# Chickennublet's low maintenance journal



## Sarpijk (Aug 17, 2015)

As seen on Reddit if I am not mistaken!


----------



## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

Looks good! The cory's look to be pretty good size. What size tank?


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Sarpijk said:


> As seen on Reddit if I am not mistaken!


Hello! Yeah I posted there not too long ago, sorry I didn't take your advice, just wasn't keen on adding any more substrate.



Ken Keating1 said:


> Looks good! The cory's look to be pretty good size. What size tank?


It's just 60cm wide. It's actually a little too small for the corys, I love them but I almost wish I didn't get them.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Just a few more pics

My gourami








Some shrimp. Blue was a bad choice, I almost never see them in the tank.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Ember tetras looking alright today.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Got a couple of shrimp today since I had the time. Unfortunately there weren't too many nice ones at the shop so I picked out 4 of the nicer, more active ones. Still have to get myself a horned nerite.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Today was water change day. As I do my water changes I tend to move my plants and hardscape around a lot so that I can clean up underneath. Saw quite a bit more shrimp than I expected. Picture was taken a couple of hours later. This blue was born in my tank. Still pretty small.


The first time I saw a baby was during a weekly water change. I nearly sucked it up because I thought it was detritus, until I realised it was suspiciously shrimp shaped and moving away from my finger. I was absolutely overjoyed to see baby shrimp. I did buy a berried female along with my second batch of adults a couple of months back, so the babies I got then might just have been from that one berried female. Blues are really hard to spot, so I never see berried females in my tank, but even though I lost some of the original batch I got from the LFS, I'm fairly certain that they have continued to breed, as I sometimes manage to spot babies of drastically different sizes hiding in the plants.

Haven't scraped algae in over a week. The plants look fine but I do get a fair bit of wall algae. I've left the algae alone since I'm hoping to get a horned nerite in a few days. I'm hoping that by getting just one it will have plenty to eat in my tank without me having provide supplemental food too often, plus just one nerite probably means less eggs.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Welp, got two horned nerites today. They started exploring the moment I put them in the tank so I think they will be fine.

Noticed that the belly on one of my larger embers appears flatter than usual. That one in particular has always been paler than the rest but I never thought much of it since she's active and eats well. She is still active and eating, but I'll be keeping a close eye on that one... if her stomach starts to sink I'll probably have to euthanise.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

The nerites are pretty amazing, the glass algae is pretty much gone. It wasn't really a problem before but I hated scraping it every week. I hope the tank produces enough food naturally for the snails.

I am fairly certain that I lost some of my shrimp. Saw one of my shrimp sporting the white line of death and a terribly enlarged carapace 3 days ago and I've been worrying about them since. I decided to do my weekly water change one day early. Moved the rocks on one side of the tank about as usual to clean but only saw my juvies and no adults, even the ones I bought just recently. I'd hate to lose them, even if I almost never manage to spot them, they were an absolutely beautiful shade of blue. I'm just hoping that they moulted successfully and were all hiding in the corner of the tank that I didn't disturb. I'll probably have to reduce the volume of water that I change. Guess I should also stop disturbing the setup so much when I do my water changes.


----------



## Patriot (Dec 22, 2010)

Looks good

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk


----------



## Jay12 (Dec 16, 2018)

Really nice looking tank! I like the simple look actually. I agree that it would be better to not disturb the setup so much when you do water changes though.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Patriot said:


> Looks good
> 
> Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk





Jay12 said:


> Really nice looking tank! I like the simple look actually. I agree that it would be better to not disturb the setup so much when you do water changes though.


Thank you both. I'll try not to move the hardscape around too much from now on, I just hate the idea of all that detritus stuck under there but then again I also hate detritus flying all over the tank. I might have lost shrimp because I was too enthusiastic with the cleaning and gave them more stress than their little bodies can handle!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

I posted in the ferts and water parameters sub to get advice on whether I can get away with dosing an all-in-one fert without harming my fish and inverts and after some discussion I've decided to give it a go. I have some pretty ratty looking java fern (pic below) that I've hidden in the back. I'm hoping that changing the fert routine will help them bounce back, although it will probably take a really long time.


Currently I am dosing a product that the LFS foisted on me when I first started fishkeeping. It only has micros and K, but no N and P. As I understand it N and P are produced by fish waste, so in a very low energy setup additional N and P might be unnecessary. Mine is a low energy setup, with super low light (I'm using the dimmest setting on a Chihiros A series light) but I feel like I should have enough plants in there that will benefit from additional N and P without harming the livestock. So I'll probably head out tomorrow to get a bottle of Tropica specialised fertiliser and start giving my tank one pump a week after my next weekly water change, and monitor from there.

Shrimp are still hiding, I think it's probably my fault, my last couple of water changes were especially stressful for them since I moved around nearly all the plants and hardscape trying to clean out all the detritus underneath. They probably hate me, so I'll stop disturbing things when I do my water changes from now on. I will probably also get the API GH and KH tests tomorrow.



There are still a couple of crevices between the rocks like in the picture above where I can stuff more plants. I'm thinking of getting a couple of bucephalandra green wavy rhizomes to fill these little places out. Also not sure if you can see but in the middle there is a shrimp sitting on top of a Glasgarten dinner pad. That is where I've decided to put shrimp food since it's pretty much the only place where my corydoras can't reach. Corydoras may be shrimp safe for the most part, but they sure as hell aren't shrimp food safe. 



Finally this is just a picture of the tank as it looks like today. Had to increase the light intensity briefly so that I could take this picture so that my reflection won't be so obvious. Nothing is dead as far as I can tell so that's good.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

I really like the yellows and oranges of all your fish, they really complement each other. Hopefully the ferts will help out the ferns that are lagging a bit, but the tank already looks great!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> I really like the yellows and oranges of all your fish, they really complement each other. Hopefully the ferts will help out the ferns that are lagging a bit, but the tank already looks great!


Thank you for the kind words! I think your set up looks great too. That lily looks beautiful.



Some more ratty looking ferns D: I don't think damaged java fern leaves ever recover? I'll probably have to trim these away when I get enough new growth going.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

So my shrimp are still mostly invisible in the day, but they seem more active at night, after lights out. Sometimes I peek into my tank at night using the ambient light from the kitchen and can spot some of my shrimp hanging out on the sponge covering my filter intake. I'm glad to know that I still have at least some of them, since I know for sure that I lost a couple of shrimp when I first added them to the tank (my first shrimp were added in August).

Speaking of the intake, the sponge looks pretty gunky right now even though I just squeezed it out like 3 days ago with my water change. I guess my shrimp are just crowding it at night and crapping all over it. I like that it the big pieces of gunk out of my filter but seriously, I hate how filthy it looks hahaha. Looking forward to my next water change.

EDIT:
Just got back from a visit to my favourite aquarium store in my relatively small country. It's a pretty small shop, but the livestock are well cared for and the owner has a decent selection of equipment and other stuff. The store is actually run by just one guy, very friendly and patient. He also appears to know what he's talking about (although by his own admission he's still learning about shrimp since he's more of a planted tank guy), whenever I drop by to get stuff I end up chatting with him and his customers for much longer than I need to. 

Bought the Tropica fertiliser as well as the hardness test kits as planned. Bought JBL instead of API at the owner's recommendation, although it was his opinion that I could probably get away with not gH and kH at all. If anyone isn't familiar with JBL it's a German company I believe. I know most people recommend API (I use their Master test kit myself) but I'm guessing that it's also because most people I talk to online seem to live in America and Mars Fishcare is an American company, so API products are pretty much everywhere?

Very nearly bought some blue diamond shrimp, but decided against it. Also very nearly bought some shrimp food from AZoo which is from Taiwan I think? He fed the neos in his shop with this stuff when I asked about it and their reaction was very impressive. In the end I decided not buy anything more than what I originally planned to get.

I'm quite excited to see if the Tropica fert helps my plants or screws up what I have going on now. I'll start off with just one pump a week after my weekly water change and monitor what happens from there.


----------



## irishspy (Oct 22, 2007)

What's the all-in-one your LFS recommended to you? I've been using Aquarium Co-Op's Easy Green and Easy Iron and been quite happy with it.

EDIT: Never mind. I just read the last post. :icon_redf


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

irishspy said:


> What's the all-in-one your LFS recommended to you? I've been using Aquarium Co-Op's Easy Green and Easy Iron and been quite happy with it.
> 
> EDIT: Never mind. I just read the last post. :icon_redf


Hello. I decided to get Tropica since it's easily available where I'm from and application is simple since it's a pump bottle. I'm know Aquarium Co-Op has their own fertiliser, but I don't live in America so Easy Green was never really an option.

Now I'm wondering what I should do since I've just found out that my GH seems to a little too low for my neocaridina. Tap water tested yesterday at just 2.5 dGH and tank water 4.5 dGH. Apparently there aren't enough minerals in the water for both my plants and my shrimp. I'm wondering if I should get something to increase the tap water of my GH. I was advised on a different platform that I shouldn't mess with my GH until I actually see shrimp dying, since I should have enough minerals in the water from all the seiryu in the tank and coral chips in my filter.

Since I'm going to start using the Tropica next week I guess I'll delay the GH issue so that I don't have too many things going on at once. I'm thinking I'll dose the Tropica specialised once a week after my water change, and then continue to dose this since I've been using it since the start.


----------



## irishspy (Oct 22, 2007)

chicken.nublet said:


> I'm wondering if I should get something to increase the tap water of my GH. I was advised on a different platform that I shouldn't mess with my GH until I actually see shrimp dying, since I should have enough minerals in the water from all the seiryu in the tank and coral chips in my filter.


That sounds reasonable to me. Also, if you buy shrimp-specific food, it should provide them with enough calcium.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

irishspy said:


> That sounds reasonable to me. Also, if you buy shrimp-specific food, it should provide them with enough calcium.


I do have shrimp specific food but it's quite difficult to feed them without the corydoras terrorising them lol. I try to put the food in spots where the corys can't reach but I usually remove the leftovers the next day.


----------



## Ken Keating1 (Nov 22, 2017)

JBL makes great products, they're just not as available here in the US like API is.

The Java leaves won't recover. Just trim them off if they get too ratty looking. With mine, I'd say about 15% of the leaves grow ratty, so I just trim those off.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Ken Keating1 said:


> JBL makes great products, they're just not as available here in the US like API is.
> 
> The Java leaves won't recover. Just trim them off if they get too ratty looking. With mine, I'd say about 15% of the leaves grow ratty, so I just trim those off.


Thanks, I suspected as much concerning the availability of API vs other brands in the US. Fortunately for me European and Asian brands are just as easily available as American brands here. 

I've been trimming off the poorly looking leaves but I'll probably do it over time as the rhizomes produce new leaves.

Unfortunately it seems that my nerites have been chewing up some of my older java fern :icon_mad: you can see the holes in there. I guess I'm trimming those leaves at my next water change, I'm guessing these will never recover. It sucks, that's quite a lot of leaves I'll have to remove.



