# My Freecycle tank 55g!



## OoglyBoogly

Current:
December 3rd 2010









Here is a progression

September 9th
October 12th
October 19th
October 31st
November 11th


fishtankprogress_september-to-oct31_2010 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

Here is the rack before/after I modified the aquarium hood light and put in a dual t5 36" ballast etc...


before_and_after_hood-mod by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I plan on using the bottom tank to try and breed Celestial Pearl Danios and moss.

Details on the tank can be found here so I don't have to copy/paste a wall of text.

Input/criticism is very welcome. No CO2 either.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157625151520758/with/5098989128/


Planted Aquarium

Fauna: 
[Strike]Red Cherry Shrimps[/strike] ALL DEAD - Stealth Heater broke in the middle of the night raising the temp of tank and leaking an oily fluid everywhere 
Cardinal Tetras
Endler Guppies
Otocinclus Dwarf Catfish
Malysian Trumpet Snails
Tadpole Snails
1x Red Wiggler Worm (for the lols)

hopefuls:
Celestial Pearl Danios
Blackworms
Golden Clam to filter the water column



Flora:
brazillian pennywort
Ceratophyllum demersum - coontail
Hemianthus callitrichoides - Dwarf Baby Tears
Micranthemum umbrosum - Baby Tears
Brazilian Elodea - Anachris
Anubias minima
Hydrocotyle leucocephala - Brazilian Pennywort
Bacopa monnieri - Water Hyssop
Ceratopteris thalictroides - Water Sprite, Indian Fern
Hygrophila difformis - Water Wisteria
Lemna minor - Lesser Duckweed
Vesicularia dubyana - Java Moss
Dwarf Hairgrass

Flora (new bulk addition)
Clinopodium cf. brownei 
Bacopa salzmannii
Bacopa carolina
Lindernia sp. varigated
Lindernia sp india
Heteranthera zosterifolia
Lysimachia nummularia (very similar to the clino, but a more yellow color, also called 'creeping jenny')
Hygrophilia sp. bold (or tiger, I am not sure which)
Rotala rotundfolia 
Blyxa Japonica
Ludwigia repens x arcuata
Ludwigia brevipes
Pellia
Flame moss
Unknown moss (not java)
Emersed crypt lutea 
Various crypt babies 
Limnophilia sp. wavy

Equipment:
Eheim 2217 Canister Filter
55g Aquarium Glass Tank
2x 40w T12 - 4 foot fluorescent bulbs in modified hood/ballast from Home Depot
submersible Heater (not sure how many watts bc it's old)
Thinking about making a homemade CO2 generator using yeast and sugar combined with a makeshift reactor... not sure yet

Food:
Tetra red chunky dried food that i crush for the bc the brine shrimp haven't yet hatched
Hikari Tropical fish micro pellets
Hikari wheat germ - medium pellet crushed with fingers

Chemicals:
Seachem Fluorish - micronutrient liquid fertilizer (very little Nitrogen bc the fish poop/nitrifying bacteria provide that)

30 pounds of river rock underneath 25 pounds of cheap painted (quality wise  ) black gravel


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## gringostar9

Looks beautiful. Good work.


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## GitMoe

Filled in nicely. Good layout. Standard 55g tanks are impossible to scape well. Im a fan of everything except what looks like Hornwort in the back. Hate that stuff so much...


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## OoglyBoogly

gringostar9 said:


> Looks beautiful. Good work.


Thank you, everyday I look at it I have this urge to stink my arm in it and change something around. Haha I guess this isn't the worst addiction to have... right? RIGHT? 



GitMoe said:


> Filled in nicely. Good layout. Standard 55g tanks are impossible to scape well. Im a fan of everything except what looks like Hornwort in the back. Hate that stuff so much...


The lack of depth looking in at the stock 55g tank is limiting in that I feel like I can only think of plant placement horizontally and vertically. Depth looking into the tank is something I dream about everytime I look at an ADA tank (amongst other nice features that they have). 

There are a few plants that I'd like to eventually get rid of but they made great first plants bc they grew so ridiculously fast and filled up the empty space and/or hid certain eyesores. The hornwort like plant is hiding the pre-filter sponge and heater. I find that its individual brances start to look nice when they are short but they become leggy and wind up floating across the top of the tank until I I fold them in half and put a rock on top of the fold so that it looks thicker but shorter. Maybe one day I'll pass this on to another freecycler with my water sprites and hornworts! 

I've been wanting to get some dwarf hairgrass to grow in patches on the extreme left and right side of the tank using rocks dug into the gravel to keep it separate from the Dwarf Baby Tears. I'd like to build a wall using some plastic canvas covered with weeping moss. I also think flame moss would look great covering the tops of the red rocks in the tank. Perhaps I'll grab one from my backyard and cu the bottom off to make it flat so it can stand straight up too balance out the height of the tank and lack of depth.

Cheers


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## TheFishJunky

Looks incredible!What do you dose with?


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## OoglyBoogly

TheFishJunky said:


> Looks incredible!What do you dose with?


Thank you!
I dose with about 1 cap full (5ml) of Seachem Flourish a week.

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Flourish.html


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## GitMoe

Capful is 5ml... 250ml would likely be the entire bottle unless you have the bigger bottle...lol 

Dosing any Excel or just the regular Flourish?


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## OoglyBoogly

GitMoe said:


> Capful is 5ml... 250ml would likely be the entire bottle unless you have the bigger bottle...lol
> 
> Dosing any Excel or just the regular Flourish?


Haha wow derp on my part... I'll go back and edit that! Just using Flourish, although I thought about using excel since I don't use co2... I'm currently looking at a DIY paintball co2 injector thread since I have a 24 and 9 ounce co2 paintball tanks sitting around collecting dust.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/diy/115850-paintball-co2-injection-diy-setup.html


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## TheFishJunky

OoglyBoogly said:


> Thank you!
> I dose with about 1 cap full (5ml) of Seachem Flourish a week.
> 
> http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/Flourish.html


that's pretty incredible that you are getting that much result from just that dose.Keep it up,definitely looks like you are doing things right in my opinion.
:thumbsup:


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## OoglyBoogly

TheFishJunky said:


> that's pretty incredible that you are getting that much result from just that dose.Keep it up,definitely looks like you are doing things right in my opinion.
> :thumbsup:


FYI, my tank is pretty filthy and has way too much string algae and bearded algae for my liking. I took a few tests using a freshwater master test kit over the course of a few weeks and all my reading for ammonioa, nitrite, and nitrates were 0ppm so I figured that my tank was really chewing through the nitrates so I began overfeeding my fish. I has some suspicions about the tests so I did a little forum warrior digging and found out that the API Nitrate bottle #2 chemicals start to crystalize and form crystals in the bottom so the solution is not longer made up of whatever dissolved chemicals give an accurate result! I banged the bottle on the floor a couple of times and shook it up for about 3 minutes and when I did a nitrate test and the test tube turned bloody red! I had no idea how to interprate that since I was thinking that the solution was still not mixed properly or perhaps it just went bad. I looked up the lot number on the bottom of the bottle which basically is the last 4 digits showing the month and year on the bottle. The solutions should still be good as they are only a year old so I tested plain tap water. The tap water came out 0ppm. So I diluted the tank water to 1/8th tank water, 7/8th tap water and the solution was a very dark orange! I did a 50% water change the next day and my fish never showed signs of being unhealthy pre/post water change so I'm just going to do a 20% water change in a week or two and clean the filter tomorrow.

Oh yea I also added about 5 tablespoons of salt to my water about 2 months ago from what I had read in regard to a little bit of marine salt being healthy for fish and I didn't want to overdue it. I have didn't add anymore salt with the 50% partial water change... heh I'm probably playing with fire but I don't want to have to buy all sorts of tests or become a marine biologist in 1 week to correct all my tanks problems... I figure I'll fumble along and slowboat my acquisition of skills, knowledge, wisdom, and equipment until I hopefully one day have one of those amazing looking tanks that you see here:

http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2009.cgi

Anyways, I had already been overfeeding my fish for quite some time bc I thought more nitrates were a solution to all my plants initially melting when I first placed them in a new tank. After a bit of reading I had decided that I would see how my rooted plants would do with a buildup of mulm in the really cheap LFS gravel and voila everything started to finally grow under 2x T12 fluorescent bulbs in a $20 home depot shop light fixture. I'd read that the decomposing material from fish poop and decayed plant leaves produces some CO2 and the methane is converted to safer compounds so perhaps the mulm on the bottom combined with the respiration of the fish + buildup of co2 when the lights are off at night is just enough to keep my plants relatively healthy looking. 

