Father-Son (and soon Daughter) Planted Tank - 20 High - Petrified Wood is h*

Good to hear that you are having success in getting rid of the anchor worms. As for the box chain stores I find that it depends on the store. The petsmart near me always seems to have healthy fish, while the pet supplies plus lately seems to always have something going on in their tanks. Any place that I go to when buying fish I always check out all of their tanks to see if the fish are healthy. If one tank has sick fish I will skip on buying fish from them. Especially at the box stores since most of them run their tanks on one filtration system. If one tank is showing illness I automatically assume that the rest of the tanks have been exposed and may also be ill even if they look fine. So far my experience with the lfs has been great. The place that I go to runs their tanks on individual filtration for each tank. Again I still check all the tanks. From talking to the owner I do know that he tries to make sure to bring in healthy fish, and if a known source seems to always have issues that he stays away from that.

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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Good to know - the Petsmart I went to had a belly up fish floating in the tank, so i took that as a sign and just window shopped with the kids instead.

Just finished ordering up everything needed for that pressurized CO2 system, when the tank comes I'll go fill it up then i'm good to go. Also ordered that Current USA Satellite Freshwater LED Plus lamp for 24-36 tanks, I'll keep the aqueon hood and just take the strip lamp off. Kids can have fun playing with all the different combos of RGB lights, haha!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Both Levamisole treatments came today, started both, the treatments will be completely done the first week of June. No WC until this saturday which is fine since after the WC before the meds the nitrates were near zero - thanks, wisteria!

It's been 6 hours and muahaha the 1-2 punch of Levamisole is totally working! The medicated flakes are blue, and I know it's working because the dead worms coming out aren't white anymore - they are BLUE. Plus, they are skinnier and come out much quicker than before, which means the fish aren't backed up as much with big monster ones, we're getting the livelier junior worms out now. Goooood stuff. So far the snails seem fine, the one shrimp I saw today is happily perched on a cabomba harvesting away, and the fish are all cool.

all cool except for one tetra (my son pointed this one out before he went to bed, looking worse now, may be time for the Dead Fish talk with him), the one missing one eye, who isn't reacting well - hovering just above the substrate while everyone else is swimming around, for a long long time. may be dead after i get up in the morn. also noticed one of the petrified rocks has a nasty white sludgey bacteria blanket starting on it. so want to scrub and gravel vac suck that out, but i don't want to dilute the levamisole on day one after all - on saturday though that white stuff is toast. Let's hope tetra #2 doesn't join it by then.

edit - well i was hoping it was just general lethargy from the medication, but all the other fish seem peppy still - that one-eye tetra must have been already weakened and maybe the worms in death throes inside of it did it in. down to 8 tetra. one of the 8 just threw up the medicated flakes - crazy, never saw a fish do that, just totally puked a cloud of blue dots, the eaten medicated flakes. i'll keep an eye on that one, but it's swimming just fine with the rest of the bunch right now.

this stuff is tiring me out! but some more weeks of this before the tank is totally clear of worms, so i gotta keep going. sad to tell my son in the morn that the tetra are biting it.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Son seemed more surprised than sad when I relayed the tetra deaths to him, and it was offset that we spotted 5 shrimp today- the three females we always see, but two males for the first time! Plus one of the females is berried! Which gives me hope that the other 6 shrimp will appear when they are bigger too.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Turns out my HC (Dwarf Baby Tears) is actually Shade Mudflower, or "MICRANTHEMUM UMBROSUM." I learn something new every day! Unfortunately a lot was getting strangled by the algae it came with from Win - I tried to prune as much out as possible but now the carpet is thinned out and scraggly. There are a few new leaves though so I won't give up on it yet.


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## DCLyle (May 9, 2013)

*First Father-Son (and soon Daughter) Planted Tank - 20 High - Petrified Wood is*

It is a beautiful tank


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks, my son had a lot of input on the look! btw, FINALLY the remaining 8 tetra seemed ok when i got home. a few seemed a bit sluggish but i heard that's to be expected with Levamisole - they'll perk up when i WC big on saturday.

There is one shrimp chillin' on top of the prefilter ALL day. maybe it was dead? i poked at it, it flew off then swam back to the same spot. nope, he just likes that spot! Same with one on an amazon sword leaf. ok guys, stake out your spots.

the timer power outlet came today, i'll use it to control the on/off times of the incoming LED, which will trigger in turn the solenoid on my CO2 system.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

I got rid of the rest of the shade mud flower and good thing too, under the substrate there was a mess if algae mixed up in their roots. Room now for some cholla or driftwood. The Levamisole couldn't kill all the snails, I saw a tiny gold one climbing tonight.


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## DCLyle (May 9, 2013)

*First Father-Son (and soon Daughter) Planted Tank - 20 High - Petrified Wood is*

Tetras aren't aggressive; are they? I was just wondering if they have messed with your shrimp at all? Glad your finally getting the worm thing sorted. Did you ever figure out where the infection came from?


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## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

Tetras will likely feast on the baby shrimp.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

You're right. Buying cholla wood now and gonna source some moss to put over it as some cover for them when they come, but yeah more likely they will get gobbled.

It's possible the tinier juvies were already gobbled, but I have a lot of cover in the back, they may pop out like the males did today. 

Source of worms? The store tank, worms already in the tetra when I bought them. I'd return them but the store is closing and my tank is already infected, might as well treat as well as I can and prep the tank for healthier fish too.

Btw fish still pooping out dead blue worms even though the last med feeding was this morn. Go Levamisole, go!


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## DCLyle (May 9, 2013)

*First Father-Son (and soon Daughter) Planted Tank - 20 High - Petrified Wood is*

Will colla wood lower your PH jahn? I am going for African cichlids and they like a high PH


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## Nubster (Aug 9, 2011)

Cholla wood hasn't done anything to the pH in my tanks and I have 3 pieces in there. It just provides a good source for biofilm and being hollow shrimp and hide inside them. Not really hide well since the cholla is full of holes, but it would offer protection from fish since the holes are too small for fish to get into. Most fish anyways.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the petrified wood could possibly be raising my pH a bit, before the petrified wood it was 6.8, now it's 7ish. So if the cholla does lower it a bit, heck, that'll just bring it back to where it was. All of that is in a safe range for my tetra and shrimp tho, but I'll speak to the pH when the Cholla comes for sure - who knows, it may be a factor depending on how much stuff's in the 3 pieces I'm getting?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Levamisole treatment all done, popped in a activated carbon filter to get the med out of the water, and did a big WC change. If everything's cool, cool.


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## DCLyle (May 9, 2013)

*First Father-Son (and soon Daughter) Planted Tank - 20 High - Petrified Wood is*

Yay.. Happy for you guys!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

spoke too soon, after the WC i did a tetra head count - found one dead guy that wedged itself in the back right corner, back fin was gone? strangely enough the one i thought would bite it next, the one missing a right eye and has a cloudy mottled looking color to the body, is very sprightly and has just as good an appetite as the rest. So we're down to 7 tetra. Sigh. Big fat snail moving around, saw 2 tiny ones too, so the Levamisole didn't do it in. the berried shrimp staked out a place behind the pagoda with a dead green cabomba as cover, and a few juvie males are running around.

All in all, big crisis over with I believe, though I'll feel Levamisole flakes for 2 days next week too. Tomorrow I'll take the kids to Pacific to look at one particular Jumbo Red Mickey Mouse Platy (I know they should school in threes minimum but I don't want to move too quick with adds) for now, although the tank could definitely harbor 3 more fish as far as the nitro cycle is concerned.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Woke up, all tetra alive, success! Even the one-eyed sloudy looking one, which my son has appropriately named "ghosty" - he's just as active as the rest of them.

So it's not a big deal yet, but algae does build up a bit on the glass to where you can see a bit of haze and feel slime. Time for one BN Pleco! So off to Pacific we go - one Jumbo Platy, one BN Pleco, and that's it until the cycle catches up. If it cycles well, later maybe we'll get a few normal sized platys to keep the jumbo guy company. I hear Plecos poop a lot, so hey, more nutrients for the plants. definitely when the foreground plants come, no more gravel vac for me.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well 3 mickey mouse jumbo red Platys are in the tank, and an Albino Longtail BN Pleco! The pleco has a bit of fin tatter here and there, but nothing fungal related I think, I'll keep an eye out. I noticed that three of the tetra have fins that look nipped prior to introducing the new fish (including Ghosty - man, that tetra is just a hardluck trooper!), so here's hoping the bigger Platys will cow whoever the fin nipper is!

DARN just found one of the biggest reddest shrimp dead, wedged between the glass and a petrified wood, it must have slipped down in there and couldn't back out! Down to ten (unconfirmed) shrimp.

For happier news, here are pics of 2 of the 3 platys, and 2 pics of the one pleco!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

I thought I was doing it wrong as far as the algae wafer was concerned, just dropping it in. But after a while a few curious tetra picked at it, the Platy picked at the pickings, and once a nuisance snail started crawling towards it, the Pleco (the intended eater) finally took note and nom-nommed on it a bit.










After it looked like it lost interest, I took the wafer out. Hmm, next time I won't put so much of the wafer in, seems like a waste.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I knew it would happen. My son was the first to find a floater - down to six tetra now. This one was one of the three with the nipped fins, you could tell it had no rear tail by the end, may have died from stress. 

Amazingly, it wasn't Ghosty.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Gotta remember to just put an eighth of a wafer in for the Pleco, he definitely doesn't chew in the wafer much at all. However he adores the Ludwigia Repens x Arcuata, uh oh!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Oh oh - saw 5 Tetra schooling today, Ghosty not among them. Searched the sides and back, can't find him. No time before work to really shake the bushes, but I fear the worst. Poor guy, last night he only had a stump for a rear tail, he's really been harassed.