I hope they don't eat it all. I thought they would only eat dying plants or something and those leaves looked healthy to me. I wonder if my tank just isn't producing enough algae for them and they're starving, or if those leaves just weren't healthy at all and I was mistaken.

I'd like to try giving them some veggies but I'm worried about pesticides. I might have to try throwing in a couple of fish pellets into the plant filled areas and see if the nibbling stops. Perhaps I should get some algae wafers as well?


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello

Officially started work on the 2nd as a legal trainee before I finally get called to the bar here. Unfortunately this means I have a lot less time to look at my tank and spot problems. I bought a timer for my light so that I don't have to get people at home to turn it on and off for me since I've been doing it myself so far. Decided on a siesta lighting period (4 hours on 4 hours off 4 hours on) just so I can see the tank with the lights on when I get home from work, although I suspect that most days I'll only get home after lights out. I guess I'll still turn the lights on when I get home though so that I can feed the fish.

One of my ember tetras appears to be turning black from the inside. I have tried to google it but didn't get any conclusive results, although it seems that other people have reported similar symptoms with their embers. Doesn't seem to have spread. It is still active and eating well so I'll leave it alone until it's time.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

Congratulations and good luck at your new job! 

I run 2/3 of my tanks on lighting timers for similar reasons and it's really quite handy. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine a longer siesta period would be better than waking the fish up at night to feed, but you can see how it goes. Try and avoid doing maintenance on busy days, just watch the tank for 5+ minutes before & after feeding - I work 12 hours on Saturdays and Sundays and things always seem to go wrong then.

Not sure what on earth is going on with your tetra, but you're right in that a lot of people have experienced the same thing. I have to say that I'd probably euthanise if there's any sign of it spreading to the others though. Hope it's all fine.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> Congratulations and good luck at your new job!
> 
> I run 2/3 of my tanks on lighting timers for similar reasons and it's really quite handy. I could be wrong, but I'd imagine a longer siesta period would be better than waking the fish up at night to feed, but you can see how it goes. Try and avoid doing maintenance on busy days, just watch the tank for 5+ minutes before & after feeding - I work 12 hours on Saturdays and Sundays and things always seem to go wrong then.
> 
> Not sure what on earth is going on with your tetra, but you're right in that a lot of people have experienced the same thing. I have to say that I'd probably euthanise if there's any sign of it spreading to the others though. Hope it's all fine.


Hello and thanks! I think you're probably right about having a longer break in between. I'll adjust my timer tomorrow morning. 

The tetra is still behaving normally but I'm thinking the same thing as you. I'll be watching them closely from now on.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hey all

Haven't been updating much at all since I started working, although I have to say there isn't much updating to do anyway.

Not quite sure why but some of my java fern is looking really bad. I think the nerites have been chomping on them. The other plants look fine though.



Since java fern grows so slowly I guess I might go out tomorrow and get some more java fern to replace these. I'll trim the sad looking leaves and tuck them somewhere else and hopefully they bounce back. Haven't really had time to observe my tank for awhile, usually by the time I get back it's almost time for the lights to go off, so i'm looking forward to tank maintenance tomorrow.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Long update! I dunno why, but I wanted to post about my day.

Here's a picture of the tank today, after a huge water change, trimming off the suffering java fern leaves, and adding more plants. Sorry, it's a [censored][censored][censored][censored]e photo, the ambient light is quite bright so the reflection is quite obvious. 



Went to my usual LFS today, although Singapore is a city state so pretty much every aquarium supply store is technically an LFS I guess? It's actually two stores under the same unit but separately run. The fish store is run by a relatively young man, very friendly and knowledgeable. The other store specialises in chillers, CO2 stuff and mosses. I think this other store is pretty well known locally, lots of folk go there for CO2 top ups too. I think most folk call the owner of this other store as uncle. Any Singaporean readers will probably know which store I'm talking about. 

Anyway I got some narrow leaf and more trident fern. Uncle was nice enough to dig into his tanks and get me some of his smaller trident fern, after I told him that the ones he sold me the last time were much bigger than I expected. I didn't realise that the narrow leaf java fern was so big though, from the picture it almost looks like corkscrew val or crypto spiralis or something.

ANYWAY as for the tank, maintenance took a lot longer than usual today. Trimmed off all the yucky looking java fern leaves, leaving the healthy growth (small leaves though), and because I had to add the plants I ended up disturbing quite a lot of the setup AGAIN when I already told myself that not to. Anyway I'm pretty happy with the outcome, although I might have to get a bit more of that narrow leaf.

Thanks for reading!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

D:< I just added those ferns yesterday and my nerite has already gone and chomped on it. Is it super hungry or something? I thought my tank would grow enough algae and other stuff for it to eat. Any suggestions on what I can do without using fresh vegetables? Just not too keen on adding veg because of concerns over pesticides and stuff.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Another small update!



I've been resisting the idea of a black background for awhile now but I decided to do it after my brother kept pestering me about it. So I bought a black piece of cardboard and stuck it in the back between the filter and the tank and I have to admit it looks loads better.

I do notice some algae on the front of the acrylic, but I usually get algae there. I wonder why the nerites aren't eating those? I have not scraped it in a while but if it's still there by Saturday I guess I'll have to do it...


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello!

Just got home from work not loo long ago, it's like 9pm now in my part of the world. Anyway, took some pics!



Everything looks ok a far as I can tell. I mean the nerites have already gone and chomped on the long narrow java fern, but whatever. I really am enjoying that plant though, I think I might have to get more the next time I go to the shop.

The left of the tank is pretty bare. I think the cories appreciate having a bare area for them because frankly the tank is a tad too small for them, there isn't a lot of length and depth for them actually, but I think just one more bunch of anbias nana petite or maybe even some big anubias coffeefolia would look really good, right at the end next to where that clump of bucephalandra is. If any reads this, would appreciate your thoughs!



Some of my cories. They are really shy, all 5 of them were piled up in the front at first, but the moment I hold my phone up they start to swim away.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

It's Saturday, which means weekly maintenance, big water change, and visiting the LFS.

Got more narrow leaf java fern to fill up the back a bit more. I also bought a pot of bucephalandra, although I have no idea what species



This cost me S$18, which I thought was alright. Unfortunately I only realised when I got home that a bunch of leaves were covered in BBA so I had to get rid of quite a few leaves. I still got a few good rhizomes out of it though.

I also made what I think was a big mistake. The shop always has a large tub of tubifex in an antibiotic solution, and you can get quite a bit at 50 cents a pop, and I thought I'd get some for my corys since I've never tried feeding live food. I also bought a feeding cone, and I tried that at first with just a relatively small chunk of worms. My tetras and gourami didn't realise the cone contained food, and since I was impatient I decided to try lowering the cone to the substrate for the corys... however the worms just ended up everywhere; some ended up stuck on the sponge filter intake and I think some of them might have found their way into the substrate. The fish did eat some of them. I really hope I don't end up with those things living in my tank. I also read horror stories about the nasties tubifex potentially carry... the water they were in was clear though so I do hope none of my fish fall ill. In the end I threw nearly all of the worms down the garbage chute.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

3/2/19

It's been awhile! 

Yesterday was water change day. I've been pretty unhappy with the way the tank looked the past couple of days. I realised that just throwing plants into the tank didn't actually make it look prettier, and a bunch of the java fern was starting to look really ratty. Even worse, one of my anubias nana petites developed rhizome rot, although I really am not sure why. In the end, I did quite a big trim, got rid of a bunch of the trident fern and narrow leaf fern. Also snipped off the bits of anubias rhizome that was rotting, although that was pretty difficult because it was rooted to lava rock. I put the rest of the plant back in, hopefully it doesn't start rotting again or affecting the rest of my anubias. Here's an update of the tank, photo was taken just moments ago. I think it looks a lot better than before.



Some algae on the glass but nothing I can't deal with without a bit of elbow grease. I'm just starting to realise nerites don't eat all kinds of glass algae (for want of a better term). 

Since Chinese New Year is just round the corner, most shops will be closed for the public holidays starting tomorrow, so I decided to do a bit of shopping today. Thankfully, the other shop I frequent was offering discounts for all livestock. I bought 10 blue neocaridina from them today. Here's a pic of some of the new blood.



Anyway, here are some pics of buceps; these are all hosted on imgur so if anyone wants a clearer look at all please click on the thumbnail!



Finally managed to snap a pic of my cory crew sitting together. Unfortunately I noticed that one of the smaller corys has split his dorsal fin, the poor thing. Guessing he might have gotten hurt during yesterday's water change. I'll be keeping an eye on that one. I do hope it heals up nicely. In the mean time I'll stay on top of my weekly water changes.

Thanks for reading!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Welp, when you keep fish, I feel like inevitably you need to learn how to humanely kill fish.

I just noticed some red streaks on the tail end of one of my ember tetras that definitely wasn't there earlier today. Also, as we know ember tetras have transparent bodies, and there was something off with the affected ember tetra's tail. Here's a picture of the little guy. It looks a lot worse in person. 



Initially I was going to wait until tomorrow night before checking on it again but after a bit of deliberation I decided not to risk whatever it is spreading to the other fish, especially since I suspected the issue to be septicemia, which I don't think can be cured. 

It sucks, but I guess it's also part of the hobby. Anyway, I had some clove oil on hand so I put it to sleep using that.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Added a bit more trident fern. Current look. 


Slightly closer look


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hey all! Been awhile. Updating mostly for myself.

Lost one of my smaller corydoras over a month ago. It was pretty weird, one day before it was behaving fine, the next day I come back after work to find it dead. Things have been more or less fine since then until I lost my honey gourami recently. It was looking pale for weeks but only recently did I realise, after looking down from above, that his scales were sticking out. After looking up dropsy it seems to me that the general consensus is once pineconing occurs the chances of curing it is very low. I do love that little guy but in this case I decided euthanasia was probably the right choice. Hopefully the last death in the tank for now. 

Took the guppies out and dropped them off at the LFS. I didn't really want them in the first place and only bought them since my brother liked them a lot. I bought 3 sparkling gourami since there was now a bit of room. 

Anyway, full tank shot first:



Plants mostly look fine. The trident seems to be doing alright, the narrow leaf java fern has seen better days but it's not dead. Regular java fern looks alright. Anubias are all doing well. Most of the bucephalandra are doing well:





This one however is not doing well at all:



It seems to be putting out new leaves even as it loses them so we'll see if they bounce back.

Here's some pics of the sparkling gourami, they seem to be settling in well:






And finally, some shrimp decided to show themselves. I hope the gourami don't kill them all but there should be enough places to hide.


----------



## tredford (Jun 29, 2018)

Tank is looking great! I really like the shape of your scape, and nice choice of plants. Sparkling gouramis look great in there. Keep the updates coming.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

tredford said:


> Tank is looking great! I really like the shape of your scape, and nice choice of plants. Sparkling gouramis look great in there. Keep the updates coming.