I had my lights on for about 16 hours and recently changed them to around 12 hours. I noticed that my water wysteria would close it's leaves a few hours before my lights turned off at night so that pretty much was a clear sign that the lights weren't doing anymore for the plants past a certain amount of time.


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## GitMoe

Lots of plants fold up at night. Its one of my favorite things to see in the tank after the lights go off. My cabomba fold up hard like an umbrella. My wysteria do the same thing. Sounds like you have your own system worked out to keep the plants happy. Have you tested your tanks GH? Sometimes really hard water is loaded with nutrients right out of the tap and additional ferts needed are minimized. Im lucky enough to be in that situation...


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## F22

Very nice tank, why not dump in some SAE and amano shrimp?


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## OoglyBoogly

GitMoe said:


> Lots of plants fold up at night. Its one of my favorite things to see in the tank after the lights go off. My cabomba fold up hard like an umbrella. My wysteria do the same thing. Sounds like you have your own system worked out to keep the plants happy. Have you tested your tanks GH? Sometimes really hard water is loaded with nutrients right out of the tap and additional ferts needed are minimized. Im lucky enough to be in that situation...


Ah yes the wysteria is amusing since I have a bunch of it all around the tank. It's kind of nice how the undersides of the leaves look so white compared to the part that faces the light. I think I had cabomba as one of the first plants in the aquarium and it "melted" and never came back. :frown: The Hornwort looking plant did the same and left what looked like needles everywhere. I thought it had perished but eventually I noticed a very small piece of it stuck on a leaf and voila it's been growing ever since.

Our water goes through a LOT of testing so this info is easily available:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/pdf/wsstate09.pdf

Hardness (mg/L CaCO3) ranges from 17-23 since we get our water from different resevoirs depending on where in NYC you are located... so it averages at 19 mg/L which is about the same in ppm. Lol I used this site to figure that out, :

http://www.unitconversion.org/concentration-solution/milligrams-per-liter-to-parts-per-million-ppm-conversion.html

So straight out of the tap, the water is soft at about 1 degree of DH and according to this site the water is soft:

http://www.thetropicaltank.co.uk/hardness.htm

I never knew about the importance of GH in an aquarium and it's buffering ability to deal with PH swings. I have a piece of coral that I used to hold down the eheim outlet using fishing string bc the suction cups are so old that they won't suction anymore and I was worried about the outlet somehow magically shooting water out of the tank while I wasn't around. I wonder if that is somehow leaching calcium into the tank. :icon_neut


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## OoglyBoogly

F22 said:


> Very nice tank, why not dump in some SAE and amano shrimp?


I tried to pickup some SAE the day I bought my Otocinclus and dwarf baby tears from pacific aquarium which is an LFS on Delancy street but they didn't have any although I was told they did over the phone... /sigh The Otos look like they are always scouring the tank for algae but I never seem to see any difference. I have about 14 Red Cherry Shrimp (5 adults, about 9 tiny ones that I spotted 2 weeks ago) but they seem content just picking at invisible debris that is too small for my eyes to see. Perhaps I'll keep an eye out for Amano Shrimp but the LFS that I've come across don't seem to carry much other than the same stuff I've been seeing for as long as I can remember. Oh and the price difference is ridiculous! One store out in Suffolk were selling Otocinclus for about $9 each, and then Pacific Aquarium had 3 left and were selling them for about $2 each (buy 2 get 1 free)... granted one of them died but still it's as if one needs to be an expert in the prices of fish just to know what an average price should be.

Lol I guess I have another reason to possibly add more fish. I've been trying to focus on what I have now and not spend any more money. Perhaps someone local would be willing to trade Endler guppies for a few amano shrimp and/or SAE. The endler guppy breeding in my tank is out of control! I started out with 1 breeding pair a few months ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaFn3m-fdxQ


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## F22

Oogly, I work in a shop in ny and we have a TON of SAE in stock


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## we4wieners

Very Nice...like the lighting change.


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## OoglyBoogly

A link to some of my fat fish hanging out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaFn3m-fdxQ#t=00m13s

This is how I changed the light:










I glued the little strip of scrap aluminum using epoxy for a little more light reflection into the tank since the inside of the hood is black plastic.

These 2 bulbs come with the light:









model # of the Lithonia lighting mini strip:










The only thing different looking about the hood after replacing the light (other then the brightness) are 2 little screw holes that I'm sure you can paint black using some black nailpolish since spray paint would probably be way too messy and time consuming. 










Total time to remove/replace new light was about 15-20 minutes.


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## OoglyBoogly

I haven't changed much other than increasing the amount of time between dosing Seachem Flourish and more frequent water changes. I use my nose to tell me when I should change the water. As soon as I start to catch a whiff of that fishy odor it's time for a change. I also try to use the stringy algae to give myself an idea of if I am overdosing my tank with Flourish.

Food regiment:
I crush up 3 Hikari Wheat Germ medium floating pellets using my thumb by pressing one at a time on the rim of the tank and then I grind them in between my fingers. I find this provides all sorts of size food for the adults and the various stages of endler fry. All the fish gobble up the food so fast that the water doesn't really get a chance to get cloudy and I'm sure my tadpole snails, MTS snails, Red Cherry Shrimp, and 2 Otocinclus are vaccuming up anything that might settle on the flora. By the time I have my fingers in a Hikari Tropical Micro pellet bag, there is just a film of very fine hikari wheat germ dust that the fry are working on while the adult females look like they are filter feeding from the surface constantly sucking at the film on the surface. I've found that following this routine has decreased the amount of bearded algae on the gravel and leaves since the otos and guppies pick at them all day long. At first I tried to feed my fish 3x a day to make sure the fry have enough food, then I overfed my fish once a day to make sure the skittish CPDs got a chance at eating, now I basically feed my fish twice a day giving them as much as they can eat until food starts dropping past them and hitting the gravel since the CPDs have gotten aggressive at making sure they get their fair share.

I keep wanting to feed my fish less but I'm worried the fry won't develop properly if they are malnourished although even they look like their bellies are about to explode.

Here are some updated pics:


update_oct-31-2010 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

I've been thinning out the tank and transplanted all the hornwort to my breeder tank underneath is and about 2/3rd of the brazillian pennywort as well. I added some dwarf hairgrass to the tank (left side) that I got from another planted tank forum member from a trade (endler pair + fry for a few nodes of DHG, and I also bought a different kind of dwarf hairgrass from petco that I planted on the left side). I also need to stop using wysteria cuttings as midground plants since they almost triple in height in about 11 days in my tank if they get direct light from atleast 1 T12 bulb for plants from Home Depot. I also moved all the remnants of a few sprigs of Baby Tears to the breeder tank.


fishtankprogress_september-to-oct31_2010 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

30 gallon Breeder Tank


DSC_0128 by mikeytitan, on Flickr

Oh yea the net is in the breeder tank because I was using it to hold down mosquito larvae close to the bottom. The CPDs go in and out of it slowly eating all the larvae. I figured this will reduce the chances of a larvae turning into a mosquitoe since the CPDs stay close to the bottom of the breeder tank doing their courting as opposed to the CPDs in the 55 gallon tank which stay near the surface by the Java moss that I have on top of the Spray bar.


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## OoglyBoogly

Update:

Just added some california blackworms (checked for leeches and none were found) to the substrate of my 55G tank. I plan on adding a few to my outdoor pond and buckets with mulm at the bottom in a few minutes. Mwahaha biodiversity +1 !


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## OoglyBoogly

30 gallon Breeder Tank



This temporary makeshift egg trap was a disasterous idea!!!!! I can't emphasize enough how curious CPDs are. At first my CPDs kind of kept away from it but after they got used to its presence a male decided that the holes in the mesh were big enough to get through. I thought it was amusing watching the crafty alpha male daring in and out of the mesh until the next morning I only counted 1 female, 3 males in the tank hanging out and found a female stuck in the mesh. She got in, must have eaten a few mosquito larvae and was too fat to get out. I had to surgically remove the mesh around her using a fingernail clipper and then sever the net around her so she could get out. Right now the female has what looks like a indented ring around her and some scraped off scales from the top of her head but she has been eating and swimming around as if nothing happened. This happened yesterday morning so we'll see. I hope she doesn't perish.


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## OoglyBoogly

I'm just going to start dropping some pics I took of the fauna in the tank here:


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## OoglyBoogly

Male Celestial Pearl Danio


















Female Celestial Pearl Danio









Female CPD









male ender, female CPD:









male endler:


















male endlers and male CPD









RCS and male endler









CPD Fry


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## OoglyBoogly

Prolific little buggers









The cardinal tetra on the right looks so sad


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## OoglyBoogly

Woo just got a bunch of $2 Siamese Algae Eaters! gahh my tank is overun with hair algae. It's driving me mad.










