# First rimless, Third planted, mid-tech! Mr. Aqua 17g



## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Here goes nuthin'!

I did it. I tore down my old Fluval Edge tank and upgraded to my first "serious" tank. It's a Mr. Aqua 720li (low iron), essentially ADA 60P clone. 17.1 gallon rimless. Lighting is a 24" Current USA Satellite+ LED, with a ramp timer. No co2. Flourish, Excel and root tabs. Let's see how it goes!

I'll reserve post #2 for current photos, and keep that updated as the thread progresses. I have a bunch of in-progress stuff I want to post before I get to the current state, though, so stay tuned...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Reserved for most current photos...

4/6/15: (Just did a major hacking back of plants, but cruising reasonably well at the moment)


















12/31/14: (serious jungle, but algae problem finally getting resolved?)










12/16/14: (problem algae on the _Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis'_, DHG Belem starting to carpet nicely)










11/10/14: (freshly hacked, DHG Belem getting a little better, algae still troubling but not out of control)










10/22/14: (some minor algae, freshly-planted DHG Belem, and not-yet-planted floaty Anubias Petite, but otherwise in decent shape)










9/6/14: (scrubdown branch for algae removal, replant all, new EBR and Mystery snail):










8/15/14: (new red reineckii, still fighting algae and sad anubias)










6/16/14: (Plants growing like crazy, I may need a partial rescape soon!)










3/8/14: (some plants need a trim soon!)










2/23/14:



















2/17/14:


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Here's the current lineup:

*Hardware:*
Mr. Aqua MA-720LI Rimless Aquarium (low iron glass, 17.1 gallons)
Current USA Satellite Plus Freshwater LED Lamp (24", PAR 36 @ 12")
Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 50-Watt Heater

Finnex PX-360 Compact Canister Aquarium Filter


*Fauna:*
A Dwarf Gourami (_Trichogaster Ialius_)
Six Neon Tetras (_Paracheirodon innesi_)
A Golden Mystery Snail (_Golden bridgesii_)
A Zebra Nerite Snail (_Neritina natalensis_), and
Four Ghost Shrimp (_Palaemonetes paludosus_).
... and something else, TBD (golden white cloud tetras, rummy nose tetras?)

*Flora:*
From old Edge tank:
Anubias Nana (_Anubias barteri v. 'Nana'_)
Hygrophilia 'Kompakt' (_Hygrophilia corymbosa 'Kompakt'_)
Crypt parva (_Cryptocoryne parva_)
Java Fern "Narrow Leaf" (_Microsorium pteropus_)
Glossostigma (_Glossostigma elatinoides_)
New for this tank:
Amazon Sword Plant (_Echinodorus amazonicus_)
Baby Tears (_Hemianthus micranthemoides_)
Wisteria (_Hygrophila difformi_s)
_Vallisneria nana_
_Rotala rotundifolia_
Christmas Moss (_Vesicularia montagnei_)
Anubias petite (I think, mislabeled at PetSmart!)

*Ferts:*
Flourish
Flourish Excel
Osmocote+ capsules


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

This is the big update post! LOTS of pics to follow.

Here is my old Fluval Edge tank, (which I have now broken down completely). The new one is going in the same location. 










I bought a fabulous piece of twisted root wood at Nature Aquarium in Santa Monica, and that will be the new focal point of this tank, instead of the Manzanita I had in my Edge. 










The challenge, as step one, was simple: How to get the new tank up and running as quickly as possible, to get the new inhabitants in place as soon as possible without cycling issues?

Generally, beneficial bacteria primarily live in the filter media. My thinking is the second largest population is likely in the substrate. Obviously the canister filter is moving to the new tank. Frankly, I need the extra substrate, too, so I don't have to buy too much and don't waste what I have. The problem, of course, is disturbing established tank substrate unleashes a world of ickyness (not ich-iness, one hopes, but who knows!). If not handled correctly, it can unleash a massive bacterial bloom, or a huge algae infestation, or a massive ammonia spike as the cycle tries to reestablish. 

So here's what I did:

I dumped one new bag of Activ-Flora to set the base layer in the new tank. 










Moved all old tank fauna to a 5 gal bucket with a heater and an airstone, with a mix of old tank water and new (treated) water. Moved all old tank plants to another bucket with a mix of old tank water and new (treated) water. Pulled all old hard scape items that weren't transferring to the new tank. Filter was turned off and moved to the tank (still off for now, since it hadn't been flooded yet). I set up a temp HOB filter on the old tank to try to keep the water clean while I worked. 

Once all that was left in the tank was water and gravel, the work started. I topped up the old tank with clean treated water. Then I filled yet another 5 gal bucket (good thing I have about 5!) with fresh treated water, and started cleaning gravel. I swished everything thoroughly inside the old tank, then handful by handful, started bringing gravel and into the bucket with the clean water. Once I had 10-15 handfuls in the bucket, I swished it thoroughly in there, too, and then started transferring to the new tank. It was pretty clean by the time it reached the new tank. I dumped the old water and put new clean water in the bucket 3 times during the process, and continued until all the gravel had been transferred. 










Time to start the scape!










Add some water from the bucket with the plants:










Time to start placing the fauna:










The old tank was pretty gross, even with the HOB filter running, but the double rinse seemed to do a good job, because the new tank flooded great, with the mix of water from old tank (the clean stuff from plant bucket) and new treated water. 

Here are a couple of shots from during the flood:



















Barely hazy, and once I kicked on the canister filter, that cleared up quickly, too. 

Only issue is the root was really floaty. I had a rock from an old setup on hand that did a decent job of holding it down, until it's soaked enough to stay put on its own. 

I tested the water the next morning and the parameters were nearly perfect... pH 7.4, ammonia .25, nitrite 0, nitrate 20 (tap water tests at 5). 

I added neon tetras and let them spend the day in the tank. That evening, parameters were even better, with ammonia down to zero. I added the rest of the critters and continued to monitor water conditions every 12 hours. 

This afternoon, water parameters are pH 7.4. Ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 15, dead normal for my old tank. 

I'm going to give it the rest of the week, and continue daily water tests, but by the time I have a chance to hit my LFS next weekend to pick up some new fish, I'd say this tank is done. There really was barely any cycle change. Success! (Ok, success for sure by the end of the week, but things are looking so good I'm willing to risk a little Mission Accomplished sign with reasonable confidence! )


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

My wife missed the burnt orange splash of color from the old tank. Also, the one thing I missed about the old tank was the clear glass top that the water covered, so you had a perfect clear view from the top as easily as from the front. Made for excellent ease of viewing. 

So I decided to kill two birds with one stone:

1) I'll build a small platform for the tank that will raise it a few inches, for easier viewing, and

2) I'll paint it a similar orange color, bringing that splash of color back in the room. 



















I can already tell I'll likely do a 2.0 version of the stand, and spend a little more time on it, but this should do fine for now. It needs about 48 more hours for the paint to cure before I put a 17 gallon tank on it, though! Pics to follow.


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## parrottbay (May 14, 2012)

Looking good, keep it up and the wife happy and you will be successful!


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

And finally, we're current to today. Last night I pulled the root out and attached the Christmas moss, Anubias nana, and Anubias petite (PetSmart had a nana mislabeled AND marked down... $2 score!) with fishing line, inserted my Osmocote+ root tabs under the stem plants, and wedged the root into place a little more securely. It's still floaty, so I kept the rock to weigh it down, but it's not as bad as it was before. Maybe I can remove the rock by the end of the week. 

Here she is:



















I'll do a water change and put the stand in place in a couple of days. LOVING this tank so far. The Sat+ light is really awesome, too. Fits the tank perfectly and puts out a great amount of light. And the ramp timer is really cool, too. I'm loving the gradual lights, dimming on and off instead of the jarring transition my old mechanical timers had. They worked fine, of course, but this is just that much nicer. I'll have to see if I shoot a time lapse of the lights turning on and off... Perhaps later today and tonight!

Speaking of time lapse, I shot a time lapse video of the tank last night. It's an hour of the tank, compressed into just over a minute. As usual, the golden mystery snail steals the show.  My Nerite snail was snoozing elsewhere, I guess. The Dwarf Gourami makes the rounds, and the tetras are their usual twitchy selves, schooling in area, then another, then back to the first. Oy. Well, the snail is fun to watch, at least. 

Oops, the YouTube link helps:


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

parrottbay said:


> Looking good, keep it up and the wife happy and you will be successful!


Truer words are seldom spoken. 

Oh, looking at that last pic, I'm reminded I need to call a plastic shop so I can try my hand at some DIY acrylic lily pipes...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

No change in water params this morning, so all seems well. 

Tonight, I'll do a partial water change, just because, and see if I can get the tank lifted to put the stand underneath. I'll post a full photo of the final setup then. 

I did a quick video of the "sunrise" light ramp up yesterday, but unfortunately my phone ran low on battery and it interrupted the fade out video, so I'll have to finish that one, and combining the two into one complete video, this evening.


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Ahhh.. so here's the build thread! Thanks for sharing the link in the club.

The tank is looking good. I'm glad you decided to roll with the high clarity version. It just shouts quality to me. Nice DW choice. Nature Aquarium is definitely one of my favorite LFS's. Toru, the owner, is like the Mr. Miyagi of planted tanks. My DW piece in my 60p originated from that shop...worth every penny. Mine was super floaty as well. I had to tie a rock to the bottom with fishing line and net to keep it down. You'll also run into that short phase where you'll see white fungus growing on it. Fun!

Anyways, nice timelapse video. You're lucky to get a Sat+ and Ramp Timer that works smoothly together. I've heard from some that they experience flickering or strobe effect.

Keep the updates coming, following


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Ahhh.. so here's the build thread! Thanks for sharing the link in the club.
> 
> The tank is looking good. I'm glad you decided to roll with the high clarity version. It just shouts quality to me. Nice DW choice. Nature Aquarium is definitely one of my favorite LFS's. Toru, the owner, is like the Mr. Miyagi of planted tanks. My DW piece in my 60p originated from that shop...worth every penny. Mine was super floaty as well. I had to tie a rock to the bottom with fishing line and net to keep it down. You'll also run into that short phase where you'll see white fungus growing on it. Fun!
> 
> ...


I hope that dang wood gets suitably sinky soon, or I'll look my patience and just screw a slate tile to the bottom. Effective, but a PITA if I never need to move it down the road! I had the white fuzz on my Manzanita branches, which cleared up on it's own a few days later, but so far nothing on this. But yeah, LOVE that root. I knew that was the centerpiece the moment I saw it. 

Reading the Sat+ thread, I think the strobing effect comes from choosing custom colors? The stock colors aren't supposed to have that, per the manuf.'s claims in the posts they made in that thread. I do hope I can afford to pick up the higher end ramp timer at some point, though, because I'd really love to automate a kick-over to the blue moonlights at the end of the day, instead of just fade to black. I'll take what I can get for now, though... the fade definitely beats the *click* of my old mechanical timer.  Oh, it'd also be nice to have more than one light cycle per day, while I'm dreaming. An hour or two in the morning gets the lights going at feeding time (so I don't have to manually turn them on and off... back to the CLICK!), then back off until the longer light period at the end of the day. That would be perfect. I'm fine with manually kicking off lightning storms and such when showing off the tank, but yeah. Automated Moonlights would be killer. (so would an hour of sunrise/sunset mode at the start and finish of the day, for that matter, but I'd still be a lot happier with even just the auto moonlight mode for an hour or whatever)

But that's just kvetching. Overall, I'm pleased as punch with my setup! Although I started noticing some bio-film last night, I make need to look into something to deal with that...


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Sounds good, man.. I predict co2 and a second Sat+ in your future! Haha

Anyways, I'm using the eheim skim350 and it makes short work of that dastardly surface scum. But if you get Lily pipes, there's a DIY surface skimmer, that doesn't look too bad, that you can put over the intake.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Sounds good, man.. I predict co2 and a second Sat+ in your future! Haha
> 
> Anyways, I'm using the eheim skim350 and it makes short work of that dastardly surface scum. But if you get Lily pipes, there's a DIY surface skimmer, that doesn't look too bad, that you can put over the intake.


Ha! I was just looking over your tank build thread, trying to find the name of that skimmer. I knew it was in there somewhere but it takes a little while to go through nearly 30 pages. 

Tell me more of this DIY skimmer, though? I'm hoping to DIY some acrylic lily pipes, just trying to get the raw materials and things have been busy. If that doesn't work out, I'll try some fleabay hong kong glass ones, but I like the durability of acrylic better... plus cheep!


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Here's that thread for the DIY

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=293066


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Here's that thread for the DIY
> 
> http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=293066


Interesting. Now the ol' hamster wheel is spinning...


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## horsedude (Nov 10, 2012)

I like it so far!
Good luck...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Thanks!

Got the tank stocked tonight, so we finally have more than some neons and the dwarf gourami. Photos as soon as I can take them. 

Added Golden White Cloud Tetras and Rummynose Tetras. So much going on in there now!

Plants are not doing as well as I'd like, especially some of the new ones. I think I have a nutrient deficiency, even though I'm using Flourish. (and Excel) 

I continue to resist the siren call of co2 ... although I admit I peeked at some pricing, and wow those regs are spendy! Perhaps if I give in I can make do with a DIY system with soda bottles and yeast and such...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

PetCo had a big sale on plants, so I decided to pick up a few more. Can't have too many plants... right?  Naturally for PetCo, their immersed plants were rubbish, and frankly some of the tube plants were in pretty bad shape, too, but I was able to find a few tubes in decent shape.

Added some taller Java Ferns to the existing ones (and finally pulled them out of the substrate and tied them properly, onto a little piece of Mopani wood from my old tank). Also, the Vallisneria nana is doing horribly, although maybe it will recover. So keeping with the grassy theme, I put some Kyoto grass (_Ophiopogon Japonica_) next to it, which coincidentally fills in that one empty space nicely, along the back wall.

Some of the plants aren't doing so hot. I'm hoping it's just the shock of being newly-planted (or transplanted in some cases), and that they'll bounce back, but we'll see. Some of the came from high co2 environments so I'm sure the shock of moving to a low tech (-ish) environment isn't helping. I won't admit to watching some YouTube videos of DIY co2 setups (yeast-style)...

My driftwood is still too floaty to take out the stone. I do look forward to that day, as it should help the looks quite a bit. Or maybe I need to find another reddish rock to use instead, meantime! (like the one the Anubias are tied to in the front right corner)

My Nerite snail continues to hide. He actually left the tank once, but stopped when he hit the base of the tank, fortunately. I found him the next morning. I know they can live a couple of days out of the water, once they seal up, but I worry about him going farther and me not noticing in time! He hides in the tank a lot, and I can't find him for a couple of days, long enough that I start checking around the outside of the tank, nervously, and then there he is the next morning, tooling around the glass as usual. *sigh* The mystery snail continues his usual bumbling hilarity, at least.

Also, I've been losing ghost shrimp. Water parameters are good, so I'm not sure why... perhaps the fish are chasing them in the dark so they pop out? Doesn't make sense, since there are way more places to hide in this tank than the old one, and I didn't lose any like this, there, where I had them for a good long while. (way larger opening on this tank compared to the Edge, however) I seem to lose one every couple of days. Well, at least ghost shrimp are super cheap.

I look forward to my cheap (eBay) glass lily pipes to show up, which will definitely make things look cleaner in there. I might also pick up some black posterboard to show my wife what it would look like with a black background. Maybe then she'll be ok with painting the back of the tank, which would further clean up the appearance since you won't see the heater wire or canister filter tubes. (btw, anyone have a good source for cheap canister filter tube? I want to lengthen mine slightly and need 12mm ID/16mm OD tubing)

Current shots:


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## parrottbay (May 14, 2012)

Looking good, where did you get that wood at?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

parrottbay said:


> Looking good, where did you get that wood at?


Bought it at Nature Aquarium, a shop in Santa Monica. Love it!


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## Bserve (Nov 4, 2012)

kman said:


> Bought it at Nature Aquarium, a shop in Santa Monica. Love it!