Thank you for your kind words! 

Not sure what to do about the bucephalandra wavy green, they are looking pretty ugly at the moment. Rhizomes are nice and green though. Maybe i'll hide them in a less visible spot until they come back to life.

EDIT: Right, I've trimmed off the melting leaves, which was quite a lot I might add, so now it just looks really sad. It did have some really nice lush growth when I first bought it so not quite sure what happened. Maybe it was emersed when I bought it or maybe it just doesn't like conditions in my tank? Anyway moved it somewhere else and I moved some of my anubias over to where it was instead.



I think it actually looks a lot better with anubias there, plus this anubias did get quite huge so keeping it in place there would probably be easier than with the bucephalandra which have floated off a number of times already. Will be water change day tmr so i'll probably move even more anubias nana petite over to fill in those gaps.


----------



## celadon (Nov 9, 2015)

I had a very similar thing happen to me with the buce green wavy... it took off for a couple weeks, and then just totally melted. Mine never recovered, but I've got my fingers crossed for yours!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

celadon said:


> I had a very similar thing happen to me with the buce green wavy... it took off for a couple weeks, and then just totally melted. Mine never recovered, but I've got my fingers crossed for yours!


That's interesting... Has that happened before to any of your other buce? Considering how easily available green wavy is compared to other varieties (and how much cheaper it is) I kind of expected it to be easier than the other more vividly coloured varieties. 

Peeked into the tank just now to take a look and I can see that even the new leaf it seemed to be putting out has already melted. Hell it looks like the shrimp are actually eating the damned plant, take a look at this:


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Water change and maintenance day! I love maintenance, even though I always take a disproportionately long time for such a small low maintenance tank since I keep moving plants and hardscape around to siphon underneath.

There is a rock on the left where I glued on a bunch of anubias nana petite and different types of loose java fern rhizomes I had in the tank. Unfortunately it looks like some of the java fern rhizomes got black and died. I snipped off the ones I could save and ripped off the black bits stuck on the rock. You can see what it looks like:



The java fern that looks especially ratty was sold to me by someone who knows his plants as sp Philippine. It was a beautiful plant when I got it but it seems to be quite a bit more finicky than regular java fern. It did quite well in my tank until it melted. Snipped off what I could save, which was not a lot, and it seems to be melting back again. I have read similar reports before: Anyone has had success with Java fern "Philippine" variant? so maybe what I'm experience is par for the course...


----------



## celadon (Nov 9, 2015)

chicken.nublet said:


> That's interesting... Has that happened before to any of your other buce? Considering how easily available green wavy is compared to other varieties (and how much cheaper it is) I kind of expected it to be easier than the other more vividly coloured varieties.


In that same tank, I have a buce catherinae that's very happy and has been since I got it a few months ago. It was not from a tissue culture. My green wavy buces were tissue culture from buceplant, and I also had some unlabeled tissue culture buces from petco that melted immediately without doing any happy growing first. Those petco, ones, though, are still around as rhizomes and stems that so far aren't doing anything. But they're there, so I'm waiting just in case.

In a previous tank some years ago, I had some various buces of the more common types (don't remember exactly, unfortunately, but they were also not tissue culture) and those were all fine but very very slow growing.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

celadon said:


> In that same tank, I have a buce catherinae that's very happy and has been since I got it a few months ago. It was not from a tissue culture. My green wavy buces were tissue culture from buceplant, and I also had some unlabeled tissue culture buces from petco that melted immediately without doing any happy growing first. Those petco, ones, though, are still around as rhizomes and stems that so far aren't doing anything. But they're there, so I'm waiting just in case.
> 
> In a previous tank some years ago, I had some various buces of the more common types (don't remember exactly, unfortunately, but they were also not tissue culture) and those were all fine but very very slow growing.


Hmm, the green wavy I picked up wasn't tissue culture either, just an unlabelled pot that my usual LFS brought in from Guangzhou. It's the only buce in the tank which is struggling at the moment. Anyway I'll probably get rid of any leaves as they begin to melt and hope the plant comes back. I hope I won't have to throw it away, it is a relatively plain looking buce but I really like it.

These are pretty much what's left of the green buce:




They look very sad. Rhizomes look a little brown as well. Any thoughts on whether I should keep these?


----------



## Quint (Mar 24, 2019)

Good looking tank. Bummer about the fishes. I just had to get rid of my neons. Shouldnt have gotten them to begin with but thought they would be easy and hardy like they were back in the 80s. Noticed one the body started loosing its color and had the opaque portion under the spine mid section. Noticed it on another one and just had to call it. 

Nice looking Corys. I noticed your sand looks nice and smooth. Mine looks like it was hit by a meteor shower a day after I do a water change and vac the open area I have for them. They love rooting around in the stuff.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

Love this tank as always, and it's nice to see updates!

Sorry about your honey gourami, it was a beautiful fish. Your sparkling gouramis look great in there though.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Quint said:


> Good looking tank. Bummer about the fishes. I just had to get rid of my neons. Shouldnt have gotten them to begin with but thought they would be easy and hardy like they were back in the 80s. Noticed one the body started loosing its color and had the opaque portion under the spine mid section. Noticed it on another one and just had to call it.
> 
> Nice looking Corys. I noticed your sand looks nice and smooth. Mine looks like it was hit by a meteor shower a day after I do a water change and vac the open area I have for them. They love rooting around in the stuff.


Thank you Quint. I'm very new to fishkeeping (only kept them for one and a half years and have only been happy with how the tank since I started this journal in September last year) for I have read that neons have become fairly sensitive from commercial breeding for the trade. Guess it really depends on the source? 

The sand in the front looks alright but the sand in the back under the plants and hardscape are pretty gunky. I tend to stir up and siphon as much of the gunk as I can every week with my water change. But I do love those corys! 



Thelongsnail said:


> Love this tank as always, and it's nice to see updates!
> 
> Sorry about your honey gourami, it was a beautiful fish. Your sparkling gouramis look great in there though.


Awww thank you very much longsnail. I hope both our tanks continue to thrive and prospoer! 

Having to put down the honey gourami was a huge bummer, had that one for over a year and it was such a gorgeous yellow colour turning into a brilliant bright orange on the anal and tail fin. I mean




I guess losing fish is just part and parcel of the hobby. It's [censored][censored][censored][censored]e, but I try to see it as an opportunity to make room for something else as well.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

Absolutely gorgeous - that colouration is a testament to your care and I wouldn't have thought it was anything you'd done wrong. I hadn't realised you were so new to keeping fish though! Your tank certainly doesn't look like it.

Euthanising fish is always terrible, but it's better than letting them suffer, and is ultimately part of the responsibility we take on when buying them.

If you don't mind me asking, are you from Singapore or have you moved over? I noticed while living in Taiwan that the quality and variety of fish (and aquatic plants!) was much better than that in the UK, and that prices were much cheaper. I'd imagine it's because it's closer to fish farms etc. but I was wondering if you have any thoughts on this?


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> Absolutely gorgeous - that colouration is a testament to your care and I wouldn't have thought it was anything you'd done wrong. I hadn't realised you were so new to keeping fish though! Your tank certainly doesn't look like it.
> 
> Euthanising fish is always terrible, but it's better than letting them suffer, and is ultimately part of the responsibility we take on when buying them.
> 
> If you don't mind me asking, are you from Singapore or have you moved over? I noticed while living in Taiwan that the quality and variety of fish (and aquatic plants!) was much better than that in the UK, and that prices were much cheaper. I'd imagine it's because it's closer to fish farms etc. but I was wondering if you have any thoughts on this?


I'm from Singapore! Unfortunately I don't have nearly enough knowledge on the topic to have any real thoughts. What I do know is that prices here in Singapore for ornamental fish and aquatic plants are pretty damn good. Prices do vary depending on which shop you go to of course, but definitely a lot cheaper than in the West. For example, my honey gourami cost me like, S$2, which is I guess 
1 pound 20 p or something? The only LFS in the West I have any familiarity with is Aquarium Co-op, because of the Youtube channel obviously, and every time they mention their prices or whenever I catch a glimpse of the price tags on their tanks it does strike me as to how much more expensive fish stuff is over there. 

What I also do know for a fact is that Singapore is a major exporter of ornamental fish globally, and is also home to probably the largest aquatic plant producers, Oriental Aquarium, in the world. Whatever trade data I managed to find from recent years from googling (including import and export data from the EU) also shows that Asia accounts for more than half of all exports globally. I would hazard a guess that ornamental fish production worldwide is probably concentrated in Asia, which is probably why, as you've said, prices are cheaper and the variety and quality higher. 

Anyway, don't know how the LFS situation is in Edinburgh but I did stay in the UK for a few years for university and I did not see even one fish store the entire time I was there. Granted I wasn't into the hobby at the time but I think I would definitely have noticed. 

Were you in Taiwan for a long time? I've only been to Taipei a few years ago but remember the people there being extremely warm and friendly.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

That seems a really good price for such a lovely honey gourami. I saw some wild-type honey gourami in an LFS recently for £4 (S$7?) each and thought about getting them.

That all makes sense, there really does seem to be a higher interest in the hobby and higher quality of goods on your side of the globe. I suppose it's probably more profitable to sell high quality fish locally/in neighbouring countries than it is to sell them for more money abroad but deal with DOAs and admin.

Awesome! They're few and far between here, often in garden centres or retail parks. My closest is 30 mins' drive away in the middle of nowhere, but there's one 1.5 hours away that I'd really like to go to. Nowhere near the number that I used to see in Taiwan, not to mention local markets etc.

I was only there for 9 months - I studied mandarin at Tai Da during my third year of uni. It's a fantastic place, but I'd recommend leaving Taipei and seeing other parts of the island if you get the chance. The holiday discussed in my journal was actually a road trip around Taiwan - the scenery is lovely and you can do it in under 2 weeks. I've always wanted to go to Singapore though, it sounds like a really interesting and beautiful country.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> That seems a really good price for such a lovely honey gourami. I saw some wild-type honey gourami in an LFS recently for £4 (S$7?) each and thought about getting them.
> 
> That all makes sense, there really does seem to be a higher interest in the hobby and higher quality of goods on your side of the globe. I suppose it's probably more profitable to sell high quality fish locally/in neighbouring countries than it is to sell them for more money abroad but deal with DOAs and admin.
> 
> ...


Well it still takes me about an hour by public transport to get to my preferred LFS so not so different from here. 

