20 gallon long botanical style journal

[dangerflower]

I posted a bit about this tank in another thread (here) while I was in the planning stage, and received so much helpful advice. Now that the tank is actually up and running, I thought I should make a proper journal. 

Tank details: 20 gallon long, hygger light (unsure on the model, it was second hand), two small co-op sponge filters, co-op 100w heater. Substrate is bagged fluval stratum underneath pool filter sand. Hardscape is just some simple river rocks and manzanitia wood. So far for botanicals I'm using magnolia leaves, live oak leaves, catappa leaves, and sterculia pods. Not going for any specific biotpe situation, just kind of using botanicals that I like 😅. Plants so far are amazon swords, java ferns, dwarf sagittaria, one really sad anubias gold coin, frogbit, salvinia cucullata, and giant duckweed. 

I set this tank up in early October and it's just about cycled now. I did seed my sponge filters in one of my other tanks, which helped speed things along. I've just been cycling by ghost feeding every few days and adding some seachem stability. 

Here's the tank right after I filled it:

So clean 😅

I had originally wanted to use this other piece of wood (on the left) as well but it felt crowded with both of them together. Kind of wishing I had gone with it now. I also spent so much time on the careful placement of those river rocks which is hilarious because they are just covered by leaves and botanical gunk now. 😂

Here's the tank beginning its "goo phase" - major bacterial bloom and biofilm slime growing on all the botanicals. Really gross but totally normal. At this point I also decided to turn down my light intensity and blocked off some of the blue LED nodes, which looks a lot better.

And here's how it's looking now! It's wild to see how much darker it's becoming over time. I added a massive amazon sword from my lfs...it's honestly too tall for the tank but that's okay. The water is so much clearer now, most of the biofilm  is gone, and I'm seeing new growth on my plants. I'm planning on doing a big water change today and clearing up all the mulm and nastiness that's built up from a month of ghost feeding, and I'm also going to add some fresh botanicals. 

I thought I would be impatient to add fish, especially after waiting so long to actually start this project, but watching a botanical style fish tank evolve is actually so fascinating all on its own. There are tons of micro critters in here right now - detritus worms, copepods, and probably others. Unfortunately some mini ramshorn pest snails hitchhiked their way over when I seeded my sponge filters, but they're just part of the ecosystem now. There are also now a bunch of baby pink regular ramshorns with shells that are almost translucent - they're very pretty. They must have come in on a plant, but I'm happy to have them. 

I haven't fully decided on my stocking plans yet but right now I'm thinking a group of sparkling gourami, a school of chili rasboras, and a school of green neon tetras. And probably some amano shrimp to help with clean up. I had originally wanted some corydoras as well, but I'm worried that the temp will be too high for them, and I'd really like fairly big groups of the schooling fishes and don't want to overdo it with the bio load. 

I do have my first fish for the tank in quarantine right now - four sparkling gouramis from one of my local shops. They are a sensitive fish so I'm worried they were not the best choice to add first, but out of the species I want they seem to be the ones I see in stock the least, so when I saw my lfs had a few left, I decided to try it. I hope they do well, because I absolutely love them, and I think they'll look gorgeous in this tank. 

That's all for now! Thanks for reading. 

[Minanora]

Ord. Looking amazing! That water is beautiful... The whole thing has come together nicely. I love your plants! The whole scape is just gorgeous.

[dangerflower]

@Minanorathank you! 😊 I'm pretty proud of how it's coming together so far.

[Anjum]

Looking good! Best of luck with the gouramis. I've become enamoured of them as of late. I'll look forward to following along 😊

[dangerflower]

@Anjumthanks! They're such sweet little fish. I really hope they do well. I think they'll absolutely love picking through all the leaf litter for snacks.

[dangerflower]

After I did a water change the other day I learned that there are tons more detritus worms hiding in all that mulm than I thought - like a pretty gross amount 😅 hopefully once I stop ghost feeding and there are fish in there to snack on them, the population will dwindle.

I added some fresh botanicals, which did cause a new bacteria / biofilm bloom, although so far it's not nearly as serious as the initial one. I think once there are fish in the tank, I'll be more careful about not adding so many botanicals all at once.

Creepy biofilm mist.

I may regret letting these pink ramshorns do their thing because there are a BUNCH of them already but they're so cute!

[dangerflower]

Having some trouble with my sparkling gouramis in quarantine. I'm seeing ammonia in the water now. I think the med trio may have disrupted the beneficial bacteria a bit (I used a seeded sponge filter, but my tanks are all heavily planted with low bioload so I'm guessing the filter didn't have tons of bb in it?). I'm now having to do water changes in the quarentine tank daily and I can barely feed the fish at all. I'm also seeing aggression amongst them. My hope is that they will be able to get along better when they have more space, but they are definitely over being cooped up together in a 5 gallon tub.

They seem healthy over all so far, and my tank is ready for them now, so I'm considering breaking quarantine to get them out of this less than ideal situation. But they still need to have a second dose of paracleanse in about a week. I'd hate to have to treat the whole 20 gallon with meds later if it turns out these guys were sick.

[Schuyler]

Love the natural look of your tank!

I think it was the right call sticking to just the one branch. Gives it a flow this way.

[dangerflower]

Good morning! The tank is looking nice today.

Forgot to update that I got a group of six amano shrimp for the tank a few weeks ago. They are having a great time snacking on all that biofilm.

