Crow's Journal

[Crow]

I'm finally gonna do it, I'm making a journal so that I have somewhere to keep track of my misadventures! I've only been back into keeping aquariums for a bit less than a year now. Eventually I want to have nice 'scapes, but for now I'm just gathering knowledge, experimenting and trying out different stuff, and TRYING ALL THE PLANTS! to see what I can grow and what I can't and then I'll go from there.

I have three aquariums:

A 15-ish gallon cube that I built at the end of October from the SerpaDesign tutorial on youtube. Nothing really went on in here for awhile due to problems with both the heater and filter I bought for this tank.

 

A 20 gallon long tank that currently houses some angelfish babies I bought a couple months back. They are waiting to move into my 75 gallon. They're supposed to be 2 blue pinoy paraiba and electric blue marble pearlscale widefin, and 3 brazillian wild blue glitter angelfish. They were very small when I got them, a few of them were still kinda football shaped.

 

And a 75 gallon tank that is going through some ~things~ right now. About a month  and a half ago on this particular tank I changed fertilizers from Easy Green to GLA's dry mix because this tank and my 20 together absolutely slammed through a bottle of easy green in a month. I started with the recommended dose and many of my plants just stopped growing and melted and/or dropped most of their leaves which led to an outbreak of algae. I slowly increased the amount of fertilizer I was dosing until the plants finally started to show new growth again. Turns out I need 4x the recommended dose. My pleco also decided that sword leaves are tasty and ate the surfaces of almost every leaf, so I had to trim them all off. The blue hygro is also trying to grow again, but the angelfishes keep going at it like pitbulls with a squeaky toy. I dunno what it is, this is THE ONLY plant in the tank they do this to! Hopefully in another month to two months the stem plants will be looking good as new.

The plan with this tank is to rehome the 5 largest angelfish and move the babies in now that they're a decent size. The adults were supposed to be rehomed at the beginning of the month, but we all got covid and it's taking awhile to recover. Once the babies are more grown later in 2023 I'll choose who I'm gonna keep and rehome a few again. I would also like to increase the numbers of my small violet cory gang at some point, but I am reluctant to mail order them because they're the only fish I've bought online that don't seem to ship well.

Nov 7.

Dec 26.

I mean, I guess the one positive that came out of what happened to this tank is that the pogostemon stellatus octopus that I've had in there FINALLY grew. It didn't do anything for several months and then about three weeks ago it finally became the weed I was told it would be hahaha. I almost pulled it up at the beginning of November, but decided to let it be and it's paid off!

[Guppysnail]

On 12/29/2022 at 6:02 AM, Crow said:

TRYING ALL THE PLANTS! to see what I can grow and what I can't and then I'll go from there.

I did this and still give different ones a go. I find it less stressful to let the plants decide who wants to grow for me and not sweat out the ones that don’t. 
I was hesitant when I started my journal but I found it a lot of fun. Folks chime in with helpful info where I didn’t even know I needed it. It’s really a great way to get to know folks and get specific help vs posting a new topic where no one knows the backstory and entire situation. 

[Crow]

Phew, the holidays are finally over!

About a week ago I got hold of a few reinforcements for the 20 gallon. They're currently marinating and growing roots before I plant them.

 

The 75 gallon is still ugly, but it's doing great. Almost all of the algae has receded with the exception of some hair algae on the root wood, which I actually like. So no biggie if that's where it stays haha.

Almost all of the plants are showing new growth, even the ones that were just bare, leafless stems. The pogostemon stellatus octopus is going nuts and has actually engulfed a young sword and another little plant, so I'll have to get in there and move those next water change. The ludwigia is growing some new, gorgeous giant leaves. Not sure if it's the light or the ferts. These were clippings from my 20g and those plants still do not look like these despite being more established. The camboba that's always just been a small nub for the better part of a year is finally getting tall, but it's all leg. I'll give it another few weeks and see what it does before I either move or remove it entirely. Can't see it because it's behind the camboba, but the blue hygro is finally starting to make a comeback now that the angels are leaving it alone.

So far the parrot feather is not showing much improvement. I might have to bring more clippings over from the 20 later on. I also have a melon sword in here that I had to severely chop back a couple months ago that's not putting out any new leaves despite getting its own root tabs when everyone else got them. It still has one leaf that's still alive, so maybe it just needs some more time. It was a pretty intense pruning.