Good news though, is that the Platy, even though they are bonking each other for territory right now, are leaving the Tetra and shrimp and Pleco alone - spotted the Pleco this morn sucking on some petrified wood, and spotted two shrimp, one which is the berried one.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the poor BN Pleco has nowhere to hide during the day - right now he hides under a big amazon sword leaf. Therefore, a triangle shaped Pleco cave is incoming from PNT Aquatics, with a 1.5" entrance, about 5-6" long.

Problem is, where to put it? No room behind the petrified wood since all the background plants are already like a forest there. No room in the foreground since that's where the cholla fence and new foreground plants will be. My current idea is to maybe bury it underneath the little light gravel sidewalk i have running in front of the petrified wood, lengthwise, and having the entrance pop up under the petrified wood bridge opening up to the Marimo Ball courtyard.

So that would be this view, but instead of seeing the path under the triangle bridge, you'd see the opening to the Pleco cave:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

BTW since I've been doing water changes almost every freaking day with prime, the ammonia has been a little under .25 all the time, versus 0 before i did my first water change after fishless cycling was done. wondered why, until I read this:

"If you have chlorimine in your tap water prime converts/binds it into a less toxic form of ammo that the bacteria can still use, so it's not uncommon to see it up to 48hrs after a PWC using Prime."

Thus, now that WC can slow down a bit, I should expect to see the ammonia levels go down to 0 in about 2 days I hope. I'm just glad API is reading bound ammonia, not the type that would hurt the fauna.

I'll take the carbon filter out today too, and put a 2nd sponge in. The Levamisole should be all filtered out by now, especially after that one big water change, and none of the fish look sleepy from any Levamisole doping.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

No. Freaking. Way. GHOSTY LIVES!!! In fact when we fed the fish, Ghosty shot up like a bat out of hell and snatched a ton of food - I swear, with less fin back there, I think he's leaner and meaner in the water! 

BTW a bunch of foreground plants came today:

20x nodes of Marselea Minutea
5x Blyxa Japonica
2x Lobelia Cardinalis 'Dwarf'
2x flame moss golfballs, one christmas moss golfball (to put on cholla wood that's incoming)

I had to use big pebbles to keep the MM from floating away, haha!










BTW, sad note, I didn't notice that my Green Cabomba worked loose from my original bad shallow planting, so they melted. I bought lead plant anchors to replant them, but it already may be too late. Just in case I anchored some of the wisteria and ludwigia - don't want to lose those too!

BTW about an hour after planting, I saw a few tetra slaloming down the new foreground at high speed - not in a straight line but zigzagging amongst the flora. Cute! Oh, and the Platy are getting more used to the tank too, one guy seems to like doing loop-de-loops through the Ludwigia.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Just before bed, did a fauna count- found that big berried shrimp, Pleco is nocturnal so he is slurping on the glass like mad, two tetra still roaming the rest tucked away somewhere, two platy still jockeying for tank spots with the third happy to just swim through stalks. Saw a baby snail and a big fat ugly one. I guess the tank is settling in now, and hey even the bacterial bloom has calmed down.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Speaking of bloom, the petrified wood right behind the marimo ball acts as the wall for the current flow, and as a result any uneaten food or dead leaves tend to gather at its base. As you can imagine, once a week now I'll see a buildup of white fungus/algae or something gathering on that petrified wood. Yuck. Last week I just took it out and scrubbed it all off, but now I see it coming back again. 

I think I'll take it out, crack off the part that's fungused up and toss it, and instead of making it a sheer wall, kinda make a flow-fence idea there - maybe instead of using the 3 cholla wood incoming as a lateral fence from pagoda to bridge, i'll stack them 3 high there and attached the moss to them. That might work nicely as a place where detrius lands, plus a place that attracts shrimp and pleco to gnosh.

Of course, I did just add a bunch of foreground plants (kids helped with choosing where they went, son poked holes in the substrate with his finger) and 4 new fish, so the tank might be a bit out of balance, letting the white stuff find purchase again on whatever. Water reads stable though. Maybe I'll just scrub again and hope the second time's the charm. Daughter likes scrubbing slime off petrified wood for some reason so this will give her something to do.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Got home, did the logistics, and it's doable - pleco cave facing forward with cholla roof. Took that white algae petrified wood out, my wife is going to use it for th garden outside. All 6 Emperor Tetras still kicking, 6 Cardinal Tetra joined them today - schooling quorum! Well, right now they aren't mixing but when they calm down they'll spread out a bit I'm sure. Strangely, 5 of the Cardinals grouped up and swam in front, but the 6th poofed almost instantly and I haven't seen him all night. Maybe tomorrow's feeding will coax him out.

The CO2 canister came today, definitely too tall to fit under the table, so I'll stash in the corner after filling it up on the way to work tomorrow. 

The Current Satellite Freshwater LED+ came today too, and it's really awesome! The orange with high white combo is like NOON and freaked the poor fish out, so I quickly switched to a moonlight setting and oh boy too goth blue and dark! so i futzed with the custom adjustments and got a great low light setting that let the colors pop and be rich - I saved it as my "M1" for the evenings. Installing it was super easy with the deluxe Aqueon hood - lift the aqueon light off, put the Current on, done! The deluxe hood has a glass top right under the Current, so it's protected and I feel fine about having it so low to the top of the tank.


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## VJM (Feb 9, 2013)

I think we need pictures with the new light setup!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

You got it, ill take pics when I get home- and maybe the CO2 regulator will be here today too so I can take a pic of the whole rig! Edit - just got word that the CO2 regulator is indeed here! So I'll set the whole thing up then take pics!

Btw still only counting 5 cardinals and I searched hard. Where the heck did that sixth one go?

Maybe it's hiding with all the shrimp. I did see a shrimp this morning though, so they're out and about now that the new Tetra have settled in.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I found this handy page on the 'net, thought I would share:

AqAdvisor - how much Fauna can your tank hold?

That's my current fauna load - I guess we're a bit over, so no Oto like I was considering, but what's in there right now are all junior sized and we will sadly probably lose a few before they all become adults. No more fauna buying for now though! I do think the fact that the tank is a Planted one might help out a bit with this bioload though, who knows. At least that much fauna means the plants get some natural fert, haha - and no gravel vac needed from me!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

As promised, the pics! Big thanks to Bettatail who shipped a perfect rig for pressurized CO2. If the tank wasn't in the living room I'd display it loud and proud. As it is, I ninja'd it. Can you guess where the 5lb tank and regulator are?










Yep, behind the guitar! Pretty sneaky, eh?










From the side you might see it...except for the fact that I put a mic stand on that side, haha! The pop filter hides the back of the regulator, here's a shot where I can peek at the bubble counter:










Here's the Current LED. Look at how low a profile it is on the Aqueon Deluxe hood!










The full spectrum light is very bright, but for the evening I like this orange/white mix - you dial down the white until it's almost moonlight setting but still lets the tetra stripes pop and the shadows become sharp:


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## tizzite (Mar 28, 2010)

It'd have been nice to have a dad that was into tanks hahaha.

Setup looks great. I ordered that light too. Super jealous of your CO2 rig. I'm looking for a nice one, but money's a factor so endless vigilance on ebay for me...


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## VJM (Feb 9, 2013)

The tank looks great! Love the petrified rock. 
Very nice stealth setup, and "Starry Night" guitar. 

The light looks great as well. It will be interesting to see how your plants respond.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! That's my son's guitar, and he loves the Cardinal Tetra (but have only seen 5 out of the 6 since 1 second into introducing them into the tank, it makes us question our sanity, did we really put 6 in?). My daughter thinks the bubbles from the CO2 diffuser are cool and wants them coming from a toy volcano, haha. This will be the first full day of co2 with Current LED and a Flourish dose so here's hoping!

Btw the water is super clear right now. May be because I removed that one petrified wood that could't keep the white algae off? Anyhow, much better now!


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

Tank looks sweet. Is the ludwigia growing for you?

Although it grows green for me with a red under-leaf (as it was when I shipped it to you), when I first bought it it was a rich red color, so it may do that for you under certain lighting conditions. I'm not sure what the previous owner had it under, light wise or growing it in air instead of under water. That was over 2 years ago and I grow them constantly from the 3 baby trimmings I started with.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Hi! Yep the Ludwigia is hanging in there, but I bet it will take off with the new light, co2 and fert I'm setting up. If it goes all red that would be awesome!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

High five to my son, who handled the tank while I was at work today - unpacked the Red Root Floaters and floated them - insisting to float them one by one by hand, haha. However, just like with the poor giant duckweed, they floated towards the fluval waterfall of a filter and got pushed down underwater, getting trapped in the branches of the underwater plants. Eventually that killed off the duckweed, so I was determined not to lose the red root floaters the same way. taking two suction cups with inline tubing holders, and a small loop of inline tube, I fashioned a hoop around where the fluval poured water back into the tank - anchored to the glass via the suction cups. Bingo, the red root floaters quickly made a beeline to the hoop, but since the outflow was fenced off, none got through to get dunked. Success! I'll take a pic of it tomorrow, I'm beat.

three cholla wood came to replace the one petrified wood cliff - I superglued fire and christmas moss to them and angled them near the bridge, behind the marimo ball. Lookin' good, and will look better when it's all grown out I bet!

Melafix came today, which is good because the poor platy with the bloody fin now has a very nipped rear fin, ugh. Poor guy. Hope the melafix helps soothe that a bit, and also the emperor tetra with nipped rear fins. Someone out there is a fin nipper...

So that's it for now! I actually would take a pic, but the LED is on the same timer outlet as the CO2, so lights out at 10pm. Midnight here, time to sleep!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Pics!

Here is the hoop:










Here is the cholla with moss superglued to it (just noticed that a shrimp tail is poking out of the middle one, they made house in there QUICK:










And here's the Pleco walking up the stairs about to go into the temple. Really need to have that Pleco cave come soon, this is a poor alternative! BTW haha just noticed how CLEAN the pagoda is from top to bottom compared to a pic I took of it a few pages ago. The pleco make short work of any algae that might have drifted and settled on it!