Would be nice to go back to Taiwan some day and see what I've missed. Singapore's alright! If you do visit I'd love to know what you think about the place hahaha

EDIT: The ember tetras are definitely eating my cory's food; some of them are sporting suspiciously huge bellies. They will probably get dangerously bloated if this keeps up so I will probably be cutting back feedings by a drastic amount. I almost always leave them without food over the weekend and feed after work. I guess I'll probably them maybe just 4 times a week for awhile and see if it affects them negatively.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Back after a long day at work. Noticed that there was quite a bit of film on the surface, which is a first for me, the top of the tank is usually nice and clear even without a skimmer. Bits of the trident seem to be doing poorly as well. The bucephalandra wavy green basically melted completely so I got rid of it unfortunately. Immediately feel like something is amiss with the tank.

Started to do a bit of tank maintenance wanting to trim the dying bits of java fern but realised suddenly that I was just too damn tired to actually do it so I just threw the plants I took out back in and replaced what little water I removed. The tank looks quite ugly right now because of this, the java fern isn't sitting where it's supposed to be but I think I'll just leave it till Saturday to actually sort things out (that's when I usually do maintenance anyway). The fish and inverts (what inverts I managed to spot anyway) looked fine, fortunately.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Everything is very much alive. Fish look well. Did a bit of trimming after work just to get rid of the older looking java fern and anubias leaves but didn't put most of them back in place so I have a bunch of plants floating about right now. Ah well, I'll sort it out on Saturday. Just happy that nothing is obviously dead.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello!

Did my weekly big water change today morning and put the plants I left floating around two days ago back where they're supposed to be. I'm happy to say that nothing is dead.

Attached a picture of the tank probably 7 hours after maintenance. Looks the same as always basically, which is good!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hi!

Small update. I can see that some of the plants aren't doing so well. Little bit of blackening on the trident in the middle of the tank and some of the buce are losing their leaves, even as they seem to be putting out new ones.

I have a feeling that I know why this is happening. Last week I did a number of wholly unnecessary water changes to get rid of floating gunk, and ended up fiddling with the java fern and buce clump, taking them out and re-arranging them countless times. Since it's all just buce and anubias and java fern in there, I guess that they are only now reacting to my mistreatment of them. The plants that I did not mess about with don't appear to be affected at all.

I guess what is needed for the tank to recover is some neglect, for want of a better word... I guess I won't be touching the tank too much over the next couple of weeks or months other than feeding and weekly water changes. The fish look great though!

EDIT: Yet another update, mostly for myself. Took a very close look at the tank today. Most of the trident fern has started to die off. Also, a nice clump of bucephalandra I had has started to die, roots are turning brown and mushy and leaves are melting. Some of my anubias nana petite also seem to be suffering, a whole lot of melting leaves. Rhizomes are still firm and green.

I have gotten rid of the bucephalandra and most of the trident fern, saving whatever I cn. As for the anubias, I got rid of all the melting leaves and am keeping the rest since the rhizomes still appear fine. The tank is really in a huge mess right now but I'm really not in the mood to tidy it up. I'm going to leave the plants floating about for now. I'll probably get more plants eventually, but I think I have to let the tank do its thing for a few weeks before I add anything else. SIGH :C


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Update!

As mentioned, I lost a bunch of trident fern and bucephalandra a couple of days ago. Fortunately, everything else still looks like they're doing well.

I got a bunch of plants yesterday to fill out the bald spots left behind by the trident fern. Decided to go with anubias coffeefolia. Here's a current pic! A day after water change and adding the new plants:




The coffeefolia does look more interesting than a bunch of trident fern. I had to trim back a large chunk of the roots before I could properly tuck them where I wanted them though, and even then look like they might float away. They still have a lot of nice looking roots and leaves so hopefully the trimming won't shock them too much. 

I also got a decent size clump of emersed bucephalandra. I threw the whole lot in there on the left end of the scape. I'm hoping they make the transition to submersed without too much issue.

One of the sparkling gourami is looking quite sad. It isn't quite as beautiful as the other two, tail looks a little deformed, and I think it might be suffering from internal parasites. Fortunately it is still eating. I just dosed the tank with praziquantel yesterday (removed the purigen!) so I'll just keep observing for now.

Thanks for reading!


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

chicken.nublet said:


>



Looking great as ever! 

I love anubias coffeefolia, the brownish new leaves are a really nice contrast to greens. If you ever end up doing an open top tank, it does great above water too. The buce looks good too, hope it settles in okay.


As for the sparkling gourami, I hope the medication helps. Do you know the sexes of any of the three? I'd be concerned about the other two bullying the smaller one.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> Looking great as ever!
> 
> I love anubias coffeefolia, the brownish new leaves are a really nice contrast to greens. If you ever end up doing an open top tank, it does great above water too. The buce looks good too, hope it settles in okay.
> 
> ...


Thanks you! Just concerned that they'll float away and I'll have to constantly push them back in since they're not really anchored to anything. Maybe I should get some small lava rocks and try to tighten the gap where they're sitting a little. I saw the pics you posted of your emersed filter baffle thing, it looks pretty incredible!

I don't know the sexes tbh, they are pretty hard to sex. I tried to shine a light through them at the LFS to see if I could spot any ovaries but they ended up being drawn to the light and swimming towards it instead so no luck there. I haven't seen any bullying but I have read that they can be nasty little things so will definitely keep an eye out. The poorly looking one is actually the same size as the healthy ones though. Fortunately it still has plenty of spunk, very active and eating well. Pretty tough to feed the little guys when there are so many ember tetras though but they seem to be doing alright after about 3 weeks with me.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hey all, went plant shopping today, here's a little update.

There's a guy I know who sells a huge variety of aquatic plants from his apartment so I decided to pop by today to get some bucephalandra (took like an hour and a half to get there D. Unfortunately he recently just moved, so huge chunk of his bucephalandras were melting back quite a bit from the move. I got some bucep kedagang anyway since the rhizomes looked fine and I was certain they would bounce back.

He also convinced me to try out some stems. I have wanted to try some stems for awhile, even though I only have an inert substrate that isn't nearly deep enough for real planting. I know stems do a lot better in a nutrient rich substrate, but since they do take in nutrients from the water I decided to try some out so I picked up a couple stems of Ludwigia "Dark Orange" and stuffed them in a ceramic ring to keep them anchored. Here's a picture of the plant:



Btw, anubias coffeefolia looks like it's doing ok



And FTS of the tank 



Not sure if I actually like to shock of orange to be honest but I'll see what happens to it. I've also bumped the brightness up just a bit using the dimmer that comes with the light (it's been on the lowest setting since I started using it).

Also just wanted to share some dude's crazy plant collection which I came across on my way to the train station (this isn't even the entire collection)



As always, thank you for reading!


----------



## AquaPlantsAquarium (May 27, 2019)

Beautiful!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

AquaPlantsAquarium said:


> Beautiful!


Thank you, that is very kind. I wish my tank was half as good looking as some of the others I've seen on this forum though hahaha.

Anyway, small update. Got home from work early on Friday yesterday so I decided to do my water change a day early as well.

Here's a pic of the sickly gourami a day after the water change:



It's still alive and eating, but it does appear to be getting worse. I've decided to go for one, maybe two rounds of API General Cure and see if it gets better after that. If it doesn't, I might have to euthanise :/

The ember tetras have been looking pretty good recently



They all hang out on the right side of the aquarium whenever I'm near because I always feed on the right side hahaha.

And FTS! Please pardon the reflections on the left I took this picture in the day this time hahaha.



Thanks for reading


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Super short update. First on the sickly gourami. It's a bad one. Despite the meds, the gourami has steadily gotten worse. Today while feeding I noticed that it was really struggling to swim, and has gotten extremely skinny and weak. Part of its tail was also missing, probably from the other two gourami bullying it. Since I was certain it would die fairly soon I decided to remove it and end its misery first rather than risk the other fish eating it. Not the first time I've had to kill sick fish, but still a pretty miserable thing to have to do. 

The tank itself is in a mess. Some of the bucephalandra and anubias are floating around, which I deserve because I can't be arsed to tie them down. It's also the second week since I increased the brightness by just one level and I am also starting to get some pretty bad algae on the plants and filter intake sponge so that was a pretty bad idea. I will probably be dimming the light down to what it was originally, which should eventually take care of the algae. I am hoping the reduction in light doesn't affect the stem plant too badly. I'll probably try increasing brightness again if and when I get more stems in the future. 

In any case I'll be doing a mid-week water change tomorrow since it will be a public holiday to get rid of some of the medication in the water and then pop the purigen back in the filter. 

Thanks for reading!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello!

No pictures today, just a super short update really. Uh so, one of the remaining sparkling gourami jumped today. My mum sent me a text while I was at work D: I guess since only two gouramis were left the jumper probably got jumped by the other one... I was going to pick up one more this weekend but guess I'll be getting 2 instead.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hi all

So, there is a problem. 



It has been hanging at the top corner of the tank since late afternoon yesterday, kind of looked like it had a very thin, threadlike piece of poop hanging from it. I only noticed this after I got home from the fish store with more plants and sparkling gouramis... I'd do a water change now but I just did a big one yesterday.

I haven't really had time to really observe the tank recently, although I still feed and do large water changes weekly. I have been feeding quite heavily recently so I hope he's acting like this because he's constipated and uncomfortable rather than sick with parasites or something nasty. 

I did try giving it an epsom salt bath earlier today because I read that it helps with this sort of thing but that didn't really seem to do a thing. Next couple of days I'll have to keep a closer eye on the tank, and I will probably fast all the fish for 2 to 3 days and see if that helps at all.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

I'm afraid I don't have an answer, but good luck! They're beautiful fish in a beautiful tank, fingers crossed that it's just a bit of constipation.

By the way, there's not been any temperature swings or anything as we go into Summer, right? It's the only thing I can think of other than parasites and water quality, both of which you've already mentioned.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> I'm afraid I don't have an answer, but good luck! They're beautiful fish in a beautiful tank, fingers crossed that it's just a bit of constipation.
> 
> By the way, there's not been any temperature swings or anything as we go into Summer, right? It's the only thing I can think of other than parasites and water quality, both of which you've already mentioned.


Thanks, it's nice to hear from you.

No temperature swings, it's hot all year round here. In any case he started to go downhill very rapidly all of a sudden, lost all its colour and got blown about in the current before it got stuck in some plants. I'm ashamed to say I decided to take the easy way out and euthanise it. I probably should have waited a few days but after seeing flail about, chances are it would not have survived the night and I didn't want to risk it getting eaten or anything... 

I'm starting to find that I'm not very good at keeping fish at all. I'm just hoping nothing else happens to the rest.


----------



## Ankhari (Apr 30, 2018)

Did your ember tetra that was turning black survive? One of mine did that and unfortunately didn't. 

Sometimes the fish are the worst part of the aquarium hobby. 

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk


----------



## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

The stringy white feces and the description of weakness at end before death sounds like an internal parasite that ended up causing an internal bacterial infection. 

I looked back at your journal and saw that you dosed praziquantel? One dose? 

You stated that you were considering dosing praziquantel and metronidazole? How many doses did you do? 