Progress photo 1/5/23:

I also finally cracked and put a HOB on the 75 a couple days ago. I'm not showing any ammonia or nitrite despite only having a sponge, but the floaties were getting to me. Stuffed this thing full of polyfill, which it has acres of room for. Water is looking much better already. The downsides are I had to take my glass panels off and the evap is insane. Also, the flow nuked the floating plants, so I'll have to rig up some tubing if I want to keep them.

 

And I finally put water and plants in my new algae farm after two months of it sitting on my counter! It's got the new tank uglies! Ammonia, nitrite, and nitrates are high. I ordered more plants to fill this one up as well as fill in the gaps left in the 20. In the meantime I've tossed a bunch of floating plants in there to hopefully help with the excess nutrients. Might just go ahead and change out the water next water change day when I do the 75, which is Sunday. I'm also happy to see tons of baby red ramshorn snails in here! The eba obliterated the snail population in the 75 and not enough food makes it to the bottom in the 20g and when it does it doesn't stay there for long. I threw in a stick of snowflake shrimp food I had left over and the babies were all over it! I'm gonna keep feeding them and hope the population continues to boom.

[Crow]

 

I put some zucchini in for mr. pleco, turns out the sae and at least one cory really liked it too!

 

Vacuumed out the algae and rearranged  some plants in the cube yesterday. Also set up one of those fluval c02 kits that I found new on ebay for $25-ish in preparation for some plants I have arriving probably on Thursday. c02 isn't as scary as I thought it would be and the set-up was super easy. Depending on how long the original cartridge lasts I might buy one refill and if I like it I'll start looking into proper set-ups.

 

I also saved up enough points in my browser app that I was able to get another 20 gallon long tank for $3 while they were on sale! I've got enough going on in the three tanks I'm working on now though, so I'm going to save setting it up a couple months until after I get those all sorted out and decide if I'm going to get another Fluval or Nicrew light for it.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Crow

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 1/10/2023 at 9:31 AM, Crow said:

put some zucchini in for mr. pleco, turns out the sae and at

Nice journal!

Not sure that’s actually a SAE, looks more like a Chinese AE. 
Can anyone else confirm? 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/10/2023 at 3:44 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Not sure that’s actually a SAE, looks more like a Chinese AE. 
Can anyone else confirm?

Bentley has some. I believe it's either sold as a variant of flying fox or it's a "reticulated SAE"

Definitely not a CAE though and the mouth shape is moreso like an SAE or another cyprinidae species. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprinidae

they usually have upper and lower barbels, mouth that points down and designed to graze. CAEs have a different shaped mouth, 2 upper barbels.

I really like that cube tank! Especially your initial aquascape with the debris pile in the corner.

Feel better, happy to follow along on your adventures. Beautiful tanks and I'm excited to see where you take them!

[TheSwissAquarist]

On 1/10/2023 at 3:30 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Bentley has some. I believe it's either sold as a variant of flying fox or it's a "reticulated SAE"

Definitely not a CAE though and the mouth shape is moreso like an SAE or another cyprinidae species. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprinidae

they usually have upper and lower barbels, mouth that points down and designed to graze. CAEs have a different shaped mouth, 2 upper barbels.

I really like that cube tank! Especially your initial aquascape with the debris pile in the corner.

Feel better, happy to follow along on your adventures. Beautiful tanks and I'm excited to see where you take them!

I saw that the Cyprnid in question was lacking the horizontal black stripe I have on mine:

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 1/10/2023 at 8:13 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

I saw that the Cyprnid in question was lacking the horizontal black stripe I have on mine:

Yep. it's also something where I've seen it as a "color morph" of some rainbow sharks and labelled as a few different things.  Here is a great article about the species.

https://www.amazonasmagazine.com/2015/02/17/the-reticulated-flying-fox-an-underappreciated-algae-eater-from-thailand/

Of course, always mislabelled or confused on what to really call these ones.  They are from the same family and similar size / care.



It looks to me like a version or form of a RTBS / Rainbow shark.  You can see the same black dot on the tail.