Also I counted 8 Celestial Pearl Danio fry in my 30g tank!


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## OoglyBoogly




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## OoglyBoogly

Ah I tried counting my CPD fry through all the water sprite that I transplated from my big plant in my 55g and I counted 18 so far!


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## OoglyBoogly

So I made these mesh things using Loofa mesh and Plastic Canvas. I plan on trying to seed this with flame moss.










I also got some YLI Invisible Thread for tying moss around rocks. This stuff is such a pain to work with since it's sooooooo thin and clear. I feel like I need tiny hands to work with it.

I also picked up some plants from sewingalot. $7 for some blyxa japonica and some other stemmed plants. She wound up sending me 9+ blyxas, 3 crypt babies, flame moss, and 15 other different kinds of plants! LOL I got a giant bag of stuff! I swear I could have almost completely stocked my 30g from scratch with what I got from her.


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## OoglyBoogly

I just took some new pics of my tank tonight and I added another light from my bottom tank for the pics. Ugh it actually made a bunch of stuff on the left side not show due to the contrast/exposure. I tried playing with it a tiny bit in photoshop and it's a bit messy due to the warmth of the 2x 36" T5NO bulbs in the foreground.










I also added the following plants the sewingalot was gracious enough to send me for JUST SHIPPING! GAH she is the awesome.

Clinopodium cf. brownei (a ton of this)
Bacopa salzmannii
Bacopa carolina (I am not sure of the id, just received a ton of it from a friend and stuck in a few stems for you to try as well)
Lindernia sp. varigated
Lindernia sp india
Heteranthera zosterifolia (it has black edges on some of it because I was lean on the micronutrients)
Lysimachia nummularia (very similar to the clino, but a more yellow color, also called 'creeping jenny')
Hygrophilia sp. bold (or tiger, I am not sure which)
Rotala rotundfolia (ratty looking stems due to lean micronutrients)
Blyxa Japonica
Ludwigia repens x arcuata
Ludwigia brevipes
Pellia
Flame moss
Unknown moss (not java)
Emersed crypt lutea (still has dirt on it, so rinse it well and expect a total melt down.)
Various crypt babies (submersed)
Limnophilia sp. wavy


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## sewingalot

Glad you got it all alive and well! I hope the plants work well for you. Great thing about getting a variety, you are always bound to have at least a few do well in your tank. I literally am about to tear out that amount again this weekend. I love sharing when people don't mind getting a bit of algae with my plants. :biggrin: I really like the scape. Very nice and lush. How long did it take you to plant everything? I really, really like the idea of your mesh trap. Too bad it didn't work out, but now you have me wanting to experiment.


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## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> Glad you got it all alive and well! I hope the plants work well for you. Great thing about getting a variety, you are always bound to have at least a few do well in your tank. I literally am about to tear out that amount again this weekend. I love sharing when people don't mind getting a bit of algae with my plants. :biggrin: I really like the scape. Very nice and lush. How long did it take you to plant everything? I really, really like the idea of your mesh trap. Too bad it didn't work out, but now you have me wanting to experiment.


Thanks for the compliment on the way I placed the plants. I really struggle to make it tolerable with the stupid dimensions of the stock 55g. lol 18 inches deep, 48 inches long... and 12 inches wide from front to back?!?! WTF good thing I'm not into buying enormous fish that sit lonely in such a tank and can't even turn around! :biggrin:

I decided to move a lot around so it took a few hours to move/replant/plant the old/new plants. Good thing I don't time myself or else I'd realize how unhealthy my obsession is with having my hand in the tank constantly changing stuff!! LOL collector-itis! One day... one day... I will see the iwugami light and know the joy of simplicity... 

My buddy came by unexpectedly to check out what I was doing so I wound up taking a bunch of your stem plants and tying them up with one of those metal strips used at the fish store. I HATE doing that b/c I think they are made of painted lead and I eventually want to try and suck out some more nutrients than my plants can handle by using a modified aerogarden which I would throw some herbs in. I also left a few stem plants floating at the top until I decide what to do with them. Oh I also threw in some sort of stem plant/mint that my mother uses in Vietnamese cooking. It smells like something I've eaten in Indian cuisine but I can't nail the smell/flavor. It's definitely NOT like spearmint or this other kind of mint used in soups (thai mint) that i've eaten...


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## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> Here is a progression
> I modified the aquarium hood light and put in a dual t5 36"


Wow!! Looks like that doubled the output. Wonder if it will overdrive the bulbs and shorten the life span?


OoglyBoogly said:


> FYI, my tank is pretty filthy and has way too much string algae and bearded algae for my liking. I figured that my tank was really chewing through the nitrates so I began overfeeding my fish.


I did that too, accidentally, and started having string algae. Having light 3hrs on, 3hrs off, and 4hrs on seems to help. I dose Excell daily too. Sounds like you could use some Seachem Excel.


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## LICfish

Your tank is beautiful! You did a great job, especially with a 12 inch depth!


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## sewingalot

It might be limnophilia aromatica you are talking about. It's edible, frequently found in asian food and is a lovely plant overall.  I always seem to have stems floating on top of my tank wondering what to do with them. Glad to see I have company. How are the plants doing?


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## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> Wow!! Looks like that doubled the output. Wonder if it will overdrive the bulbs and shorten the life span?
> 
> I did that too, accidentally, and started having string algae. Having light 3hrs on, 3hrs off, and 4hrs on seems to help. I dose Excell daily too. Sounds like you could use some Seachem Excel.


Hmm I just stocked some more plants in my tank hoping that will make a bigger dent in nutrient uptake and I also gave away a bunch of hit endlers to my friend to reduce my bioload. I am probably going to order excel as well...

I posted the mod to my stock 36" hood here... All I did was buy a new 2x bulb ballast/fixture and replace the 1xT8 one in the hood.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/swap-n-shop/119620-wtb-36-light-fixture-pc-t5.html#post1192453

I probably should have posted that comment in the DIY section instead of someone's swap and shop post so please don't reply to that thread and potentially drive people crazy ressurecting an old WTB thread.

@ LICfish...

Thanks... the 12" depth is the bane of my tank's existance... LOL I was watching some ADG video about how crazy they sometimes grade the substrate to give the illusion of an incredible amount of depth but my tank is lowtech and I'm trying to keep it lowcost as well although I keep slowly putting money into it... gah it's like a festering wound on the wallet haha


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## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> It might be limnophilia aromatica you are talking about. It's edible, frequently found in asian food and is a lovely plant overall.  I always seem to have stems floating on top of my tank wondering what to do with them. Glad to see I have company. How are the plants doing?


The plants are doing great! I can't say the same for the shrimp though :'(

Haha my mother was picking through the floaters and she said "MICHAEL THIS IS THE SAME PLANT" so it's probably limnophilia aromatica,,, 20 seconds later... OK I just looked at some pics and it sort of looks like it but the submersed form is sooo much more compact. the jagged leaf edges look familiar... Oh btw you sent some really tiny plant... it looks like tiny arched blades of thick grass but it's only about 1" tall... I saw them in some other person's tank a week ago and I know it stays tiny but I never thought to ask them what it was and I'm a bit ADD to go through the gigantic list of plants that you included lol...:iamwithst


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## sewingalot

Oh, yeah? That's probably crypt parva. Does it look like a crypt? If so, that's probably what it is. It gets uprooted occasionally in my tank and I just get mad and give it away instead of replanting it. 

Sounds definitely like limno aromatica by the way you are describing the leaf structure. Sucks about the shrimp. The only thing I know that will kill them quickly is a nitrate/ammonia spike. That and copper. You haven't added any medications lately, have you?

I just found my female betta with a cherry shrimp in her mouth. I was wondering why she was so fat when I have cut back on feedings.


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## LICfish

OoglyBoogly said:


> gah it's like a festering wound on the wallet haha


That it is :hihi:
Sorry to hear about your shrimp. I lost all of my amanos shortly after I got them. Gave up after that.


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## OoglyBoogly

Link to a greater description of my shrimp disaster with pics.

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/shrimp-other-invertebrates/120517-disaster-strikes.html#post1201892


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## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> Oh, yeah? That's probably crypt parva. Does it look like a crypt? If so, that's probably what it is. It gets uprooted occasionally in my tank and I just get mad and give it away instead of replanting it.
> 
> Sounds definitely like limno aromatica by the way you are describing the leaf structure. Sucks about the shrimp. The only thing I know that will kill them quickly is a nitrate/ammonia spike. That and copper. You haven't added any medications lately, have you?
> 
> I just found my female betta with a cherry shrimp in her mouth. I was wondering why she was so fat when I have cut back on feedings.


