My 36 Gallon Bowfront Return to Fishkeeping

[flyingcow]

Took the opportunity today since my one Ram is still being a jerkface and the other isn't eating to rearrange the hardscape in an attempt to chill them out. Had a pretty good clean while I was at it. Each week, there's a little bit less crap on the plants and the driftwood, but today I noticed a tiny spot that might have been cyano. 

I took all of the driftwood out and gave it a good scrubbing. 

The Java Ferns are going crazy springing leaf roots. They look like they're struggling.

I wiped down some of the leaves, picked the dying ones, and replanted a few babies into cracks in the driftwood.

 

Other plants are doing well, but some are really struggling. My sword is yellowing at the tips, as does one anubias. The dwarf sag is turning a corner and starting to green up, but my water wisteria seems to be wasting away to nothing. All the dead plant matter in the tank is leading to a pretty dirty tank every week!

[flyingcow]

I forgot the after picture! I also turned the airstone back on and added my nano sponge filter so it can start getting some bacteria in it before it has to go into the quarantine tank. I was attempting to keep the surface calm so that I could grow some floaters, but that just didn't work out so well, so now we got for ALL THE AIR!

[flyingcow]

Sometimes you need to do things beautifully and perfectly, and other times you just need to make sure something works. Behold my water temperature transmitter and it's top of the line, super professional enclosure!

[flyingcow]

Boom. It works. Time to get a real enclosure and borrow my wife's soldering iron.

[flyingcow]

Well, my alarm notifications work! Dipped below 74 on a water change and my phone went nuts.

[flyingcow]

After a good deep cleaning, my tank looked very empty. When I went to get 2 more Pygmys for my 10 gallon I may umm... have finished stocking this tank as well... Welcome Black Neons and Panda Corys!

Big Buddy was very funny. Once they were all settled in, he swam up to the ball of Black Neons and just stared at them for a few seconds like, "What the...." Then he swam down to a Panda and stared at it even longer. Then he gave up and swam away. The Black Phantoms gathered together and stared at the Neons for about an hour before giving up. They were all very confused.

Funnily, Big Buddy is interacting with the substrate A LOT more now that the Pandas are here. It was almost like he saw them and thought, "Wait, I can do that?" The Phantoms have taken up more residence lower in the water column near the plants. I gotta sort out my stem plant conundrum to get some plants up high for these guys. Picked up a Ludwiga Repens at the LFS to give it a shot. Wish me luck.

[flyingcow]

Cleaning day!

Nitrates got over 40ppm for the first time in this tank! I guess doubling the fish load finally made my Pothos meet its match. I've been measuring TDS to start getting some inferences between it and my test results. I didn't test phosphate before the water change and should have... whoops. Before the water change, NO3 was a bit above 40 and TDS was 420. After taking out about 7 gallons and putting in about 9 (it was low), NO3 was between 20 and 40, and TDS was 381. Probably could have afforded to take more water out, but that's fine. I'll fertilize with Flourish instead of Easy Green this week and check it before I leave for work travel on Tuesday. 

The tank is getting cleaner and cleaner and requiring less and less work. I hope that continues. I did a VERY deep clean of the gravel and hardscape before adding the neons and the pandas. The Snorfle Squad (pandas) are doing a great job preventing mulm buildup on the gravel. It looks great! They also devour a couple of wafers a day, so these little buggers love to eat!

The only challenge I'm working on right now is getting the algae off of older leaves. The new growth is coming in and staying pretty clean, but getting algae off of planted stuff is hard yo!

Anyhoo, here's some pictures of what's left of my algae battle. Please note, the Ludwiga Repens isn't dead yet! I HAVE ONE STEM PLANT!

Oh yeah. I forgot. I also got my heater safety system up and running! So now, if my temperature gets too hot, my heaters will be shut off by a smart plug. And if the power goes out and comes back on and the smart plug turns itself off (dammit), once the temperature goes out of range on the cool side, it alerts me and automatically turns the smart plugs back on.

Basically, I made a DIY Inkbird for a little less money*, a lot more time, and it makes my phone yell at me when something's wrong!