This is a very stressed big box store photo on their website for the RTBS. Again, very similar marking on the tail and you can see this in person on most of them.  When they get older the black is more of a grey (similar to that top right photo of the rainbow shark)



EDIT:
Found this again.  It's always difficult to find when I need it!  This is what I used to ID fish in the store.  It goes into detail about upper / lower barbels and mouth shape between the CAE and other species that are commonly mislabelled.

https://www.thekrib.com/Fish/Algae-Eaters/

Edited January 10, 2023 by nabokovfan87

[Crow]

On 1/10/2023 at 3:44 AM, TheSwissAquarist said:

Nice journal!

Not sure that’s actually a SAE, looks more like a Chinese AE. 
Can anyone else confirm? 

Nabokov is right, mine is a reticulated siamese algae eater! I specifically sought this guy out and was surprised to find him at my lfs. I was able to double and triple check that I wasn't bringing home the dreaded cae!

[Crow]

So it's been some time since I've posted!

On Jan 11. I received a plant order in of various clippings and tissue cultures and threw those into the "cube". I also bought a 5LB can of c02 and a FZone regulator.

 

I ended up having to leave home for a little bit. While I had someone feeding my fish and kind of dosing fertilizers, they didn't know how to do much else. I don't know how, but both of the Fluval lights ended up getting stuck "on" for almost the entire time I was away. I received a text about it, but there was nothing I could do about it. The 3.0 has gone from 4/5 rating to 3/5 rating for me. The filter in the cube also clogged up and it was barely pumping. This is pretty much what I came home to.

My tanks on Feb. 8

-----

For the cube, a good vacuuming the next night. The white powder is GH booster. I also managed to finally find another pink flamingo tissue culture at Petco! I think I got four of them for 10$ and so far none of them have melted! I also found another multi-pack of plants I didn't have yet that I wanted to try. I mostly bought it because it had a crypt undulata "red" in it and I may or may not have a thing for crypts...

 

By February 24 the Cube had become a Mountain Dew themed tank.

Since my UV sterilizer is way too big to use in this tank I've decided to try my hand at manually fixing the issue. I kicked things off with a larger than usual (50%) water change. I also swapped from easy green to the dry ferts I use in my 75 (since my mix doesn't add nitrates at this time) and bumped up the c02 just a smidge.

February 28 - Four days later

March 1

 

In the next couple weeks my plan for this tank is to swap the NICREW internal filter to a small Oase canister filter. Then I'm going to drill holes in the bottom of the cabinet above the tank so that I can house the c02 can and filter up there in order to reduce visual clutter and to reclaim counter space.

-----

In other news, I dug my UV sterilizer out of the closet, tossed into the 75, and the green water fully cleared up within a week. (COOSPIDER on Amazon, in case anyone is wondering). I also bought another c02 can and FZone regulator for this tank a couple weeks ago. The last batch of ferts I mixed up I also omitted the 'N' and doubled up on everything else.

This tank continues to be my "throw 'n grow". I put what was labeled a Hygrophila Siamensis 53B in there on Jan 11. I don't know if it just hasn't converted or what, but it doesn't look like any of the photos I've seen online of it. It just looks like grass on a stick with its many super long, thin leaves and I actually hate it. I'm really not sure what I want to do about it.

I also notice the plants in the back leaning forward toward the light, especially once they get taller. Many of my other plants are also struggling to grow leaves lower down. I'm wondering if I might need a second light.

February 28 - so much growth since my last photo...

on January 8!

 

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by Crow

[TheSwissAquarist]

Long time no see! That angelfish tank is looking great! 

[Crow]

Thank you!

[Crow]

Algae in the 75 is continuing to recede. Added some mermaid weed, ludwigia peruensis, and a small vallisneria triptera plant to see how they do. I think the first two will be fine, but I had the vallisneria shipped and it looked kind of rough from the process. I think I'm at the stage where I'm playing the waiting game for plants to fill out now so that I can start rearranging them into a more thought-out configuration and move some out to my 20 longs. They've made much progress in just two months, I'm excited to see what they will look like in another two months.

Water change on both downstairs tanks today... everybody got excited thinking they were going to get fed, which meant I was able to take the time to get some blurry old cellphone pictures while I waited for the tank to fill back up!