U in West LA too?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Bserve said:


> U in West LA too?


No, SFV, but I still hit Nature Aquarium periodically. Underwater Depot is my usual shop. Cory knows planted tanks quite well!


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## Crazy4discus (Jan 30, 2014)

Nice little setup you have there!


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## Bserve (Nov 4, 2012)

OMG I just realized this was the wood I was about to buy for a previous layout, but I found a better piece.  weird to think we have held the same wood in our hands.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Bserve said:


> OMG I just realized this was the wood I was about to buy for a previous layout, but I found a better piece.  weird to think we have held the same wood in our hands.


For the same tank, no less.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

I keep losing shrimp... Down to one ghost shrimp. My fish are hunting them at night, I believe (really). I'm down to one, so I decided to pick up a pair of Otos to keep the algae down. So far so good.  After an evening of seeming fairly unhappy they seem to be behaving normally, from what I've seen of "normal" Oto behavior. 

I will neither confirm nor deny the purchase of an Aquatek Mini paintball co2 system (which is returnable). And an EvilBay glass drop checker. 

Nerite snail seems more visible, less hide-y these days. I think he's getting more comfortable in the bigger tank.

The %^*#=¥ wood is still floaty. It will eventually sink, right? Or should I yank it and bolt some heavy tile to it before I waste more time?


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## wrangler (Oct 14, 2007)

Ophiopogon japonicus (Mondo grass, Fountain plant, monkey grass; Japanese: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("dragon's beard") or ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("snake's beard") is a species of Ophiopogon native to China, Vietnam, India, and Japan.
It is also grown as an ornamental plant, providing an excellent groundcover. Several cultivars have been selected, including 'Albus' (white flowers), 'Compactus' and 'Kyoto Dwarf' (dwarf forms, not over 4–5 cm tall), and 'Silver Mist' (variegated, with white-striped leaves). It is often sold as a decorative plant for freshwater aquaria, but because it is not a true aquatic plant, it may flourish for a few months and then die. While hardy to temperatures of about -20 °C when dormant in winter outdoors in normal soil, when kept fully submerged it requires water temperatures of 18-25 °C. It grows well in full sun or partial shade. Propagation is from side shoots.[1][4]


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

wrangler said:


> Ophiopogon japonicus (Mondo grass, Fountain plant, monkey grass; Japanese: リュウノヒゲ ryu-no-hige ("dragon's beard") or ジャノヒゲ ja-no-hige ("snake's beard") is a species of Ophiopogon native to China, Vietnam, India, and Japan.
> It is also grown as an ornamental plant, providing an excellent groundcover. Several cultivars have been selected, including 'Albus' (white flowers), 'Compactus' and 'Kyoto Dwarf' (dwarf forms, not over 4–5 cm tall), and 'Silver Mist' (variegated, with white-striped leaves). It is often sold as a decorative plant for freshwater aquaria, but because it is not a true aquatic plant, it may flourish for a few months and then die. While hardy to temperatures of about -20 °C when dormant in winter outdoors in normal soil, when kept fully submerged it requires water temperatures of 18-25 °C. It grows well in full sun or partial shade. Propagation is from side shoots.[1][4]


Freaking PetCo strikes again. :angryfire

Not the first time they've sold me "aquarium" plants that aren't actually aquatic. I guess we'll have to see how it does...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Some stocking updates from my initial post:

*Hardware:*
Mr. Aqua MA-720LI Rimless Aquarium (low iron glass, 17.1 gallons)
Current USA Satellite Plus Freshwater LED Lamp (24" model, PAR 36 @ 12")
Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 50-Watt Heater (for now, see below)

Finnex PX-360 Compact Canister Aquarium Filter

*CO2:*
_Aquatek Mini paintball setup en route_

*Fauna:*
A Dwarf Gourami (_Trichogaster Ialius_)
Six Neon Tetras (_Paracheirodon innesi_)
An Electric Blue Ram (_Papiliochromis ramirezi_)
Six Golden white cloud tetras (_Tanichthys albonubes_)
Four Rummynose tetras (_Hemigrammus bleheri_)
Two Otocinclus Catfish (Otocinclus sp.)
A Golden Mystery Snail (_Golden bridgesii_)
A Zebra Nerite Snail (_Neritina natalensis_), and
One Ghost Shrimp (_Palaemonetes paludosus_).

*Flora:*
From old Edge tank:
Anubias Nana (_Anubias barteri v. 'Nana'_)
Hygrophilia 'Kompakt' (_Hygrophilia corymbosa 'Kompakt'_)
Crypt parva (_Cryptocoryne parva_)
Java Fern "Narrow Leaf" (_Microsorium pteropus_)
Glossostigma (_Glossostigma elatinoides_) (_tiny amount only_)
New for this tank:
Amazon Sword Plant (_Echinodorus amazonicus_)
Baby Tears (_Hemianthus micranthemoides_)
Wisteria (_Hygrophila difformi_s)
_Vallisneria nana_ (_practically dead_)
_Rotala rotundifolia_
Christmas Moss (_Vesicularia montagnei_)
Anubias petite (I think, mislabeled at PetSmart!)
Dwarf Sagittaria (_Sagittaria subulata_)
Kyoto Grass (_Ophiopogon Japonica_) (_apparently non-aquatic? if so not likely to survive_)

*Ferts:*
Flourish
Flourish Excel
Flourish Potassium
Osmocote+ capsules

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I forgot to post updates about a few things. 

Equipment updates:

Last weekend, I picked up some Purigen (100ml) and threw it in my canister filter. I don't see a huge difference, but then, my water was pretty clean anyway. I like having it there, though.

I'm trying to get all the equipment I can out of the tank. I have some glass lily pipes en route from EvilBay. Also, a 75w Eheim Jager heater is en route. I'm going to build a simple DIY inline heating container around it. It's a shame the Cobalt heater doesn't lend itself to those designs, because I really like it! The Eheim heaters are also well-respected, however, and should do well. The DIY inline heater systems are pretty simple to assemble with the tube style heaters.

On the equipment note, I need a new thermometer, too... the JW one I have at the moment is great, and easy to read (and magnetic so easy to move around!), but somewhat visually intrusive, compared to the LCD strips. I hate that most of those only show a very limited range of temps, though, and of course I trust my standard mercury thermometer more, but it'll still be around (in a drawer) to spot-check the accuracy of the strip. Anyone seen any extended-range temp strips?

I didn't like seeing the hoses for the canister through the glass. My wife says she likes a clear back, so painting was out. So I compromised and put some temporary black construction paper on the back for now, so she can see it blacked out and get used to the idea. I like it better, hopefully she will, too. Photos soon.

And now, the new fauna:

Since I kept losing ghost shrimp (see prior posts, above), with only one hardy survivor left, I thought I'd try something else. I've also been getting a bit of diatom growth, and the shrimp weren't doing a great job anyway. So I added a pair of Otos as the new cleanup crew. They haven't made a huge dent yet, but I'm sure they'll do fine. They seem to be settling in nicely.

The golden white cloud tetras and rummynose tetras seem to be doing great. Lost one white cloud, never found a corpse! Water params have been fine, though... I'm wonder if he was eaten? It's also possible he jumped, and my dog cleaned up the evidence. 

Today, I added what should be my last fish. My tank is a bit over-stocked at this point, but not (I think) excessively so, and I like seeing a lot of interesting things to watch in tanks. So we added an Electric Blue Ram, which I've wanted forever. Such a pretty fish! I'll post pics when I take some more, soon, I hope. He and my Dwarf Gourami have some territory issues to settle out, which should happen pretty quickly, I hope. My DG is clearly annoyed by the EBR's presence, and starts following him closely and occasionally moving in for a fin nip. The EBR is keeping a wary eye on him, however, and the DG only got one small nip in that first time. I think they'll work it out, it's only been a couple of hours after all.

Finally, flora updates:

I got a bunch of Dwarf Sag from a local ROAK. More than I knew what to do with, actually. Took a long time from paying to receiving so I had kinda forgotten about it, and thus there wasn't a huge amount of space prepared for it. I kinda put it off to the right and along the back wall... we'll see how it does. 

Since some of the plants don't exactly seem to be flourishing (yes, low tech, and I'm sure it will take some time for them to all get really established, but still), I think I've had some sort of nutrient deficiency. I started dosing Flourish Potassium. I've read that potassium is a common deficiency in low tech tanks, so we'll see if this helps.

My anubias continue to do great, big shocker. New leaves shooting up on two of them.

And, finally, the dreaded co2. It's en route, and I'll have it early next week. I'm sure that will help, too. I'll put the solenoid on a timer and only run it while the lights are on, at a relatively low bpm count (like 1?). I'm thinking that'll stretch the gas supply, minimize risk to the fauna, and still give a nice bump to the plants. I also don't have a huge amount of light with only a single Sat+, so I don't think I should bump co2 up very high anyway.

Back to fish watching...


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

Looking great. I love Nature Aquarium btw. I like having AFA but Nature Aquarium is really awesome as well.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

talontsiawd said:


> Looking great. I love Nature Aquarium btw. I like having AFA but Nature Aquarium is really awesome as well.


Thx! Next time I'm up north I'll be checking out AFA for sure.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

I know I promised more "beauty" shots, especially with the new stock, but first some more equipment discussion.

Here's a decidedly non-beautiful shot of the top of the tank with the lights off:









All that junk on top is what we want to get rid of. The two black canister lines and the heater wire. Enter, LILY PIPES! 

Intake:

















Outflow:









(Yeah, I know they won't stay crystal clear/clean forever, but I'm sure enjoying it for now!)

Next up, I need an inline heater, then that heater wire will go away. I mentioned above, I have the new heater, I just need to get to Home Depot to buy the PVC bits needed to rig it. 

Except, I seem to have added something else:


























WOOHOO! CO2, fizzing happily away. This glass nano diffuser seems to be working quite nicely considering the cheap price. But that hose needs to go away, so on the list of projects is an inline reactor for sure.

Paintball tank and Aquatek Mini reg, hiding under the side table:









I wish the reg wasn't quite so vertical, then I could get it off the floor and onto the shelf above. But it'll do for now, I guess. It's on a timer, the solenoid kicks in and starts the flow at the same time the lights come on. So far so good, all the fishies still acting normal after 2 days. I don't have a bubble counter (or drop test kit) yet so I just have turned so that the bubbles are barely in existence by the time they reach the top of the tank. I'll fine tune it later, but I don't want too much co2, after all, I'm barely into Medium lighting PAR levels as it is. Plus, you know, I prefer my fish swimming, not floating. 

I had the co2 flow a little higher at first, but I was getting this bizarre film on top of the water, of teeny tiny bubbles. Is that normal? I turned it down a bit and the problem is noticeably less. I also raised the lily pipe overnight to add more surface agitation. I still want to look into getting more flow out of my canister, however... or upgrading it. And manually moving the outflow pipe up and down isn't a long term solution.

Bizarre bubble film:

















(As a bonus, you can see a preview glimpse of the EBR in the corner in that first shot!)

One complaint about the lily pipe is I can't really "aim" it the way I'd like. Since it suctions to the glass, it sort of needs to be perpendicular to a wall, whereas I'd like it at 45 degrees, which "arcs" the water flow through the tank. I can do this by letting the pipe dangle, so the hose pull down and actually keeps it pointed mostly the way I want, but then I have to lift it and suction it normally to raise it overnight and get the agitation I wanted on the surface. (can't leave it there or I'll lose co2, of course, plus again, wrong angle)

Does anyone make a vertical glass spray bar? That might work better. My old spray bar did a better job of aiming than the lily pipe does. Cheap eBay pipes, so I'm not entirely against yanking it and trying something else.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Nothing major to report. Tank seems to continuing on fairly well... I think.

*Hardware updates*:

My glass co2 drop checker tester thingie finally came in, along with it's bottle of 4dKH fluid. Silly me, apparently it did NOT come with the ph fluid needed to actually make the darn thing work, so I guess I have one more thing to buy before I can start checking levels. It looks cool in the tank, though, even empty. LOL

I still have bubbles at the surface but it's not quite as bad as it was... more a border all around the edges of the tank, and around the one piece of wood that sticks out of the water. I lowered the co2 a smidge, as I said, and have started raising the lily pipe at night up so it gurgles on the surface, for increased agitation, and then I drop it in the morning when feeding. I still need a more permanent solution. Suggestions appreciated. 

My hunt for a super short height canister filter continues. I'd like to replace that Finnex with a higher flow unit, as that might help with the bubble problem, among other minor issues. Tough to find one short enough, with the low clearance of the shelf below the tank.

I haven't built the inline co2 reactor or inline heater yet. Crazy busy at work, and still need to find a local source for clear rigid PVC pipe, and fittings.

*Plant updates*:

A bit of good news, my Christmas moss that's tied down on the wood in a few places finally seems to be greening up. Nice pretty green color starting to show through! It had started to do this just before I started with the co2, but it's definitely picking up speed and getting more noticeable not. Not sure whether to attribute that to co2 or simply getting more settled. I've also started dosing SeaChem's Potassium supplement for about two weeks now (albeit a little sporadic with the dosing), so that could be a factor also. I'm still running under the assumption that I don't need to add iron, given the Activ-Flora substrate (which is supposedly iron rich and means you don't need to add laterite). On the downside, I'm seeing some stringy stuff and kind of praying it's not the beginning of a small algae battle. Opinions? (photos below)

Also, I'm noticing more growth in my plants in general. My Java Fern is creating little babies along it's leaves like crazy... it finally got me a little annoyed tonight and plucked off a bunch of java fern babies. Should I toss them, or ROAK them? They're seriously juvenile, but I suspect they'll continue growing in another tank. I stuck them in my old tank for now, which still has water in it but the lights, heat, and filter are off so it's not going to stay good for long in there.

On a similar note, my wisteria (back center, just to the left) has really noticeably grown, and actually reached the surface. Time to trim! Not sure how and where, exactly, I'm supposed to cut, though. Any advice? Ditto for the Java Fern, again... I need to trim a few leaves, especially the two that are sticking about an inch above water, and not doing so well in the dry air. Do I just clip them above the rhizome and they'll grow back along the same stem, or do they grow back elsewhere along the rhizome? It's tied to a piece of mopani wood back there, so all is above the substrate.

The Rotala also seems to be taking off. It's nearly reached the surface as well. Color is still kinda varied, with pretty intense green growth coming in at the bottom (still very small, but there), but the top is way less green, except some of the tips where it has grown. I'll be need to prune this soon. Do I just literally cut the stems shorter? I swear there needs to be a primer thread somewhere of how-tos for each species, with basic info like this so I don't have to search the plant forum hoping to stumble across the right instructional thread!

My Amazon swords, ironically, are merely holding steady. Not taking off like I thought they would. Perhaps they just need more time to establish their roots. Or I should stick another root tab near them. The leaves are starting to get a lot of diatoms, however, I hope the otos discover them soon because they're on the verge of being less nice looking. Still nice overall, but I don't like the trend. Still, we'll see.

Another downer, my baby tears, however (non-dwarf) don't seem to be doing so hot. On the upside, there is some small, new bright green growth at the bottom, similar to the Rotala. New stems coming up! The original plant, however, seems to be continuing it's die-off. I pluck a 2" limp stem, or two, out of the water daily, it seems, and lots of little floaty leaves are ending up stuck to the intake pipe inlets. Perhaps that's just the way of these, and as the old plant dies off, the new growth will take over and be nice and healthy. That's what I'm hoping for!

The dwarf sag from the ROAK seems to be holding it's own. It's still establishing, however, so I'm not worried that it's not flourishing madly at the point.