You will most likely continue to have issues with illnesses in fish because are not quarentining before adding to your display tank. Might be a good idea to do this before adding more fish.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Ankhari said:


> Did your ember tetra that was turning black survive? One of mine did that and unfortunately didn't.
> 
> Sometimes the fish are the worst part of the aquarium hobby.
> 
> Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk


Hi Ankhari. I think that one survived actually. The black marking seems to come and go. I haven't seen it in awhile.



Discusluv said:


> The stringy white feces and the description of weakness at end before death sounds like an internal parasite that ended up causing an internal bacterial infection.
> 
> I looked back at your journal and saw that you dosed praziquantel? One dose?
> 
> ...


Hi Discusluv.

Yes, I did one treatment of prazi before I went one with one round of API general cure at the start of this month. Probably wasn't enough?

I've started prazi treatment again and will probably go for at least 3 rounds of prazi this time. I admit I don't quarantine as I don't have a spare container to put fish in, although not quarantining is 100% my fault. After this I won't be buying anymore fish until I can sort out arrangements for quarantining.


----------



## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

chicken.nublet said:


> Hi Ankhari. I think that one survived actually. The black marking seems to come and go. I haven't seen it in awhile.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 Any internal parasites that would respond to praziquantel would only need one treatment. What you need is metronidazole. If you can find it, the better choice would be 100% metronidazole powder or Seachem Metroplex. General Cure has metro; but not at the concentration that the other two have. If the fish are all still eating, I would feed the medication instead of dosing in water column. You can use a food-based binder like Knox gelatin to adhere the medication to food or Seachem has a product called Focus that would work as well. I would also do a low dose 1/4 tsp per 10 gallons of Epsom salt again directly in tank to make sure that no obstruction is going on in intestine. Do the Epsom salt for 3 days.
Metronidazole dissipates pretty quickly in aquarium, so it works better ingested than in water column. But, sometimes this isn't an option.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Discusluv said:


> Any internal parasites that would respond to praziquantel would only need one treatment. What you need is metronidazole. If you can find it, the better choice would be 100% metronidazole powder or Seachem Metroplex. General Cure has metro; but not at the concentration that the other two have. If the fish are all still eating, I would feed the medication instead of dosing in water column. You can use a food-based binder like Knox gelatin to adhere the medication to food or Seachem has a product called Focus that would work as well. I would also do a low dose 1/4 tsp per 10 gallons of Epsom salt again directly in tank to make sure that no obstruction is going on in intestine. Do the Epsom salt for 3 days.
> Metronidazole dissipates pretty quickly in aquarium, so it works better ingested than in water column. But, sometimes this isn't an option.


Thank you. I will pick up some Metroplex and Focus this weekend.

I've euthanised the sick gourami but I did get two more sparklers. So far, no other fish have shown any symptoms. Should I feed the Metro when I get it anyway as a prophylactic measure? I can mix it into their micropellets. 

I'll do the epsom salt closer to my next scheduled water change at the suggest dose. I do have a concern though as I have corydoras in there. Any idea if epsom affects scaleless fish the same way regular aquarium salt does?

EDIT: Well, the tank is going through some problems at the moment but here's an FTS I took just now before lights out:


----------



## Discusluv (Dec 24, 2017)

If all the fish that had shown symptoms of illness are gone then I would do an assessment for a couple days to see if need to medicate. 
Feed fish and sit and watch for at least 10 minutes. Who is eating? Any fish not? 
Fish have a tendency to eliminate when eating- watch for any white stringy or thick translucent feces. 
Next day- same thing. 

Go from there to determine if should medicate. 

Metronidazole is a comparatively mild medication as far as anti-protozoan, antibiotics are concerned. If you want to treat all fish prophylacticly this makes sense as well because these types of issues can take a while to develop in some fish. Epsom salt is perfectly safe for corydoras as they are actually armored cats and not scaleless. I have used Epsom salt in presence of corydoras many times- - your good.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Discusluv said:


> If all the fish that had shown symptoms of illness are gone then I would do an assessment for a couple days to see if need to medicate.
> Feed fish and sit and watch for at least 10 minutes. Who is eating? Any fish not?
> Fish have a tendency to eliminate when eating- watch for any white stringy or thick translucent feces.
> Next day- same thing.
> ...


Thanks Discusluv. 

Haven't fed the fish for 2 days so I'll be giving them some frozen daphnia tonight. I haven't actually seen fish poop while eating before but I'll observe for a longer time tonight.

I'll probably feed the metro once I get it since the original sparklers only started exhibiting symptoms nearly two months after I added them.

Will also add the Epsom salt on Thursday! Little bit of magnesium sulfate probably won't hurt anything. I only just learnt that some people actually add this to their planted tanks as part of their fertilisation routine so if everything responds well I might start adding it regularly as well.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hi all! 

So things got in the way so I didn't manage to get the metroplex and focus. Managed to visit my usual shop last weekend but they didn't have it. The owner will get some in for me though so I'll be dropping by again to get some. Fortunately everyone is still eating and nobody is showing symptoms yet.

In any case I decided to get 20 orange sunkist shrimp since they were at a pretty good price (much cheaper than blues!). They're doing well at the moment but I hope I don't lose too many, pretty sure of all the blues I've bought I only have 1 left.

Also, i'm done with my practice training contract and will be called to the Singapore bar late next month so I'll finally be able to take a nice long break soon. I'm also going to Bali for the weekend to attend a friends wedding (I'm typing this at the airport!) so I did my big water change today morning. And also this happened










Bleh. Anyway hopefully nothing goes to [censored][censored][censored][censored] in the short time I'll be away. Thanks for reading as always!!!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hey all


Picked up some Metroplex on last Monday. Shop didn't manage to get any Focus in unfortunately. Finally tried feeding some today, I mixed some metroplex in tank water and soaked a couple of pellets in it for 15 minutes or so. I'll probably do that again in maybe two days. None of the fish are actually showing any symptoms but better safe than sorry after the last couple of losses!

I also bought more plants today! Got a random assortment of bucephalandra:



All for S$20! Guy was also kind enough to throw random little clippings in there for me. For now I basically stuffed them into my tank wherever there's space. I'm hoping they don't die on me although I do expect to experience a fair bit of melt as they adjust to my tank. 

I got rid of the few stem plants that were in my tank since they were shedding leaves like crazy and not doing very well at all, which I should have expected. I'm hoping to get a second tank early next year so I'll try for a real planted tank next time. Anyway here are a couple of pictures:

FTS!

















































Thanks for reading!


----------



## Duboisi (Jul 11, 2019)

Hello!

Found your thread after you mentioned you're keeping a similar variety of plants in your tank also.

Just went through your entire journal. Look how far your tank has come! It's looking nicer each time as you fill it up. Just wondering, have you thought of adding some hardscape? Perhaps some wood that can stretch from the right side towards the left and add some texture within the green. Just a thought!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Duboisi said:


> Hello!
> 
> Found your thread after you mentioned you're keeping a similar variety of plants in your tank also.
> 
> Just went through your entire journal. Look how far your tank has come! It's looking nicer each time as you fill it up. Just wondering, have you thought of adding some hardscape? Perhaps some wood that can stretch from the right side towards the left and add some texture within the green. Just a thought!


Hi Duboisi

I did consider wood at one point but I didn't want to bother with boiling it or keeping it underwater under it gets waterlogged hahaha... I've ordered a little cube tank though so I think I'll do wood for that tank.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

chicken.nublet said:


> I've ordered a little cube tank though so I think I'll do wood for that tank.


Can't wait to see it!! What size and what's the plan for it?


----------



## irishspy (Oct 22, 2007)

That latest photo is beautiful. I like the buce and anubias mixed together.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> Can't wait to see it!! What size and what's the plan for it?


Hi! It's a little 30cm cube, hopefully I'll be able to find suitable sized hardscape for it, maybe Malaysian or spider wood. I'll be going low tech again but I'd like to go for an aqua soil substrate and try some easy stems this time. I'd like to keep a betta in it.



irishspy said:


> That latest photo is beautiful. I like the buce and anubias mixed together.


Thanks! That's very kind.

EDIT:
Update! 

I'm actually heading to Bangkok tomorrow for a short holiday so I'm a little worried about the tank. I'll be there for just 6 days though so things should be fine and my brother will be around to feed the fish. I wasn't going to feed the fish today but what the hell, might as well do it since I'm leaving tomorrow. 

I did my weekly water change today. Still can't stop moving everything around while doing water changes, which means I spend way too much time putting all the plants back where they were when I'm done. I seriously have to stop doing that or I might end up killing my plants like the last time. 

Anyway all the bucephalandra I added last week appear to be doing fine. Minimal melting so far, which is good but then again it's only been a week. I can see that one of the emersed clumps is adapting well, I'm hoping to see new growth soon! I do have a small clump of emersed bucephalandra catherinae (at least I was told it's catherinae) that hasn't really done anything, but it hasn't melted either, so hopefully we'll see some new growth from there soon as well. 

The new 30cm cube arrived today! It's a rimless glass tank, looks so much nicer than my current acrylic tank. I also bought a stand big enough for a 90cm tank, I'd like to have two cubes on it eventually. Unfortunately the Chihiros light I ordered won't be here so soon since it has to be shipped over from China. Hopefully it will get here in two weeks, that's about how long it took the last time I ordered a light from them. 

Just a few pictures:









Different angle









All doing well so far!









Here's the catherinae after a week. It might not even be catherinae, if anyone knows what it is that would be cool, but I know bucephalandra names are pretty iffy.









Here's one of the little sparklers. I have never managed to get a picture of them with their fins fully flared open. I did hear their croaking recently though! Two of them were squaring up for some reason and I very nearly pushed my face up against the glass to watch. It was quite a sight, but nothing beats hearing them croak for the first time. They don't really fight that much though so I don't get to see (and hear) it that often. 

This update got quite a bit longer than I expected haha. Thanks for reading as always.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello!

Got back from Bangkok yesterday morning at about 1230am. Tank looked ok which was a relief. Water level dropped considerably and a bunch of plants floated out of place but nothing I can't fix. Did a big water change after waking up, all the fish and plants look like their doing well. No picture this time since nothing has really changed for this tank.

I did go out to buy a bunch of stuff for the 30cm cube! I will probably start a new thread to keep track on that one.

Anyway, I've decided to start a new instagram account so that my personal account isn't flooded with fish stuff. This is just a shameless little plug I would appreciate if y'all follow me @lenny_aqua! Cheers and thanks for reading!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

It's been a while since I updated this one! Although there really isn't anything to update.

I lost a fair bit of my anubias coffeefolia to what I believe is rhizome rot. I've trimmed the affected parts, hopefully I don't lose the rest of it. 