 

*not counting the Raspberry Pi, SSD, and Zigbee dongle that run Home Assistant for me since I'm counting that as a sunk cost

[flyingcow]

Dang I left out a lot on this tank...

So I have been dealing with some Cyano in both my 36 gallon and my 10 gallon. In my 36, the culprit was clear. Phosphates shot to 2ppm. That'll do it! So after a good cleaning and water change, I switched my floating food from NLS flake to NLS floating pellet (the Black Phantoms are not pleased with this decision), and added a Purigen pouch to the filter. I also added Fritz Slime Away. The directions say after 48 hours, do a 25% water change. well... after 48 hours, it looked the same. But after the water change, the dang cyano was GONE within 12 hours. It has not shown its face since. 

The phosphates are now hanging around .75ppm-ish, and the tank is just back to some diatoms and a bit of green algae on the back wall that makes the snails happy. In this mess, I also increased the intensity of the light a bit (without increasing duration), and I'm finally starting to see some real plant growth! Who'da thunk plants need light?

Here's a few (bad) photos. I need to accept that I should be shooting at 12,800 ISO and not at F/4. Taking donations for a Fujifilm 80mm Macro lens.

This Tropica has grown by about 60%. A 2 leaf chunk of it fell off and went into the Pygmy Party tank and is now 4 leaves as well!

My "Dwarf" Sag has sprouted a runner!

My Crypt Spiralis is taking on the role of the Chrysler Building.

YOU GUYS!!!! I HAVE STEM PLANTS THAT AREN'T DEAD!!!

A really crappy picture of NEW GROWTH ON AN L. REPENS!!!! STEM NOT DEAD!!!!

Sword has nearly doubled in size in the past couple of weeks

Big Buddy, Protector of Pandas, says hi.

Another garbage picture of a Crypt Lutea starting to become happy in its new home.

Edited December 5, 2022 by flyingcow

[flyingcow]

I feel like I'm making progress on the algae battle on this tank. Phosphates are clearly my enemy. They were at 5ppm yesterday before my water change. My last water change had only been 7 days ago. I'm not sure what I can change to reduce it. They're finishing almost all of their food, so there isn't much waste around. The tank is reasonably clean except for all the dang algae, and the water is all remineralized RO. Unsurprisingly with 5ppm of Phosphates, I had another cyano outbreak, which Slime Out is dutifully taking care of. A dose of gluteraldehyde every other day seems to be making a dent on all the other stuff.

I finally decided to add a phosphate pad to the filter after yesterday's water change. I'll test again today and for the next few days to see where it goes. I'm glad that at least the source of my algae problems is reasonable obvious. Nitrates at ~10ppm and Phosphates at ~5ppm will do it!

[anitstuk]

 

On 1/23/2023 at 11:35 PM, flyingcow said:

I feel like I'm making progress on the algae battle on this tank. Phosphates are clearly my enemy. They were at 5ppm yesterday before my water change. My last water change had only been 7 days ago. I'm not sure what I can change to reduce it. They're finishing almost all of their food, so there isn't much waste around. The tank is reasonably clean except for all the dang algae, and the water is all remineralized RO. Unsurprisingly with 5ppm of Phosphates, I had another cyano outbreak, which Slime Out is dutifully taking care of. A dose of gluteraldehyde every other day seems to be making a dent on all the other stuff.

I finally decided to add a phosphate pad to the filter after yesterday's water change. I'll test again today and for the next few days to see where it goes. I'm glad that at least the source of my algae problems is reasonable obvious. Nitrates at ~10ppm and Phosphates at ~5ppm will do it!

I'm having similar algae problems myself. Hopefully some extra algae eaters that I'll introduce should help. 

[flyingcow]

On 1/26/2023 at 2:49 AM, anitstuk said:

 

I'm having similar algae problems myself. Hopefully some extra algae eaters that I'll introduce should help. 

Yeah, I decided not to add more when I know my water is off. I'll give it a few weeks before I go Amano Shrimp shopping!