Isaac M
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Posts posted by Isaac M
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Thank you @Patrick_G, yeah I think the lantern and the lucky bamboo took it to another level.
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Hi @Andream420, if your amazon swords are experiencing yellow or translucent leaves, it is likely that they had a nitrogen deficiency as shown in the graphic @Mitch Norton provided from the Aquarium Co-op. Given that your aquarium is new and you did not have root tabs for the swords in a substrate with no nutrients, this is the likely cause. The root tabs will help the swords a lot as they are heavy root feeders. If the swords appear to still show a deficiency, it may need more root tabs or the root tabs you added have already been consumed.
The anubias looks to be perfectly fine to me. It is a slow growing plant so they do not need a lot of nutrients or light. They will develop algae actually if you do this. I would just monitor it and if an obvious issue begins to unfold, please post about it here on the forum.
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@Tyler LaZerte it is hard to say not knowing the size of the aquarium or what fish you plan to add to the aquarium once it is cycled. However, it is likely that it will not be enough.
If you only put enough ammonia in there to cycle the tank for the snails, the tank may not be able to keep up with the ammonia when you add fish as now there is ammonia from fish and snails. Personally, I would add extra food to the aquarium. I would “act” like I am feeding fish and snails so your tank is prepared to handle both.
And when you add the fish to the aquarium, try to add them slowly over time. For example, if you want to stock the tank with a school of rasboras, a school of tetras and a school of corydoras. Add only one school first, then later introduce the second school, and finally the last school instead of all at once.
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Yeah it definitely is rare. However, I think what helped as well is that I was willing to do the tank how she wanted it. I find that a lot of people will not budge and that can create tension. I typically create jungle tanks with rocks and driftwood because that is how I like my tanks. She liked a certain look so I gave her what she wanted. I do not think she would have been as fascinated if I would have made her a tank that is like the ones I like you know? The other person has to feel included and important to the process.
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Oh ok well perfect! You can simply fill mesh bags or something similar with cheap pieces of lava rock and stick it in the back of the aquarium. Then you can cover it with your substrate. That is a cheap way to add height to your substrate.
As far as aquascaping goes, unless you are doing a dutch aquascape, your hardscape is the foundation to your aquascape. I would recommend getting a really nice piece of driftwood that you like and some rocks to compliment it, and add it to your aquarium. Given all you have is a snail, you can move things around until you like the way it looks. Then you can plant your plants around that. Just a thought.
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@xXInkedPhoenixX Yes she actually is a lot more now. We will actually be feeding live baby brine shrimp together tomorrow for the first time 😂 but in all seriousness, she actually started learning about aquariums a bit on her own to try to give me gifts for Christmas and she enjoys going to fish stores with me. She actually told me she thinks it would be fun to go on a little road trip to explore fish stores.
That is pretty awesome if you ask me haha I am very lucky!-
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The 5 gallon was set up around the same time as the 10 gallon. Late September 2019. The initial tank setup:
Aquarium: 5 gallon aquarium by Cobalt
Light: Desktop Lamp w/ LED bulb
Filter: Internal filter by Cobalt that came with aquarium
Substrate: Fluval Stratum (Honestly just used this because it was dark brown and had some leftover)
Decor: Wood bonsai tree, small pieces of Seiryu stone
Plants: Christmas moss for bonsai tree and some dwarf sag that never really took off
My girlfriend loves the look of Nature aquarium aquascapes/ Diorama aquascapes. She loved the look of the bonsai trees. So I took what she liked and made it into my vision with a heavy influence from “The Lone Cypress” tree in Pebble Beach, California. This is what I came up with:
As you can see, the tree did not look too great right away but that is to be expected.
1 Month old:
Christmas moss is starting to fill in.
2 Months:
The vision has come to life. Blue dream shrimp have been added.
3 Months:
6 Months:
At this point the tree is in dire need of a trimming.
7 Months:
The tree has been trimmed.