Interesting note: The Kyoto grass is looking about the same as when I got it, which is good. It'll die eventually, I'm sure. But meanwhile, if you recall I bought it originally so I'd have another grass-like plant since the Valisneria was practically completely dead mush, again, with lots of dead bits needing to be plucked from the tank. Last night, however, I noticed that it's bright green and apparently the remnants have made a strong comeback in a short amount of time! Nice and green and healthy looking. Hopefully it makes a full recovery and starts to spread by the time that I need to yank the Kyoto grass, so it can just resume it's originally-intended place and function in that corner. Not visible in these dead-on shots since the Rotala is hiding it, but I'll see if I can get a shot at some point as the recovery continues. I don't know if it just needed time to establish and no matter how dead it was looking it bounces back, or perhaps the fact that it is one of the closest plants to the co2 diffuser helped it back, but I'm glad. I don't need to find a replacement grass to replace the replacement grass, now. 

Oh, hey, another piece of really happy news, my driftwood is finally staying put when I lift the rock, so that's finally gone from the tank! Much nicer without that there, although I'm sure some of my critters will miss the extra hiding space. My otos liked hanging out on the rock, too (among other places).

*Update shots* (just quick iPhone shots, sorry, mo' better shots still to come):

Full tank. Notice how the wisteria and rotala have hit the surface! And notice, no more rock holding down the wood! 









Christmas moss, looking a lot greener. Another month, maybe less, and hopefully it'll start looking like real Christmas moss and get nice and bushy! Meanwhile, however, please let that algae-looking stuff be no big deal...








Stringy algae on my newly-greening Christmas Moss: A big concern?


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Tank is coming along I see. Too bad for that surface scum, hate that stuff.

If you don't mind extra equipment in the tank, you could try a Eheim Skim350. Works well on my tank. Plants help conceal mine. You can always remove it for pics. But if you hate the idea of extra equipment in the tank, there's a DIY skimmer you can make to fit over the Lily pipes intake.

Like this:

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=293066

Would a fluval 106 be short enough? Are your Lily pipes 13mm?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

And finally, the fauna update photos I've been promising. These were from the same night I added the co2, so even in the week since, things are a little greener and nicer (as discussed in the post above), but I think these are still worth posting. 

The new star of the tank! The Electric Blue Ram. Finally starting to eat, had me a little worried for a couple of days!









Dwarf Gourami. NOT happy with the new EBR. Hides a lot. Hope he gets over it... because I'm not giving up the EBR! At least he doesn't chase him as much now.









Oto (1 of 2). Sad for him, and happy for me, his favorite perch is no longer in the tank, since the wood is no longer floaty.









Otos (both). Fortunately, the rock is not the only thing they like. I wish they'd get to work on the diatoms on my Amazon sword leaves, though...









Golden White Cloud Tetras (5 of 6)









A rare "still" of the Rummynose Tetra. (1 of 4) They never stop moving!









Golden White Cloud Tetras, and one of the Rummynose tetras.









Family photo time!









One ghost shrimp, determined to stick around (by being ghosty, as you see here). The others have gone onto better places, over time. If this one goes, I might try an Amano just for kicks. The ghost shrimp are pretty chock full of personality, though, I'll miss that. Hopefully the EBR (a cichlid) doesn't realize how tasty Mr. Shrimpie would be.









My Mystery snail continues to amuse. He'll be the star of his own time lapse video empire yet, as he bumbles around the tank. Say "cheese!"









I think the only critter not represented well here is my Nerite snail, who insists on hiding frequently of late, particularly, it seems, when I have my camera in hand! I guess no closeups of the Neon tetras, either. I'll have to do that sometime. But who hasn't seen all the neons they'll ever want? And man are they twitchy and hard to shoot...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Tank is coming along I see. Too bad for that surface scum, hate that stuff.
> 
> If you don't mind extra equipment in the tank, you could try a Eheim Skim350. Works well on my tank. Plants help conceal mine. You can always remove it for pics. But if you hate the idea of extra equipment in the tank, there's a DIY skimmer you can make to fit over the Lily pipes intake.
> 
> ...


Yeah, I think you linked that thread when I was inquiring about the Eheim unit in another thread of yours. I might end up trying that DIY method, or even the Eheim skimmer. I'm still sort of hoping to find another option, though. If I had the stock pipes on my canister instead of the glass, Fluval makes a cheap one, too, that uses the same principal as the DIY method. There's an glass skimmer with the same theory on eBay that I could try, too. Again, though, still not sure which way I want to go with that. Once I get the heater out of the tank, I'll consider putting the Eheim skimmer in that location, since it's relatively hidden by plants (and will continue to be more and more hidden as they grow out).

The Fluval 106 is too tall, unfortunately... about a foot tall, IIRC. Finding units under 10" is tough. (or even 10" but with hoses that don't need another couple of inches above them) My Finnex was the only one I found at the time I first bought it.

Yes, my lily pipes are 13mm. Happy with their look (and reasonable eBay cost), it's just the surface scum issue that's the problem. Might be solved with stronger canister flow, however. Hopefully the thread I linked turns up a good replacement option!


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

*Some days, you should have stayed in bed...*

A series of small disasters. 

First off, apparently my pretty glass lily pipe's intake is a mystery snail death trap. I lost my mystery snail when he apparently decided it was an interesting thing to climb on. Parts of him were sucked into the very fine openings, and within a couple hours he was dead, stuck in place where I discovered him.  I turned off the filter immediately but it was clearly too late. Getting him *removed* from the pipe was ... unpleasant. Very sad, as I've him for nearly a year and he was always entertaining, especially in time lapse videos.

I chalked it up to sad, sad fluke and bought another mystery snail a couple of days later. Cute little guy, smaller than my last one. Almost as speedy as his predecessor! Last night, he was fine when I went to bed, but this morning, once again, the intake claimed a another victim! Again, I turned off the filter immediately and hoped for the best, but, sadly, it was not to be. Hours later my wife confirmed no joy, and she started the filter until I could get home to deal with the issue. Gruesome photo here, which I won't post inline for those uninterested in the details, or potentially otherwise horrified/saddened. 

Needless to say, for the moment, I have switched back to the old plastic intake that never had a problem, and I ordered another set of lily pipes with a slightly different intake. (evilBay, so this will take a little while to arrive) Super sad about my snails, though. I guess the deadly intake will go into the spare parts bin, and I won't use it without a sponge prefilter in the future. My Nerite doesn't seem as prone to the problem. I'll replace the mystery snail ... again ... shortly.

Next issue: Algae (I think)

So, this stringy junk growing out of my Christmas Moss? What is it (I assume it's algae, I pray it's not one of the nightmare varieties) and how do I make it go away?










Oy. While I had the filter off this morning, I tried the excel trick, and squirted about 3ml of excel directly at it. After about 10 minutes, I turned the filter back on for about 5 minutes to mix things up again, then turned it off (see above) to leave for the day. Maybe that will help? Or do I need to repeat this for a while? Or am I doomed? HELP! :icon_frow

On the up side, the co2 seems to be working well. The fish are doing fine, and my plants are even pearling.  (At least, I'm pretty sure they're pearling, because some of the plants that should definitely not have picked up bubbles from the water flow moving diffused tiny bubbles about still had similar bubbling action)










Bio film issue continues, although not as bad since I cleaned it up with a paper towel this weekend. My finger is getting closer and closer to pulling the trigger on the Eheim Skim350...


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

You should get a stainless steel filter guard for the Lily pipe. People here usually use them to prevent shrimp and fry from getting sucked in. I bought mine here in the buy/sell section from H4N for a reasonable price. 

Not sure what species of algae you have, but I'd continue the excel spot treatment a few more times..

Surface scum... eheim skim! Haha... But someone recommended to try misting the surface with h2o2. I'm going to experiment to see if that works or not on my other tank.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Yeah, the SS filter would certainly do the trick. I don't find them THAT much more attractive than a simple sponge pre filter, though. If I had a shrimp tank I'd be all over it, but in a regular fish tank, I'd rather avoid it. I'll stick with my old plastic intake until the replacement comes. 

This is the original lily pipe kit I bought, the "death intake":








Looks great, and has really tiny slot cuts which you'd think would be a good thing, but I think the issue is there just aren't enough of them so the pull is really strong through those tint slots. Deadly combination, turns out. 

These are the replacements I just ordered (also eBay):








There are a LOT more slots on this intake, and they look wider, too. I think it will be a lot better. I just wish it would get here faster! 2-3 weeks, argh!

Let me know how the hydrogen peroxide treatment works for the bio film. It's not about the $30 device, it's just that I'd rather avoid more equipment in the tank if possible.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Ok, first update in a bit. Been crazy busy with work so I haven't had time to keep up lately.

First off, my Electric Blue Ram seems to have an annoyingly tough case of Ich. I've been dosing the tank with Kordon's Ich Attack for a several weeks, with no effect on the EBR. None of the other fish seem to have it. I finally gave up and moved the EBR into a little 2.5 gal hospital tank, set up just for him. Bare glass with an AC20, two 10w heaters and a thermometer. I've been dosing the hospital tank with API Super Ick Cure (which has Malachite Green, so not safe for any of my inverts) for two dosing cycles now, and he's still covered in spots! Seems to be otherwise happy (although he certainly doesn't like the bare hospital tank as much as the lush main tank), but this is definitely a puzzler. I'll give him one or two more courses of the medicine, I guess, but if he's not better by then I'm not sure what to do.










My plants were getting out of control, so I finally did a major trim last weekend. Tank is definitely not looking it's best at the moment! I've literally been too busy to do anything with the trimmings, which have been sitting in a pitcher of water since I cut everything out. I should probably do an ROAK with the cuttings... but would people want to take trimmings from a tank under treatment for ich? (even if the EBR is the only fish that actually seemed to show ich symptoms) Also they've been in that pitcher for a week, so not freshly cut. If someone here wants it with those disclaimers, speak up. LOTS of Rotala and a bunch of Wisteria, plus several stems of the Amazon sword (cut about an inch off the substrate) and even some Java fern leaves with a bunch of baby JFs sprouting off. The rotala is already growing back strong, followed by the Wisteria. My Hygrophilia, which had been doing spectacularly well since adding co2, seems to have suddenly started kinda mottled and is shedding LOTS of leaves lately (easily 20 in the past 2 days!). No idea why. The overall color is still good, but there are definitely a lot of noticeable "problem areas". I might yank it out and re-plant it, a bit less bunched.










I'm getting some speckled green algae you can see on the glass, but nothing out of control. I just need some time to scrub it off a little, I think. Hopefully tonight when I do a water change...

Finally, speaking of algae, at the same time I did that major trimming, I started to manually pull out bunch of that string algae from the Christmas Moss (see several posts back), which seemed to help, at first... but now, a week later, it's come back stronger than ever! I'm thinking I'm going to try the One-Two Punch treatment method to clear that out, because my Christmas Moss really seems to be struggling to get established.

I still have the old plastic intake pipe on my canister filter, as the glass replacement bits have yet to arrive. I haven't picked up a new mystery snail yet, since all the LFSs around here seem to only have really tiny ones in stock at the moment. No rush, I guess.

I don't know if I mentioned, but I had added one Amano shrimp as a test a few weeks ago. He seems to be doing nicely, on the bright side. Definitely plenty of him to eat, and he's been going town and getting bolder lately! I may pick up one or two more at some point, and see how they do. 

Lousy photo of my Amano shrimp:









Finally, I have some other new bits of kit on order. I decided to buy the Eheim Skim350, to see how it does to help clear up the surface scum. It's not as bad as it was since I repositioned the lily pipe to add more surface agitation, but I don't like the lily pipe like that as much, and I'm sure it's costing me some co2 absorption... and I still have the surface bubbles from the co2. I also ordered a Lifegard inline heater housing for an Eheim Jager 75w heater I have, so I can pull my existing Cobalt heater out of the tank (sad, that's been a great heater but I think this tank is a little too big for it as temps fluctuate when it's cooler more than they did with my previous smaller tank) to make room for the Skim350. So while I'm not reducing the stuff in my tank as much as I wanted, but at least I'm not adding a lot of stuff, overall, by adding the skimmer. I also grabbed a Hydor Koralia Nano 240 Circulation Pump (never realized how cheap they are!) to help increase circulation, should I need it, but I'm really hoping I don't need to use it, especially since adding the Skim350 should add a little more circulation as it is.

Speaking of kit, I have a glass co2 checker that always seems to be sort of a light green. I've never seen a yellow or blue color, which I've seen described elsewhere. It has 4-5 drops of the Fluval co2 fluid inside, plus 4 kdh fluid. The co2 is on a timer and only runs for the 8 hours that the lights are on, so shouldn't that color vary a little more? Did I set something up wrong?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Been REALLY stupendously busy at work, so the tank has been running on autopilot for the past couple of weeks. Finally did a little work last night.

Some interesting things afoot in the tank. I've added 3 more Amano shrimp, who seem to be doing fine for the past couple of weeks, and 2 Nerite snails (hoping they'll help keep tank clean). No idea where my original Nerite went, but I did a massive cleaning a couple weeks ago and confirmed nowhere in the tank! I also finally found a new mystery snail of reasonable size, and it seems to be doing very well (no further incidents since I got the better intake), and the fish are all happy and healthy. (also no more ich on my EBR!)

Mixed bag lately with the plants, though. On the one hand, most of them recovered REALLY well after that big trim. The rotala on the right has been going NUTS, to the point that I seriously hacked it back again last night. The Amazon swords in the back left also put on another growth spurt, and I hacked off some really big leaves last night, trying to get that under control.

The Baby Tears, however, that was in front of the Rotala? Completely gone, dwindled to nothing. Never seemed to be happy in the tank from the start, frankly. Oh well. And my Hygrophilia? Looking super bright, green and bushy in the front left corner, in photos above? As I mentioned, it started DUMPING leaves. 5-10 per day. Within several days it was down to stems. But then the stems started growing back? It's not looking great right now but the new growth is encouraging. I think I read some reports of this simply happening with Hygrophilia from time to time, so maybe it's normal?

My biggest issue is that %&$* hair algae. I did the one-two punch, and it seemed to help at first, but it's back with a vengeance now. The middle bunch of Christmas Moss (photographed above) is completely overwhelmed and nearly gone. The bunch to the right of it is gone as well. The only bunch that seems to be doing well is below, near the tank floor, attached to the wood but upstream in terms of flow. It's visibly growing. I may have to pull that branch out and bleach out that entire section to try to kill it off, and re-tie some new Christmas moss.

Odd snails: I'm suddenly seeing a bunch of odd tiny little "flat spiral" snails. At first I thought they were fish droppings, but I realized they move (slowly) and saw they're little snails! Not MTS, I don't think. No idea what they could be or where they came from, since it's been a while since I added any plants. Trying to google up an answer, they might be mini-ramshorns? I'll see if I can keep the population under control, else I'll start with the lettuce trick and crushing every one I see.

Surface scum: The Eheim Skim350 does a reasonable job, although I need to clean the sponge more often, because it's pretty obvious when it stops working effectively. One thing I learned to be careful of: I have to unplug the skimmer when I feed the fish! Two reasons: (1) It sucks the food in, and (2) I was amazed this morning when I watched one of my golden white cloud tetras chase a piece of food right into the skimmer! He was stuck in there with the suction current, no way he could get out (I don't think). Good thing I noticed! Poor fella. I yanked the power and took the top turret off, and he came back out no worse for the wear. I worry about what's going to happen while I'm on vacation, though, with the auto-feeder. I may have to leave that turned off while I'm away.

Speaking of hardware, I'm a little excited to see how things work out. I bought a new canister filter, the Eheim Ecco Pro 60, which it turns out JUST barely fits under my tank's table. Over-sized for my tank since it's up to 60 gallons, but reviews I was reading recommended getting a size larger than you think you need so I skipped the 35 gal version, especially since I plan to set up an inline heater module that will likely cut flow a bit (the desire to do this definitely led to wanting a bigger/better filter, because I knew the old one was marginal at best and further cutting the flow was a bad idea). I hooked it up along with the old Finnex one and will run both for a while, to get the new filter seeded with bacteria, then I can detach the old filter once it's all going. I have it temporarily hooked up to the oddly narrow lily pipe that came with the nice glass intake, and my old plastic intake. SUPER FILTRATION going on in my tank right now!

Debating adding a second Sat+ light. Others seem to be doing well with two. I wonder if it would balance things out in the tank more? Also torn between adding one now, or waiting a little while longer to see what new lights Current comes out with, since I think I read that they are releasing some higher power lights soon.