Here is a pic of the plant I was talking about:









It doesn't have those round looking crypt leaves and I had the same problem with it floating at the top lol! I'm going to wait for it to develop better roots before attempting to replant it (again).


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## OoglyBoogly

CPD Babies!

OK So I moved some more moss from my top 55g tank to my 30g CPD Fry planted tank and I tried to count the little moving fry as fast as I could in different spots of my tank and so far I think I found 27 fry. It's rough counting them since they are so ridiculously small and there are always tiny bits of detritus floating around the tank in the current so I have to rely on seeing movement in order to find them since I'm laying on the floor counting... haha...

Here is the best pic I could take of them towards the back of the tank right under the light. There are 5-6 of them


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## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> Just added some California black worms to the substrate of my 55G tank.


California black worms in NY, interesting. Did you buy them on line?


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## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> It doesn't have those round looking crypt leaves


Perhaps potassium sulphate would help it grow better. Aquarium fertiliser is the cheapest.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> California black worms in NY, interesting. Did you buy them on line?


I picked them up from Petland. They label them as "blackworms"... I also read this here so... yeah... anyways they are very cheap. The employee stuffed a cup with them for $1 or $2... I can't remember the exact price but I kind of did a whoa when I saw how much lives worms were being put into the cup.

http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1871747&postcount=5

The guy also sas and he didn't think petland offered them. I seeded my outdoor pond with blackworms so hopefully I'll see some next year!


----------



## OoglyBoogly

OM NOM NOM NOM! Otocinclus!


----------



## LICfish

Oh great photos of the CPDs and the oto. I have yet to see CPDs in real life.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

I just posted a few of my CPD pics here:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fish/120559-celestial-pearl-danio-2.html#post1202905

I got them from Franksaquarium.com You can either pick them up from him out in Long Island or he will bring them to work with him at the Brooklyn Aquarium if I remember correctly.


----------



## sewingalot

Yay on the babies! That is a really cute picture of the otto! I am stealing it for my desktop and you can't stop me!


----------



## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> Yay on the babies! That is a really cute picture of the otto! I am stealing it for my desktop and you can't stop me!


 I've been moving moss back and forth from my 55g to my 30g and every day it looks like I have more fry... I can't even count the little things b/c they are so small unghhh... I just shook up some moss that I moved either last night or the day before and a newborn fry darted out of it and and slowly sank back onto the moss. You know the fry that are old enough to react to stimuli but not old enough to stay free swimming. BTW Sarah I have more Oto pics that are larger/not cropped etc if you want to use them =P Not sure why though the otos eyes remind me of those googly eyed little dogs where there eyes are pointed in all different directions! hah


----------



## sewingalot

Now that you mention it they do look like those googly eyed dogs. :hihi: I really want to get some cpd fry from you in the future to help add to my stock. I'll have to get some pictures of the otos from you soon. You take great macro shots. Is this your friend's camera or yours?


----------



## lauraleellbp

Yes that is Crypt parva and the reason you're having trouble keeping it planted is the length and direction the leaves are growing since you're letting the plant float. The leaves are pushing it up out of the substrate. You'll need to keep it upright so that the leaves will start growing the opposite direction (they'll grow towards the light so the roots need to be down).


----------



## OoglyBoogly

lauraleellbp said:


> Yes that is Crypt parva and the reason you're having trouble keeping it planted is the length and direction the leaves are growing since you're letting the plant float. The leaves are pushing it up out of the substrate. You'll need to keep it upright so that the leaves will start growing the opposite direction (they'll grow towards the light so the roots need to be down).


 Ah I planted it about 24 hours after I got it and it one I found it floating the next day. I am REALLY trying to limit how often I have my arms in my fish tank since it is a bit of a production to remove my hood. It's in my basement so it's definitely not of show piece quality. I literally have to life the fixture move a piece of plexiglass (one for each half of the tank) take a 4x4 piece of wood and place it across the the short ends of the tank and then prop the fixture onto the pieces of wood so that I have room to get into the tank. Gah I keep thinking that I will get electrocuted if I keep doing this crazy method but my initial goal was to be low tech and very low cost... Everyday I come across something else that I think I "need" to do to my tank especially when I see all the tanks of you planted tank gurus! Haha this forum is a curse and blessing :help:


----------



## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> Now that you mention it they do look like those googly eyed dogs. :hihi: I really want to get some cpd fry from you in the future to help add to my stock. I'll have to get some pictures of the otos from you soon. You take great macro shots. Is this your friend's camera or yours?


 It's actually my father's Nikon D40. He bought it b/c he used to be an old school hardcore photographer hobbyist in the actual film days and then he got this camera and a Tamron Macro lens and he never used it... So one day I asked if I could play around with it and he was glad it was going to get used! LOL "old people"


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Here are some more for ya!


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Ohh I have some more "different" macro shots that aren't aquarium related and if you are interested in the higher resolution ones let me know... This is one of my crown jewels lol... Bumblebee drinking from raspberry flowers 

 flight of the bumblebee by mikeytitan on Flickr 

I grew these royalty purple raspberries! So frigging delicious 

 DSC_0183 by mikeytitan on Flickr 

Here is my set: 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/sets/72157623948484503/


----------



## OoglyBoogly

*Aquaponics to cure my fish tank*

I figured that I'd try to hasten the return of the water chemistry to shrimp safe levels by adding some Bok Choi that I was growing in a raft aquaponics setup. I won't be eating the bok choi but I hope it's emersed growth will hasten the removal of any heavy metals from the tank. The roots are free floating and have been hidden behind my spray bar that is covered with java moss that is rotated between 2 tanks for CPD egg harvesting. I am lighting the Bok choi using the PC bulbs from an aerogarden that I still have not gotten around to modding for connecting it to an outside nutrient source. The Aerogarden is meant to be used with root tabs that you buy from the manufacturers of the device... 

PICS!

The throwaway bok choi... some critters must have been munching on the leaves as a last hurrah before the weather got really cold. Bok Choi and lettuce is a wonderful plant to start and end the temperate outdoor aquaponic season as it does very well in cold weather. Basically any leafy greens usually does well.









ahh look at that root mass! Quite extensive for something free floating in fish poopie water.









I use an inert hydroton as a medium for the roots to grow through to keep the stems/leaves of the seedling stable so they don't just float away into my water bed/buckets.









The roots are now hidden









Ew the dreaded full shot of the tank with the ghetto fabulous modified $10 shop light from home depot + a sheet of scrap aluminum lol









The net cups and roots are now hidden by the moss and spray bar except for the stream of roots in the current from the spray bar!



















My Siamese Algae Eaters are picking at it for some treats of leftover stuff that was stuck to the roots even after I rinsed it under tap water.


----------



## mrchach

nice tank


----------



## LICfish

Love your photography skills. I can never get photos that nice! I have Nikon D50.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

LICfish said:


> Love your photography skills. I can never get photos that nice! I have Nikon D50.


Thank you for the compliment!

Take 300 pictures of the same thing and I guarentee you'll get one good pic! LOL I brute force my way through photography to make up for my lack of knowledge and infantile skills. Really though, especially with moving subjects, don't be afraid to hammer down on that shutter button! Oh I also get to use a Tamron macro lens.


----------



## EntoCraig

Cool Endler (Hybrids?)!


----------



## OoglyBoogly

EntoCraig said:


> Cool Endler (Hybrids?)!


I don't know. I bought a breeding pair from the LFS in the summer and they were charging either $10 or $15 for a pair! LOL they no longer sell them. They said someone came in and bought all the many (maybe 100 or so b/c their tank had much more than mine and I have around 30-40 now with colors) or so males that they had spread around the tanks. I tried to join this forum run by this guy AdrianHD who gets them straight from the source and breeds them. http://www.endlersusa.com/. I figured I'd post pics to get an idea from the users and also chat it up since I was really into my endlers at the time and BAM I got insta banned and tagged as a bot. Probably b/c I type too fast and added about 10-15 of my pics to my first post... I tried contacting (via a reply to the automated mail I got from the forum) but without avail. My IP Address got banned too so I couldn't even rejoin and ask anyone about the situation with my account! LOL The website doesn't have one contact address... not even the WHOIS on the site has a contact email for the administrator/technical contact of the domain. So I just chalked it up to having some sort of hybridized endler from Taiwan with nice colors. It makes me feel special LOL! I think these things breed faster than roaches imho. I'm thinking of giving all of mine away to my best bud b/c he is still in the "I LOVE LOTSO FISH" phase where as I want more calm fish in my tank... something with more personality than a fish that runs around and wants to reproduce 365.25 days out of the year!

End wall of text


----------



## EntoCraig

Adrian HD is who go me into Endler Hybrids also. I maintain a colony of Class P Endlers as well as many hybrid (Class K) colonies and projects.