My son did a water check, ammonia very near zero, nitrites zero, nitrates 5ppm. No need for water change even after introducing a fair amount of fish all at one time this week - bacteria keeping up, new plants really sucking up that nitrate. Upped the CO2 to 3 bubbles per second (15psi on regulator, needle valve maxed) no fish gasping yet - trying to get the drop checker to move off dark blue, if by the time i get home it hasn't changed, i'll refresh the drop checker water and solution just to be sure. These pics were taken at 7AM, LEDs at full spectrum full brightness. These plants are going to have a treat today!


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

*First Father&Kids Tank - 20 High - Current USA Satellite LED+ & Pressurized CO2!*

Drop checker is definitely the way to go along with fish behavior. Systems vary greatly with injection setup, tank flow, etc. my tank probably runs 12ish bubbles per second (I can't count that fast without slowing it down with video). Green but not yellowish drop checker after 9 hours. 

I start injecting co2 2 hours before lights on and kick it off an hour before lights out.


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

*First Father&Kids Tank - 20 High - Current USA Satellite LED+ & Pressurized CO2!*

Are you using specially formulated water in the drop checker? I forget but think most use 4 dKh water. Necessary for the colors to make sense...


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Yep, 4dKh water, and the pH reagent from the API test kit, the bromo blue one. If it took yours 9 hours, it should be about that by the time I get home from when I upped it from one bubble to three, hopefully I'll see some change there but if not maybe I'll just flush the drop checker out and try again. I don't want to go over 15psi since Bettatail said this particular regulator might not like going over that, 15psi should be the max.


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

*First Father&Kids Tank - 20 High - Current USA Satellite LED+ & Pressurized CO2!*



Jahn said:


> Yep, 4dKh water, and the pH reagent from the API test kit, the bromo blue one. If it took yours 9 hours, it should be about that by the time I get home from when I upped it from one bubble to three, hopefully I'll see some change there but if not maybe I'll just flush the drop checker out and try again. I don't want to go over 15psi since Bettatail said this particular regulator might not like going over that, 15psi should be the max.


Well it actually reaches that color 2-3 hours after lights on and stays there for the rest of the day. I run a high amount of surface agitation and inject with a "Rex reactor"


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Rats. Yep, going to redo the drop checker if I get home and it's still dark blue. If it's still like that for 2-3 more hours, I'll up the CO2 even more somehow.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I got home and I'm glad the drop checker works - because it was YELLOW. Apparently the 15psi had a torrent of bubbles coming out - in the morning probably the check valve wasn't totally open, and sometime during the day it popped the rest of the way open, uh oh. Glad I didn't gas the fish, but 2 of the platy were definitely near the surface gulping. I immediately turned it down to 10psi and a 3 bubble per second situation. Now it's 10pm so both the LED and the solenoid shut off due to the timer - giving the fish a break from that CO2 overload!

Remembering that CO2 shifts may promote algae, on the way home from work I grabbed two nerites. One good thing about a tank with too much CO2 is that the big fat ugly pond snail climbed up out of the water so it was an easy grab and toss. Now instead we'll have these two nerites - the horned one which immediately also went above the water line. Oh well, I think it'll de-gas while the CO2 is off tonight.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks to decotank's RAOK, this aquarium is officially stuffed with plants (my wife loves the Brazilian Pennywort)! So, no more flora and fauna in the near future, it's all about tweaking. Like how? Installed a pleco cave today with decotank's java moss, my son picked the location (put it in the grotto!) and I think it looks great there.

The melafix is really working - man that tree oil smell is powerful, haha! But the fish all definitely have perked up, none have died since, and that bloody fin on the platy is all non-bloody now - here's hoping that the fin starts re-growing too! The PPS-Pro dry ferts came today too, first dosing now in the tank!

I'll take a pic after I recover from all this massive planting - hopefully I didn't stir up too much substrate. 

3 bubbles a second for the CO2 is the sweet spot, the drop checker reads green and the fish all look happy. I checked it with the solenoid switching on and off to make certain the gas wouldn't get stuck again anywhere.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's the latest pic! The Pleco is using a cave...the cholla wood! He likes eating it out from the inside, and he's small enough to fit in there right now, haha.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Did a water test, ammonia nitrite nitrate all fine but pH dropped from 6.8 to 6.4. Due to CO2, ill reduce it to two bubbles a second. 

First seachem test, maybe I'm reading it wrong for phosphate? I have a reading of .075, very low! Well it's good I started dry ferts yesterday!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Got this CO2 dialed in - 2 bubbles a second was the charm! Green drop checker, success!

One nerite is very happy slurping around, the horned one. The other? Scared to even come out of the shell. Kinda wondering if it's dead, but I'll leave it be for now.

Speaking about scared, after the new round of planting I haven't seen a shrimp, a single one, all weekend. Until just now, one bold (and much bigger!) shrimp sauntered out and started harvesting off a petrified wood!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Just did a plant count:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/pTracker.php?do=trackPlants&id=5378

nineteen different types in a 20 gallon. That's kinda ridiculous. Might as well get one more plant and make it 20 for 20, haha! Well at least everything is very varied, but that last ROAK sure pushed it over the edge!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Good thing I started the melafix, because two cardinal tetra succumbed to neon tetra disease. All other fish look ok right now, but I'll keep watch. Water params all a-ok. Lost a nerite snail too, bottoms up with fungus starting, eww. Only the horned one left, and now it's MIA. Saw two shrimp today, both living in the cholla wood. No one using the pleco cave yet, sigh. The java moss on top of it started getting BBA so i quickly took it out and gave it an excel/prime bath last night. Looking ok today but I hope it won't spread.


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## sarazorz (Feb 11, 2013)

bah, you're an awesome dad! i'm trying to encourage my parents to invest in a show tank because they've got this one room in their house that would be perfect for it, but they just aren't into it. even though they're both chemists...you'd think they would be into sciencey things, like tanks. 

anyway, nice work.  good luck with that BBA!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Both kids found the dead cardinal tetra floating at the top at the same time - "dad, it looks DEEAADDDD!" oh man, well that's one way to teach 'em about that fact of life, haha. But they do love this tank!


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## sarazorz (Feb 11, 2013)

True, kids can learn quite a lot about the world from a tank. Ecology, Biology, and the birds and the bees too. Great tools for educating! Maybe you'll have some little scientists on your hands soon.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Ayep! My son is in charge of the water tests now - Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, pH, and I'll start him on Phosphate ("That's to feed the plants!") - my daughter is the Fish Counter - sometimes I doubt all six Emperor Tetra are still there, until it's feeding time! She counts them up, and bingo. I think those guys are pretty comfortable in the tank now, since they don't school together much anymore. But the Cardinal, down to 3, all huddle up still since they're the new kids. I feel bad for them since you should have 6 to feel comfortable, but since 3 died and the Emperors show no signs of being schooling buddies, all they've got is each other *cry* I have no doubt that the stress of a new tank brought out that neon tetra disease on two of them - hopefully they'll regain health and color as they settle in a bit, like the Emperors have. I am debating getting three more Cardinals and trying to keep it at school level - maybe even 6 for 9 cardinal total and hope that 6 eventually stick around, like the Emperors did. Yeah, the pessimistic approach.

The Platy and Pleco on the other hand are having a grand ol' time. I guess it's nice to be the biggest fish (bullies) in the tank, and have a whole area to yourself (Pleco shares the bottom with the ninja shrimp, although I did catch it slurping on Ludwigia leaves last night, hilariously trying not to fall off those skinny leaves!).

By the way, the CO2 and new lights and ferts are definitely working on the Ludwigia. Those things have taken off! All of them have already reached the surface, while before I think only 2 of 10 have. Some have even sprouted roots on the stem nodes, meaning they're ready for a clip and re-plant. I'll do that in another week or two, I probably have two more spots in the tank that can do with another forest. Plus, I noticed that the top of the leaves are starting to regain their red color, and the brand new shoots are half red already. Even the red cabomba is regaining some red where the new growth is, and the roots are coming in nicely from the cut stem plantings.

http://www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor....AqSpeciesWindowSize=short&AqSearchMode=simple

Well I feel bad for the Cardinal, but according to this calculator, I'd be maxxing past what's good for the tank if I add 6 more Cardinals. So we just have to hope that the Cardinal and Emperor eventually find solace in each other, and the Cardinal don't stress out too much. Gonna stick with my "no new fauna" promise for now! Those Platy really are active and add lots of bioload, so I get why they kinda dictate what's going on with the smaller fish.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I decided not to give up on the cardinal just yet. Time to restock some cardinal pals at pacific again! I'm sure the kids will be happy and hoping round 2 goes better! This will be the last shot for these sensitive fish, though.

Whoa all cardinal gone! Only had four neon left so I got those. Here's hoping this calms the poor tetra down!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the four neons actually ended up being 3 neon and one cardinal. Making 3 cardinal, 3 neon, because another cardinal was dead when I got home, leaving 2 original. No time to spare to save the school! A glass Petri dish came for feeding so even though the fish never showed interest in an algae water before, I put one in the dish before introducing the four new tetra as a distraction. 

Totally wasn't ready for the response- a three hour feeding frenzy, including all four new fish! So much for shyness! I took the rest of the wafer out once even the Pleco was done- half a wafer left. I caught some of it on video, ill share that when I have time to upload it. After the lights turned off, I saw all six neon/cardinal school around. What a friendly sight!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here is the vid!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's a pic of them all hanging out together - once in a while a few Emperor will too, but they're not really dedicated to the school like the others are. Also once in a while the two smallest Cardinal, the original two left, will pair off and wander somewhere apart from the rest, but for the most part they seem to get along with the new four bigger Tetra added last night. And those four? Seem very comfortable already! But the Emperor still act the most comfortable still - the Platy, who knows, they're goofballs. The pleco still hasn't investigated its cave as far as I've seen, haha.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Snail update - after the Levamisole killed off most of the snails, including a really pretty gold ramshorn which was a shame - I thought only the big ugly pond snails lived on (got rid of as many of those I could, don't see them anymore, at least not the adults).