I was able to sort out the quarantine tank issues I was having (turns out the ammonia was coming from my tap water 🙃). The sparklers have completed their quarentine and I moved them into their new home on Thursday!

Acclimating.

Exploring their new surroundings.

Their shiny scales don't pop in the tank as much as I had hoped - might just be too dim in the tank, or maybe it's because of the light substrate color. They are very subtle and sneaky but they're so fun to watch. They seem really comfortable in their new environment.

I do think I'll eventually try to get a few more of them, ideally some females because I'm pretty sure at least three of these four are males and that's not an ideal dynamic. They are squabbling a lot right now, probably trying to establish territories in the new space.

Also, sparkling gouramis really do make a noise and they are LOUD! It's so cool. It's like a rapid clicking sound and I can hear it across the room!

Now it's time to get the next round of fishes and begin quarantining them! I'm still debating my stocking plans but right now I'm thinking of getting some chili rasboras next.

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/6/2022 at 11:04 AM, dangerflower said:

Beautiful tank.  I will take 3 please! 😂

 

 

On 11/28/2022 at 10:15 AM, dangerflower said:

@NotDaleGribble does this look like your mystery fish?

[Jennifer V]

Love reading about your journey! I'm dreaming up my next tank -- a 20 long as well. My main goal is to have a group of cories. Did you settle in on which you'd like to add to yours? I thought I'd do pygmies and pandas but I didn't realize the pygmies wouldn't fit. I have been doing a ton of cory research and joined a group dedicated to taking care of them. I get pretty obsessed when I set my mind on something. Ha! Looking forward to following along! 

[dangerflower]

On 12/4/2022 at 1:28 PM, Jennifer V said:

Love reading about your journey! I'm dreaming up my next tank -- a 20 long as well. My main goal is to have a group of cories. Did you settle in on which you'd like to add to yours? I thought I'd do pygmies and pandas but I didn't realize the pygmies wouldn't fit. I have been doing a ton of cory research and joined a group dedicated to taking care of them. I get pretty obsessed when I set my mind on something. Ha! Looking forward to following along! 

Whoops sorry for the delayed response! Thanks for following along 😊 I decided that I probably won't be adding cories to this tank because I'm worried the water temp will be wrong for them. I've got the sparkling gouramis in there now and I'll probably get some green neon tetras eventually, and both those species like to be much warmer than cories. Although it seems like lots of folks keep them at higher temps without issue so maybe I'm being paranoid.

I am going to be setting up a 10 gallon pygmy cory tank in the near future though 😁

I think pygmies would fit just fine in your tank as long as you don't have a lot of other mid / upper level swimming fish in there! Pygmies swim all over the place more than other cory species do.

[Patrick_G]

I just got caught up on your journal. It's a really nice looking tank. Sparkling gourami are fun fish. Some are bold little micro predators and some are super shy. I had one that I wouldn’t see for months, and that was in a three gallon!  Live baby brine shrimp help draw them out. 

[dangerflower]

On 12/11/2022 at 2:27 PM, Patrick_G said:

I just got caught up on your journal. It's a really nice looking tank. Sparkling gourami are fun fish. Some are bold little micro predators and some are super shy. I had one that I wouldn’t see for months, and that was in a three gallon!  Live baby brine shrimp help draw them out. 

Thank you! They are such cool little fish. I'm pretty smitten with them. They were so shy and nervous in quarantine, so I thought I'd never see them in the tank because there are so many hiding places, but they spend a lot of time out and about. Unfortunately they're also quite mean to each other.

I've gotta give hatching brine shrimp a try! The sparklers loved hunting down all the little micro critters in the tank but of course they decimated them all in a couple of days.

[Guppysnail]

You tank is looking amazing. I love the botanical look. Patients pays off. 

[dangerflower]

On 12/14/2022 at 4:20 AM, Guppysnail said:

You tank is looking amazing. I love the botanical look. Patients pays off. 

Thank you so much ☺️

Almost forgot to update, last weekend I went to the Wet Spot and picked up 10 chili rasboras who will eventually be added to the tank! I had to wait a while to get any more fish because I basically had to re-cycle my quarantine tank.

I'm just letting the chilis hang out and relax in quarentine for the first week but I'm going to start their med trio treatment soon. They are so cute and they're even starting to color up a little already! I'm very surprised that they aren't shy at all. I think they're going to look great in this tank 😁

Not a great photo but here they are while they were drip acclimating:

[dangerflower]

I didn't have time to try to take a picture but I was checking on the tank before leaving the house for the evening and saw something unfamiliar wriggling amongst the floating plants - there's fry in there!! My sparklers have spawned, apparently 😍

I was not expecting this and have zero idea how to care for them! Might just leave them be and see how they do, and start doing some research so I'm better prepared for future batches. Does anyone here have experience with sparkling gourami fry?

[dangerflower]

My phone really can't do macro photos well but if you look closely there's a baby! I can only see a few around the tank today, so I guess the adults have been snacking. They're already free swimming. I'm going to have to let the floating plants grow out of control so I don't accidentally scoop up any fry.

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 12/20/2022 at 7:34 PM, dangerflower said:

I was not expecting this and have zero idea how to care for them!

Feed repashy powder ~3x a day. Hopefully your further research is successful. Congratulations on the fry.