Interesting little fish. 

Sweet tank BTW.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

EntoCraig said:


> Adrian HD is who go me into Endler Hybrids also. I maintain a colony of Class P Endlers as well as many hybrid (Class K) colonies and projects.
> 
> Interesting little fish.
> 
> Sweet tank BTW.


I have A LOT of pictures of my endlers if you'd like to take a look. LOL Maybe you can even enlighten me on what it is that I have! haha

http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.mucciardi/640x480?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrb_e7KqKuFlQE&feat=directlink


----------



## EntoCraig

OoglyBoogly said:


> I have A LOT of pictures of my endlers if you'd like to take a look. LOL Maybe you can even enlighten me on what it is that I have! haha
> 
> http://picasaweb.google.com/michael.mucciardi/640x480?authkey=Gv1sRgCKrb_e7KqKuFlQE&feat=directlink


:icon_eek: WOW. those look awesome. I find that most Endlers in the hobby are hybrids.

My Class P colony (purest I have) all look like this: (first 2 pics)

http://projectaquaria.blogspot.com/2009/12/begining-of-defined-strains.html

But my hybrid projects have a large variety in patterns and colors.

Honestly its impossible to say if they are pure, or at least if they are 99.9% Endler without knowing if they came from a wild colony, etc.

I have several Hybrid strains and tons of random hybrids.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

EntoCraig said:


> :icon_eek: WOW. those look awesome. I find that most Endlers in the hobby are hybrids.
> 
> My Class P colony (purest I have) all look like this: (first 2 pics)
> 
> I have several Hybrid strains and tons of random hybrids.


O man that tail on the right is incredible. I was never impressed with the picks on AdrianHDs page (probably more a quality of camera issue than anything else) but damn that tail is phenomenal. That spot reminds me of the great storm on Jupiter. I can't keep track of my endlers anymore but there are some who have black outlines and half white and orange tails which I love. Some are even getting more blue and in a new generation I noticed the black spot right in the center is now starting out as a white spot which is turning blue as they get older. I even had one once that was some crazy mutation (maybe 2nd generation in my group) and I seperated it from my colony but my damn goldfish ate it as I couldn't find it a few days later... lol not one trace of it!


----------



## EntoCraig

Its a fun experiment. Keep up the good work. These pictures are like 4 months old, i really need to take some new ones :icon_wink

Check out my buddies page: http://endlerspectrum.blogspot.com/
You will find tons of Endler Variations. Many of which are from known pure Endlers.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

So I'm at the point where I hate the way my tank looks. It makes me want to cut someone. LOL just kidding. It really looks terrible. I'm taking those bright red rocks out of the tank. I was going to use them for 15g project that I have in mind so I figured why not just see how they look in my 55g. Barf... I finally got fed up with the gigantic water sprite that keeps 1/3rd of my tank in a huge shadow. 

Here is the Nov 21th horror:









This is what it looked like on the Nov11th of this month:









I guess the tank looks bigger now that I trimmed a bucket full of randomness... Not like the tank looked spectacular but atleast I had the jungle theme going on... and a TON of shrimp... I got rid of all my water sprite and about half of my wisteria which I'll be donating to my friend for his new tank. It's kind of crazy how much of my tank had those in it. 

On the bright side of things I've had seachem cuprisorb running in my tank for a week or so... It's right in front of my spray bar which as the end cap removed. I was too lazy to take my eheim apart and put it inside of it.










It looks a bit darker than from when I put it in. You can see the filter bag with about 1/3rd of a 250 ml bottle. I want to get rid of ALL my endlers. It's insane how many of them I can now see since I removed a good portion of the plants that they were probably hiding in. I did find a LFS that might exchange all my endlers for store credit I just have to bring them in so they can see how they look in person rather than in a picture. We'll see... It would be nice if they took my adults and juvies too or else I'll just wait a month or so for them to get their color so I can get more store credit although I don't expect much being that they are guppies and reproduce like roaches. 

I also removed ALL my java moss and some unknown (perhaps taiwan freebie moss from Green Leaf Aquatics... I asked what it was and he wasn't too sure... I decided that the only moss I want in my 55g for now is flame and christmas moss. It's now all in my 30g which has easy low light plants for my CPD fry. 










Anyways...

I finally succumbed to the fear of being electrocuted. I got a nasty shock once in my optics lab in college... damn broken laser power supply. It felt like some crazy seizure so I'd rather not experience anything close to that nevermind while alone in my basement with my hand in a tank full of lightly salted water! I found a T5HO 48" 4x 6500k bulb hood for $150. Each bulb has it's own polished aluminum reflector and 2x switches so I can put 2 on at a time. It only has 1 ballast though so I can't have 2 sets of lights on different timers. I was going to buy 2x T5HO54w programmed start ballasts, non shunted sockets, bulbs etc and build a custom hood using some PC fans and plexiglass that I have laying around and paint it with high temp black spray paint but then I thought about how I'm not really interested in this project which would make it a chore so I bought the bullet and snagged a brand new one that comes with a 5 year warranty. I thought the price was nice considering a similar hood with 4x T5HO 54w bulbs with individual reflectors is ~$300 from foster and smith aquatics. The one I bought has 4x 6500k bulbs so I need to look into this and see if I will have to replace them. I'm also getting some Lotus seeds from G-ma in hawaii so it should be nice to be able to keep the hood about a foot above my tank (according to hoppi's lighting sticky) and have high lighting on the bottom of the tank while being able to eventually see the water lotuses floating on top. Perhaps that will make me forget the ugliness that lies beneath. 

Darn I think my collector-itis is wearing off since I'm longing for a more uniform look in my tank rather than randomness and spastic guppies everywhere. I'm foreseeing co2 in the future b/c I have this feeling my tank is going to explode with algae with the new lights. LOL I think i'll be going from 5k lumens (2x 48" T12 hood: my current bulbs (not what is all going into the tank and without any reflectors) to 20k lumens theoretical max (4x 48" T5HO not all going into the tank but each bulb does have a polished reflector)... Ahh I fear the green giant of algae which may awaken in my tank. Hopefully the excel that I ordered last week which should be coming tomorrow will help out and be a sufficient crutch for not having CO2.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Oh... and did I mention how much I hate petco for fooling me into thinking the "dwarf hairgrass" that they sell is dwarf... It reminds me of my lawn outside and I never heard anyone refer to the lawn as their dwarf lawn...

I just saw someone in the SnS selling emersed Eleocharis 'belem' @ $20+$6 shipping for a 2"x4" which is way out of my momentary judgement of what I want to spend on plants for my ghetto fabulous free fish tank... No way am I going to risk getting that only to have a tiny portion and then see it melt in front of my eyes. EVEN THOUGH I WANT IT! AHHH /hides CC


----------



## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> I found a T5HO 48" 4x 6500k bulb hood for $150. I'm foreseeing co2 in the future b/c I have this feeling my tank is going to explode with algae with the new lights.


Perhaps all of the plants will out compete any algae present to take over. It works for some when upgrading lights to have a lot of plants to prevent algae.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> Perhaps all of the plants will out compete any algae present to take over. It works for some when upgrading lights to have a lot of plants to prevent algae.


Heh I have high hopes but I'm also preparing for the worst. I just got my order of Seachem Excel (500ml) so hopefully that will help. I was nervous about doing the recommended 5 and a half capful initial dosing (1 for every 10 gallons) so I only did 3. Hopefully my lights will arrive in a few days. If anything I could always move a bunch of floating amazon frogbit to the 55g for a week or so after getting the lights until my other plants grow in a bit.


----------



## problemman

Oogly I think I want some enders....lol


----------



## OoglyBoogly

problemman said:


> Oogly I think I want some enders....lol


Gahh... Stop making me think my endlers are so special! JK Entocraigs endlers make me envious.


----------



## sewingalot

Yes, that is crypt parva! Congratulations, it's a great plant, but a slow grower. I personally think it is prettier emersed, but that's just me. Just got home earlier this week and have actual time to catch up on my subscribe journals.  Yay for the CPD babies!! I need to start moving some plants over to another tank when I see breeding again. Right now, I am watching the males fighting over territory.


----------



## sewingalot

Oogly - you'll need co2 for that new light fixture. I am wondering if you'd like more plants since you took out so many.......:hihi:


----------



## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> Oogly - you'll need co2 for that new light fixture. I am wondering if you'd like more plants since you took out so many.......:hihi:


Haha! I was just eyeballing some plant package but then I thought "damnit I am turning this "free" tank hobby into a monster. I just gave away a shopping bag of randomness to my friend and I think I filled up half of his tank. It's all plants that will grow fine in his tank since it is similar to my current setup and he'll only add new stuff to his tank if he gets it from me for free lol... Anyways , right now I'm waiting on someone to respond to my PM about a regulator, needle valves, solenoid, check valve, bubble counter etc that they are selling for $70 in the SnS but no response yet =/

I also have to figure out the logistics of if I can trade out the 30g+light underneath my 55g for an old 55g that I would have to build a wood stand for... I kind of want to setup the 2nd 55g using some Walstad methods with a soil substrate underneath some colorquartz.