However, I noticed two baby ramshorns growing pretty quickly that survived, one with a red foot and blue shell that should look very nice. Also, somehow a fairly big MTS also survived - it popped up out of the substrate and started cleaning the glass after lights out (ugly shell but hey pickers can't be choosers).


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## Doc7 (Apr 7, 2011)

*First Father&Kids Tank - 20 High - New Video 5/21/13!*

Sounds like your tank is growing nicely


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks Doc! And the crazy thing is - do you know what the best cleaning crew I have right now is? The Platy! They always act like they are starving, they pick all the algae off anything they can find it on - and one blyxa leaf was melted, I saw a Platy grab it and snip it off without moving the plant! What?! Thanks for manicuring the lawn, Mickey!

There was one leaf though that had some pretty resistant diatoms though - giving it a Prime/Excel bath and using a Magic Eraser to take it off the leaf was quick and easy!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

I swore only 2 shrimp were left but I just spotted a third. Amazing- where do they hide? So maybe all ten are still around and just really really good hiders.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Sadly the last two original cardinals died, I think of columnaris slowing them down and the othe fish harassing them to death. In fact this morning I caught a platy finishing the last off- bully! Man I am so tempted to return those dumb fish but I guess it's not their fault that the cardinal got sick enough to be caught with a fin nip. 

During this whole week of cardinal death, no emperor tetra losses at all. Maybe the more colorful cardinal gave distraction to the platy who otherwise would have nipped the Emperors? Maybe I should return those platy after all.

Edit - yep gonna return them to Pacific. well at least the 4 neon tetra seem to be doing ok so far- the 4 neons from Pacific look bigger, more adult so that might help. i still think one of those neons is actually a Cardinal, but I'm going to call them all Neons so as not to remind the kids of those original 6.

A few of the wisteria leaves are browning and curling - don't think it's a nitrate deficiency, i still read 5ppm on average. maybe a phosphate thing? but i've started dosing dry ferts, hopefully it'll catch up. in the meantime I'll snip the effected leaves off when i get home - the new shoots seem plenty green and happy.

the ludwigia is really shooting up. nodes growing roots. ordered more plant anchors for when i snip and bunch and plant those ludwigia tops. the new green cabomba i got from a ROAK is doing far better than the first bunch i got from Win - these are already almost hitting the top of the surface of the water in only a few days!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

http://www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor....AqSpeciesWindowSize=short&AqSearchMode=simple

So that's the idea for a post-platy world. Which still leaves room for maybe a calmer non-jumbo platy in the future, haha.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Ever try getting 3 hyper platy out of a heavily planted tank? Lets just say its time for a rescape since a third of the plants are now floaters! To the very end, these platy are trouble!

Anyhow, back to pacific they go!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

3 Platy returned, 3 Blue Velvet shrimp added as I used the store credit right away, no muss no fuss. Did the algae wafer trick again to distract the tetra from the new additions. So, the tank is ready for the CPD incoming next week!

I convinced the kids on the Danio by playing them a YouTube vid with them set to techno music- now they are jazzed, haha!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I got home from a 3-day vacation, fish are all fine but I found out why - caught an emperor tetra with a SHRIMP HEAD in its mouth! Curse you, shrimp eaters!!!!

Water change, Actually saw a bit of nitrite yikes, so that should take care of it. MM looks browned out as does the java moss and val that I treated for BBA, uh oh.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the manicuring and replanting is done, I also fed another algae wafer and took it out in a few minutes since none of the tetra did much but a nibble on it (must be stuffed on Shrimp) but the other shrimp now seem bolder? Why? Just running everywhere and swimming around, haha. Here's a vid of them just swimming (Fire Red), scooting in the grotto (Fire Red, but more Sakura) and blowing through the tetra (Blue Velvet).


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Pulled the pleco cave for now - the pleco shows zero desire to use it right now, gravitating instead towards the cholla wood, rasping on it and actually fitting into it. Here's the most recent shot of the whole tank!


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## EngineChauffer (Apr 3, 2013)

Loved the video, awesome pictures man...great update. I too added shrimp to my tank and am sure the angels and the big one have ate at least a few. A few of each survive though, but are in constant hiding. The amano shrimp are more brazen but bigger and quicker than the yellow neos. I think a few of those died though too. I may get some more but want to see how the survivors do or if they get eaten also. I really don't want to give up my angels and kissing gourami though. Choices.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Shrimp happiness is a tricky thing! Today, no deaths, so it was a good day, haha. Saw 4 shrimp totally swimming around with the tetra, tetra left them alone, so odd!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Found a blue! He was hiding in the moss, which makes sense. Bah, the camera focused on the strand of moss in front of the shrimp instead of the shrimp itself:










I realized that in the dark of Pacific, I grabbed this blue one, the Blue Sakura ("Lazurite") I wanted from the store, but the other one is more of a straight up Blue Rili, like a pale Blue Velvet - and the third, is still MIA a half week later haha! The Blue Velvet is the one at the end of the video above just scooting around like the boss of the tank.

By the way, the three platy were definitely the ones at fault for the nipped fins and fear in the tank - not even a week later, all the fauna are out and about, and some red sakura shrimp are even swimming from leaf to leaf on all levels of Ludwigia. Fun stuff! I hope the intro of the CPD later this week goes smoothly and doesn't upset the current residents too much.

Edit - on further research, I think all of them are Blue Rili (Blue Velvet), just different shades. Reason is, all of them still have a bit of the red rili coloring on their bodies. This all-blue one is still called a Blue Rili, for example:









Full Blue Rili Shrimp by Frank Jiang (all copyrights: Ebi Ken)


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I was wrong- two of the three have red. The missing third was full blue! Found it harvesting on a cabomba tonight, ill take a pic. Even under the tail, all blue and dark blue! My son was like "where have YOU been hiding?"


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's the pic! Best blue in the tank for sure!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

You know what I noticed? Pretty much since the beginning, the low light plants didn't grow that much. In NINE days, from when I switched to the LED, CO2, and PPS-Pro dry fert regimen? It went from this to this (look at the size of the amazon sword leaf in the back left - crazy! And I had to chop half of the ludwigia off and replant it in the valley where the pleco cave was!)

5/18/13:










5/27/13:










Oh, and since that pic on 5/27/13 the water has turned super crystal clear - so like two days to go from cloudy after the latest planting to clear, not bad. No need for floculants or the like - just patience. Oh, and last night I also used anchors and zip ties behind the tank to keep the thermometer wire from showing in the back.

I'm thinking now that the ludwigia in the valley will eventually shoot up again and totally obscure the petrified wood behind it. I should replant it to the left, and move a midground plant there instead. Hmm, or just leave it there, and give the impression of the three exposed petrified wood structures the spotlight, like a psuedo iwagumi thing haha.

Oh, and a metal check valve came today from amazon, but it didn't pass the "whistle" test - blowing air into it from either end resulted in no air passing through, so no way am i hooking it into my CO2 system. The current plastic one will have to do until a replacement valve comes that actually works, haha.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Whoa, what happened? Nitrite spike! Funny thing is, ammonia has been around .25 for a while, i chalked it up to a faulty API tester, nitrites zero. but then ammonia actually went down to zero, and nitrite was 2ppm!!! big water change, got it down to .5ppm, but nitrites definitely spiking - where did the good bacteria go? nitrates still at 5ppm where it always is. so strange - i dont want something funny with my parameters right before all the CPD come!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well since the massive water change was happening anyhow, I took that time to take the mini forest out of the valley and replant it in front of the filter to thicken that area up instead, and so you could see all the petrified wood in the tank. My wife liked this dark green presentation on the Current LED, so that's what we used for this shoot:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well this morn the nitrites were still .5ppm so that's good that it didn't spike back up, but not good that the bacteria didn't dent it. Where did the bacteria go? Oh boy.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Got the word that new fish came, uh oh. Lunch break, on the way home grabbed whatever nitrite killer they had at petco (ended up being api stress Zyme plus), got home, dosed that, prime, melafix, and plop and dropped the ten CPD and 5 pumpkin shrimp. Put an algae wafer in a Petri dish to distract the tetra, and done. 

Walked the dog, came back and the CPD are swimming around (none brave enough to challenge tetra for the wafer yet though) and most of the shrimp are on the stemmed leaves harvesting. 3 CPD are kinda hovering near the dish, looking for a chance though...haha the Pleco just scattered the tetra, plopped in the dish and covered the whole wafer! oh well. Well time to leave them for a few hours to really see!


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

Sweet. Where'd you pick up the new livestock


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

From PC1 here in the forums, nicely packed! They came in Kordon breather bags, in a nest of newspaper, padded on every wall (top and bottom too) with styrofoam, and the shrimp even had a little nylon mesh to hold on to during transit. Good stuff!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Now that things have settled down a bit, I did some reading on the Stress Zyme product on the 'net, and found this (which gives me comfort):

"The StressZyme is an excellent, but misunderstood, product. The StressZyme is meant to be used as a biological tank cleaner not a tank cycling product. The StressZyme eats the poo and decomposing food waste in the substrate to ease the load on the filter bacteria. Not really a product you need to use if you're doing good weekly maintenance. On a starting-up tank or in the event of an ammonia/ nitrite spike it will accelerate the cycle because it allows the beneficial filter bacteria to focus on the actual fish bioload without being overwhelmed by extra stuff going on in the tank. Again...it's not intended for use as a stand alone product to cycle a tank.

Forgot to mention a side benefit of the StressZyme.

Because it only focuses on the waste in the substrate, it has the secondary benefit of being a fairly good fertilization product itself as it allows the plants to more rapidly absorb the nutrients from the waste than if it was left to breakdown on its own or get vacuumed out every week. 

Again, a veeeery misunderstood product.