I have been neglecting the tank a little since I haven't been feeling great recently (more of a mental thing than a physical thing but i'm getting over it). I used to feed the fish every day, but I have been underfeeding quite a bit because sometimes I just don't really feel like feeding them. Fortunately the fish still look fine! Here's a recent picture:










I am more or less satisfied with how the tank looks like now so I doubt I'll be doing much else to it for a while. Some of the plants don't look the best but I'm not too bothered by that. I am thinking that I might rescape it some time in the middle of next year and turn it into a blackwater tank but we'll have to see.

Thanks for reading!


----------



## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

Hi, the tank looks good, even with the little neglect.
Can you share the time of light you are using?


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Janci said:


> Hi, the tank looks good, even with the little neglect.
> Can you share the time of light you are using?


Hello Janci and thanks for the kind words
Lights are on for 8 hours a day, but with a 3 hour in between, so 4 on 3 off and 4 on. There's no real reason for the break in lighting other than extending the viewing periods. I like the lights to be on in the day, but I also want them to be on later in the evening when I get back from work.


----------



## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

chicken.nublet said:


> Hello Janci and thanks for the kind words
> Lights are on for 8 hours a day, but with a 3 hour in between, so 4 on 3 off and 4 on. There's no real reason for the break in lighting other than extending the viewing periods. I like the lights to be on in the day, but I also want them to be on later in the evening when I get back from work.


Thank you for the information.
There was however a typo in my previous question as I wanted to ask what type of light you were using.
Is this T5?


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Janci said:


> Thank you for the information.
> There was however a typo in my previous question as I wanted to ask what type of light you were using.
> Is this T5?


Oh right! No those are LEDs, it's a Chihiros A series.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello!

Bought some java fern recently for the cube but it ended up being way too big. I threw them in this tank instead. Here's a picture:










I've also got some good news to share! I've just been called to the Singapore bar last week, so I'm finally a lawyer. Things will probably get tougher from here so I hope I can handle it but at least I always have tank maintenance to look forward to on the weekends!

Cheers!


----------



## Janci (Aug 21, 2019)

Congratulations on your career.
This is a big move.

One question I had about the Chihiros light.
Do these get warm after a while?
I read some comments about this and wanted to hear your opinion.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Janci said:


> Congratulations on your career.
> This is a big move.
> 
> One question I had about the Chihiros light.
> ...


Thanks!

Mmm never really noticed much warmth from the A601 actually, but I do run it at the dimmest setting for this tank. I am also using a Chihiros WRGB on my cube at 60% brightness and that one gets pretty hot.


----------



## Thelongsnail (Dec 2, 2015)

Well done on your big news! 

Gorgeous tank as always and have been following along your progress on insta too


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thelongsnail said:


> Well done on your big news!
> 
> Gorgeous tank as always and have been following along your progress on insta too


Thank you @Thelongsnail!

This tank has been doing alright for awhile. Not much maintenance required on it other than water changes weekly. Unfortunately I just noticed my littlest cory flashing but it's quite late and the lights have gone off so i'd rather not disturb the tank right now. Tomorrow is water change day anyway so i'll do a bigger one than usual and dose a little praziquantel if the flashing persists.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hello

Have not updated this one in a while so I thought I'd post a picture. Didn't actually change much about the tank except for removing some rocks from the left.



All the fish are fine. The sparkling gourami have recently become more reclusive but all three of them appear to be doing well and come out when it's time to eat so not too worried about that. I am fairly happy with how the tank looks right now so I probably won't be doing anything more to it other than regular maintenance. I am thinking about rescaping it in a couple of months and actually planting it but we'll see what happens. 

Cheers!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Been awhile since I've posted! 

Not many things have changed since the last post. I moved the driftwood from my betta tank into this tank a couple of months ago. Not sure when but I lost 1 of the sparkling gourami, couldn't find the body anywhere either. The other 2 are still doing great. Here's a picture from last night



Doesn't look as good as before but eh, I'll sort something out eventually. There is some space on the right for more plants, right now it looks so bare. The ember tetras look super pale because the lights were out for a while, I turned them on to take this picture hahaha.

The betta tank became an algae farm so I decided to break it down and move the betta into this tank. Here he is in the tank



He did get pretty bad fin rot a couple of weeks ago but it seems to have stopped so hopefully his tail come back soon. He is doing well and ignoring the tetras and corys but he refuses to play nice with the sparklers (which I sort of anticipated). I've seen him chase them around the tank a couple of times. I've gone and set up the nano cube in a hurry and will be moving the sparklers there in maybe a week, hopefully before any real violence erupts in this tank. Even though I've used the old filter media, still doesn't seem smart to move the sparklers right away.

Anyway thank you all for reading!


----------



## minorhero (Mar 28, 2019)

Fun tank!

If your ammonia and nitrites are zero you can move fish. No different then a 100% water change.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

minorhero said:


> Fun tank!
> 
> If your ammonia and nitrites are zero you can move fish. No different then a 100% water change.


Interesting, didn't think of it like that before. I did use new aquasoil though so it will probably leech a fair bit of ammonia but i guess i'll test the water to check if its suitable for life.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

It has been a fairly long time since I've posted about this tank so thought I'd do it today since I managed to get a pretty good picture of it



It could use definitely use a couple more clusters of anubias on the left side of the tank since it's pretty bare at the moment. Will also need more anubias for the center and the right side of the tank. I'll get round to buying some eventually lol. I would like to get more bucephalandra for this tank but anubias do a lot better here and bucephalandra are can be pretty expensive so it would suck if they didn't grow well. 

Speaking of anubias, I have some absolutely tiny ones in this tank which I really love. Thought I'd share a picture of just this one.



There are like 4 fairly large corydoras sterbai in this tank but unfortunately they were all hiding when I took this picture :/ they are pretty much my favourite fish in this tank but they are ridiculously skittish. The corydoras habrosus in the nano don't even flinch when I approach that tank.

Zeus seems to be doing a lot better in this tank than in the cube so I'm really happy that I moved him here. I'm not sure whether his tail will ever be the same as when I first got him, but then again I guess that doesn't really matter.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Not much of an update, but I thought I'd just share a recent picture.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Right! Thought I would start documenting this tank again. It is still a low light, low maintenance tank, except that I've decided to add CO2 now in hopes that the plants grow faster and healthier. CO2 has been running for about a week without any noticeable problems, but I do have to measure it so gotta get a pH test kit soon.

Fair amount of algae on the walls because I have not been bothered to clean them for a long time. Been getting some green spot algae which I will probably not even try to remove.

There's quite a lot I have to do with this tank, I think. I think it could use more fish and a lot more plants on the left side of the tank. Likely i'll go the lazy route and get more anubias, bucephalandra and java fern, stick em on random bits (or even better get ones that have already been attached to rocks and wood and the like) and dump them in. Will also want to get a lot more ember tetras and corydoras sterbai. Am also quarantining an otocinclus at the moment (will have to get more).

The bottom right corner is quite bare, thinking of getting some cryptocoryne in there since I've got some spare aquasoil lying around. I've got two options, I think, which is to either build a little barrier in the corner with some rocks and add aquasoil straight in, or plant the crypts in a container some kind and shove the entire container in there. The container might be less messy if I ever want to remove the crypts but we'll see how it goes.


----------



## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Your tank has a super nice chill vibe, in all its iterations!

Wanted to ask you about your late honey gourami... you didn’t have any issues with him bugging the other fish or the shrimp? My kid desperately wants one but I’m always worried he won’t be as peaceful as people claim...


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

LidijaPN said:


> Your tank has a super nice chill vibe, in all its iterations!
> 
> Wanted to ask you about your late honey gourami... you didn’t have any issues with him bugging the other fish or the shrimp? My kid desperately wants one but I’m always worried he won’t be as peaceful as people claim...


Hiya

Honey gourami are chill. Didn't have issues with him. Not very sure about the shrimp, I'm pretty sure I don't have any more in there but dunno if it was because of the fish or because of water parameters. But I've never see him actively hunt shrimp when there were shrimp in there.

The only fish he didn't seem to like were some fancy guppies I bought on impulse, which I very quickly removed and gave away to a fish shop.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Ok

I've tested positive for COVID-19 yesterday, first infection. On a ******* weekend. Really sucks because I live with parents who are not young anymore, so I have to try my best to confine myself to my bedroom, which means no maintenance on the tank and my houseplants will have to go unwatered until I test negative.

I was gonna move the otocinclus in today and get more at the fish shop but guess I gotta scrap that. Was expecting a small delivery of plants too from a local aquatic plant farm (Capricorn, I'm sure folks from Singapore will be familiar with them) but I've had to as them to delay the delivery until next weekend. 

So yeah, life is no fun right now but at least it's not ****.


----------



## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Oh man that sucks!!! Wishing you a speedy recovery. Maybe your folks could water the plants at least?


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

LidijaPN said:


> Oh man that sucks!!! Wishing you a speedy recovery. Maybe your folks could water the plants at least?


Thank you. Yeah I'll see if they can help with the plants but there are quite a lot of them lol. But I think we'll be fine.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hi

I'm still testing positive for COVID-19 but not experiencing any symptoms anymore. It is the 8th day since I first tested positive for COVID and according to local regulations where I live I don't have to continue isolating anymore. So finally got to do some maintenance on the tank, which didn't need very much maintenance at all considering the plants I've got in there but still, happy to get my arms wet again.

I also asked the farm if they could deliver the plants I ordered and they were happy to accommodate. Got them all in the tank yesterday and cleaned up the front glass a little. Here's a picture!



Didn't clean the sides because I intend to release the solo otocinclus I've got in quarantine tomorrow and I'd like him to be able to munch on something. I'll also probably head out to get just a few more otocinclus.

The most obvious addition would be the big anubias angustifolia in the right corner but now that I've got it in, I don't think it works very well at all because it looks too big for the tank. I'll probably leave it in there regardless. Also got more anubias to cover the ground on the left and some bucephalandra that I've shoved into the existing plants because I couldn't be arsed to glue them onto anything. Fairly happy with the tank now, but I still want to get more java fern in the back and darker varieties of bucephalandra to add some pops of colour among the anubias. We'll see how it goes.

Until then!


----------



## Asteroid (Jul 26, 2018)

Lush, tight and clean with lots of open space. Love co2 with epiphytes since it adds some life to things. The


chicken.nublet said:


> Hi
> 
> I'm still testing positive for COVID-19 but not experiencing any symptoms anymore. It is the 8th day since I first tested positive for COVID and according to local regulations where I live I don't have to continue isolating anymore. So finally got to do some maintenance on the tank, which didn't need very much maintenance at all considering the plants I've got in there but still, happy to get my arms wet again.
> 
> ...


Nice tight mound, lush and clean. Looks good. I would agree about the angustifolia, Anything tall to the right against the glass kinda takes away from the nice mound you made. I actually use afzelii in my 12g but it's a 3 footer.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Asteroid said:


> Lush, tight and clean with lots of open space. Love co2 with epiphytes since it adds some life to things. The
> 
> 
> Nice tight mound, lush and clean. Looks good. I would agree about the angustifolia, Anything tall to the right against the glass kinda takes away from the nice mound you made. I actually use afzelii in my 12g but it's a 3 footer.