----------



## sewingalot

LOL, getting another 55 gallon? You are getting hooked. By the way, since you have my address and all.....raspberries are great Christmas presents. :hihi:

Ever notice when you want something really, really bad, people are slow to respond?


----------



## problemman

Of its badcopnofish don't hold your breath I was surprised to get my full reg from him today which I don't even know if it had this needle valve he said it had.


----------



## problemman

Not hijacking I swear


----------



## OoglyBoogly

problemman said:


> Not hijacking I swear


LOL rubbing it in ehh?!



http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/swap-n-shop/121537-fs-pressurized-co2-setup.html

This is what I'm hoping to get a response on... I "thought" i sent a PM almost right after he posted it and then responded to his thread a little while later but then I checked my "sent" messages and there wasn't any trace of the PM which leads me to believe I didn't actually click on submit but right next to it or something like that... maybe I didn't even click my mouse button enough lol... and then switched to one of my other 47 open tabs then was like GAHHH and closed all the tabs! I didn't even check my sent messages until about 12 hours later when I was wondering about a response from him!

Oh well... Kind of sucks too b/c I found a Cornelius dual regulator (looks exactly like yours problemman) on ebay last night for $47 shipped and I didn't want to grab it only to get a response from Tusk 10 minutes later... Now it's gone D:

such is life


----------



## OoglyBoogly

sewingalot said:


> LOL, getting another 55 gallon? You are getting hooked. By the way, since you have my address and all.....raspberries are great Christmas presents. :hihi:
> 
> Ever notice when you want something really, really bad, people are slow to respond?


Seriously I know what you mean... oh and I WISH I had raspberries... IDK If they would last as long as the plant package you sent to me... lol I don't use any pesticides so they'd probably be all gross looking by the time they arrived  I haven't been able to pick a raspberry since like a month ago! The big crop was in the middle of the summer from all the floricanes (Last years brambles). Growing raspberries out of buckets are annoying...they use up SO much water and need to be watered twice a day in the crazy summer heat.


----------



## problemman

I got mine $50 shipped...does mine have a needle valve?


----------



## OoglyBoogly

problemman said:


> I got mine $50 shipped...does mine have a needle valve?


Hmm I don't know if that is a low pressure regulator attached after the solenoid or if it's a needle valve. From my understanding it usually goes like this:

TANK -> Regulator -> Solenoid -> Low pressure regulator -> needle valve ->check valve -> bubble counter -> either tank diffuser or reactor

I'm not sure if the check valve goes before or after the bubble counter but my understanding with the Low pressure regulator is that it steps down the pressure from the regulator a little bit more so that you can then fine tune it with a needle valve.

Again from what I have read, a full 5 lb CO2 tank is pressurized to around 1100 psi at room temp and it changes based on the temperature of the tank. You use the regulator to decrease the working pressure coming out othe dual guage regulator down to 11psi (according to http://www.rexgrigg.com/regset.html

After the solenoid you could use the Low pressure regulator (LPR) to further decrease the working pressure so that your needle valve can be used to do some very fine tuning of your CO2 output (measured in your bubble counter). 

I read something briefly about off gassing of your tank when it's basically spent and that the LPR prevents this from happening (how I'm not sure)

So yea don't quote me on this as I'm just starting reading about this stuff last night which was ironically hours after I thought about getting CO2 setup on my tank XD


----------



## OoglyBoogly

*Eww Cell phone video and pics!*

Video of my CPD Fry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQoMpW0iIY

pics of my tank... I feel better after covering 2x red lava rocks on each end of the tank with riccia and the one in the middle with HC...

Before (excel dosing nov 21):










After (yay stuff is growing in after excel dosing since nov 22 ):









Riccia stone using a NEW hairnet to cover it:










HC stone using invisible thread to tie it down:










OK I everytime I see someone mention excel it's usually along with some statement about their BBA and hair algae melting away afterwards... Mine is definitely not melting away and seems to be growing. It looks like my HC is growing too but I can't tell if it's out pacing the algae. Is this supposed to happen?











Oh btw... On the 2nd riccia stone I thought the hairnet was NEW but for some reason I was compelled to smell it... something in me said "smellll it to make sure their isn't any chemicals on it..." LOL GAG whiff of conditioner or something... I quickly ran to wash it off and rid my mind of someone elses hair odor!


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Ohh yea btw Sarah, I noticed your post about your blyxa turning red due to your immense amount of light and the blyxa I have floating is doing the same... OK The ONLY reason it is floating is b/c it was something I cut due to it looking very sloppy and it didn't have enough roots to keep it in my gravel... it's growing roots! Weeee










Oh and my sunset hygro? didn't have as much red in it until I started dosing with excel... and I had it for a few weeks before the excel


----------



## problemman

Yep sunset hygro


----------



## sewingalot

Not many people believe me on the high light causing blyxa to get really red. I guess it is all subjective, huh? I always have a bit of blyxa that loves to float to the top of the tank. It doesn't happen so much now that I no longer have cories, but still it occasionally does. The hygro looks really pretty. So does the ludwigia brevipes for that matter. I really love that plant, but the aerial roots drive me nuts.  I am laughing so hard at the hairnet comments. You are hysterical. :hihi:


----------



## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> OK I everytime I see someone mention excel it's usually along with some statement about their BBA and hair algae melting away afterwards... Mine is definitely not melting away and seems to be growing. It looks like my HC is growing too but I can't tell if it's out pacing the algae.


If it is not black you don't have BBA. With some of the other algae the plants can continue to grow. Excel kills most algaes but not always. I will not get rid of the imbalance that is causing the algae is growing on. I am thinking you may have a mineral imbalance. Seachem Equilibrium or CSM+B (1Tbp wkly) would help.


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> If it is not black you don't have BBA. With some of the other algae the plants can continue to grow. Excel kills most algaes but not always. I will not get rid of the imbalance that is causing the algae is growing on. I am thinking you may have a mineral imbalance. Seachem Equilibrium or CSM+B (1Tbp wkly) would help.


It looks black until I shine a flashlight directly on to it... It grows in little tufts. Anyways I want it gone XD

I just rescued this pair of scarlet badis from a LFS











And Sarah... We have Rotala butterfly! YAY


----------



## problemman

Aw poor little guys! And WOWZERS!!!!!! That's pretty!


----------



## OoglyBoogly

eek better pics of tank with new light... 1 bulb is missing atm and i'm waiting for it to be delivered...



















I feel so much better when plants have grown in a bit...


----------



## LICfish

Looking good. How often are you dosing Excel?


----------



## OoglyBoogly

LICfish said:


> Looking good. How often are you dosing Excel?


I did an initial dose of 3 caps instead of the recommended 5 b/c I was nervous and didn't want to nuke my fish... after that I dose every other day. Yesterday I decided to dose 2 consecutive days in a row and woke up to a dead otocinclus... hmmm IDK I really need to get a proper setup going with CO2 and ditch the excel since it makes me nervous with all the stories I've read about people nuking their fish and I haven't seen a reduction in my algae at all... in fact It's been getting worse which is probably due to the stronger light + lack of CO2 to go along with the increase in lights.


----------



## LICfish

OoglyBoogly said:


> I did an initial dose of 3 caps instead of the recommended 5 b/c I was nervous and didn't want to nuke my fish... after that I dose every other day. Yesterday I decided to dose 2 consecutive days in a row and woke up to a dead otocinclus... hmmm IDK I really need to get a proper setup going with CO2 and ditch the excel since it makes me nervous with all the stories I've read about people nuking their fish and I haven't seen a reduction in my algae at all... in fact It's been getting worse which is probably due to the stronger light + lack of CO2 to go along with the increase in lights.


I also got my first bottle of Excel like a week ago together with a lighting upgrade. I followed the directions and also dose every other day. I asked you because I saw that so many people dose once a day instead of every other day. 

I'm also seeing a bit of algae now. Definitely adding more plants and a light timer so hopefully it won't go out of hand.


----------



## Xalyx

What is that plant that looks like it's floating? On the left side


----------



## OoglyBoogly

Xalyx said:


> What is that plant that looks like it's floating? On the left side


I believe it's called pineapple mint. That's what my mother called it a long time ago... It looks exactly like this when grown in soil.