I need to take some photos, even though I'm not especially pleased with the tank's appearance at the moment...


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Do you have a close up shot of the algae you're having trouble with? Are your Amano shrimp still in there?

Yeah, I have the same issues with my skim350. Works well until it clogs within a week. I even found a dead oto in there... sucks! Pros and cons to everything, right? 

For the 2nd Sat+ option, it will definitely help grow your plants better, especially the HC (if you try it again). I forget, are you injecting CO2? You'll need it with two Sat+. But I'd only get a 2nd one of you're content with having the fixtures directly on the tank for medium-high lighting. If you're cool with medium-low light, suspending would be possible to have an unobstructed top. 

But if you want a more powerful fixture because you want to suspend the light for sure, then wait for the Current/Ecoxotic higher output plant lights. But obviously, this latter option would be spendy by comparison. So if budget and desire to have suspended lights are in alignment, then yes... wait for this light! But who knows how much longer we must wait? LOL


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Do you have a close up shot of the algae you're having trouble with? Are your Amano shrimp still in there?
> 
> Yeah, I have the same issues with my skim350. Works well until it clogs within a week. I even found a dead oto in there... sucks! Pros and cons to everything, right?
> 
> ...


I do have co2. Amanos are doing well... at least I saw three of the four last night, and they seemed happy and normal. I'm fine with the lights directly on the tank... suspending would not work well in my location.

I'll just have to start cleaning out the Skim350 more regularly. Been a crazy few weeks at work, so I kind of neglected the tank for a while there.

Here is photo (from a few posts above, a few weeks ago) of the algae. It's WAY worse now. I'll see if I can get a photo tonight. I cleared out a bunch manually last night, but it's REALLY tough to get it out while NOT ripping out the Christmas Moss at the same time.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

I did have a couple photos from my phone I hadn't uploaded. No shots of the current (frightening) algae situation, but you can see the some of the Hygrophilia situation.

These were taken 3/30 and 3/31, respectively. Notice how healthy the Hygrophilia looks (front left)?


















This was taken April 4... 5 days later! And since then, the couple of remaining full size leaves are gone. The younger ones are still there, though, along with a few more. So I'm hopeful it will recover.


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Strange algae. I've had hair/string algae but it usually grows straight and not all jagged like yours. Wonder what it is. It's tough because it's on the moss. I'd normally say use a h2o2 or excel spot treat, but it may kill the moss in the process. You can try removing the moss and treat it in a separate container with Algaefix. Not in the tank because Algaefix will kill shrimp. Then try h2o2 spot treating inside the tank on other plants and surfaces. 

The tiny snails are probably mini-ramshorn as you mentioned. I have them too.. and I don't mind them. They don't eat plants, just algae and leftovers. Just don't overfeed and you'll keep their population under control. I actually used to feed all my snails to my dwarf puffer tank. It's fun, you should try it


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Strange algae. I've had hair/string algae but it usually grows straight and not all jagged like yours. Wonder what it is. It's tough because it's on the moss. I'd normally say use a h2o2 or excel spot treat, but it may kill the moss in the process. You can try removing the moss and treat it in a separate container with Algaefix. Not in the tank because Algaefix will kill shrimp. Then try h2o2 spot treating inside the tank on other plants and surfaces.
> 
> The tiny snails are probably mini-ramshorn as you mentioned. I have them too.. and I don't mind them. They don't eat plants, just algae and leftovers. Just don't overfeed and you'll keep their population under control. I actually used to feed all my snails to my dwarf puffer tank. It's fun, you should try it


I won't worry too much about the mini-ramshorns. Annoying, but I guess they won't hurt anything. I don't like their appearance, though, they look like bird turds. I'll probably continue trying manual removal when I see them.

The algae looks like a big brown cloud now. WAY worse than in that pic (which wasn't great to begin with). I'm going to see if I can get a decent shot tonight.

Now that I have better flow with the new filter I'm definitely leaning towards adding a second Sat+. I guess I need one of Current's splitters, too, so I can run them both off the same power supply (and ramp timer).


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Brown cloud? Does it remind you of filamentous diatoms?

Look like this but more brownish?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Brown cloud? Does it remind you of filamentous diatoms?
> 
> Look like this but more brownish?


No not exactly, although somewhat similar. Less uniformly straight, more curly and snarled. I had my wife snap a pic and send it to me:


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Do you have a spare tank to house the shrimp for a bit? Algaefix might kill that stuff and not the moss. Do a full tank treatment so it doesn't rear its ugly head again. 

Otherwise, you can try the non chemical warfare of starving it with a blackout, water changes, bumping up CO2, and keeping nutrients balanced.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Do you have a spare tank to house the shrimp for a bit? Algaefix might kill that stuff and not the moss. Do a full tank treatment so it doesn't rear its ugly head again.
> 
> Otherwise, you can try the non chemical warfare of starving it with a blackout, water changes, bumping up CO2, and keeping nutrients balanced.


Yes, I have a 2.5 gal hospital tank I could break out again if needed. (Just finally packed it away after treating the EBR for ich for a month  ) It would be fine for the shrimp and the snails (the good Nerite and Mystery snails, that it).

I wonder if it would be better / easier / faster to just yank the entire branch and douse those parts of it with bleach, rinse thoroughly, and then hydrogen peroxide, rinse thoroughly, and then hit it with Excel/Glut.

Good point, though, if it is hiding in nooks and crannies elsewhere in the tank, waiting to come back. But how easy is it to clean that crap out of the main tank, before the snails and shrimp go back in?

On the bright side, my Anubias are flowering.  You can see the bud in the moss photo above!


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Dr. Barr says you can add inverts back after 2 or 3 days treatment has stopped. 

http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.php/12225-API-Algaefix
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=192084

I can't say from personal experience because I haven't used it in a tank that had inverts. But I do use it occasionally when I have a run in with various forms of hair algae.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Thx! I'll order some and give it a shot.

Of course, getting those Amanos out is going to be REALLY tough...


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Maybe you can research other methods or start an algae help and ID thread? Mine is sorta a last resort option. It has worked for me for certain algae. Perhaps you can remove some algae and treat it with Algaefix in a container to test if it will kill it. Before you go though all the trouble of getting your inverts out.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Maybe you can research other methods or start an algae help and ID thread? Mine is sorta a last resort option. It has worked for me for certain algae. Perhaps you can remove some algae and treat it with Algaefix in a container to test if it will kill it. Before you go though all the trouble of getting your inverts out.


Yes, as soon as I have a chance to take some good pics, I definitely intend to start an ID thread.

Meanwhile, just because it's been a little while, here's an updated full tank shot from last night. The second filter is running in the front half of the tank while it builds up it's bacteria colonies, so it's kinda nutty in there right now with two canister filters filtering the heck out of the relatively small 17 gal tank (one of which is rated for 60 gals!).


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## Brian_Cali77 (Mar 19, 2010)

Dang... nice EBR!


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Brian_Cali77 said:


> Dang... nice EBR!


Louis the EBR is my favorite fish in the tank, for sure.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

OK, lots of goings-on. Sorry for the lack of updates, I was on vacation, and then dealing with some family health issues, and I'm finally back in the swing of things. 

Current shot, 6/16/14, right after a cleaning and trim:










I'm pleased how well everything went while on vacation (aside from losing a fish or two and the Nerite snail, see below). I had a friend stop by twice to make sure there was nothing drastically wrong and add some ferts (at least it some while we were away, tho not the full amount), but otherwise, the co2 kept pumping and everything kept humming. The auto fish feeder I used (Fish Mate F14) did a very good job. It's only good for 2 weeks, so I'll have to figure out something else if I ever take a longer vacation, but I am definitely pleased for now. Just fill up the compartments with the daily food and the little mechanical clock mechanism rotates the wheel and drops the food in daily. No risk of overfeeding, unlike others, and very little risk of jamming. Further, I tested the water after I got back and my parameters were absolutely perfect in spite of a good two weeks with no water changes:

pH: 7.4
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0

This tank is definitely fully cycled. 

*FAUNA UPDATES:*

I've lost some critters. I haven't seen a shrimp for a while, but they like to hide so it's honestly hard to say whether they're actually gone/dead/eaten, or simply hiding. I know a couple jumped, but there could be a couple hiding in that jungle. I suppose the same can be said for my otos: I started with two, but it's been a LONG time since I've seen them both out at the same time so I can confirm I _still_ have two. I saw one last night. Now on the other hand, last time I did a major tank cleaning, the second one turned up at the very end, after I pulled out almost everything I could from the tank except the deeply-rooted plants, so clearly he _really_ likes to hide. So maybe I do still have two. Hard to say... I'm pondering another deep cleaning when I have time on a weekend, so perhaps we'll see.

I lost a couple of the golden white cloud tetras... I think I'm down to four. I also lost a Nerite snail, found him outside of the tank after I returned from a 2 week vacation. Tried to revive it, but who knows how long it was out, and after a couple of days of no motion, I decided he must be dead. In theory, the other one is still hiding in there somewhere? Smaller of the two, so remains to be seen.

The biggest loss was my Dwarf Gourami. He was over 3 years old, so may have just reached the end of his lifespan. Sad, as he was my oldest surviving fish, but considering he mostly hid all day and was kind of a jerk to the other fish, I suppose from a tank standpoint it wasn't too much of a loss.

So, on the bright side, with the passing of my DG, that opened up space for another slightly larger fish. I have added a:

Boesemani Rainbow fish (_Melanotaenia boesemani_)​
He's young so doesn't have all of his coloring in yet (the yellow in the tail is noticeable, but he should get more blue in his front half as he gets older, see photo here), but he seems to have settled in nicely, and he and the Ram settled out their pecking order after a couple of days. He's pretty clearly visible in the photo above, just below the tip of the lily pipe outflow.  (He seems to like playing the flow)

The ramshorn snail issue seems to have gotten under control by itself. There are still a few in there, but the population isn't exploding, so I can live with them for now, I guess. I cut back on the amount of food I was giving, which seems to have helped as well.

*HARDWARE UPDATES:*

I still have both canister filters hooked up. I'm sure it's good for them, and I've been busy. When I do the big cleaning or one-two punch algae treatment, I'll go ahead and yank out the old filter, and clean up the lily tubes a bit.... I hate the old plastic intake that's all covered in gunk in the front left of the tank, it just looks terrible. I had hooked both up, of course, to get the new filter cycled with the tank, and left for vacation only a couple of days into the process, but it's clearly all good now, judging from my water tests. It'll be nice to have things a little cleaner in there.

I also still intend to plumb in the new replacement inline heater at some point, and remove the Cobalt, but again, I've been lazy about it (and busy), and it's going to take a bit of work to route the various hoses, so I'll get to it when I get to it. Since it's summer, the Cobalt isn't having any problems keeping the tank warm (it struggled a little when it actually got cold, since it's slightly undersized for this tank), so no huge rush.

*FLORA UPDATES:*

The Dwarf Sag and Vallisneria seem to be taking over the right half of the tank. The Vallisneria in particular is shooting out runners all over the place! I've been trimming it back fairly aggressively, and yanked a few as well, where I really didn't like their placement. Next time I'll see about doing another ROAK because I haven't had time during my last couple of trims. The Dwarf Sag is definitely spreading happily as well, though. Seems they all finally got nice and established during my vacation. Now I'm going to have to think about how much I really want in there, since it's spreading like mad.

The Wisteria and Rotala are also seriously thriving. Seems like I'm cutting them back almost weekly. You can barely see the Wisteria in the shot above (it's in the back left, between the Amazon swords and the Java ferns) because I cut it back so severely. The Java fern is also exploding. I'm going to seriously thin the bunch when I do that big cleaning, because it's getting absurd.

The Baby Tears I initially stocked the tank with back in March (see page 2 of this thread) are completely gone, however (have been for a while, but I finally updated the stock list below), and I yanked the Kyoto grass when it looked like the Vallisneria was finally bouncing back. (good thing, since it obviously bounced back with a vengeance!)

The Hygrophilia that I spoke about above, that dropped almost all of it's leaves? Completely bounced back, as you can see see in the front left corner. Bizarre, but I'm starting to think it's just some they do periodically.

The Anubias are thriving nicely, and regularly put up new leaves... which is fortunate, in light of the green diatom issue (see below), so I can cut away the older ones as they get really coated. The rhizome is getting pretty long on a couple, though, to the point where it looks a little funny, so I may have to pull some out soon. The roots definitely need a trim, especially the ones right in front (front right attached to rock, and middle, attached to branch).

On the down side: I continue to have issues with the thready algae. I'll try another one-two punch treatment soon. Pretty sure I'm just going to need to pull out that branch, strip out all the Christmas Moss, and bleach dip the whole thing. Then MAYBE I can try again with a new bunch of moss at some later time.

I'm also having issues with the green spot ... algae? diatoms? Whatever they are, they're annoying. It's practically coating my broad leaf plants, like the Amazon swords and even the Anubias. I dunno, maybe things will get better after the cleaning. I also still want to add a second Sat+ light, and bump up the co2 a bit, so maybe I'll get lucky and that will help, too.

*TANK INVENTORY:*

*Hardware:*
Mr. Aqua MA-720LI Rimless Aquarium (low iron glass, 17.1 gallons)
Current USA Satellite Plus Freshwater LED Lamp (24" model, PAR 36 @ 12")
Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 50-Watt Heater (for now, see above re replacement plans)

Finnex PX-360 Compact Canister Aquarium Filter

_and_
Eheim Ecco Pro 60 Canister Filter

*CO2:*
Aquatek Mini paintball regulator
Empire 20oz CO2 Tank

*Fauna:*
A Boesemani Rainbow fish (_Melanotaenia boesemani_)
An Electric Blue Ram (_Papiliochromis ramirezi_)
Six Neon Tetras (_Paracheirodon innesi_)
Four Golden white cloud tetras (_Tanichthys albonubes_) (I'll add a couple more replacements for the two I lost soon, to get this back to 6)
Four Rummynose tetras (_Hemigrammus bleheri_)
Two Otocinclus Catfish (Otocinclus sp.) (... at least, there _may_ still be two?)
A Golden Mystery Snail (_Golden bridgesii_)
A Zebra Nerite Snail (_Neritina natalensis_), and
One Japonica Amano Shrimp (_Caridina multidentata_) (maybe? I'll toss in a couple more after my big cleaning).

*Flora:*
Anubias Nana (_Anubias barteri v. 'Nana'_)
Hygrophilia 'Kompakt' (_Hygrophilia corymbosa 'Kompakt'_)
Crypt parva (_Cryptocoryne parva_)
Java Fern "Narrow Leaf" (_Microsorium pteropus_)
Amazon Sword Plant (_Echinodorus amazonicus_)
_Vallisneria nana_
_Rotala rotundifolia_
Anubias petite (I think)
Dwarf Sagittaria (_Sagittaria subulata_)
Christmas Moss (_Vesicularia montagnei_) (not much left, due to struggles against the algae)
[STRIKE]Baby Tears (_Hemianthus micranthemoides_)
Wisteria (_Hygrophila difformis_)[/STRIKE]
[STRIKE]Kyoto Grass (_Ophiopogon Japonica_)[/STRIKE]

*Ferts:*
Flourish
Flourish Excel
Flourish Potassium
Osmocote+ capsules (_Hmm, I probably need to put in some new ones at some point... it's been almost 4 months now, I think?_)


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Nice tank shot, love the ebr (really want to try 1 or a pair some day myself). For otos, if you don' feel over stocked, I'd add 2-3 more. They are much more active and visible in larger groups (though they don't necessarily school). 
Your dwarf gourami .. wow... are you sure 3 years old?!? Usual average is 2 years. I had min for about 18 months before he passed (assumed he was 4-6 months old when I got him). I would be sad, but not worried about disease, that's a long life for a dwarf gourami! 
You rainbow fish should _really _be kept in a school of 6-8 and they like long tanks with lots of swim room as they get big (4ft length ideally). I don't think your tank can handle of school of that sp. of rainbow fish though (bioload wise not to mention space). You rainbow won't be quite as active or colorful in that tank as it would in a bigger space with more of its own.
You rummy nose should also be in groups of 6-8 and also do better in longer tanks for more swim room.
I'd suggest removing/rehoming the rummynose and rainbow fish, adding 2-3 otos, getting 2-4 more of your white cloud tetra, and maybe add 2 more neon tetra.
I'm not trying to harp on you for your stocking list, just give you some knowledge/suggestions to hopefully act on.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

No worries, I did plenty of research before selecting the fish I chose, so I'm comfortable with my decisions, and they were based on plenty of research, no impulse buys.