Present day, 1 Year and 6 months old:
Added a leftover window film to the aquarium as a background. The tree has been trimmed multiple times. I need to trim the tree a little less round next time to go back to the initial Monterey Cypress tree look.
Anyways, thank you all for reading about my 10 gallon and 5 gallon aquarium, aka my attempt to get my girlfriend interested in the hobby! 😂 I hope you all enjoyed it!
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Hello everyone! This journal is going to be for my 10 gallon aquarium and 5 gallon aquarium. I will start off by saying I built these aquariums to get my girlfriend interested in the hobby. I think everyone here can agree that the hobby is better when you are able to share it with those that you love. What I ended up doing was showing her different style aquariums online and she chose some that she liked. She also chose the fish and shrimp she liked for these aquariums.
I will start with the 10 gallon aquarium. This aquarium was started October 2019. The initial tank setup is as follows:
Lighting: 20” Finnex StingrayFilter: Aquaclear
Substrate: Organic soil capped with gravel
Plants: Vallisneria ordered from Aquarium Co-op & Dwarf Sag
Decor: 2 small Seiryu stones, Top Fin Resting Buddha ornament & some river rocks I superglued together
As you can see, I started off with very little as I know just how fast these plants can grow from my prior experience.
2.5 Month Old Aquarium
At this point I decided to have some fun with carbon dioxide just to see how fast these plants can really grow with a soil substrate.
3 Month Old Aquarium:Carbon dioxide really made the plants grow and be this very beautiful bright green color.
4 Month Old Aquarium
6 Month Old Aquarium
At this point I removed the carbon dioxide system as I no longer needed that much plant growth.
8 Month Old Aquarium
Yes, the aquarium is 8 months old but still does not have any fish in it. To be fair, these were unprecedented times.
1 Year Old Aquarium
Lucky Bamboo has been added as well as a lantern ornament. Lucky bamboo was planted with the roots into the organic soil.
1 Year 2 Months Old Aquarium
The original vision of the aquarium is starting to finally take place.... still no fish.
1 Year 3 Months Old Aquarium
Yes, you are seeing that correctly, there are now fish in the aquarium 😂 Neon tetras first day in the jungle.
Present Day, about 1 Year 6 Months
I added some background lights to compliment the scape. Lucky bamboo is starting to grow more full. The aquarium is very stable, I never clean the glass on this aquarium as it hardly grows algae. Every once in awhile I have to remove some val as it sends runners all over the place.
So that is the story so far for the 10 gallon, thank you for reading!
Now onto the 5 gallon....
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Hi @NetBelleAnie, for the raised tier do you mean like sloping the substrate a lot higher? If that is what you mean, a lot of people will put small lava rocks in bags and then pour the substrate over them to add height to the substrate at the back of the aquarium.
Please let me know if I misunderstood. Thank you for sharing!
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Is the aquarium on the 2nd floor of the house or on a raised wood floor? And yes, you have some very large fish in there. I would love to see a picture of the snowflake eel! For my aquarium, it will just be a small reef with a clownfish and some type of goby most likely. I kept a 10 gallon reef for some time about 8-9 years ago but have only kept freshwater planted aquariums since.
Given that most aquariums here on the forum are freshwater, I thought maybe I could share this video with you that I took at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. It is of one of their reef tanks that inspired me to get back into saltwater aquariums. I thought maybe you could appreciate it too.
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Haha it sounds like he definitely knows how to get the food he wants! He is a really cool and interesting looking fish, thank you for sharing! I will be starting a reef tank this year so I will keep an eye on your journal
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Hi @Tyler LaZerte, another thing to keep in mind is that you will need a source of ammonia to cycle your aquarium. You may test the water and get 0 ammonia and nitrite but it will not mean the tank is cycled. It can just mean that there was never ammonia in it in the first place. You need to add in a source of ammonia to your aquarium so the bacteria can began to colonize your aquarium and begin the process @Fish Folk mentioned (& explained very very well). Once it cycles, then the fish you add will provide the constant source of ammonia to keep the nitrogen cycle going (& plant growth as well). Given that you have a established sponge filter and plants, this should not take too long.