I don't have heavily planted tanks or high demand plants in my tanks, so I usually only use the StressZyme in emergency/ fresh start situations, but my plants always look healthier a few days after dosing with StressZyme."

So as long as I don't abuse it, it'll help the good bacteria in there. If I overdose it, it will outcompete the good bacteria and crash the tank when the stress zyme bacteria die. Thus, just dropping some in when getting a nitrite spike after a cycle is already complete is ok, but I should stop once that spike is gone - no need to keep dosing after that, including after a water change.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

WHEW all that business got my nitrites down from 2ppm to .25ppm. My son pointed out all the junk in the tank i should pluck out, and we're not going to put any more stress zyme in unless there's another spike - but we will add melafix for a few more days for the new fauna.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's a pic of a brave Celestial Pearl Danio! They are all juvies - or should I say, shrimp-sized? A bit red around the gills, hopefully any ammonia related trouble from the shipping trip will subside soon, but they are all definitely zipping around now.


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## Saxtonhill (Dec 28, 2012)

Wow...lovely tank!


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## EngineChauffer (Apr 3, 2013)

Loving this tank and you are right...that sword really grew...wow! This tank is all that much sweeter since your kids are so involved. I plan to do the same with my kids also. They love my tank and I let them help feed and they are very interested in seeing it every day. In fact when my 6yo daughter comes home from school every day the first thing she does is comes into my downstairs office and checks it out. The only reason I haven't set up one of my 2 1/2 gal or 3 gal eclipse upstairs is I am afraid my 3 1/2yo son might get rough with it...who knows spill it everywhere or something. I have plans for the future however.  Also, GREAT INFO about that stresszyme... I may have to pick some of that up "just in case"


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Oh yeah, that stress zyme totally works - just one day dose and the nitrites read zero! 

pH is 6.4 hmm, kinda lower than the 7.0...

ammonia is zero, nitrates very close to zero.

All in all, fun stuff - all fauna alive and happy, kids happy, no worries! whew!!

so what am i gonna do with the bottle of Dr. Tim's One and Only coming? Haha, never hurts to just dump it in there when it comes I guess.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Other than the fact that the tank reads 81F degrees, this is the first full day where something didn't get us worried in the tank! In celebration, here's a new vid - bloodworm feeding time, with plenty of Celestial Pearl Danio action. The song was long so I had to loop the vid, haha:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

The CPDs' fave hiding spot is right in the middle behind the petrified wood (not as good a spot as in the stems, but hey I'm not a CPD), and when they are brave they like to hang out near the marimo ball, like so:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Everyone still alive and healthy in the tank today, but doing the water tests we saw the nitrites creeping up to .15ppm - not much, but not zero either. So maybe the stress zyme was dying out and the water based bacteria still didn't catch up. So it's good timing that the Dr. Tim One and Only nitrifying bacteria came, which is the good water based type. No such thing as overdosing this one they said, so in goes the whole bottle, muahaha! Milky water at first but it'll clear up very quickly - think of it like a positive bacterial bloom.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Wow only took an hour for the bacteria to go crystal clean water. Plus, I found a sad source of ammonia- dead nerite snail. Thus, my one and only foray to petco was a short lived one.

As I was fumbling to get the snail out, the CPD swarmed my hand, thinking it was feeding time? Crazy, maybe because these were tank born, they aren't as shy?

Speaking of which, one of the CPD males claimed the cholla wood area as his territory, which happens to be out in the open. So there he is, most of the time, just checking out that moss on top of the cholla wood, making sure everything's in the right place, haha!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Another day, another no-death! My kids will help with checking the water params tonight (littlest one likes to count the drops) and we'll do a WC if needed, but I have a feeling it may be a bit early to need that. 

The Red Root Floaters aren't putting down red roots as quickly as I thought they would, and some of them have leaves that are thinning out. Hmm, don't tell me the ferts aren't enough for them to pull out of the water?

On the other hand, the long leafed and stemmed plants are exploding, especially the amazon sword. That thing has three leaves now that have broken the surface of the water, whoa! The anacharis I got at the same time only managed to have one of the stems I got to rival that performance.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Son did a water parameter test, Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0 (yay!), Nitrate around 3ppm, pH 6.4, Temp 78F.

TDS meter came! Tap is 34, tank is 141. Seems ok since it should be around 100 more than tap, right? 

Glam shot of the night - a side view getting CO2 bubbles to give a Space scene for the celestial pearl danios:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

New Video! Feeding time, a tiny sliver of algae wafter that popped out of the glass dish right before the vid started, ugh. Didn't stop everyone from attacking it though, including the "shy" CPD, who totally started swarming my hand as I was lowering the dish - I guess they're already cool with the place!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=351833&highlight=backlight

That thread got me thinking - hide all the stuff hanging off the back of the tank like the filter, cables, CO2 line with a white foamboard, and at the same time have it serve as a backdrop for light diffusion. Backlight would be the old Aqueon CFL hood's full spectrum bulb, and now that the HOB is propped by the foamboard i could use the HOB's plastic offset dongle to offset the aqueon hood light from the back of the tank at any angle needed. Separate outlet from the LED so it could run even when the LED turned off due to the timer, and bingo - done! Here's the setup, and some examples of how it looks with the Current Freshwater LED plus - RGB madness!










Here's a Sunrise look, with a low light orange coming from the LED:










Here's a little moonrise:










Here's a Blair Witch Project look with the LED off and just the backlight on:










And here's my son's favorite, an Aqua look that makes it seem like the water is blue and the plants still pop green:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

RATS a neon tetra died, snared in the moss above the cholla wood. Small ammonia spike, so i trimmed the moss and did a water change (three shrimp scooted out of the cholla during this, 2 sakura and one pumpkin. So they ARE alive!)


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

ok plant growth is out of control. saw pearling from the ludwigia for the first time today too, so i'm guessing the balance of light and gas in the water is just fine. had to trim so so many long stems again, took this time to create two different "forests" to the left and right with more density, and in the middle plant some foreground plants that ended up being more like midground plants - but I planted them on a hill behind the back-most petrified wood right in the middle. Draws the eye for having a different look than the long stemmed plants to the left and right. Also, lowered the horizon of the foreground plants a bit.

Going to let the fish get used to all of that for a day before doing a water test to see if i stirred anything nasty up from the substrate possibly requiring a water change. Without further ado, here's the new look:


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## drewsuf82 (May 27, 2012)

Wow looks amazing


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! The latest replanting was my wife and son's idea after I trimmed - they thought it wouldn't look as "messy" if we separated everything into two forests.

http://www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor....AqSpeciesWindowSize=short&AqSearchMode=simple

So that's our current bioload - just under the wire with 99% capacity! We're going to chill with this for a while unless we lose enough to consider more - so let's hope it doesn't come to that!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well Ghostly the one-eyed Emperor Tetra finally gave up the ghost- floating on the surface, caught it before any fungus started in though. Did a water test just in case, and poignantly the params were never better - Ammonia zero, Nitrite zero, Nitrate five, pH still 6.4.

I was noticing some holes in the ludwigia leaves - why the potassium deficiency? Then I realized - I needed to dose BOTH bottles of PPS-Pro I was given - one is for micro, which I was using, and one was for macros! So the past week I've been basically just doing a glorified Flourish Complete, haha.

So I filled up the Macro bottle with distilled water and dosed macros for the first time. Man, the plants were already taking off, I can't imagine what it'll be like now!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Taking my son's advice, we cleared out the rest of the foreground plants that were too high but wouldn't look good trimmed, and moved them either into the forest or onto the hill on the back. We trimmed the left forest a bit more as well, and smoothed out the substrate on the left foreground. We figured we should do all this before the macro ferts made the root systems too entrenched to move. Here's how it looks now from the front and side!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well we were down to two neons and the cardinal that hung with them. The two remaining neons were both males, and this morn I noticed that one was harassing the other pretty hard. Time to get a few more neons to control the singled out aggression! Picked up 3 more, the biggest they had to fight the bully, and just in time- when I got home the loser neon had lost a lot of color and exhausted was just floating near the red root floaters very still. I introduced the 3 new new neons and put an algae wafer in. Everyone joined in including the new neons and the tired one, and after the frenzy was over I took out the wafer, dimmed the lights and added melafix. The Emperors went right into sleep mode, but the dominant neon went right to work bugging the other 4 neons and cardinal for pecking order. Hey, just spreading the pain! The tired neon regained color but is still swimming a bit slowly. Lets hope all six shoal up and get happy soon!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Last night I saw the algae wafers give the fish gas, so in the future ill soak them before putting them in. 

All 6 neon/cardinals were happy this morning. Put bloodworms in, and the emperors and CPD attacked them at the surface. Neons and cardinal stayed mid level, I hope some bits make it down there!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Remember a while back I got three blue rili for the kids? One was a full blue rili, stripes and all, the other looked more like a regular red rili but with a blue tinge to the translucent parts (in this video post, second half), and the third was MIA. Honestly, that one was tiny and I thought may have gotten eaten the second it landed in the tank when I took my eye off it, haha.

Well I'm glad to report that it's alive and well! It has very cool markings, and the kids want to call it either the Superman Shrimp, or the Neon Tetra Shrimp, for obvious reasons:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Don't worry the fish aren't gulping for air- they are gulping down flakes for a morning feed! Been a while since we took a daytime pic so here we go. Moved another foreground plant that got too tall and put it midground, in the middle valley. Re-added the pleco cave under the cholla wood, hopefully that placement will be more popular, i feel bad for the pleco just living on the amazon sword. My daughter is an expert pond snail pointer now, but I told her it's not bad right now so the rest get to live on!

Oh and awesome news - I can't even tell which neon was the aggressive one now, since the aggression went way down with the addition of the three new neon. The bullied one still doesn't have as vibrant a color as the rest, but at least he rejoined the group and isn't getting singled out for abuse. More neons=happy neons!