I wish I had more room, but it's a small tank, and the only one I have (other than the small 2 gal at work)... and the only one I'm going to have (larger is not an option), so I have what I have. I do wish I could have more of pretty much everything, but I don't want to push the bioload of the tank further. I have a good filter (rated for 60 gal tank, on a 17 gal tank) so I can push it a little, but it's at a good level now. I'll pick up two more white clouds to replace the ones I have now, for sure, and I'll likely add an oto or two as well, but that's about it.

The rainbowfish would prefer more of his kind, and perhaps a bigger tank, but I've spoken to many others and he'll be ok as-is. I may add a second, someday, IF I can source a female, but definitely don't want to push any more than that in a tank this size. Of all the rainbowfish, the Boesemani is the one that does best in smaller tanks. He'll get a _little_ bigger, maybe 1/2", but not too much bigger (unlike some of the others), so he should be fine.

6 tetras and 6 white clouds is fine. The Rummys are very happy together, zooming back and forth as a unit, and their noses are nice and red. More would be better, but they're content as-is. I spend a lot of time watching the tank, and the current level is about as much stock as I want in there. They have enough room to swim around, and everyone seems happy... much more, beyond the replacements I've already planned, would start to feel crowded quickly.

Yeah, I was really sad about the Gourami until I read up on the lifespan and realized it was probably just his time. And yeah, he was just shy of 3 years old. The other fish are all perfectly healthy, and all my water parameters are rock solid, so I don't think it was environmental. I'm pleased with how the rainbowfish has integrated into the tank, though.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

So much going on!

Let's see, changes afoot. Please excuse the obscenely long post. 

I'm still working on this algae issue. Various kinds, for that matter. I've torn out a bunch of plants, and most of the Christmas moss that was tied to the branch, filamenty stuff keeps coming back, and now I've got more varieties growing out on The branch, and the dark fringey stuff on so many leaves. Plus the green dot stuff on the glass. 

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/algae.htm

According to this guide, I'm pretty sure I need to:

1) Bump up co2
2) Add a second Sat+ light
3) Move to a steadier fert regimen

There is a 4th, but I'm _reasonably_ sure my flow rate is ok with my moderately oversized canister. (My Eheim Ecco Pro 60 is rated for 60 gallons, so over 3x the size of this 17 gal tank)

Re #1, co2, I'm going to have to finally hook up a bubble counter so I can get a better handle on how much I'm pushing through. I eyeballed it, dramatically bumping the co2 coming from my diffuser, and came home to gasping fish. I cut it to a midpoint between the two, and things seem better, so we'll see, but I still want more control, and to really _know_ what my numbers are. After that, my next step is to look into something other than a diffuser. Either an inline atomizer, or perhaps a serges reactor? I need to see what impact any of these have on my flow rate, though. 

Re #2, more light, a second Sat+ is in the works. I hope to have it by the end of next week. More on that later. 

Re #3, ferts, I freely admit that I'm really bad at winging it the way I have been. I really need something better... And automated. My plan is to buy an EI starter kit from GLA and copy AnotherHobby's dosing regime... Including automating it via a copy of his rather complex Arduino-based auto-doser and lighting control. More on that later, too. 

As for flow, I finally took out my old little Finnex canister and set up the Eheim as the sole canister. Hopefully it can do a decent job without help from the Finnex. The good news is I'm set up the way you're supposed to be now, with the intake and outflow both on the left side of the tank, which Amano afficiandoes (plus other 60P'ers I respect) claim is a good setup for circulation. I do get a little extra circulation bump from the Skim350 surface skimmer. Although, is it best to have both intake and output in one back corner, or should they be separated, output in front and intake in back both on a short side of the tank?

*FLORA*

I've been whacking the heck out of my plants. Some seem to like it, others not so much. The Rotala loves it. The Hygrophilia less so, but it's been fairly vibrant lately. I'm trying to modify _how_ I trim the plants, too, starting with the Hygro. I hacked out the bottom and moved the upper sections down into the gravel. I guess I'll find out soon if that was a good idea or a terrible one. If it works out, the Rotala should be next. Too much root-y crud in the lower levels, although the top is nice and as bushy as you'd like. 

My Wisteria has not been doing well since a big trim a couple of months ago. I hope it will perk up with some replanting, and especially once the added light comes in. 

Java Fern seems to be thriving from the more frequent pruning of older, deader material. I'll keep on that. The Crypts seem fine, overall, too. Some of the frilly edge algae on the older leaves, but I just trimmed those out. 

I tore out a ton of the dwarf sag. There's still some hiding in the harder-to reach areas! but it was taking over to the point of not looking so hot. The Valisneria was doing quite well, too. I have to trim those long blades regularly. 

The worst plant in the tank, oddly, is my poor Anubias. The algae and green spots has hit it harder than anything else's did some serious trimming and hopefully that will get it going again. One odd thing with Anubias... The main rhizome usually grows in a relatively straight line, and the new leaves come out of the end. But once you trim existing leaves, you're left with a denuded rhizome in the middle. Will new leaves ever come out that, or should it be broken up? The center bunch on the branch is looking terrible, as is the front corner bunch by the red rock. I may pull that latter one out at some point, if the red reineckii cardinalis does well enough in the corner. 

Finally, we get to the NEW fauna! One of my inspirations is AnotherHobby's gorgeous 60P. The red plants are just so vibrant! I want that. I seem to have a tough time finding good reds around here, so when I saw some unexpectedly good red _Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis]_' at PetSmart, on a whim I grabbed some. I hope I like it as much as AH's _a. reineckii mini_. I stuck it in the front corner, and left side for now. Not sure how big to expect it to get. I do expect I'll need the EI ferts (ESP iron) and extra light to keep it nice and red, so all the more reason to spur myself forward!

The only other flora change I'm pondering is to see if I can get some. DHG Belem and try to carpet the front open floor with it, again, shamelessly copying from AnotherHobby's tank. 

*FAUNA*

As for Fauna, that's been a mixed bag. Good overall? My rainbowfish is doing great, as is the Electric Blue Ram. I keep losing my golden white clouds and lost a couple of rummy noses, too. (They sometimes jump in the night, especially the goldens which like to hang near the surface, and I've had a bad run lately.) I'll replace them this weekend. I added a few Otos, ad they seem fairly happy. The neons are well, neons. Pretty bullet-proof. My Golden mystery snail is just not doing well, and as usual, I have no idea where my Nerites have disappeared to. No empty shells that I can see, and I've combed the area around the tank and see no dead ones out of the water. Frustrating. Ever since my first, large and long-lived, golden mystery snail died tragically in the filter intake mishap, I've had a helluva time keeping snails alive!

I do still have at least two Amano shrimp in there. They hide a lot, but seem to come out every time I do a water change. 

*HARDWARE*

Hardware-wise, a fair amount going on, as well. As I said, I finally disconnected the little Finnex canister and am only running the Eheim Ecco Pro 60, with glass lily pipes. (Including the _good_ glass intake that doesn't eat snails!) I get a little circulation boost from the Skim350. I was having problems with my small fish ending up sucked into the skimmer (lost a couple that way also), until I read Brian_cali77's post mentioning that his is on a timer because it doesn't need to run 24/7. Brilliant! I put it on the same timetable as my lights, so it only runs from 4p-12a. Totally adequate skimming, still, and the little fish don't get sucked in at night anymore. As an added bonus, since the tank lights aren't on in the mornings when I feed the fish, I no longer have to manually turn it off at feeding time (else the surface skimmer would suck the food right off the surface!). Love it!

I finally got all the bits and pieces together to rig up the inline heater (eheim jager), and I'm currently testing everything in a 5 gal bucket, using the Finnex canister I had pulled to assemble a complete test environment that won't put anything living at risk. It is all works out, after a week I'll yank out my Cobalt heater and move to the inline heater. Yay, more stuff out of my tank!

Hopefully the second Sat+ light, once it comes, will help a little with jumpy fish, since a bit more of the surface will be covered by the lights. We'll see. 

I sort of mentioned that I'm following AnotherHobby's iAqua Arduino controller project, and hope to automate the hack out of this tank. I'll automate the EI dosing via auto-doses, and put the Sat+ lights on a more interesting time schedule. The Single Ramp Timer has worked reasonably well for me, but ALL it does is fade I and out, so I'm not taking advantage of all the cool things the light has to offer. And Arduino-based scheduler will let me bring the lights on in Sunrise/sunset mode, then go to full daylight, then back to sunrise/sunset mode, and finally to some nice blue moonlights that will make he tank more enjoyable wheni stay up past the fishies' bedtime

This weekend, I hope to have time to move the whole tank enough that I cane get the black contact paper onto the back of the tank, to replace the black construction paper that was a temporary test... 6 months ago.

Pics shortly, along with a list of current inhabitants. This one post is getting absurdly long as it is!


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Stocking updates, as promises in the previous post:

*TANK INVENTORY:*

*Hardware:*
Mr. Aqua MA-720LI Rimless Aquarium (low iron glass, 17.1 gallons)
Current USA Satellite Plus Freshwater LED Lamp (24" model, PAR 36 @ 12") (_soon to be TWO!_)
Current USA Single Ramp Timer for light control (_soon(ish) to be Arduino controlled!_)
Cobalt Aquatics Neo-Therm 50-Watt Heater (_for now, see above post re replacement plans for inline 75w Eheim Jager_)
Eheim Ecco Pro 60 Canister Filter


*CO2:*
Aquatek Mini paintball regulator

Empire 20oz CO2 Tank

Nano diffuser

*Fauna:*
A Boesemani Rainbow fish (_Melanotaenia boesemani_)
An Electric Blue Ram (_Papiliochromis ramirezi_)
Four Neon Tetras (_Paracheirodon innesi_)
Three Golden white cloud tetras (_Tanichthys albonubes_) (_I'll add a couple more replacements for the two I lost soon, to bring this to 5_)
Two Rummynose tetras (_Hemigrammus bleheri_) (_lost a couple of jumpers but should be bumped up to 5 tomorrow_)
Four Otocinclus Catfish (Otocinclus sp.) (_added some more, and they seem happier and more active with more of them in the tank)_
A Golden Mystery Snail (_Golden bridgesii_)
A Zebra Nerite Snail (_Neritina natalensis_) (_maybe still hiding in there?_), and
Two Japonica Amano Shrimp (_Caridina multidentata_) (_maybe 3? So hard to tell!_)

*Flora:*
Anubias Nana (_Anubias barteri v. 'Nana'_)
Hygrophilia 'Kompakt' (_Hygrophilia corymbosa 'Kompakt'_)
Crypt parva (_Cryptocoryne parva_)
Java Fern "Narrow Leaf" (_Microsorium pteropus_)
Amazon Sword Plant (_Echinodorus amazonicus_)
_Vallisneria nana_
_Rotala rotundifolia_
_Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis'_
Anubias petite (I think)
Dwarf Sagittaria (_Sagittaria subulata_)
Christmas Moss (_Vesicularia montagnei_) (not much left, due to struggles against the algae)
Wisteria (_Hygrophila difformis_)
[STRIKE]Baby Tears (_Hemianthus micranthemoides_)[/STRIKE][STRIKE]Kyoto Grass (_Ophiopogon Japonica_)[/STRIKE]

*Ferts:* (_hopefully soon to be replaced by EI ferts on an auto-doser!_)
Flourish
Flourish Excel
Flourish Potassium
Osmocote+ capsules (_I_ definitely _need to put in some new ones soon_)

Ooh, that reminds me, I have a Purigen (100ml) packet in my Finnex filter that definitely needs to be moved into the Eheim! I'll do that as soon as the inline heater test is complete.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

And finally, a current photo:










Note the fuzziness all over the branch, and the terrible looking Anubias in the front right (ONE leaf!) and dead center (just a couple small leaves). (Although there are the new red plants on the right! The ones directly left of the branch won't be visible from this angle until they get taller, although you can just barely see a leaf or two behind the big Hygrophilia).

But hey, a LOT less hardware in the tank from the last photos, so that's pretty cool.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Hmm. Finally measured my water parameters today. All within normal.

Except then I opened up my new GH/KH test kit. Not entirely normal. Kinda high, in fact. Perhaps I should look into water conditioning, to reduce that hardness.

pH: 6.8
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: between 5 and 10

KH: ~161 ppm
GH: ~197 ppm

Per the kit instructions, for my normal tropical mix of fish, it should be lower, 50-100 ppm.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Gee, crickets around here. 

I finally have a second Sat+ light for my tank. Yay! This should really help my plants, and I can bump up my co2 a bit as well, which should help with algae. I'm also going to be moving to EI ferts instead of the mishmash of SeaChem ferts. The order has been placed! The extra light, and extra iron in the ferts should also help my new red plants get nice and solidly red, which will add some nice color pop to my tank. 

Furthering the in-tank hardware removal, I FINALLY got my inline heater system set up. I had it going heating a 5 gallon bucket with my old Finnex canister as a leak test, and can confirm that it heats the tank to a rock solid temp (as I expected it would). My Cobalt NeoTherm (25w) does a great job heating, too, except I've noticed it struggles a little on the coldest winter days, when the temps in this room drop lower than is usual for L.A., so this should help with that... plus, of course, one less piece of hardware in the tank.  The 75w Eheim Jager should have no problem maintaining temps, even on the coldest winter nights (well, for LA, at least). The testing was necessary because I need to use the housing in the horizontal position rather than the intended vertical position, due to the low clearance of the table my tank is on. No apparent problems, but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Here's a couple of quick snapshots of the inline heater and the tank with both lights:




























I'll need to do some wiring cleanup soon (clearly!), but it's great to have this piece of gear in place! Next up, some sort of inline co2 reactor, to take the diffuser out of the tank, and then the ONLY gear in the tank (other the glass lily pipes and the glass co2 checker, of course) will be the Eheim Skim350.

The FINAL step will be the iAqua Arduino-based touchscreen control for lighting, dosing pumps, etc., but still, this is a great step in the right direction so I can finally effectively make the transition to more automated tank control.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

AND, WE'RE OFF!

With Estimated Index fertilization, that is.

My shipment finally arrived, and after much hand-wringing and second-guessing myself, and even starting a thread for confirmation, I have begun the EI dosing. I'm on day 2, in fact, so I've had the pleasure of squirting not one, but TWO completely different liquids into my tank!

So instead of this:










We now have, on your left, the *Macro Mix* powders:
2 tbsp KNO3
1.5 tsp KH2PO4
1.5 tsp K2SO4

And on the right, we have the *Micro Mix* powders:
1.5 tsp Micros
3/4 tsp Iron (an addition to the normal EI mix for red plants)

Toss the powders into a small mason jar:










... and add 16 fl oz of distilled water, and shake, don't stir:










And Bob's your uncle.

Ok, I'll admit, it was a little anti-climatic. And actually, those little bottles of Excel and Prime aren't going away. But I'm happy I'm finally rolling with EI. I hope to see improvement in my red plants soon! My Hygrophilia is suddenly turning red, interestingly, since I added the second Sat+ light, after always being brilliant green. And hopefully the _Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis'_ will get darker and take off nicely in it's new home, with all the iron supplements it's getting now. 