I pulled a few roots out of my garden about 2 weeks ago, washed off the dirt and have been growing it immersed. I googled pineapple mint and most of the pics that come up don't look anything like the pic I linked. Only 2 sites had that picture.

Other than that, amazon frogbit is floating on the surface of my tank. The only other floating plant on the left side is directly next to the center amazon sword plant and that one is called microanthemum umbrosium or something like that.


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## OoglyBoogly

So I was looking at my tank and suddenly I notice that a few Malaysian Trumpet Snails are folded up into their shell with a little bit of their soft part hanging out and they are on their side... WTF... My tadpole snails are happily chugging along eating stuff... my trumpet snails are ok doing the same thing as the tadpole snails... What did I do differently? Well a few days ago I removed the bag of seachem cuprisorb... I just did a ~15% water change... I was dosing seachem excel every other day... flourish twice this week... added a new 4x T5HO fixture... it's high enough above the tank where it doesn't heat the water up much if at all and I can still stick my arm in to the tank. Heater has been set to ~71F... tests come back fine... Oh... I did add some "Microbe-Lift" Herbtana b/c I noticed that my new scarlet badis was a little sickly looking and I didn't have a quarantine tank for it at the time and wanted to get it out of the bag ASAP.

SOooo I do a google search for :
Malaysian Trumpet Snail folded up

and the first result that I get back from google is...

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1603&bih=965&q=malaysian+trumpet+snail+folded+up&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=CIlj6Iaf6TIarNI7EywTZ6cyIDwAAAKoEBU_Q1WZf

WTH nothing worse than your own thread coming up as the first result from a google search when you are trying to figure out what might be wrong with your own tank that the entire thread is about...

FML


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## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> I believe it's called pineapple mint. That's what my mother called it a long time ago..I googled pineapple mint and most of the pics that come up don't look anything like the pic I linked.


I have seen it in the summer time at Home Depot but can't remember the name. So if you really want to know the name visit HD in the summer time.


OoglyBoogly said:


> So I was looking at my tank and suddenly I notice that a few Malaysian Trumpet Snails are folded up into their shell with a little bit of their soft part hanging out and they are on their side.


Here read that they need relative hard water.


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## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> I have seen it in the summer time at Home Depot but can't remember the name. So if you really want to know the name visit HD in the summer time.
> 
> Here read that they need relative hard water.


NYC has soft water but all my snails have been reproducing and thriving for months now. I have some pieces of coral in the tank and my PH is around 7.8-8 It's usually been around 7.4 ish and all i've done is add new plants and a few fish. Ugh this is starting to frustrate me.


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## OoglyBoogly

OK I just found this... 

http://www.microbelift.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?p=355&sid=57e9841b38c5602d49ab116e0f15f83c



> Question: We used Herbtana at 9pm and woke up to find 2 of the 3 margarita snails on their backs and looking like they were in distress. Coincidence or problem?
> 
> 
> Answer: It is normal for snails and other inverts to close up during treatment.
> 
> As long as you dose according to instructions on the bottle they should open up with no lasting effects after treatment has stopped.
> 
> Here is the link to the independent efficacy study.


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## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> NYC has soft water but all my snails have been reproducing and thriving for months now. I have some pieces of coral in the tank and my PH is around 7.8-8 It's usually been around 7.4 ish and all i've done is add new plants and a few fish. Ugh this is starting to frustrate me.


Did you put the seachem cuprisorb back in after the water change?


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## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> Did you put the seachem cuprisorb back in after the water change?


The snails were folded up before the water change. I just put the cuprisorb back in about 5 mins after I was done with the water change. I'm so paranoid now about their being copper that fell into the gravel and will slowly leach out of it. Perhaps I should just pick up a few cheap RCS and see how they do.


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## sewingalot

I'd get a couple cheap shrimp to test as well. Better to sacrifice a few than a lot, right? Yay for the rotala butterfly! How is yours doing? By the way, BBA can be several different colors, not just black. Check out my journal for proof. LOL.

How are the scarlet badis doing? Poor little guys.


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## Xalyx

OoglyBoogly said:


> I believe it's called pineapple mint. That's what my mother called it a long time ago... It looks exactly like this when grown in soil.
> 
> I pulled a few roots out of my garden about 2 weeks ago, washed off the dirt and have been growing it immersed. I googled pineapple mint and most of the pics that come up don't look anything like the pic I linked. Only 2 sites had that picture.
> 
> Other than that, amazon frogbit is floating on the surface of my tank. The only other floating plant on the left side is directly next to the center amazon sword plant and that one is called microanthemum umbrosium or something like that.


Those leaves look a little bigger. Just to be clear I'm asking about this. It looks like it's either floating and growing down or not floating and it's growing all the way to the top.








Is that what you say it is? Sorry for the confusion.


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## OoglyBoogly

Xalyx said:


> Those leaves look a little bigger. Just to be clear I'm asking about this. It looks like it's either floating and growing down or not floating and it's growing all the way to the top.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Is that what you say it is? Sorry for the confusion.


It's a bunch of plants... the majority of the plants in that box you drew is some plant from a LFS called wistera. The wisteria had lost a bunch of bottom leaves b/c I had it in a dark spot in my tank so I layered different ones that had different lengths to give it a fuller look. To the right of it is Heteranthera zosterifolia. I also had a big water sprite that was taking up a third of my tank that was growing with it from the left corner and it was basically growing out to the point where it was shading too much so it's since been removed.


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## slickscustoms

your tank looks awsome!


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## switcharoo

absolutely stunning man, i want to re-do mine to look like this. absolutely stunning


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## OoglyBoogly

slickscustoms said:


> your tank looks awsome!


Thank you for the compliment. 



switcharoo said:


> absolutely stunning man, i want to re-do mine to look like this. absolutely stunning


Wow thanks for such a high praise! I find a lot of things about my setup that annoys me but it's a process! The biggest thing that bothers me about my tank is the substrate. It's a nightmare for getting rooted plants to stay in the gravel b/c it's the cheap black gravel that you find in petland. The gravel that costs a little over $10 a bag. I used 1 bag and had a bucket or so of old river rocks that were bought a long time ago.


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## OoglyBoogly

Just in!

Airgas 2 stage regulator model# E12-244D
max out 100psi (according to model spec)




























Airgas E12-244D regulator. I'm not sure why the output gauge goes up to 200psi when the the knob says max outlet of 100 psi as does the description of this model that i've found. Perhaps some parts were replaced? It looks like the cga 320 connector was replaced b/c it's bronze instead of chrome plated. Perhaps the output gauge was replaced too... and the knob? lol... hey I hope I got a good deal for $48 shipped. Now I must accumulate a burkert buna-n seal solenoid, fine needle valve, bubble checker... tubing, DIY rexx grig CO2 reactor and ummm... more research is needed XD.

I am thinking about eventually using this regulator to power a few tanks that will be next to eachother.

More to come!


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## Hilde

I like the layout. It is just missing something with color. Perhaps Dwarf lilly, or some Cabomba palaeformis.


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## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> I like the layout. It is just missing something with color. Perhaps Dwarf lilly, or some Cabomba palaeformis.


You don't have to tell me twice about the missing color! It's so... greeeen... I've been slapping my hands everytime I see a cool plant that I want but right now I can't be certain that I will be home to accept a plant package the moment it is delivered and don't want to risk it sitting outside for too long even if it's in a styrofoam box. =/

My plant spending quota is non existent now that I am starting to look at accumulating the parts needed to make my CO2 rig.


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## Hilde

You can get the Dwarf lily bulbs at Wal-mart. Bag of 2 approx. $3.


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## funkyfish

I looove the jungle look! I can't wait for my 55g to fill in and hope that it will look similar to yours


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## sewingalot

Weeeelllllll? What's up in your neck of the woods?


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## OoglyBoogly

Thanks funkyfish. It is indeed a bit of a jungle. I'll be a lot more descriminating in regard to what I will put into my next project b/c I want a specific look. This 55g was all sorts of "wee I got new plants any plants I don't care it's PLANTS!! arghh"

It's cold Sarah... brrr make the winter go away so I can use my yard to comfortable build a table for my tanks!


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## LICfish

OoglyBoogly said:


> "wee I got new plants any plants I don't care it's PLANTS!! arghh"


Hehe. That was exactly my thought until I joined this forum.