And since I started dosing the macro ferts, MAN the growth really shot up!

http://www.aqadvisor.com/AqAdvisor....qSpeciesWindowSize=short&AqSearchMode=simple&

So it looks like we're all done stocking fauna for now - and who knows if all 17 shrimp are still around, but we saw that baby Pumpkin walking around, one fire red hanging upside down on a red root floater, and a blue rili hanging out in the valley, so they are probably all there, just hiding!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

I changed my mind. The platy wasn't the only killer in the tank - I bet it's that neon tetra that just bit off another Red Sakura shrimp head! My daughter pointed out the headless body, yikes, and my son spotted a small ammonia spike possibly as a result of the body being there for a day - .15ppm. So now I don't think there's any Red Sakura left! All the Blue Rili are around, and at least 2 of the 5 Pumpkin, so maybe the tetra just want to play head choppin' games with the reds. Good think the Blue Rili camouflage pretty well!










So there you go, need to do a water change. While I was at it, I took out the pleco cave again - it's just not being used, and it doesn't fit the look of the tank anyhow. I gave that wall-type petrified wood one more try after hammering out the side that kept growing white fungus, and we'll try round two for that too. So of course right after I stick it back in and use one of the cholla wood to recreate that triangle shaped cave, the pleco makes a beeline for it and tries to stuff itself in there, haha!










So here we are, a bit more au naturale now:










And it's been a while since we took a shot from this side, so here you go - we used the remaining two cholla to frame the other side of the petrified wood:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

oh no, one of the tetra is gulping near the water surface with red gills! i checked the pH - it's 6.0! usually 6.4 so...i noticed that the current HOB outflow is angled so that it captures CO2 bubbles and keeps them pushed down into the water a long time. I then moved the green amazon swords out from behind the drop checker and oh no - lime green, more yellow than green! So I turned the CO2 down from 2 bubbles a second to 1 bubble a second - hopefully that will help that tetra out!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

My daughter did her morning fish count and all the neons are still alive, whew. Actually the gills are less red too, and the drop checker is down from lime green to just green. I think one bubble per second is the way to go. I'll keep an eye out for algae though, if it stunts plant growth too much.

Still, it got me to thinking about surface flow, and the fact that the CO2 bubbles can just sit under the HOB outflow forever without any interruption. So I bought a circulation pump to get some crosstank flow going, a Koralia 240 I plan to aim from the far corner towards the surface and towards the HOB. it might shoosh the red root floaters around a bit, but it will also increase oxygenation and prevent any protein skins on the surface - plus who knows, maybe some of the fish might like a bit of current to play in.

Oh, last night my son noticed that 3 out of the 5 Emperors have "colored up" - they have that pearlescent sheen to their skin, and one even has that cool blue sheen. I guess they're adults now - definitely bigger than when we first got them, plus their fins are getting those black highlights, and the tails are growing out to the "crown" formation. Fun!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Good news, the one bubble thing seems fine for the plants so i'll keep it at that - no algae breakouts.

bad news, that gulping tetra gulped its last, floating on top. it probably was harassed almost to death before introing the 3 new neons, so the co2 finished it off, sadly. down to 5 neon, 5 emperor, pleco, shrimp and snails.

protein skin returned too, which can't be good for oxygenation at the surface either. that powerhead can't come soon enough! oh, and the red root floaters all of a sudden started taking off, and now totally covers the top of the tank - again, a good reason to get the powerhead to break it up at the surface.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Ordered a Koralia 425 - but when doing the water change today i found out why the current flow was so low. I took the pre-filter off and the HOB started putting out full current again! Man that pre-filter was filled with JUNK. The water was rust brown, like the color of micro ferts magnified by a million! TDS tap water was 44, but the tank water before the change was 213, yikes! Have to catch that at 140-145 and do a change. I think one of the neons didn't savvy to the conditions right before the water change and current flow increase, since it was apart from the rest of the neons and just floating on the bottom - hopefully this fresh water will perk it up along with the current. The Koralia will get here on saturday - can't get here soon enough!

trimmed again, the PPS-Pro dry ferts are really helping the plants take off, it's like a trim every week now. Pretty soon both forests will be filled out nicely, and it'll be time for some RAOKs!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Wow the koralia 425 came quick! It is a tornado haha, blew away the floating plants in open water (and stirred up some shrimp, I saw two blue rili caught in a vortex!) so I moved it behind the heater which served as a baffle, moved the drop checker in front of it too, and moved the floating plant hoop fence from the HOB to the koralia. Finally it was tamed enough to circulate the surface without jet engine force! Protein has no chance now to film in the surface, there is good tank current and surface agitation for oxygenation, and the plants are pushed away from the center so the LED can get through. Oh, and the CO2 bubbles are pushed away from the HOB intake so they'll live in the tank a bit longer. All in all, pretty good buy!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

well the koralia is definitely putting more oxygen in the tank, i saw some pearling today. the fish all seem to like the current too, since it's not too strong but it's not dead spot heavy either. only funny thing is that the floating plants are all bunched up on the left side now, as you can see, so they cover only a third of the surface. maybe that's as much as it should be instead of covering the whole top - and it's time for a ROAK?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the kids were sad that the supermoon was hidden behind clouds tonight, but i told them something would show up that appears only once in a blue moon too - our one full blue velvet made an appearance! it's as big as a CPD now - man, that thing is a trooper!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the tank has been sitting at 82 degrees for a week here- why is NYC so freaking hot right now? But the fish all look fine and the pH is at a steady 6.4, so...that's Blue Ram Parameters! Matt13 sent over three Long Fin Diamond Blue Rams and all three arrived today in good spirits. Plop and drop and fed bloodworms to distract the tank, and they are off to the races! Did a water change two days ago so no drastic stuff until the end of the week - just fattening up is in order!

About 20 minutes later, and they've already gone into Cichlid Mode - two paired off, a male and female, and claimed the Amazon Sword corner. The opposite corner? The other (and in my opinion, better looking) male claimed the Marimo Ball area. Which is a smart move on his part, since that's also the feeding area, but maybe not so smart, since that's also the water dumping area, haha! Well he'll soon find that out...didn't take long for them to color up at all, but they're not snatching either the bloodworms above or the algae wafer below (I blame the latter on the pleco pretty much laying on it and sucking away). Maybe I'll garlic infuse some bloodworms for them tonight, and order some sinking pellets too.

By the way I believe they are a few months old, so they are of breeding age, but they aren't much bigger than the Emperor Tetra - I'd put them just short of 3 inches right now. In other words, not as gigantic looking as they seem on the internet, haha! Makes me feel better that I didn't overstock a 20 gallon with these guys. I feel sorry for the two remaining blue velvet shrimp, but hey, if they were able to dodge whichever tetra has been the shrimp killer in the past few weeks, I'm sure they'll be quick enough to dodge these guys too. If not, hey, it'll be a pricey way to get the rams to start eating!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's a pic of one! I'm sure it'll color up even more, but this is day one after all!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

And here's a video! Got all three hanging out at the feeding area, one even ate one bloodworm! Can't feed anymore otherwise the rest of the fish are going to get overfed while I'm trying to get these guys to eat. Yep, color will probably definitely get more intense when they fatten up and feel more comfortable.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

That bloodworm eating Ram fed at the surface with everyone else this morning - flakes, but the other two hung out down below. I'm worried that those guys may not get enough food and they're not coloring up quickly, so I bought some New Life Spectrum Thera-A 1.0mm sinking pellets for them. Hopefully they'll eat those while I distract the rest of the fish with some bloodworms this evening.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Wow the Rams really love the NLS Thera-A sinking pellets! The other fish do too, but all three Rams actually made an effort to grab them first, which is pretty tough since the tetra and danio are superfast!

Nitrates went from 20ppm last night after too much feeding to 8ppm today after an 8 hour photoperiod. Having plants is handy, but I'll do one more waterchange tomorrow just in case.

Rams are smart. They saw me plucking out detrius from the tank with tweezers, then zoomed into the resulting cloud for stuff to eat - smart, and fearless! They are coloring up a bit more now too, and I set the heater for 80-82F in their comfort zone.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's a full tank pic after some pruning!


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## I<3<*))))>< (Jun 10, 2013)

Everything is looking so good, loving the fish and the current scape


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Since feeding these pellets and raising the temp to 82, the Rams actually are starting to act like rams - claiming territory, rooting around the substrate a bit, and in terms of coloring up, the black spots and stripes actually showed up nice and strong! The current 'scape gives plenty of escape routes and breaks up line of sight, and the tetra and danio make for really great dither fish.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

This morning the Rams were all nabbing pellets like bandits, no worries on feeding now!


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## Dina-Angel (Jun 20, 2013)

I really like that tank, it looks awesome!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Just got back from our July 4th vacation and I guess a whole algae wafer and some extra sunken pellets did the trick - all the fish are still alive! The heat inside without A/C though was very hot, the tank water was 84F, yikes! I quickly did a water change, fed the fish, put in 10 Amano Shrimp waiting downstairs from a RAOK that arrived last night (they all made it safe and sound, but I couldn't pick them up last night, the front desk was closed!) and plucked out as much plant detrius as I could - it clogged up the Koralia a bit so the flow was less. Oh, and the coarser marineland prefilter sponge came, I swapped that in and the HOB filter flow increased too.

The ceramic CO2 diffuser was clogged! I couldn't figure out a way to clear it until I remembered that Magic Eraser I had to scrape BBA off things - I wiped that across the top a few times and bingo, the CO2 bubbled through again. Man, Magic Erasure sure is handy!

No algae outbreaks thank goodness - I see a few sprigs of BBA on the petrified wood though, so I'll eraser that off once the lights turn back on (they're in a siesta right now) and some leaves have a bit of brown algae on it, but I will leave those alone and see if the Amano Shrimp will handle that. Pretty much the worst thing that happened during the vacation was the plants wilting a bit, especially the floaters. So I dosed PPS-Pro again and let's hope that helps. Funny thing is, with the lack of nutrients, one of the ludwigia REALLY turned red with new leaves up top closest to the light - cool, but also shows how much deficiency was going on!