I finally tidied up my tank area, too. Some, at least. And reorganized the drawers under the tank... and confirmed that, yes, sure enough, my Nerites had made a break for it at some point, and were dried up amongst the clutter underneath. I may have to try to figure out some sort of lid along the back edge, perhaps, just a strip of lexan or something. Something to block their main path out, at least. But I'm glad there is less equipment in the tank! I guess I'll be adding some gear when the auto-dosers are finally set up, but hopefully co2 will be inline by then, too, so perhaps it'll be an even swap, at least up near the tank.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Today was a sad day for this tank.

My Electric Blue Ram died, sometime between this morning's feeding, and just now when we discovered him. My wife is super sad, too. He was both of our favorites.

My Golden Mystery snail was also found dead... and, oddly: missing from his shell. H haven't seen him in a few days and discovered the empty shell (and trap door) sucked inside the Skim350. (I was wondering why my tank suddenly had so much gunk on the surface, and checked inside to see if it needed to be cleaned.)

I'll replace the Mystery snail at some point. The EBR is going to be harder to replace. Does anyone know of a shop in the greater LA area that has any in stock?

Meanwhile, I'm going to do a water change, because who the heck knows what a completely decomposed (eaten?) mystery snail has done to my water quality.

Also, tomorrow, I'm going to yank that branch and scrub it clean. Enough is enough with this freaking algae. Then it gets a Hydrogen Peroxide bath, I think. I may want to dip some of my other plants, too. I'm so over this algae situation it's not even funny.

Just for completeness:

pH: 7.6 (higher than usual, but not crazy)
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20 ppm (a little higher than usual, but not surprising considering I just pulled out dead fish)


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Today was a MUCH better day for the tank. 

I was able to pick up a new Electric Blue Ram. We actually met an EBR breeder in the shop, who sexed ouR new EBR, informing us that we have a female. She's a little smaller than her predecessor, but still brilliant blue. 

Further, my local shop FINALLY got in some good Golden Mystery Snails... And just in time! I'm pleased to have a good, full sized mystery Snail in my tank again, who seems to be happily cruising about already. 

Most importantly, I did a TON of work inside the tank. I finally yanked out the branch and spent a couple of hours working on it. I scrubbed off as much algae as I could, hosing it down continuously, and then I set up a bucket with a powerhead and a hydrogen peroxide solution, and soaked the branch in it for about 30 minutes. I rinsed well, and I'm happy to report it seems to be free of that accursed brown algae. I kept the Anubias out of the solution, except for a quick dip, but we'll have to see how well they survived the hot dry afternoon while the rest of the branch soaked. 

Here is a "before" photo of just how bad the algae situation got. Mind you, I pulled out as much as I could (with my 'scaping tweezers) just over a week ago (see the 8/25 tank photo above, by comparison).










After I cleaned the branch, returning to the tank, I yanked out most of my plants and trimmed them a LOT. The Amazon swords had a serious root trim, as did my Wisteria, my Rotala and my Java Ferns. I thinned the Java Fern a bit, too. 

Needless to say, all this work stirred up a ton of muck, so a couple of back-to-back 50% water changes later, the water seemed reasonable again.

While I was at it, I put in new root tabs (Osmocote+, the original version), since he old ones were around 6 months old and due for replacement. 

The plants need some time to grow, and some time to recover, but overall, they seem to be doing well. Well, there's a couple of Anubias that aren't great, but we'll see if they recover after a few more days. If not, they're easy enough to replace. 

All in all, I'm pleased. I think I want to pick up some _a. Reineckii mini_ for just to the right of the branch, to bring in a splash of red in the middle, and perhaps some _Anubias Petite_ if the existing Anubias end up needing replacement, and finally, perhaps a carpet of DHG Belem? Although the black substrate is certainly striking, I think perhaps I need more plant life in the tank to completely outcompete the algae, long term. Anyone have thoughts on that?

Current shot, after today's work:


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

kman said:


> I think perhaps I need more plant life in the tank to completely outcompete the algae, long term. Anyone have thoughts on that?


I think (Hygrophila difformis) would help with that problem.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Hilde said:


> I think (Hygrophila difformis) would help with that problem.


I have that. Are you saying I don't need to worry about it? (since it was clearly an issue before)


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

kman said:


> I have that. Are you saying I don't need to worry about it? (since it was clearly an issue before)


No!! No tank is free of algae. Some tanks you have to work harder to keep it under control. Your water is treated by the city thus you don't have control of every component of your tank. 

How long is the light strip on? A siesta period of 3hrs has helped me keep algae under control. For example lights on 3hrs/ off 3hrs/ on 3hrs. 

What is your nitrate level? Could you possibly be over feeding your fish. I had more problems using automatic feeder. How often are you doing water changes? I got hair algae under control by changing the type of food flakes to pellets and doing weekly water changes.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Weekly 50% water changes (mostly... sometimes a day or two longer, if I have an especially busy weekend).

8 hour photoperiod. My timer won't do siesta timing, unfortunately, only one photoperiod.

Pretty sure I'm not overfeeding, or at least, not by much, if any. My fish tear into the flakes (Omega One) and it's gone from the surface within 30 seconds, although the occasional piece is missed, I'm sure. I have snails (Mystery and Nerite), otos and Amano shrimp to help clean up, however.

Nitrate is usually 5-10, although it was 20 on this last test, right after I pulled a dead fish out (see above).


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## Hilde (May 19, 2008)

kman said:


> 8 hour photoperiod. My timer won't do siesta timing
> 
> My fish tear into the flakes (Omega One) and it's gone
> 
> Nitrate is usually 5-10, although it was 20 on this last test


I see you are injecting Co2. At what bps? Can you increase it?

Perhaps switching to pellets would help. It has helped me. Flake foods tend to have phosphates in them. Plus your water may be treated with phosphates.


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## Gad (Apr 6, 2008)

kman said:


> Here's the current lineup:
> 
> *Hardware:*
> Mr. Aqua MA-720LI Rimless Aquarium (low iron glass, 17.1 gallons)
> ...



Is this the 18-24" or 24-36" Current USA light? I'm wanting to get one of the Orbits for my Mr Aqua 17g reef. But being 23.6" I'm not sure the 24-36" will fit. Thanks


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## Gad (Apr 6, 2008)

Doh! I guess it's the 24" since it's pictured the length of the tank. Just making sure it will fit before I buy the saltwater version of this for my 17g reef.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Yes, it's the 24-36" light. Fits perfectly.


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## Gad (Apr 6, 2008)

kman said:


> Yes, it's the 24-36" light. Fits perfectly.


Awesome. Current USA told me to get the 18-24". LOL Sometimes the manufacturer is clueless. Thanks


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

So, some interesting things afoot with the tank.

1) I don't think I've mentioned this, but I've been having nothing but trouble with my new (2nd) Current Sat+ from day one. For some reason, it wouldn't start up automatically via the timer (Current Single Ramp timer). I have an OEM Current power supply feeding an OEM Current splitter, which then has both lights plugged in.

My old/original light, no problem whatsoever. Works perfectly, as designed, every time. Fades in, fades out, at the designated times. (I run Yellow mode, stock preset, for max output)

The new one, however, had all kinds of problems starting up. It just wouldn't trigger from the Ramp Timer. I emailed Current tech support, and they said the issue was power: The OEM power supply supplies 36 watts. Each light uses 18 watts. So sounds perfect, right? 18x2=36. EXCEPT, apparently the controller uses 1-2 watts as well. So technically, the OEM 36w controller can't actually push two 18w lights (plus a timer) on it's own.

What I've been doing, as a workaround, it starting up the second light manually, via the remote control. The first one comes on normally, so I'd just start the second one manually, either when I got home from work (only a couple hours after it was supposed to come on) or my wife would turn it on if she was home.

As of last night, however, the second light decided it no longer wants to turn on at all. I connected it separately, via it's own power supply, and used the remote. The lights flash when applying power (so the LEDs work and are getting power), but they don't stay on. The same remote turns the old light on and off no problem, so it's obviously the light itself that's the issue. I've contacted Current's tech support, and we'll see what happens.

2) Because of the above issues, and my desire for sunrise/sunset modes, and moonlight modes, I've been looking into building an Arduino-based controller for the lights, which replicates the OEM remote to turn the lights on and off. (which has always worked, up until last night, ironically). I finally have it built, and I think functioning, but since the second light isn't working, I'll have to wait and see what happens before implementing it. Ultimately I'm building an iAqua Arduino controller, but until the design is finalized, that may have to wait a while longer.

3) On a whim, I added a few (3) Red Cherry Shrimp to the tank last night. This is my first foray into RCS, so we'll see how well they do. I'm hoping they'll like the tank, and start breeding so I have more, but we'll see. I'm also hoping there are no conflicts with the fish, and my Boesmani Rainbowfish doesn't decide they look like tasty snacks, and ditto with my Electric Blue Ram. They leave the Amano shrimp alone, but those are transparent, and a LOT bigger, so less of a target. Fingers crossed!

Here's a terrible pic of the shrimp. More to come!


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## Gad (Apr 6, 2008)

Call or email them. Their support is second to none. I have both my freshwater and marine running now without issues.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Gad said:


> Call or email them. Their support is second to none. I have both my freshwater and marine running now without issues.


I dropped them a line last night, so we'll see.

My original (single) Sat+ has been great, and functions without issue.

But I was a little (just a little) disappointed with their response to my original issue, since they essentially blamed their own power supply as being insufficient to push two lights... when it obviously could, as long as I manually started them. It was starting two via the Ramp Timer (which is was supposed to be able to do) that was the issue. Except, of course, they don't even sell a more powerful power supply! Their "solution" was for me to buy a second Ramp Timer. Not. They did offer to have me ship it back to them, but that seemed like a hassle. I wasn't worried because I knew I was going to build the Arduino controller anyway, so I could have more modes, all automated. And since it works via the remote (or rather by cleverly impersonating the remote), I figured that would solve my issue.

At least, until last night, when the light wouldn't turn on at all. So clearly, the light has issues. (as it has from the start) I'll bet the replacement, which presumably works as it should, will work perfectly with the existing ramp timer. Not that it matters, since my controller is finally up and running. I'll know for sure within a day or two, about the controller.


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## RajahTank (Sep 10, 2014)

kman said:


> Gee, crickets around here.
> 
> I finally have a second Sat+ light for my tank. Yay! This should really help my plants, and I can bump up my co2 a bit as well, which should help with algae. I'm also going to be moving to EI ferts instead of the mishmash of SeaChem ferts. The order has been placed! The extra light, and extra iron in the ferts should also help my new red plants get nice and solidly red, which will add some nice color pop to my tank.
> 
> ...


Kman, 
I am planning to get one of the Lifegard Aquatics heater module to go with my Jager heater. Can you describe how you plumb the heater module into your canister system -- fittings and whatnot in order to make the connections work?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

RajahTank said:


> Kman,
> I am planning to get one of the Lifegard Aquatics heater module to go with my Jager heater. Can you describe how you plumb the heater module into your canister system -- fittings and whatnot in order to make the connections work?


All you need is two parts: (1) two of the part that screws into inflow and the outflow, to give you a place to connect your filter hose, and (2) a pair of hose clamps to make it all nice and tight. Unfortunately I don't recall the exact sizes I used, because I wasn't really paying attention to the numbers... it was so easy I didn't have to.

The Lifegard module comes with two small threaded inserts that convert the bottom of the module from being sized to work with the full-blown Lifegard system (there is a system with a whole series of modules like this, that you can use for massive installations), into a normal threaded connector.

Take those two threaded inserts with you to Home Depot or Lowes or whatever (they're small and will fit in your pocket!), and look for a threaded adapter that screws into it, and gives you the threads on one side and a barb for your canister filter's hose on the other (you'll need to know what size hoses your canister uses, or cut off an inch and bring it in as a sample). Buy two threaded adapters (one for each side), and appropriately sized hose clamps for each. That's it.

You're looking for something like this:
Thogus Polypropylene Tube Fitting, 90 Degree Elbow, White, NPT Male x Barbed: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

...but I don't know what size. If you can determine what size, perhaps you can order online, but it was easier, and more certain, to simply bring the threaded fittings into Home Depot and test it out right then and there so I was 100% certain that what I bought fit correctly. And actually, if you can find a straight-through connector (not a 90 degree bend) that would probably be even better, but my Home Depot didn't carry that.










Then install the two press-fit threaded adapters. You can add aquarium-safe silicon sealant if you want... I didn't. The press-fit is REALLY tight, so as long as it's really smacked in there flush (I used a rubber mallet), it won't leak. Mine doesn't, anyway, but test thoroughly, of course. 

Anyway, then just screw the new adapters in, and splice the whole system inline with your canister filter's outflow hose. (If the hoses are already cut exactly to size without much play, you'll need some extra hose to go from canister to Lifegard, and then connect the old hose to the Lifegard's output... or however you want to arrange your hoses) Use the hose clamps to be sure the hoses are tightly sealed.

Install your heater according to the instructions. (not much to it, other than figuring out which size heater you have and thus which inserts to use around it)

To test, I ran it for two days with a spare canister I had, into a 5 gallon bucket, to test both the temps, and for potential leakage. (I just put the Lifegard module into a large casserole dish in case of any leaks.) Initially I left the press-fit threaded adapters not _quite_ all the way in, in case I wanted to adjust something. Bear in mind you might want to move things around and adjust them a bit, and once everything is slammed in tight, it's not going to be easy (if possible at all) to separate them again. The loose (sure seemed tight!) fit earned me a very slow leak... maybe a teaspoon of water overnight. Once I smacked them all the way in, no leaks whatsoever.

Let me know if you have any more questions, else, good luck!


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Good news! Current agreed to replace my light, and the new one arrived last night. So I finally have dual lights again! I'm not even clear whether I'm supposed to send the dead one back to them, although I haven't looked through the packaging yet.

It will be quite interesting to see if the new light turns on automatically from the ramp timer, or if I have to manually start it up. I'll find out when I get home! If not, no big deal, as I'm about 95% done building a basic Arduino controller for the lights, so soon I'll have a LOT more flexibility with my timing schedule.

No new photos yet, but I've made a few equipment changes. I bought a really nice NAG inline co2 diffuser. I kept waffling about building a reactor, but I just wasn't happy with the amount of flow reduction I would get, as I still feel like I have relatively marginally adequate flow in my tank. I sure wish I had room for a bigger (taller) canister. It's still much better with my Ecco over the previous little Finnex, but adding the inline heater definitely hit the flow a little, so I don't want to risk any further significant reductions. These are so nice and smooth inside, though, I think they work fine. And they're attractive! I get very few bubbles making it into the tank now, and can even bump up the co2 a bit more. Way better than the usual nano diffuser I had before, since the bubbles have to travel so much farther before hitting the surface. And one more thing out of the tank, woohoo!










And lastly, I don't think I mentioned the new flora: I have really been loving the reds that the AR Cardinalis brought into the tank, and so when I stumbled across this great Ludwigia red hybrid at Nature Aquarium, I grabbed it. Some research has led me to believe it is a _Ludwigia paulustris_ 'Red' Hybrid.