Thanks! Yeah I'll have to get rid of it, haven't I? I do still want to fill the space with something because it'll just be empty otherwise but I think more trident fern would look better there than what I've currently got.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hiya

Small update. Otocinclus was released into the tank as scheduled. Has been one and a half weeks and I barely see him but I know he's still alive. Manage to get glimpses every so often. Here's a picture:










Also have two more otocinclus in quarantine who will join him in a couple of weeks. I'll get more fish after that, but I'll have to decide between adding more ember tetras or more corydoras first. I'll probably do more corydoras first because i've only got 3 sterbai in there and I'm sure they'd like to have more company.

No pictures of the tank itself as I haven't taken any recently. Sad to say that I've been having some trouble with the bucephalandra and anubias nana petite that I added recently. I did expect the bucephalandra to melt a little especially since they were probably grown emersed and need time to transition, but I never thought I'd have trouble with anubias, of all things. Hoping that they get used to my environment soon and start growing back, especially the bucephalandra because they are beautiful. I am not really seeing any new growth from them yet.

I'm not sure if it might be the dim lights, because I did just move some bucephalandra from the quarantine to the main tank. The quarantine tank had no CO2 and no water column fertilisation but considerably brighter lighting, and it did just fine there. Started to melt only in the main tank with dim lighting but CO2 + fertilisation. So I might actually try increasing the brightness by a tiny bit. We'll see how things go in a couple of weeks...


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Small update

Got a few more plants today. Seeing as everything in the tank are slow growers, I don't think I could go wrong with more plants. Mostly just got more java fern and anubias. Decided to try adding more bucephalandra as well. Again, expecting some initial melt before they recover very slowly.

Also decided to move the otocinclus over to make a total of 3 in the tank. I would have kept the otocinclus in quarantine longer but it's been two weeks and they have been amazing so far and I managed to fatten them up a fair amount so I think they will be fine. Plus it should help the first otocinclus feel a bit more comfortable.

Got a few ember tetras that will now be in quarantine for a couple of weeks. Will get more corydoras after that, then think about whether I want more fish. Anyway, here's how the tank looks currently.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Thought that I would share some pictures of the other living things i'm taking care of at the moment:









Philodendron majestic









Wonky looking anthurium regale. Hope the next leaf comes in normal.









Philodendron plowmanii









Not very sure, guessing it's a philodendron pedatum









Anthurium clarinervium! One of my favourites


















Embers in quarantine


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Not much of an update but well.

Otocinclus seem to be doing fine. Granted, these have only been in the tank for a few days but I hope they survive long term. These are the recent additions, the first one somehow prefers to hide in the day and come out when the lights are out. All three still have nice round bellies and there should be plenty of algae and other stuff for them to eat seeing as this tank has been running for over 4 years now. I will probably get some catappa leaves for this tank, I hear otocinclus like them since it should produce some food for them as they start to decompose.

Still waiting for the bucephalandra to come to life. The big narrow leaf java fern needs thinning out, so I'll be removing the sadder looking fronds this weekend. Still also want to add more bucephalandra and anubias clumps. But otherwise, quite happy with how the tank looks at the moment.

Pictures:


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Maintenance yesterday. There's a bit of java moss and anubias nana petite on the far right that I wanted to remove. Lots of really old, unhealthy anubias nana petite there which was starting to get annoying because I didn't attach any of it to the hardscape at all. Salvaged what I could and discarded the rattier looking pieces. Far right looks a bit bare but will probably attach some bucephalandra there when I can get some.

Removed some of the older leaves on the needle leaf java fern. I took the entire thing out to pick out the sadder looking leaves then put it back. Somehow looks a little shorter now but I didn't remove that many fronds, will have to re-arrange it a little when I get the chance. It was growing very well in a much brighter set up with CO2 originally, then when I put it in this tank which didn't have CO2 until recently, it started to look quite miserable. Not very obvious from the photo though. I have considered replacing it with fresh java fern, but it is quite a big cluster so obviously I can't just get rid of it. What I probably will do is thin it out more but get some fresh ones in there too.

Anyway FTS, and more gratuitous plant pics that nobody asked for.







Cheers!


----------



## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Love your pics always ♥


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

LidijaPN said:


> Love your pics always ♥


Cheers @LidijaPN

Added a bunch of bucephalandra last night, hopefully they don't melt into nothing. Some of the ones I added previously melted pretty heavily although that has stopped by now.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Update and rambling thoughts! Some clumps of bucephalandra were added to the tank a couple of days ago and they haven't all melted into nothing so that's good (although if they were to melt, it would probably take a bit longer for that to happen). The bucephalandra really added some much needed contrast to the tank. Overall quite happy with the tank 

I'm still working on adding more fish. Currently it houses just 3 otocinclus, 3 corydoras sterbai and 8 ember tetras, so I think it could handle quite a lot more fish than that. I'm also looking at where I can add more plants. The mound in the middle was originally just anubias coffeefolia plugged into a gap but two months back I added a sizeable anubias coin there to plug the gap further. It looks ok, but perhaps I ought to move the gold coin somewhere else and put more coffeefolia there instead. I think I'm happy with the amount and placement of the java fern so i'm not likely to add any more but still looking at where I can stuff more bucephalandra or anubias, just to increase plant mass and also so there's more surface area for biofilm to grow. I did consider bolbitis heudelotii but... those potentially get huge and I honestly don't know if they would look any good in this tank. Perhaps I'll add some next to the needle leaf java fern and see how it looks

I'm also still working on a fertiliser schedule for this tank which will promote healthy growth without causing algae to break out everywhere. I'm currently adding about one teaspoon's worth of Seachem Equilibrium whenever I change water. I don't really know if I need this because I haven't bought a gH kit yet. Generally I wanted a bit more calcium because my nerite's shell has been eroding like crazy, but Equilibrium is mostly potassium so I might be better off getting calcium sulphate instead. I'm also adding about 5ml of APT Complete weekly, split up over 5 days a week. The bottle comes with a calibrated pump so I just give it a pump before I head off to work. But I will have to do this consistently and monitor for at least a few weeks to see if it's working because all the plants i've chosen are super slow growers that have been surviving under less than optimal conditions so they will need some time to adjust. 

Because this tank has been running since early 2018 at least (I've had some of the corydoras and tetras since early 2018 as well), I haven't had any massive algae breakouts in recent times. That's all already happened in this tank's earlier life. But it was running low tech for a long time and dosing was haphazard. The plants probably hated it. What little plants I had in there would grow really slowly. I think the anubias coffeefolia didn't grow at all until very recently, after I added CO2 and decided to work on this tank properly again. I think the plants will appreciate the consistency this time. Anyway, latest picture taken on 25/6/2022:



Cheers!


----------



## LidijaPN (12 mo ago)

Buce looks good in there!!


----------



## pseudomugil (Aug 12, 2013)

I love the balance of lushness and minimalism that you've achieved in this tank. It looks very clean without looking spare or sterile.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

LidijaPN said:


> Buce looks good in there!!





pseudomugil said:


> I love the balance of lushness and minimalism that you've achieved in this tank. It looks very clean without looking spare or sterile.


Cheers both. Hoping everything grows well in there.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Update! Bought an anubias coffeefolia today but did not realise the leaves were way too big. I hated it, so I cut all the big leaves off. It's in the tank now but it took me a loooong time before I was satisfied with the placement. Which ended up not adding much to the tank at all anyway. Sigh!

The newer bucephalandra clumps have not melted so that's good. They were either all grown submersed, all I've finally managed to provide a suitable environment for them that will help them convert without losing too much of their emersed leaves. The seller says they were grown submersed but who knows.

One of the earlier bucephalandra clusters melted really badly. I checked them out today and their rhizomes were pretty much gone so I got rid of the whole lot (which thankfully was not a lot although it still sucks). But I did get a bit more bucephalandra today. Those are emersed for sure. I bought them from a shop I regularly visit which displayed them in a cabinet to keep the humidity in. I should take pictures the next time i'm there because it is a really, really nice shop. I do have a short video though of the owner's pet birds. It's pretty mindblowing (to me at least. Click the picture!):



Anyway, hoping these most recent additions don't melt because it would serious suck if they did. I mentioned earlier that I'm overall happy with the tank, but I do want just a few more plants. I will give bolbitis heudelotii a try. Although I intended to only keep anubias, bucephalandra and microsorum in this tank, bolbitis is a fern so... well, I think it's fine. I will probably do just one cluster, in between a. angustifolia and and the narrow java fern. I also want one more cluster of anubias on the bottom right, which will go behind the clump of bucephalandra. I do realise there's already some anubias there, but another one would be nice. I might see if I can get pangolino or some other variety, as long as it has small leaves. And finally, one more small clump of dark coloured bucephalandra between the trident fern and a. nana petite on the right, which will hopefully create a nice contrast. Anyway, picture! (all the fish are in the corner because I threw an algae wafer in for the otocinclus)


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Short update! 

Added 5 ember tetra after a short 3 week quarantine. Not used to seeing so many fish in the tank, I hope I don't regret it.

Spotted minimal melt on some bucephalandra. The new additions are not melting very heavily, just one or two leaves. Also noticed some melt on the anubias nana petite which I've had for nearly as long as I've had this tank which was alarming. Rhizomes looked fine so I cut the melty leaves off and kept the plants.

Also spotted some melt on a very small bucephalandra which I've also had for nearly as long as I've had this tank. It's not very pretty and it hasn't grown very much at all but yeah it really is quite alarming. I suppose it might be adjusting to the higher nutrient and CO2 levels in the water overall as i'm dosing more regularly than I used to. I'll pull it out to take a closer look when I have the chance.

Went to the fish shop yesterday intending to pick up some corydoras sterbai but they had trigonostigma somphongsi in stock, which is something you don't see very often. So I ended up getting 7 of those instead. I'll get the sterbai some other time since corydoras sterbai are very common fish.

I'd post a picture of the tank but it would be almost exactly the same as the previous picture so here's a picture of the corydoras instead (one of them is hiding):


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Acquired a GH kit and did a few tests yesterday.

Tapwater measures at 3 dGH. Since it's tapwater, i will assume that most of the GH comes from calcium, with negligible amounts of magnesium. 

This tank measured 6 dGH, but I don't know how much of it is from calcium and how much from magnesium. I have been dosing a tiny bit of Seachem Equilibrium without any scientific approach to it. I'll still assume that most of it comes from calcium though. I have some pieces of seiryu in there which are still probably leeching calcium carbonate into the water. 

I haven't bought a KH test, but i'll get one soon to check the KH of the tank and tapwater. 