So that's it, I'm going to let the tank settle a bit and take pics later on tonight. Whew!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

As promised, here's a pic! There's a BIG blue one, my fave, but it lives under the cholla wood right now, rats. so here's a pic of a pair of them, wary of the Ram lurking by the Marimo...


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

OK, finished up the post vacation manicure - moved the brazilian pennywort behind the petrified rock, and put the red cabomba that was there too back into the forest. Now the pennywort arches over the middle of the background, tying the two forests together. One of the Blyxa got big enough to split, and sure enough it had two chicks. I moved the hen next to the pagoda behind a petrified wood, put the biggest chick in front of that wood, then put the baby chick where the hen used to be.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Haha wow Rams really have a lot of character - no fear! One of the cabomba was uprooted so I grabbed it with the tweezers- and one of the Rams immediately zoomed over VERY suspicious - maybe it was his territory? So anyhow I pushed it into the substrate, and the Ram then got right down to where the plant met the substrate, checking it out...and when I brushed some substrate over there to keep the cabomba there, the Ram spun around and BANGED the tweezers - I heard the "clunk" and felt the impact, haha! Love these little guys!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

The female Ram in a stare down with one of the smaller Amano. "Seriously, I'm wondering if I can eat this thing. Can I eat this thing?"


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Blyxa is the top grower in this tank. Started out with three, and they already split out to 9 in a few weeks. Under low-med light conditions, they don't grow up, they grow out. You can tell they need splitting when they get super bushy. I used to uproot the whole thing, split, then replant, but that just killed the existing root structure. Now I just kinda poke a finger in there and wriggle them apart and push one over to an empty spot in the substrate, then smooth over the gravel - done. Only a few more foreground spots now, so here comes a complete Blyxa carpet soon!


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## Dina-Angel (Jun 20, 2013)

It looks nice!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! The kids are at camp so they call for "fish updates" every day - what are mom and dad, chopped liver? They can't wait to come home and see the Amanos!


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## Dina-Angel (Jun 20, 2013)

I can understand that... They are cute little shrimps and fun to watch


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## Dina-Angel (Jun 20, 2013)

Jahn said:


> The female Ram in a stare down with one of the smaller Amano. "Seriously, I'm wondering if I can eat this thing. Can I eat this thing?"


Is that plant the Blyxa?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Yes it is!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well no news is good news, all fauna still alive from last update, was time for the weekly water change, all params were fine but the nitrates rose a bit from 5 to 8ppm so why not change the water. TDS was at 186, anything under 200 is fine here but again, why wait. 

While I was at it, I trimmed away some of the bigger amazon leaves to let some light in on the left side, the left forest had stunted growth due to the bigger leaves blocking light. It looks much brighter now, but nothing to hide the equipment anymore for a bit, hah.

Finally, there's one big quartz geode slice that I've held on it since my very first aquarium, a betta tank. it used to have blue dye but that faded and leeched out decades ago. Just in case, I boiled it and algae dipped it before putting it in the tank - it's a more subtle look than the petrified wood so i put it in the far back right background to create a sense of space. Just a way to reintroduce some good karma into it, since that first tank was a disaster since I didn't know what I was doing and I always felt bad about it. Unlike this tank, which is a hit, the kids love it!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Uh oh, the female Ram is getting harassed. She was cowering in the corner hiding under what remains of the floating plants- I was worried she was reacting to the CO2 at first and fooled with the gas (which fluctuated it and got an algae outbreak ugh) but then she totally disappeared- I found her hiding IN the pagoda near the substrate level! I thought she might have squeezed in there in fear and was trapped inside, but no- I lifted the pagoda and she didn't want to move, I shushed her out and put the pagoda back, and she zipped right back in there. I think she likes that's she's small enough to get in there but the two male Rams aren't. 

To make it a bit more comfortable for her, I set a flat stone in there. While I was doing that one of the males bumped her three times, ugh. Don't know if she will come out for feedings in there, sigh. 


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Two new floaters - frogbit and dwarf water lettuce. And a very red emersed alternanthera reineckii roseafolia which will get even redder once submerged and transitioned. So the left side looks a little low right now but it'll bush out eventually!










And wow the Amano Shrimp flew up on those new floaters like mad, they really like those long roots. Even the Rams were getting in on the action:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

OK, just one day and look how much the Rosefolia straightened up! It's ALIVE!










But this morning, the small female Ram wasn't, rats. It was harassed to death for sure, losing color and hiding over a week, and then stopped eating, and that was it. The two remaining males are toe to toe so no hiding for them, and they are colored up a lot for dominance. Crazy!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

The alternanthera reineckii is transitioning from emersed to submersed, so the rich red is turning into pink, and the old leaves are dropping off. i wonder what the submersed look will be like eventually?

So the other male ram also died of harassment, so just one very happy male left. in the beginning it was the harassed one, but it got bigger and thus able to overpower the other one. nice colors on it and all, but i feel bad for the other two rams - no more rams, going to solo this ram. fortunately unlike a Betta, this ram seems to leave all other fauna alone - except amano shrimp. i think 2-3 are still alive, but the rest got eaten!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

BTW, take a look at that plant in the middle since the last pic. It exploded in growth! Maybe people were right, that it's a variation of amazon sword? My known amazon sword is in the back left, but this one is still skinnier in the leaf even with all that growth.










And the blyxa? out of CONTROL!


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## rustbucket (Oct 15, 2011)

Lucky you on the blyxa, it looks great. I can't get mine to grow near as fast. Tank looks nice, and congrats on having children that care about fish


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Just got back from a few days vacation and the kids ran to the tank for a fish count- all alive thanks to the auto feeder! Here is the rundown:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the pagoda was an algae magnet so we agreed to make it part of our outdoor garden instead, and move the sword plant in the center into the pagoda spot. 

As we were lifting up the pagoda, one amano shrimp was hanging out a pagoda window. My daughter said "shake it off!" So we did- and ALL the shrimp exploded out! Many screams were to be had! Apparently the small ram's hiding place proved to the shrimp that the big fish couldn't get in there...well too bad, the pagoda is kaput, muahahaha! I counted 8 before they scurried away.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

was going to take the rocks that have BBA on them and boil them then douse them with CO2 booster, but i ran out of booster! so out came the magic eraser and i just scrubbed them off for now. after i took this pic, i moved the blyxa back off the glass a bit and planted some more away from the carpet to give it more space. taking over! but it provides good cover for the amano shrimp now that the pagoda is gone. tiny bit of green spot algae starting on the glass but ill leave it up to the pleco and snails to keep it under wraps for now.

and the dwarf sag isn't dwarfish anymore - it has runners all over the back, and it's climbing the back glass up too!


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## Roshan8768 (Mar 18, 2009)

I love the progression of your tank, just read through your entire thread. It's come a long way... I'm trying to figure out why you're having so many issues with parameters in such an established tank? Do you ever vacuum the substrate, do you clean out your filter pad completely when you do your water changes? Beautiful tank!

I also have a 20H, but its going in a slightly different direction than yours, I like to keep it as low maintenance as possible:icon_cool The new red stem that you got looks really good, is a focus point in your tank, pulls the eye. It also brought back a lot of memories when you posted the AqAdvisor thing, I used it a lot when I was starting out. Here's what it say's about my current stocking
Equipments:

Tank (LxDxH): 24 x 12 x 16 inch (19.9gUS)
Filters: Eheim 2213, Aquaclear 70 


Selected species: [Edit Species]

2 x Fancy Goldfish (Carassius auratus)
11 x Harlequin Rasbora (Trigonostigma heteromorpha)
2 x Betta [Female] (Betta splendens)
1 x Peppered Cory (Corydoras paleatus)
1 x Molly (Poecilia sphenops)
5 x Platy (Xiphophorus maculatus)

Your aquarium filtration capacity for above selected species is 
:thumbsup: 
Your aquarium stocking level is 208%. 

Anyways, keep us updated on the tank. Here's a pic of mine!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Yeah it's a constant fight with algae, I have it now where the plants thrive with a bit more dose of PPS-Pro, but dying stuff like leaves have to snipped right away or here comes algae. And same for the undead stuff like rocks, glass and that plastic pagoda- algae crops up so they do need scrubbing. It's a constant vigil!

Well the good news is that it keeps us on our toes- my daughter is still the fish counter but now she's the algae spotter too- she can even spot when BBA starts on a single gravel!

No deep vacuum of gravel, but there have been recent replantings and such which can throw the water column off. Just have to calm down on the gardening, keep up on maintenance and all will be well. Thanks for sharing your tank, I agree- red plants draw the eye as centerpieces!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

I think everything has finally stabilized, just a bit of green spot algae here and there. Here's our family tank as of 8/28/13 with the Freshwater + in Yellow High Light plant growth mode, and a custom deep blue in our memory bank!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's our family tank as of 9/16/13, blyxa is out of control! Pretty much carpeted it everywhere left that I could that makes sense aesthetically. Sad how all the stem plants lost leaves until they are right at the top, so I chopped them all down and replanted to them to get them denser and bushier near the bottom. If they lose leaves again, so be it! And the combo amazon swords have totally fleshed out where the pagoda used to be, I'm fencing it in with wisteria right now but oh man...










oh and the dwarf sag? not so dwarf, it's taking over the back of the tank!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

The rocks were an algae magnet too - basically anything not organic couldn't keep off the BGA, including dying leaves. argh, so much maintenance! today we dumped all the rocks in a CO2 booster dip for a few hours to really soak them through and kill the BGA as much as possible, though I'm sure it'll still find a foothold somewhere. Heck, we even found it growing on the heater! We took this time to re-landscape the rocks so they'd be more prominent amongst the higher foreground blyxa, interesting look to the tank now.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Doesn't look that ordered on the right anymore, but at least there's more light getting through! fairly nice shot of the the Ram. my daughter loves freaking out the fish by switching LED settings nonstop, man i better invest in that timer/remote soon to ensure it defaults after her playtime!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

So sad, a very quick moving disease hit the last ram and it died - I believe it was pop eye, some nasty fluid built up behind the eyes, turned white, started spreading to the rest of the head, stopped eating, it was over. Nitrates were the only thing that was a little high at 40 so i kept the water changes up with more % changed but alas too late.