Here is current rundown on the tank:

*TANK INVENTORY:*

*Hardware:*
Mr. Aqua MA-720LI Rimless Aquarium (low iron glass, 17.1 gallons)
Dual Current USA Satellite Plus Freshwater LED Lamps (24" models, each PAR 36 @ 12", approx net 55-60 PAR)
Current USA Single Ramp Timer for light control (_soon(ish) to be Arduino controlled!_)
Eheim Jager 75W Aquarium Thermostat Heater

Lifegard AF-92 Inline Heater Module,Single Capacity

Eheim Ecco Pro 60 Canister Filter


*CO2:*
Aquatek Mini paintball regulator

Empire 20oz CO2 Tank

NAG Glass Inline CO2 Diffuser

Titan Controls 734150 Apollo 14 8-Outlet Power Strip with 24 Hour Timer


*Fauna:*
A Boesemani Rainbow fish (_Melanotaenia boesemani_)
An Electric Blue Ram (_Papiliochromis ramirezi_)
Six Neon Tetras (_Paracheirodon innesi_)
Five Golden white cloud tetras (_Tanichthys albonubes_)
Six Rummynose tetras (_Hemigrammus bleheri_)
Four Otocinclus Catfish (Otocinclus sp.)
A Golden Mystery Snail (_Golden bridgesii_)
Two Zebra Nerite Snails (_Neritina natalensis_)
Two Japonica Amano Shrimp (_Caridina multidentata_) (_maybe 3? So hard to tell!_)
3-4 Red Cherry Shrimp (_I think they're still in there, but I may be wrong_)

*Flora:*
Anubias Nana (_Anubias barteri v. 'Nana'_)
Hygrophilia 'Kompakt' (_Hygrophilia corymbosa 'Kompakt'_)
Crypt parva (_Cryptocoryne parva_)
Java Fern "Narrow Leaf" (_Microsorium pteropus_)
Amazon Sword Plant (_Echinodorus amazonicus_)
_Vallisneria nana_
_Rotala rotundifolia_
_Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis'_
_Ludwigia paulustris_ 'Red' Hybrid
Anubias petite (I think)
Dwarf Sagittaria (_Sagittaria subulata_)
Wisteria (_Hygrophila difformis_)

*Ferts:*
Estimative Index dry fertilizers, plus Iron Chelate additive
Flourish Excel
Osmocote+ root tab capsules


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## RajahTank (Sep 10, 2014)

Wow Kman, can't wait to see the new photos. Please post!!

BTW just curious on the return flow sequence since I'll eventually want to have a similar setup as yours -- does the new inline diffuser come after or before the inline heater module?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

RajahTank said:


> Wow Kman, can't wait to see the new photos. Please post!!
> 
> BTW just curious on the return flow sequence since I'll eventually want to have a similar setup as yours -- does the new inline diffuser come after or before the inline heater module?


Thanks!

After the heater. I didn't want co2 bubbles getting caught anywhere. The bubbles are very fine coming out of this diffuser, much smaller than my cheapo eBay nano diffuser. That plus approx 3 feet of hose between the ground and the outflow for extra time to dissolve, and I get very few bubbles in the tank (and those are super tiny!). The lily pipe just has a few small (micro super so tiny you can barely see them) bubbles shooting out from time to time, but nothing like the "7up" you see sometimes, and barely anything hits the surface. Huge contrast from before, where the bubbles were small (but not AS small), but since they only had to go about 12" from the bottom of the tank to the top, many did hit the surface. I'm REALLY happy with this at the moment... I hope I stay happy with it! It was stupidly easy to install, of course. Getting the water out of the hose was the toughest part, then snip the hose where you want it, slide the hose over the inline glass, and move the co2 hose to the new nipple. Done. 

I haven't had time to work on the tank much this week... hopefully I'll get a water change in tomorrow and small cleanup trim, and get a few tank shots. The exterior is pretty disorganized right now, between playing with the hoses to add this diffuser (I still need to figure out a better routing method), and pulling my light cord organization apart for when I needed to swap out the bad light, plus playing with IR sensors for the Arduino controller. Such a mess! But I definitely want to get some more good photos, and with my good camera instead of my iPhone.

I'm going to a SCAPE meet on Sunday, so I might come home with some more plants... I'll want to get those planted for the pictures, too.  So perhaps tomorrow or Monday I'll be able to get some new pics up.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Well, I did promise some more pics, and there have been some updates, so here we go.

I've been lax on scraping diatoms off my glass, and they've built up over time, so these look pretty terrible right now. I finally cleaned it last night, and everything looks SOOOO much better! And then, of course, I neglected to take any shots of the _clean_ tank. Oh well. Needless to say, I'll hold off on updating the first post until I get a decent clean picture.










SO. I came home from the SCAPE meeting with: 

Anubias Petite: A nice big bunch! I've been wanting this for a while. I just sort of stuffed it into the middle of the branch for now, though. I need to ruminate on where I want to put it long term.

DHG Belem: Finally! I took it apart and planted plugs all over, to hopefully help it spread. Here's hoping I get a nice carpet soon! Since the above shot was taken, I trimmed it all down to about 1" high, for more of a uniform look.

Red Cherry Shrimp: Several, just for fun. We'll see if they make it. I had a jumper the first night, but I wasn't sure if it was dead (I thought I felt a twitch), so I popped it back in the tank and as it floated down I learned that my Rainbowfish is more than willing to eat a shrimp, if he can fit it in his mouth! (just barely... but the others are a little bigger than this one so fingers crossed) There's plenty of space to hide, so I'm hoping they make it long enough to breed and get a little colony going. 
Sadly, I missed out on the AR Mini I wanted at the SCAPE auction... there was a limit to what I was willing to pay for 6 stems, and it went WAY over that limit. I'll get some in soon, though.

I finally have my Arduino light controller up and running. It's in a temporary housing while I figure out how best to hardwire everything and get the breadboard out of there, but I built it into an old router I had laying around, after dumping the guts. Super pleased about finally having some good (dependable!) light control! Now I'm deciding whether I should sell the Current Single Ramp timer or hang onto it as a backup.

My light schedule is:


3:59pm: Power on (resume moonlights from previous night)
4:00pm: Sunrise/Sunset mode (a lovely golden red-hued mode to start the "day")
4:30pm: Full Spectrum lighting period begins
11:40pm: Sunrise/Sunset mode again to close out the "day"
12:00pm: Moonlight mode (deep blue, and dim... I can enjoy the tank still, since I'm usually up late, but too low to trigger growth)
2:00am: Power off until the next day repeats...










I just powered it back on, in the above photo, else it usually shows the current mode. Next up I'll add a temperature probe and it will show that, too! Last step will be to add controls for pumps for my EI ferts, but that may just wait for the full iAqua project, rather than mess with a temporary setup.

Moonlight tank:










A few current critter shots:

New cherry shrimp... I'll get some better shots soon, I hope! (if they survive my fish, that is... or else I just bought my fish some healthy tasty and expensive snacks!)










Dwarf Hair Grass 'Belem', and some Neon Tetras (ugh, those diatoms!):










My Electric Blue Ram (I'm getting some algae, as you can see, so I may need to try a blackout soon):










Golden White Clouds and Rummynose Tetras:










The infamous Boesmani Rainbowfish (with my Ludwigia Red Hybrid in the background), Tank Boss:










Shermy the Golden Mystery Snail, cruising the tank (who is developing an odd crease in his shell that's starting to worry me a bit):










I think that brings everything up to date.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Just a couple quick photos (finally cleaned... of course, with all the bubbles in the water, still photos still make it _look_ like there are spots everywhere, LOL), and a quick video:

Full tank, as of 10/22/14:









Here's a better shot of one of the red cherry shrimp:









And finally, a short video of the Electric Blue Ram and the Boesmani Rainbowfish, playing in the current from the filter outflow (they do this ALL the time, all day long, LOL!):


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## RajahTank (Sep 10, 2014)

That is one sick tank, kman! Looking better and better


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Thanks!  It's been a long journey to get here, but I'm pretty pleased with it, overall. Not too far to go before I get into the final configuration I've been striving for.

Then I'll need to find a way to get another tank so I can start all over, LOL


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

(btw, anyone have a good source for cheap canister filter tube? I want to lengthen mine slightly and need 12mm ID/16mm OD tubing)

Loew's has flexible clear plastic hose in a variety of diameters sold BTF.
The Home Depot may also.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Raymond S. said:


> (btw, anyone have a good source for cheap canister filter tube? I want to lengthen mine slightly and need 12mm ID/16mm OD tubing)
> 
> Loew's has flexible clear plastic hose in a variety of diameters sold BTF.
> The Home Depot may also.


Thx.  I found some at OSH.


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## Tyrone (Nov 22, 2013)

I like the video. Tank looks really good! I'm surprised I didn't get to meet you at the meet @ CK Fishworld. Were you able to find the amount of Anubias you were looking for?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Tyrone said:


> I like the video. Tank looks really good! I'm surprised I didn't get to meet you at the meet @ CK Fishworld. Were you able to find the amount of Anubias you were looking for?


Sorry I missed you!

And yes, I got a nice bunch of Anubias Petite.  You can see it in the full tank photo a few posts back, nestled in the crook of the wood piece.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Just a quick tank update:

Battling Algae again, although in a different way. Two kinds of algae this time, one is the same fluffy / filamentous brown stuff that I battled before, although not quite as bad. The other is a shorter, green filamentous algae that's growing on the tops of the leaves of my plants. (mostly the red _Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis'_, but some others, too, to a lesser extent) Also diatoms on the glass have been pretty bad. Those come off easily enough with a razor blade, at least, the parts you can get to, but I worry about all that junk in the water column every time I scrape it off.

I did a 3-day blackout, and no difference. I didn't follow it up with the 1-2 punch, because I didn't feel like pulling the tank apart to remove the sensitive species (Amano shrimp and Otos, at least).

My light controller continues to work well, as I continue towards finishing up the iAqua controller, but I'm having issues with my Sat+ light again. If you've been following along, you may recall I've had one Sat+ from day one, which never has given me a single problem, and a second one that had issues on startup so Current replaced it. Well, the new one works great with my controller now. With the current settings, that is: Sunrise mode to Full Spectrum, then back to sunlight, then to Moonlight mode (mode 2, the dimmer one). Since I've been having issues with algae, however, I wanted to tweak the moonlight mode to be much, much dimmer. That's totally possible by setting a custom blue mode that's way dim, setting it to a stored custom memory slot (M1), and simply triggering that instead of the stock moonlight mode.

Except it turns out the newer light, the one they already replaced for me once, doesn't seem to respond to the remote to make custom modes. All of the canned modes (sunrise/sunset, moonlight, the full spectrum yellow, the "canned" color modes, etc.) work fine, but if you try to use the arrows to shift the colors to a custom color, it doesn't respond at all. (Again, same method worked perfectly on the original, older Sat+, so I know I'm doing it right, but the newer one doesn't seem to respond to certain button presses.) Anyway, I've contact Current and we'll see what they have to say.

Speaking of lighting, I was speaking to the planted tank expert at my LFS, and he actually recommends the Purple mode instead of the Yellow (Full Spectrum) mode with the Current lights. He says the Purple has less blue and more red. Algae likes blue, and regular plants like red. He says all of his Current lights are set to Purple instead of the Yellow (max output) setting for that reason. He certainly doesn't seem to have the same issue with Algae that I've been having, so here's hoping it helps. I also cut my lighting period, from 8 hours (plus 1 hour of moonlight) to 7 hours (plus one hour of moonlight). Hopefully that will help, too. Perhaps the overly-bright moonlight mode is contributing to the issue... all the more reason to resolve the custom light mode issue with the one light.

The NAG inline co2 diffuser seems to be working nicely. I definitely like it better than any other solution I've seen. And very little hit to the flow rate, compared to a full reactor.

Speaking of flow rate, my canister filter, the Eheim Ecco Pro 60, had an issue: While cleaning the filter (routine maintenance), when reassembling the filter, apparently the actual canister housing CRACKED. Water start shooting out of the crack when I turned it on. I had to emergency overnight a replacement from Amazon. I sent an email to Eheim, to get some sort of warranty replacement coverage. Hopefully they'll step up and replace it, since I've only had the thing for a few months. Hopefully they get back to me this week. I couldn't wait, of course, so I guess I'm trying to get a spare filter replaced, at this point, and I'll just have to be out the money. 

Oh, and regarding routine canister filter maintenance: I was feeling like my flow rate was down, and I wondered if I might have a clog or something in my inline heater module. This is when I realized I had no good way to disconnect the hoses to remove and work with the module! So I added an inline ball valve, for easier tank maintenance when I shut things down. The filter has it's own off valves for removing the hoses on top for cleaning, but I had no such way to stop things between the filter and the heater module. Now I can.  Although speaking of that, my filter has great on/off valves which have integrated quick disconnects, to make maintenance easier. Does anyone know of a good source for some sort of disconnect on filter hoses? My Eheim uses 12/16mm (interior/exterior) hose which works great with 1/2" fittings. Standard barbed fittings aren't really designed for frequent hose removal, however, and I don't really feel comfortable twisting hoses on and off of glass fixtures on a regular basis.

On the bright side, my fish seem to be nice and healthy. The plants seem healthy enough, aside from the Algae issues. The DHG Belem is starting to get nice and thick, which makes me very happy. There's some algae or gunk hiding in there, too, which I'm not happy about, but it doesn't seem to be hurting the grass any. It'll be nice as it thickens into a real carpet.

Since the iAqua controller isn't done yet, I'm still doing my EI dosing by hand. I really look forward to getting that automated.

I went to Lowe's and bought some glass, and had them cut it into strips. I bought some Aluminum stock, and bent it into hooks for the top of the tank. So how I have some glass covering the open area above the tank. It doesn't look perfect, but it was good as a proof of concept. I'll go to a glass shop at some point and have better pieces cut professionally, with cutouts as needed for lily pipes and such. While I prefer the open tank look, I haven't lost a single fish to jumping since, so it's been incredibly effective. It should be interesting to see how this works out once I get the auto-dosing setup done. Also, I'm not sure how it will work out when I ultimately move from the Sat+ lights to the Exotic E-Series, which I'm sure I will at some point.

Picture updates to come, although it's far from looking at it's best right now.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

A few pics to update:

First, a couple of fun shots:

Cherry Red Shrimp:









Electric Blue Ram:









DHG Belem carpet getting thicker!









And now, the problem:

_Alternanthera reineckii 'cardinalis'_ looking green... and not in a good way!









Current full tank shot:


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Good news! I FINALLY seem to be winning the war against Algae. There has been a HUGE improvement over the past few weeks. The diatoms are almost entirely gone, and there was just one puff of algae remaining on the branch, which is easily cleared away manually. The green fuzz is almost entirely gone from the plant leaves (pictured above).

Two changes were made, as I discussed 2 posts back: (1) I changed my lights to run the Purple mode instead of Yellow, during the main lighting period, and (2) I lowered my lights on time period from 8 hours down to 7 hours.

I suspect part of the issue has been simply too long of a light period. Not that 8 hours is excessive, but rather, because of _when_ I run the 8 hours. I work normal business hours, and yet, I want to SEE my tank lights in the evening when I get home from work, so I run the 8 hour (now 7) photoperiod from 4:00pm to midnight (now 5pm to midnight). The tank is in a relatively dim area of the room, with little direct light, but it seems clear that there is just enough ambient light in the room during the daytime hours to cause a problem. Or the Purple mode helped. Hard to say which. But regardless, enormous change over the past weeks!

Here is a bad photo I took on 12/31, two weeks after the last post. I have been very hands off on the tank, so it needed a trim (which I just did yesterday) badly in this photo, and a water change (the water level is scary low) but otherwise things are looking greatly improved! Post trim, the plants are no longer growing out of the tank. I'll post up a new (post-trim) photo when I get a chance to take a decent one.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Tank is currently running extremely well. I still have a little bit of algae in one spot, but it doesn't seem to be spreading, so at some point soon I'll start some spot treatments with hydrogen peroxide.

The only issue is a slight breakout of tiny "trash" snails with pointy shells. Pond snails? Not sure. But to combat them, I've added a single Assassin snail (_Clea helena_). Since we added him, the numbers of tiny invaders already seems to be dropping.  I know assassin snails can gang up on bigger snails, and I wanted to keep my Nerites and Mystery snail safe, so I'm only keeping one single assassin. They're much smaller, so without others to gang up on the bigger snails, the "good" snails should all be safe. 

I've nearly completed my new iAqua aquarium controller, which is sort of like an offline Apex controller (online would be awesome but not in the current design) with a touchscreen interface. It's currently controlling the lights and working beautifully, just a few small details and it's finished. It's already running my new dosing pumps so finally my EI fert dosing is fully automated! I just have to top off the supply vials every 2 weeks, otherwise I don't have to lift a finger. Sweet! Here's a shot of the controller and the autodosing setup. I need to clean up some wiring still, but I'll do a nice series of shots for everything once it's all done. 



