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## funkyfish

OoglyBoogly said:


> This 55g was all sorts of "wee I got new plants any plants I don't care it's PLANTS!! arghh"


:hihi: That's how I feel at the moment. I think I'm just too excited that after a very, very, very long time my 55g is finally set up and I just want to experiment with all sort of plants


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## OoglyBoogly

funkyfish said:


> :hihi: That's how I feel at the moment. I think I'm just too excited that after a very, very, very long time my 55g is finally set up and I just want to experiment with all sort of plants


I still feel that way! I love all different kinds of plants. The only plant that I started to hate is water sprite. It just keeps growing like a monster and making a mess as it constantly dies and is a string algae creating monster when it gets too dense. In regard to my other plants, I just can't bring myself to get rid of any yet I want to really experiment with a different scape and create something a lot less busy while implementing some of the stuff I've been learning here especially in the realm of substrates. I really botched the substrate in my 55g since it's just inert gravel and I'm dreading having to break it down and put it back up so my future "table" will help out with that. I'm getting REALLY excited about my 75 gallon but I have soooo many hurdles to overcome =/ 

I have to design and build a table that can easily support 2000 lbs (multiple fish tanks). The table also has to be able to fit some random stuff under it b/c I'm actually aiming to make more efficient use of the space in my basement while adding more stuff to it (the extra 75 gallon tank). I'm definitely going to keep all (perhaps even add some more variety) the plants to my 55g. 

Anyways I just set this up in my bedroom. tee hee hee... 










I think I'm going to do a dry start with it to grow out some DHG 'belem' that I want to grow out in another dry start in the 75g. Maybe I'll just use it to farm carpet plants... /shrugs rather than eventually turning it into a lil shrimp tank to make sure I am not putting all my eggs in 1 basket by connecting the 30g, 55g, 75g... lol so many ideas and not sure where I am going with all of them.


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## OoglyBoogly

I got a killer deal on some Crystal Red Shrimp (and a Crystal Black or two thrown in as well)...

$3 each! the parents are S/S+ grade and the seller literally lives a 20 min walk from me but screw that it was like 27F out so I drove there... at 9pm... lol... gotta love local sellers and their unorthodox "non storefront hours"! Seriously though I keep thinking I'm going to get thrown against a wall b/c some NYPD officer is going to think I'm moving drugs or some other illicit item as I lurk around in the night when in actuality I'm meeting local hobbyists to buy/exchange aquatic fauna/flora... LOL can you imagine? 

me: "OFFICER I swear it's dwarf hairgrass in the ziplock baggy!" 

Officer: "Why are you running out of the building to a car with it inside your jacket like that"?

me: I was afraid the cold would kill it. 

Officer: BOY DON'T GET SMART WITH ME /blam nightstick to the back

OK back to reality... Here are some pics that I took.










"Buttt I'm important and want my picture taken too" said the CPD fry...

















































































Tiger tooth CRS... rawrr...




























OMG it's the shooter on the grassy (algae) knoll!


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## OoglyBoogly

Darnit I've got hydra... I blame sewingalot for "assisting" me in my ongoing science project 

Does anyone know if I need to nuke my tank or will the hydra be ok with the CRS?











Ohh and WTH do I have a mushroom growing in my fish tank? it has grown since I spotted it yesterday!


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## OoglyBoogly

found this link and will be using it to get rid of my hydra and I think I saw a flatworm a few weeks ago!

DIE!!

http://www.planetinverts.com/killing_planaria_and_hydra.html

Now I have to waltz into the vet's office and nonchalantly ask for 1 fenbendazole pill if they even sell it seperate from a package.


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## Hilde

OoglyBoogly said:


> found this link and will be using it to get rid of my hydra and I think I saw a flatworm a few weeks ago!


:hihi: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this tread. 

So you have introduced California worms. Now have hydra and are planning to introduce flat worms? Reminds of petri dish with bread. Here mechanical removal info on hydra. Never heard hydra before I read your thread.

Others with hydro problems wrangler, Captivate05and there are more.


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## OoglyBoogly

Hilde said:


> :hihi: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading this tread.
> 
> So you have introduced California worms. Now have hydra and are planning to introduce flat worms? Reminds of petri dish with bread. Here mechanical removal info on hydra. Never heard hydra before I read your thread.


I think I already have flatworms but they are white and not pink like some of the pictures! BTW I'm pretty sure all my CPD fry at all the baby blackworms. I still see a few adult california blackworms intertwined in my huge mass of java moss. my bottom tank (30g) is severely neglected. Other than feeding the fish and occasionally cleaning the gravel and doing water changes I leave it be so it has plenty of "critters" in it. I have plants floating in it, lots of amazon frogbit...


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## sewingalot

Agh!!! Do I have hydra????? I am going to get a magnifying glass and search my tanks now. I just dosed all my tanks this summer with flubendazole. But I also got a lot of plants that I didn't disinfect, too. Now I am scared.  Sorry if I contributed.


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## Hilde

sewingalot said:


> Agh!!! Do I have hydra????? I just dosed all my tanks this summer with flubendazole.


Here read that one killed them with Exel. Excel cheap at LNT.com with no shipment cost.


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## sewingalot

I just check 3 out of 4 tanks and all is good. I am going to search the 4th one tomorrow. Pm me if you didn't pick up the dewormer yet. I have half a package left over around here.


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## OoglyBoogly

@hilde, thanks I actually bought excel from LNT a month ago.

@sarah, duuuude I was just joking around with you b/c I saw in you once found them a loooong time ago! I actually got plants from numerous people over the past few months so it could be from anyone. I already ordered a 3x1g pack of paracure (fenbendazole) from amazon for $4(free shipping). 1g will be good for both my 30g and 55g with about 40mg of fenbendazole to spare from 1 tablet and 2 extra tablets. I'll probably give one to my buddy since I've been sharing my cuttings with him. Seriously though I could have gotten hydra, and planaria from the very first set of plants that I bought from a LFS before I even knew about TPT. My guppies probably ate most of the ones which kept me from seeing them and I never looked close enough at my 30g b/c I literally have to lay on the floor to work on it. I just put ~20 CRS and ~3 CBS (all very small juveniles) in the 30g about 1+ weeks ago so I'm actually looking closely at the tank. I've read all sorts of posts where people say either hydra have killed their newborn shrimp or planaria killed their adult shrimps so I think it is a good idea to treat both tanks as a precaution just in case... I just wonder if it will kill my snails and california black worms and cause some crazy ammonia spike =/ 

I'll probably test a proper dosage of fenbendazole on some snails before I treat the entire tank just to see what happens. If they are sensitive I'll try to remove as many as possible just so I have some to recover and repopulate my tanks down the road...

btw "My name is Luka" just reminded me of that scene from Godfather when the thug 'Luca's Brasi says "I hope your first child is a masculine child" hahaha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgZ60tcT17s


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## problemman

What's lnt?


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## OoglyBoogly

problemman said:


> What's lnt?


LNT.com (linens n things lol i know... selling fish stuff) pretty good prices and usually free shipping but it usually takes a week to get your package


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## problemman

What here I thought I got the wrong website lol


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## OoglyBoogly

lol...

just took a video of the tank... crappy cell phone... sorry =/
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/fish/123520-look-what-they-did-my-tank.html


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## sewingalot

Lol! I spent half the morning staring into my tanks looking for hydra. :hihi: I even debated about treating them all just to be safe. You got me on this one, for sure.  That's a fantastic price on dewormer, by the way. I spent like $15 last time. The price went up around here on pretty much everything.

Ramshorns and pond snails will be fine up to .1 gram per gallon of water for sure. Nerites won't be able to tolerate any of it if you have those. The worms may take a hit, though. Can you remove some until after the treatment?


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## sewingalot

Just saw the Godfather reference. Isn't it funny how everything can be referenced back to the Godfather movies?

I was watching the music channel and 'Luka' came on. I don't know why, but I like that song.


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## vai1296

OoglyBoogly said:


> eek better pics of tank with new light... 1 bulb is missing atm and i'm waiting for it to be delivered...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I feel so much better when plants have grown in a bit...


Hi, what plant is that in the middle to the left side of the swords and also what are those floating plants with nice roots?


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## OoglyBoogly

vai1296 said:


> Hi, what plant is that in the middle to the left side of the swords and also what are those floating plants with nice roots?



Sorry for taking so long to respond... 

micranthemum umbrosum is what i have to the left of the amazon sword in the middle of the tank... I got it as an RAOK from someone in the Swap and Shop.

The floating plants are Amazon Frogbit which I also got as an RAOK local pickup.

They both grow at a very fast rate.


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## OoglyBoogly

Ugh I miss my planted tank. No time anymore  The 55 Gallon only has endler guppies, 2 amano shrimp, 1 otocinclus, a bunch of amazon swords and tons of duckweed minor... the 30 gallon has celestial pearl danios, a tiny bit of moss and lots of duckweed minor and 1 Crystal Red shrimp... sigh


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## andrewluciano

Nice looking tanks!


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## GMYukonon24s

Good job! The tanks are beautiful.


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