I've had a horned nerite in this tank for years now. It's never tried to escape, it is plenty active and generally hangs out on the glass, but I can tell that it's not very happy. For one, its shell has eroded a lot and its horns have disappeared. I've never supplemented it's diet and I wonder if that's part of the problem. I throw in broken algae wafers every couple of days for the otocinclus but i've never seen the nerite go for it. I'm wondering if the water is too soft for them so i'll try raising GH a bit more to maybe 8 dGH and hope that the situation improves. I'll do a water test before and after this week's water change and see what the GH is before dosing anything. 

Considering the plants in this tank, I don't think they will mind a bit of hardness (and I think the bucephalandra would appreciate it actually). The problem with Seachem Equilibrium is that it contains a lot of potassium, which, if I understand things correctly, does not actually impact GH. The liquid fertiliser i'm currently using also contains potassium. Supposedly, elevated levels of potassium won't really cause a problem, but I feel like I won't need a lot of it and also Equilibrium is a pain to deal with when it compacts. And I don't know how much calcium, magnesium and potassium i'm adding with Equilibrium (I could probably figure it out actually but I'm lazy). But in any case I bought a new product which doesn't contain potassium, and the amount of calcium and magnesium i'm adding for every 2.5 dGH is right there on the packaging, which will make things simpler.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Not much of an update but more plants have gone in over the week. 

Plants seem to be doing ok with the fertiliser routine. I am dosing much less than the manufacturer's recommendation, but considering my plant choice I don't think they need quite so much. Seeing as the tank is starting to get quite full though I might start dosing slightly more. 

The big clump of needle leave microsorum tends to get moved about a lot when I do maintenance, which gets a bit annoying. Also it's not very obvious in the photos but there's a huge gap between that clump and the wood in front of it and the rhizomes are everywhere so it looks quite sparse and messy in person, so I thought I'd add another clump of ferns to plug the gap and make it look denser. 

There is a local shop that brings in plants from Tropica on a regular basis. Plants from Tropica are not the cheapest here but I do like their trident ferns a lot. They also had bolbitis but I decided not to get some. I probably should have gotten some as an accent plant though. I was concerned that the bolbitis wouldn't be a good fit for the tank but because there is a buttload of java fern in there now a small amount of bolbitis would probably not look amiss. Although I can't say I hate the look of having buttloads of java fern in the tank. There were also some stunning (and rather large and healthy) otocinlus cocama in stock today, but I didn't have anywhere to quarantine them so unfortunately had to give them a miss. 










The bucephalandra I added recently appear to be adjusting well, so I went back to the same shop as before to get more of them. I'm also watching out for melting bucephalandra, as I've lost some leaves on the bucephalandra clump I added to the far right of the tank, so that's the clump i'm most concerned about. But they are growing as well and mostly look healthy so I think they should be alright. If any plants begin to melt i'll tear them out because I have noticed that for some reason when plants melt, adjacent plants start to melt as well. 

Livestock wise, everything is fine. The ones I'm most worried about are the otocinclus but thus far all 3 are accounted for and they seem rather happy in there. Further plans are to add 7 Siamese Dwarf Rasora, which I was fortunate enough to acquire and which are currently in quarantine, after which I'll get 2 more corydoras sterbai. I probably won't add any more fish after that. But anyway, here are some pictures:





















Cheers!


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Short entry for myself.

Weekly water change done today. It's one day later than I usually do it but I don't think it will matter very much.

Noticed a tiny bit of green spot algae on some of the java fern. Not quite why, perhaps because there aren't any nutrient hungry fast growers, the lights might be a tiny bit too bright for the amount of fertiliser I add over the week. However I'm not dosing much at all. 

The light on this is the Chihiros A Series (the 2nd version). It's a nice budget light with no RGB LEDs but it looks pretty good still, and it can get very bright. Have been running the tank at 17% brightness at 8 hours for a while, will try doing 15%, just a tiny bit less light but still noticeable, and monitor over the next couple of weeks. If things don't get better, will try dosing 4 times a week instead of 5. Will cut the old leaves off if they get overrun by green spot.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

A little random but the pinto genes seem to be coming back on this anubias


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Took a closer look at the tank today. Noticed that a good portion of the new trident fern appears to be suddenly dying off. Very unexpected, and reminds me a bit of what happened in my previous cube tank. Very annoying as I am incredibly tired after work but I pulled the fern out and cut off all the melty bits, because the melt spread the last time so I reckon it will spread again. Had to get rid of a fairly big portion of ferns but I've kept the healthy ones. Hope the rest don't do the same.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Multiple set backs recently, both in this tank and the other one i'm trying to start up.

The tank has been running for a couple of weeks but today I look into the tank and notice that even more trident fern is starting to melt. Trimmed off all the offending leaves before I turned my attention to the bucephalandra, which have been fine for awhile but have started to melt at what seems to me to be at an alarming rate. I am so tired of seeing bucephlanadra melt for no discernible reason. For plants that are supposed to be hardy and will do fine without CO2 supplementation they seem to be struggling a lot in my tank with relatively low light, CO2 supplementation and consistent fertiliser dosing. I haven't changed my routine at all so I don't know. At least some of them seem to be doing ok. 

I work an office job during the weekdays and usually get home fairly late so I seriously don't have buckets of free time or energy to clean up dying leaves daily after work. What I think I'll do is, I'll head down to the shop this weekend to get a couple of breeding boxes, and dump the bucephalandra in those temporarily until they either adapt or completely disintegrate. In the mean time, i'll feed the fish and fertilise as usual without paying too much attention to how the plants look because melting plants break my heart.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Still seeing intermittent browning on the trident fern. I say browning, but they appear more as grey spots on one leavesthat spread to neighbouring leaves. They will spread to both mature and young leaves, so it's not a case of the plant shedding old leaves. Basically, parts of it will randomly die. At the moment I'm just cutting the affected leaves as I spot them. 

Some of the bucephalandra have melted quite a lot, which sucks majorly. But they haven't completely died, which us somewhat promising. They were doing pretty much flawlessly for a week or so when I first put them in, so they haven't adapted as well as I expected them to. Two things I'm thinking about:

1. I could push CO2 a bit more. I have compared the pH of degassed water and then the pH of the water 2 hours after CO2 comes on, and just before the lights turn on, but maybe I ought to be making sure that the pH drop remains consistent throughout the entire photoperiod. I will do a more thorough pH test before I actually make any changes to CO2 injection. 
2. The tank might too hot. I live in Singapore which is pretty much hot year round. The temperature is bearable indoors, but I don't actually know the temperature of the water. I do think bucephalandra can grow in warmer water, but cooler water will probably help them transition better. I'll get myself a small thermometer which I can affix to the glass and check the temperature.

Thankfully it will be Saturday tomorrow, so I can take this time to test the pH and buy things.

Things do appear to be improving though, last night I spotted relatively minimal melt. Of course I still need the things to grow, but I'll have to wait several more weeks to see if things improve. If they do, then I might not get a fan at all.

Oh also, OASE's new surface skimmer just became available here, so I'll probably buy one too. Even with a HOB filter and fairly strong flow on the surface, I still sometimes get a layer of film which is not just unsightly but is probably affecting proper gaseous exchange.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hiya

Things are more or less stabilising in this tank, I think. The OASE surface skimmer is working nicely.

Bucephalandra have stopped melting, now they just have to start growing. I might try getting more again but... we'll see.

Moved the 7 Siamese dwarf rasbora (trigonostigma somphongsi) from quarantine to this tank. They look amazing. Very tiny specimens though. Another LFS brought them in some sizeable ones recently so I might pick up a few more. I might not increase the number of corydoras.

CO2 on this tank is running out so I gotta get it refilled this weekend. Lasted approximately 3 months, which is not very long at all. Wish I noticed it sooner though. 

I'll try getting some pictures tonight. I'd like to get pictures of the new fish but they are quite hard to get on camera since they are so small and active, but they look gorgeous against the black background and with the ember tetras.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Here's what the tank looks like today. Most of the fish are hanging out at the bottom because I put some food in there for the otocinclus/corydoras. I'll have to do a small water change after work tomorrow to remove any uneaten bits. You can see the new rasbora hanging out in the top and middle levels.

Doesn't look as good as in the previous picture but I don't mind it too much. Trident fern had to be thinned considerably as it was getting that weird melt. But it's not the worst this tank has looked. I might try squeezing more java fern in there or something but we'll see how things go.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Found one of the rasbora in the surface skimmer. I didn't think they would be small enough to go through the tiny slits in the little basket. Anyway it's still alive, but I don't know if it will stay alive. Put it in a breeder box type thing so that it's easier for me to observe and remove if it does die.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Tank is chugging along, not much of an update.

Lost two of the rasboras, not sure if one of them was the one that got caught in the skimmer. I dunno where the bodies are and I didn't want to tear the tank apart to look for them. They are very small and it has been days, so I don't think it matters very much. 

But the shop still has the rasboras, so I added 5 more.

On plants, added some bolbitis and more trident fern, which I'm hoping will not suddenly start melting for no reason again because the last time that happened I had to trim a lot and it was annoying. I also picked up some quite small bucephalandra, but they were not expensive and grown submersed. Seller also gave me some free stem cuttings (planted in another tank) and ramshorn snails! So I've added some ramshorns to this tank now. Anyway, picture:


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Nothing much going on with this tank, just chugging along. Lost no fish. I don't think the new ramshorns made it but they're chugging along in the other small tank.










Variegation is starting to come back on my anubias pinto, which was growing only green leaves for a loooong time before I added CO2.

Plants are growing a lot faster with CO2 and higher levels of fertilisation but I'm also starting to get a bit of BBA here and there. Hopefully it won't become completely unmanageable.


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Not much to update. Fish are doing alright. Tried propagating one of the anubias coffeefolia, hope the cutting makes it.

No new plants, bucephalandra have also stopped melting. Have a bit of BBA these days but I'm not too fussed about it. Spot dosing something similar to Excel, hoping that takes care of it without killing my plants!


----------



## Rob23 (4 mo ago)

Your tank is beautiful. The variety of plants complement each other very nicely.


----------



## kimdawg (Jan 25, 2010)

Just read your journal from the beginning. The tank is beautiful and I love the selection of plants. I have to order my plants online and they are never in great condition when I get them.


----------



## Joeyvan172 (Nov 26, 2021)

kimdawg said:


> Just read your journal from the beginning. The tank is beautiful and I love the selection of plants. I have to order my plants online and they are never in great condition when I get them.


buy from hobbyists its better


----------



## chicken.nublet (Mar 29, 2018)

Hiya. Most recent pic!

20221225_211849 by Lenny Lim, on Flickr

Split one of the anubias coffeefolia recently, happy to say that the top cut is doing well and that the bottom cut has finally put out some new shoots. Traded the top cut away for some stems.

Have one ember tetra that does not appear to be doing well, always hiding for some reason. All other fish are fine. Trigonostigma somphongsi are a lot more outgoing than the embers. Otocinclus and corydoras doing fine. Thinking of getting 2 more corydoras but we'll see.


----------