So now there are 10 CPD, 5 Emperor Tetra, 2 Neon Tetra, a BN Pleco, 4 Amano Shrimp. The kids want color but I really don't want to go the Neon Tetra route again. Maybe a school of those smaller Green Neon Tetra, like 10?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Stopped by Pacific with the kids today on my day off and we bought one male Honey Gourami. Looks like a Sunset or Red Flame, maybe too early to tell. A whole bunch there, if you want to grab one! Hopefully that'll be it for the tank, as a Ram replacement.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

A day later and the new gourami is swimming nicely with everyone else, but he's still not grabbing the food when it's feeding time - not yet trained to know that when i open the hood, it's chow time. He'll come around I'm sure. Here's a group shot, and a solo one:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here's a video of the gourami!


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Jahn said:


> Yeah it's a constant fight with algae


When I first started my tank I had chronic problems with BBA. Found that it is because of excessive phosphates in the water. Dosing with KNO3 helps.

Try decreasing phosphates and increasing KNO3 and see what happens.

To help the gourami you could minse the food in a small cup with tank water and then squirt it in the tank with a syringe.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

just did a phosphate test, it was 1.0, i'm guessing that was high? nitrates are 40ppm


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Jahn said:


> just did a phosphate test, it was 1.0, i'm guessing that was high? nitrates are 40ppm


Phosphates need to be higher and nitrates need to be lower. More frequent water changes lower the nitrates.

According to Rex Griggs
Calcium 10 - 30 ppm
Iron .1 ppm
Magnesium 2 - 5 ppm
Nitrates 10 - 20 ppm
Phosphates 1 - 2 ppm


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Yep, doing weekly 30% changes now but I have to look into upping that it even getting seachem denitrifier.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well I read up on it and decided to get seachem matrix instead of denitrifier since my HOB flow is pretty fast- the filter is loaded up with matrix and hopefully in a month we'll see a considerable drop in nitrate. 

Speaking of drop, this morning I noticed that the co2 drop checker was blue. I checked the bubble counter and yep, all dry. I de-gassed the bit of co2 left in the valves, and disconnected my tank. Time for a refill! A 5lb tank lasted 5 1/2 months, not bad!


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

Hi, i have both matrix and denitrate and the media seems to be the same. the granuals are slightly different in size but im feeling its almost the same media.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Ah good to know. I actually have an unopened jar of denitrifier here now as a result, I guess it's usable then to go with the aquaclear 30 I have now as a backup (replaced with a fluval C4). 

Funny thing is, I did all the impeller tricks to quiet it, but it still seems to be a bit louder to me than the AC30. But hey, nobody else round here seems to mind the noise, and it's not near the bedrooms so no worries.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

No changes in nitrate reduction yet, but it should take a few weeks i heard. In the meantime, the CO2 really has helped the plants explode, and this - NO BLACK ALGAE. Yes! The plants have outcompeted the algae! Thanks to the ratio of CO2 to light being more in favor of CO2 than I had before. Even the floating plants have exploded - the tetra can't keep up with eating their roots anymore, and they've spread very nicely across the top!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Pulled a bunch of val and amazon sword leaves from the tank - looked like a jungle in there! The seachem matrix is doing a great job - right before the weekly water change, it shows as 10ppm, not the 40ppm that killed the rams. The new honey gourami is still going strong and loving the better water parameters!

Funny thing is that the wisteria died off. i guess less nitrate means less for the nitrate suckers. oh well, would rather have less wisteria than dying fish!


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

How about an updated pic?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Good idea, I'll take one when I get home!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Hilde said:


> How about an updated pic?


As promised, here it is! Amazing, but since I upped the CO2, lowered the amount of light, upped filtration to a Fluval C4, and loaded it with Seachem Matrix - NO BLACK ALGAE. No joke, my bane is finally gone! And no fish deaths - nitrate has stayed nice and low! I have to keep getting in there and pruning stuff - this is after a recent pruning, already it's getting stuffed in there again roud:


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Me and the kids stopped by Pacific today and in an ebi tank was 5 rasbora. But not the typical Harlequin Rasbora - these were Lambchop Rasbora! I was hoping to get these type if they didn't have Chili Rasbora - my son likes the color, and I think the swoop in the back is pretty stylish. They should end up being bigger than the neon tetra but smaller than the emperor tetra. But right now they are the same size as the celestial pearl danio, hah. Got five since they like to shoal together and hang out near the top. Here they are back at home!


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## Jack Gilvey (Jun 16, 2008)

Killer tank, and those rasbora are amazing.


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## vcp05 (Nov 15, 2013)

Very nice
They look great and so does the tank 


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

*First Father & Kids Tank - 20 High - 12/7/13 video update! New Lambchop Rasbora!*

Thanks all! The kids really dig it now. Here's a video - they are shoaling with the Celestial Pearl Danio!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Wow has it really already been a month? No news is good news since everything is stable, no fish deaths and no algae outbreaks. Had to trim a lot plants recently, and scoop out a bunch of floaters. Lot less jungle like in there now. Happy new year!


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## HunterX (May 19, 2012)

Love the video and the tank. It really looks great! Keep up the good work.


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## Dantrasy (Sep 9, 2013)

You've got some stunning fish there mate!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Thanks! Taking out so many floaters and plant cover meant more light so the algae tried to come back. I lowered the PAR so the algae won't take hold.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

*First Father & Kids Tank - 20 High - 12/7/13 video update! New Lambchop Rasbora!*








Well it's been over a month since the tank crash, had to rescape everything. All the fish survived, even the shrimp. Even the one lone Neon Tetra! My youngest kid dumped half if the entire tub of pellet food in there while we were away. Came home to cloudy water, bacteria already getting to work. Massive cleanup to save everything hah.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Here is a close up where you can see the rasbora and CPD better:

http://i.imgur.com/Z0wNoeT.jpg


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

5/23/14: ich wipeout. Added a balloon ram that had ich, wiped everything out except 4 Lambchop rasbora, that one neon tetra that must be Wolverine, the Pleco, and two amano shrimp. Since the tank has gotten to the point where all the ich is gone and off the current fish, might as well intro new fish during treatment since I would treat them for ich anyhow. Thought we got ten rummynose tetra but one snuck in there that wasn't- the January Tetra. 

http://www.inaquarium.com/hemigrammus-hyanuary.php

It loves to school with the rummies so this is fine. Before adding them, here is a shot with the new driftwood the store gave me as a mea culpa for the fishocalypse:


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## Veneration (May 23, 2014)

So sorry to hear about the ich outbreak! 

I just wanted to thank you for sharing so much about your tank! It's very similar to what I hope to get going in my 20H, so it's a real encouragement to read everything you've got here!

Good luck with the new fish, and I hope you have several more smooth months ahead!


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

We appreciate the words of encouragement! The ich treatment works very well- raise to 86F, add Aquarium salt and Kordon Ich attack, and every other day gravel vac and water changes. The new fish haven't shown any ich, and the superhuman sole neon tetra shook off the ich and is doing fine. Unkillable! 

To reward the lonely neon, we added 6 new neons via petsmart Memorial Day sale. The driftwood is doing great, very little tannin and zero fungus. The Pleco is acting like it has a T-bone steak in there now! Here is hoping after the ich treatment is done everything will stabilize.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

After Memorial Day sale. Planted some dwarf hair grass, red temple and anubias nana. All from petsmart! Rubber bands to keep the nana on the driftwood until the rhizomes stick. As expected, all the new fish now have ich, but since the tank was already undergoing treatment none have died and in a few weeks hopefully everything will clear up.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Well the Kordon Ich Attack works as advertised, a bit over a week now and the ich is not visible on any fish. The last original "Wolverine" neon tetra did die, but no other deaths, even the January Tetra that was riddled with ich. Going to keep the heat up and finish off the bottle at least until June 11th just to make certain nothing survives in the ich life cycle. 

All this heat killed off most of the new hair grass and red temple- browned and melted. But some still survived so next water change I will prune out the dead stuff and give the others room to grow. We will make it!


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## Veneration (May 23, 2014)

Sad to hear the neon finally gave in, but glad to hear things are looking good overall! 

Once you get things pruned and resituated, I'd love to see another picture.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Yep! High heat killed off all new plants but the anubias nana, still securing that with rubber bands on the driftwood. I'll give it another week before taking the bands off. Moved some of the plants to the foreground too, not sure of the name of them.


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

What the heck. Our BN Pleco is missing for a week! We hunted and dredged but he is MIA! That was our last fish from our original stock, we are so sad. 

In plant news here is Golden Porthos in the HOB filter. The anubias is going strong on the driftwood. The new neons and rummynose and that one fake rummy are all doing great, but the four lambchop Rasbora look a little pale, maybe stressed out?


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Jahn said:


> What the heck. Our BN Pleco is missing for a week! We hunted and dredged but he is MIA!


Did you look in the filter?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Hilde said:


> Did you look in the filter?



Good suggestion I just looked but no traces there either. It's a mystery! With the tank wipeout before, they were all just under the substrate for some reason, but this isn't the case now.


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

Jahn said:


> Good suggestion I just looked but no traces there either. It's a mystery! With the tank wipeout before, they were all just under the substrate for some reason, but this isn't the case now.


Did you take the filter apart? Did you look in the plants in the filter?


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## Jahn (Apr 26, 2013)

Hilde said:


> Did you take the filter apart? Did you look in the plants in the filter?



Yep not there. Argh!


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