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I see, well we would love to see your aquarium! We never get tired of looking at those here haha either way, thank you for sharing!
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@Nephro Wow thats a big ol pleco, Zeke the Freak means business haha
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@rachaeljuno I agree with the method @Duke Silver explained. As for the liquid fertilizer, Easy Green is the one I would recommend due to how convenient and cost effective it is. One pump per 10 gallons and it is an all-in-one fertilizer.
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@Dan T. wow I am surprised that the light/ cover is strong enough to support Lucy 😂 the tank looks great! But sounds good, I think just replanting is the way to go. There is no need to gut the tank to rescape it. You do not want to risk a mini cycle happening if you do not need to. Keep us updated on the new look!
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Oh my, it will definitely be interesting to see how this plays out. Hopefully they can breed enough to keep their population going.
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@Hobbit If my math is correct, the block would have to be .325”x1.625” to fit perfectly. At that point, it is not worth the hassle. I would proceed without it.
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@Dan T. I see, so you essentially just want to remove the plants from the aquarium and add them back in with a different aquascaping composition in mind. But the substrate will stay the same. If I understood that correctly (please correct me if I did not), I would simply remove all of the plants from the aquarium and leave the aquarium running. The media can stay in, the substrate can stay in, the fish can stay in. Then simply replant the aquarium plants and the new plants in the new composition. It may be cloudy for a bit but it will clear up. You can also do a water change afterwards to help clear it up and remove all the debris that may have accumulated from uprooting the plants.
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Hi @JC158, I will attach a link to the Aquarium Co-op youtube video that deals with sponge filters. Cory begins to discuss this issue at 8:47 in the video. I hope this helps!
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Hi @smallDollarBigHeart, welcome to the forum and fish keeping, thank you for sharing your aquarium pictures with us!
I agree, Cory has done a great job of making gaining knowledge for keeping fish easily accessible and understood to someone new to the hobby. The whole Aquarium Co-op crew has done a wonderful job.
Beautiful aquarium! I love that you have a large school of rosy tetras! -
Hi @Dan T., I am glad to hear you had great success! Are you planning to rescape the aquarium because you want something new? If its just because the plants have grown, you can trim the plants.
As far as the substrate goes, what are you planning to do? Do you want to change gravel or use sand or an aquasoil?
Any pictures, stocking list and more information on your desired outcome and what you have now will help us provide you with information that is more applicable to your situation.
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@Hobbit About the double outer joists, I would personally keep them just because they will distribute the load nicely over the supporting column. If you only used one, you will reduce your bearing area on the column creating eccentricity (a condition where the load is not centered on the supporting member). But at the same time, I have no idea if you are adding a acrylic tank or glass tank with rim on this and I do not know where it will sit exactly. I am just going with the safe answer here haha
Same with the joists in-between, I would personally put them somewhere around 16” on center.
But @ererer is right, most stands are overkill for the aquarium load. But it is difficult not to have overkill when typically available materials are 2x (1.5” thick).
Anyways, it is looking great! Thank you for the update!-
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Hi! Welcome to the forum! Beautiful planted aquariums. I have never seen pothos growing completely submerged before, thats amazing. Good to have someone else on the forum that also uses dirt! Haha
10 & 5 Gallon Aquariums For My Girlfriend
in Photos, Videos & Journals
Posted
@Patrick_G yes! The backlight is a Current USA Serene Led light kit. I change the color of it all the time, right now it is a turquoise color. I really like the look of white as well.
@Nephro I find that val appreciates a nutrient rich substrate or at least a substrate that does not gravel vacd very often. I also have high pH medium-hard water. Do you have similar parameters/ aquarium conditions?