I'm thinking more and more that I might move over to an Ecoxotic E-Series light, instead of my two Sat+ lights. It would clean up the tank's appearance considerably, redicing the number of wires and how much cover there is on top. I'll still want glass strips protecting the top, to keep the jumpers and curious snails inside, but it would still result in a much cleaner look, I think. Pondering...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Just a quick video update since it's been a while since I did a video. Shows an interesting thing that happens with co2 bubbles on the surface of the tank, coming out of my outflow lily pipe. They are sucked away shortly after this was shot, as my surface skimmer runs on a timer and clears it all up nicely.  I'm sure I can shoot a better one at some point soon, but this one seemed to show a decent amount of the tank (and I was posting another video for another thread), so why not? 

https://vimeo.com/117563763






Hey, anyone know if Vimeo videos can be embedded here on TPT the way you can with YouTube videos?

Tank is running nicely, overall, and the new controller (see post immediately before this one) is AMAZING. Loving it! It's now fully operational, controlling nearly all aspects of my tank.


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## FlyingHellFish (Nov 5, 2011)

Looking sharp! You got a nice amount of Co2 being injected with livestock looking great, and a bit fat. 

How you embed the yoututbe vid, what code was it? [youtube] link [/youtube]? Did tpt just allow vids, I did it before and then it just stop working.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Thanks! I'm pretty pleased, overall. That one Golden White Cloud is fat for sure... I actually posted a thread about him, worried there was something wrong! That's why I sort of paid extra attention to him in that video.

I want to beef up my carpet a little more, add some moss to the wood, and perhaps some AR Mini right in the middle front. And _maybe_ some Hydrocotyle Tripartita Japan in the bare area to the right of the wood just behind the carpet? Or fill in the carpet... I haven't decided. Otherwise I've just about reach the limit of what I can cram into one small tank!

Oh, and my wife wants me to add a few Pink Danios. And if I get around to setting up a shrimp tank that produces enough RCS, I wouldn't mind dumping a bunch in, to see if they can survive (or thrive), or if something hunts them all down. But otherwise, that should be it. 

As for video, I couldn't figure out if there are any tag options for embedding Vimeo, so I uploaded that vid to YouTube instead, because I knew it can embed those. Turns out the board will recognize a YouTube URL and embed it automatically. BUT: There is a catch: For most people's settings, Google (and thus YouTube, since they own it) now defaults to https. But the board's automatic embedding filters can't recognize the "https" (secure) version of the YouTube link. Just knock off the "s" so it's plain "http" and then the URL is automatically picked up and embedded. It's just the regular URL command, or even simply posting the URL itself that the forum software automatically recognizes, so there is no need for a specific YouTube tag.


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## FlyingHellFish (Nov 5, 2011)

My dwarf puffer is fat too, I stuff him to keep his murderous rage down. 

That Hydroctyle tripartita is a beast of a plant, you will love it. It's a bit invasive though, but I liked it.









What are Pink Danios? Are you talking about the glow in dark kind?


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

As long as it doesn't invade my DHG Belem, it's all good. I can clip runners when needed. 

At the moment, the Hydrocotyle is keeping my new cherry shrimp company (in a bowl) while I get a new tank cycled at the office. I'll plant it in a couple of weeks.

Pink Danios are a new gene-spliced hybrid. Pretty rare, there's a guy out here that created the strain, and only a couple of local shops that carry them. Take a normal Danio, and make it PINK. Like, REALLY pink.


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## Asu1776 (Mar 5, 2013)

Glad you got that algae under control. With your setup, I'd try the hydrocotyle. HJ looks great with driftwood, especially when it fills those little gaps and voids. It also provided an excellent hiding place for my shrimp. Plus, the shade of green is a bit lighter than most other plants, so it can create an awesome subtle accent.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Asu1776 said:


> Glad you got that algae under control. With your setup, I'd try the hydrocotyle. HJ looks great with driftwood, especially when it fills those little gaps and voids. It also provided an excellent hiding place for my shrimp. Plus, the shade of green is a bit lighter than most other plants, so it can create an awesome subtle accent.


Cool, I'll give it a shot!

Gotta post an update once I get that in there. Lots of small changes, some new critters, etc...


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## Tyrone (Nov 22, 2013)

Hey Kalani, I have some H. Japan if you need more.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Tyrone said:


> Hey Kalani, I have some H. Japan if you need more.


Thanks! I bought a nice big bag at the SCAPE auction so I think I have more than enough for both tanks. 

I have to wait until my new shrimp tank finishes cycling because at the moment my RCS are enjoying hanging out with it in my hospital tank (set up temporarily until the new tank is ready):
http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/showthread.php?t=811249


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## kep (Feb 3, 2015)

kman said:


> Pink Danios are a new gene-spliced hybrid. Pretty rare, there's a guy out here that created the strain, and only a couple of local shops that carry them. Take a normal Danio, and make it PINK. Like, REALLY pink.


Did you ever get the pink danios? Do you know of any shops carrying them? I wonder if they would ship. I'm not too far away and would be a quick journey. I haven't seen any around here.


Awesome journal by the way! Just spent a while reading through it. Really sad about your mystery snail. I have one in my 120 named Gary, who is actually female, and love watching her. The time lapse video was seriously entertaining watching it do hot laps around the tank. It's funny when they parachute to the bottom of the tank like base jumpers. 


Yours must have been male because otherwise I'm sure you would have posted complaints about it escaping to lay eggs. Mine has gotten out a couple of times through the small opening at the rear of the tank behind the lid. They lay their eggs outside of the water. The first time she fell behind the tank and laid back there for a whole day, maybe a little longer before we found her. Plopped her back in the tank and she was ok! I regularly clean the crunchy pink eggs off the underside of the lid. I wish it was easier to sex them because I want another, but I don't want to mess with the eggs. They have some blue ones with blue shells and matching blue bodies on Amazon (which buying snails through is just weird to me, but whatever lol) that I'm seriously considering. My luck I would get a male this time and get a mixed batch of hundreds of them that would hatch and take over my tank.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

kep said:


> Did you ever get the pink danios? Do you know of any shops carrying them? I wonder if they would ship. I'm not too far away and would be a quick journey. I haven't seen any around here.
> 
> Awesome journal by the way! Just spent a while reading through it. Really sad about your mystery snail. I have one in my 120 named Gary, who is actually female, and love watching her. The time lapse video was seriously entertaining watching it do hot laps around the tank. It's funny when they parachute to the bottom of the tank like base jumpers.
> 
> Yours must have been male because otherwise I'm sure you would have posted complaints about it escaping to lay eggs. Mine has gotten out a couple of times through the small opening at the rear of the tank behind the lid. They lay their eggs outside of the water. The first time she fell behind the tank and laid back there for a whole day, maybe a little longer before we found her. Plopped her back in the tank and she was ok! I regularly clean the crunchy pink eggs off the underside of the lid. I wish it was easier to sex them because I want another, but I don't want to mess with the eggs. They have some blue ones with blue shells and matching blue bodies on Amazon (which buying snails through is just weird to me, but whatever lol) that I'm seriously considering. My luck I would get a male this time and get a mixed batch of hundreds of them that would hatch and take over my tank.


Yeah, I do have several pink danios now. They definitely add a nice splash of bright color to the tank.  There are several shops around here that carry them, but they do seem to come and go, so if you're going to head up this way, be sure to call to check stock first. I usually see them at Underwater Depot in Sherman Oaks, and Nature Aquarium in Santa Monica often has them, too. I've seen them at Pet Supreme in Sylmar, too, but I wasn't as impressed with the quality.

I've had a few mystery snails go on "road trips" which fortunately I have caught. They'll actually live up to a couple of days out of water, as long as they seal up, I'm told. Doesn't happen anymore now that I have a glass top, though, since there is no hole big enough for them to get their shell through, at this point.

I'm really happy with my current Mystery snail, though. Nearly as rambunctious as the original one.  (I went through a few getting to this one, for some reason, but the PetCo/PetSmart ones didn't seem to do as well as the ones from Aquarium City, another local LFS that seems to have the best Mystery snails. PetCo has the blue ones as well but I like the bright yellow best.) I need to do another time lapse video in the bigger tank, but I never seem to me in a good place to get one going when the snail is in "super explorer mode".

I'll post some updates soon. Life has been crazy lately so I haven't been doing more than basic tank maintenance, so I need time to hack back the jungle a bit and get things nice again before I can get some good updates...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Ok, time for a quick update!

The tank is doing well, over all. The one down side is I lost my EBR last night. She's been more and more reclusive lately, and not eating. I think I'm going to get rid of my Rainbowfish, the tank bully, and try again with a pair of EBRs, assuming I can find a pair. Perhaps that way they won't get harassed as much.

I cut my light cycle a bit, and the BBA problem seems to be more under control. It's not _gone_, but it no longer appears to be spreading. Of course, I also cut my EI ferts entirely, because my dosing pumps stopped working a good 3 weeks ago, and I haven't had time to troubleshoot it. So maybe that's what stopped the BBA? I guess we'll find out when I resume dosing... if the BBA takes off again, maybe I'll stop dosing entirely and see how the tank does.

I still have a lot of trash snails that my Assassin snails seems to make no dent in. It's not at a problematic level, but it may be more than one AS can handle! I'm loathe to add more, though, and risk putting my Nerite and Mystery snails at risk.

I just did a major hack back of my plants. My Ludwigia (back left) was seriously taking over and covering the whole top of the tank, so I topped it all and replanted the whole bunch. I also tore out a ton of Valisneria, which was getting obscene, and trying to spread all over the place. I cut the AR, which broke the surface, and the AR mini, which was getting too tall (4" is as tall as this one should be allowed!). The Hydrocotyle Japan is doing ok, but not great. It was also getting crowded and shaded by too much Valisneria and Crypt Parva, so perhaps it will do better now that it has some breathing room. My Java Fern need more pruning, there's just too much of it, but the worst is out. My Rotala seems to be doing a bit better since I hacked it back and replanted it last time I did a big cutback. The DHG Belem seems to be doing fine. Growing slowly, but that's sort of the point, I guess.

Here are a couple of current quick phone shots of the tank:


















Oh, one thing I did (finally!) that was cool: I made some "fins" for the intake grills of my Eheim Skim350 surface skimmer. This should stop the occasional curious fish from getting sucked into the filter when it's running. So far the modification seems to be working perfectly with no downsides! If I come across some scrap plastic that's thinner than the plastic knives I cut up (and hand filed into the right shape) I might break these out and install that instead, for still better flow, but meanwhile, these are doing the job nicely: It still skims the surface perfectly, which is the whole point.










And finally, I don't think I ever posted a picture of the glass top I made for the tank. It's two strips of glass, which I cut myself (very easy, just need a flat surface, a yardstick, and a $5 glass cutter from Home Depot, and a little sand paper to knock down the sharp edge!). It's open under the lights, so no reduction in light from the cover, but since I installed it (many months ago) I haven't had a single fish jump out of the tank. I used to lose 1-2 per month, at least. Particularly the Golden White Clouds, which hang out at the surface and are easily startled, especially at night. I don't like having a glass top as much as an open top, but it has helped so tremendously that I'm just living with it. I take the tops off when entertaining so it's nicer looking. 

This is not a great photo of the tops, and I've since moved to smaller hangers (slow boat from China via FleaBay) which look nicer (although I still need to get ahold of some 5mm metal hangers from ADA if I can find some somewhere), but you get the idea. The lights are normally pushed together, of course, so the only opening that something could get out is about a 1/4" slot along the sides of the lights... but so far so good, there.


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## AJ_117 (Apr 8, 2015)

This may be a dumb question, but what is the nice looking branchlike driftwood you're using? I was gonna guess Mopani but idt that's right


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

AJ_117 said:


> This may be a dumb question, but what is the nice looking branchlike driftwood you're using? I was gonna guess Mopani but idt that's right


They usually call it "Spider wood" even though that's more of a description than a species. My LFS carries it, and ADA sells it. There are a few places you can get it online, like Substrate Source, but it's best to buy locally if you can find it, since it's hard to buy from photos (if they even use photos of the actual branch, rather than a "representative photo".


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## AJ_117 (Apr 8, 2015)

kman said:


> They usually call it "Spider wood" even though that's more of a description than a species. My LFS carries it, and ADA sells it. There are a few places you can get it online, like Substrate Source, but it's best to buy locally if you can find it, since it's hard to buy from photos (if they even use photos of the actual branch, rather than a "representative photo".


The only lfs near me doesn't really know much about plants and doesn't carry driftwood, so I'll probably check it out online. How much would one of them run ya? Sorry for getting off topic btw


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

AJ_117 said:


> The only lfs near me doesn't really know much about plants and doesn't carry driftwood, so I'll probably check it out online. How much would one of them run ya? Sorry for getting off topic btw


I honestly don't recall what I paid at my LFS, but I remember wincing a bit. Worth it for a good centerpiece wood, IMO. Check the Substrate Source link I added above for some internet pricing.


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Quick update:

Today, we said good bye to Percy, our Boesmani Rainbowfish. He was happy and healthy, but we grew tired of him harassing our other fish. He is now living at my LFS, in one of their large showpiece tanks, where I expect he will live a long and happy life.

Tank bully gone, we did some major species replenishing, adding some more rummynoses and golden white clouds, and adding TWO Electric Blue Rams to the tank. We _think_ they're male and female, but as they are notoriously difficult to sex, it remains to be seen. But as long as they coexist well, the sex really doesn't matter to me.

More interestingly, we added a new species to the tank. Sort of.

The same guy who does the gene spliced pink danios now also has Danio-based Glo-fish. Regular Danios, with genes spliced in to change their color to fluorescent Green. (they had yellow and red, too, but I'm starting with green) So total Danio count is up by two, but instead of more pinks, I've added greens.

We now have:

3-4 Neon Tetras (Approx, as really hard to tell since they hide)
7 Rummynose Tetras
7 Golden White Cloud tetras
4 Pink Danios
2 Green Glo Danios
2 Electric Blue Rams
4 Otos
2 Nerite Snails
1 Golden Mystery Snails
3-4 Amano shrimp (again, hard to get an exact count)

It's a lot of fish, but they're mostly pretty small, especially the new Rummys and Golden White Clouds, although they'll grow soon enough. Still, all small species.

Otherwise, the tank seems to be doing well!

Here's a quick shot, and a video. The new fish are obscenely hard to photograph, between their fast-moving natures and color which fluoresces so much light, so the video seemed important to try to portray them. And yet the color in the video still doesn't quite look like they are in person. But you can see the green-ish looking Danio, the two EBRs, and one of the new (so small!) Golden White clouds in this shot.


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## Jimmyblues (Dec 16, 2010)

*Re: Mr Aqua 17.1*



kman said:


> Here goes nuthin'!
> 
> I did it. I tore down my old Fluval Edge tank and upgraded to my first "serious" tank. It's a Mr. Aqua 720li (low iron), essentially ADA 60P clone. 17.1 gallon rimless. Lighting is a 24" Current USA Satellite+ LED, with a ramp timer. No co2. Flourish, Excel and root tabs. Let's see how it goes!
> 
> ...


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

Jimmyblues said:


> With your setup unless you have a lot of plants in your tank you are going to experience an algae bloom sooner or later.


Seriously? Have you looked at any of the photos in this thread? Are you suggesting I don't have enough plants in my tank?!?

I am having a BBA issue, but that's related co2 imbalance, and a UV setup won't affect it.


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## AquaAurora (Jul 10, 2013)

Sorry if I missed you mentioning it but where did you get your golden white clouds? Also.. tank photo update? ^^


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## kman (Dec 11, 2013)

AquaAurora said:


> Sorry if I missed you mentioning it but where did you get your golden white clouds? Also.. tank photo update? ^^


I'll see if I can snap a photo tonight, as the tank is due for a little maintenance anyway. 

I usually get my Golden White Clouds from my main LFS, Underwater Depot in Sherman Oaks, CA. Great shop! A little far from PA, unfortunately.


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## jess60901 (Sep 17, 2015)

Excellent-thank you for your input. You've got a beautiful HD setup; you also inspired me to get the same Mr. Aqua tank, which I've been thinking about (for too long). My main concern is to keep fish from jumping. Thanks again.


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