-----

Kitchen tank green water is also continuing to clear up... although now I can properly see the algae farm that's been hiding in the murk. But that's also looking considerably better since the beginning of February as well. While I was away last month staghorn algae took up residence in the monte carlo and I haven't decided what I want to do about that yet. I was considering letting the monte carlo grow out and seeing if trimming the infected bits would work. I'm still trying to learn how to juggle light/ferts/c02 and it's been a bit of a bumpy road in this tank haha.

One of the stem plants floated up while I was changing out water. When I pulled it out to look at it I noticed that the stem had turned to mush. Tried to google it, but I wasn't really able to find a clear answer. Does this mean the plant isn't getting enough light?

I also did a some tank shuffles so that I could put 10 red neon rainbowfish in this tank! They've only been in there a few hours, but the males are already starting to flare out their fins and show off to each other and the ladies. It's quite the show! They are a very pretty fish and I hope they do well for me.

 

[Crow]

Oh my gosh, I can’t believe the last time I posted anything was back in march! Long story short my family life got turned upside down due to my spouse getting into an accident at the end of March. He’s all healed up though and now everything’s pretty much back to normal, so I’ll have time for my tanks again! 
 

An exciting bit of news to reboot my journal with, I think anyway, is my two hillstream loaches spawned at some point recently. I never in a million years thought any babies would survive in my 75 and I never thought my loaches would spawn at all! My intake doesn’t have any foam on it and my EBA won’t even let me have any snails, so I was quite surprised this morning when I saw the first little baby swimming on the glass and  then when I found more of them in my algae balls… I found at least 3 different individuals. Hard to tell how many exactly since there are tooooons of hiding places. One baby is starting to grow out the flat fins and is a little larger and the rest are still a bit tadpole shaped.

Pictures were very hard to get because of how tiny they are… the camera wanted to focus on anything else haha.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Crow
A word

[Crow]

I took a short video as well. Might be a bit blurry if you’re viewing from a phone. Music is to cover up the baby hollering while banging some metal spoons 😉

[Colu]

On 9/26/2023 at 6:31 AM, Crow said:

I took a short video as well. Might be a bit blurry if you’re viewing from a phone. Music is to cover up the baby hollering while banging some metal spoons 😉

 life will always find a way

[TheSwissAquarist]

Congrats @Crow! 

On 9/26/2023 at 7:31 AM, Crow said:

baby hollering

Babies everywhere. 😜

[nabokovfan87]

Very sorry about the accident. 😞  It's good to hear everything is ok now and the recovery process went well.

Wonderful news about the baby fish! Looking forward to seeing more.

[Crow]

Did some major work in one my 20 gallons. Removed all of the Java ferns, anubias, and buce. They’re in bowls right now, but they’ll go into my low tech 20 eventually.

I gave this 20 a deep haircut. Trimmed the new tops off of almost every plant and pulled the old bottoms. I spread and rearranged all of the remaining plants in such a way that hopefully they’ll be getting adequate light. Tank looks worse now than it did before, but hopefully it will look much better in a few weeks when everything grows back in!

before:

 

after:

 

baby hillstreams are doing great! Parents must be one happy couple cause I keep seeing babies of varying sizes creeping around. Dunno if you’ll be able to make them out in this pic, but here’s one of the bolder babies hanging out near one of the parents.

On a somewhat related note, here’s the full tank. What started out as two crypt wendtiis turned into a whole bunch of crypt wendtiis and they’ve taken over the corner of the tank. I want to take them out, but the Cories love hiding in them.
 

[TheSwissAquarist]

That’s my dream tank: a Wendtii forest! 

[Crow]

So it was recently my birthday and my husband got me a second light for my 75. I’m pretty excited because that opened up more options for planting the back and front of the tank! 
 

Other than that not a whole lot going on. I have an algae problem in the Monte Carlo in my cube. I want to try treating it with peroxide and shrimp, but I can never seem to make it to the shops when they have amano in stock. Might have to order them online. 
 

Also gave the cube a slight trim and replant. I’m pretty blown away by how red the rotala oj is getting in this tank. I’m also kind of stumped by how low the lily is staying. It’s been like that for a couple months now, wondering if it will ever get tall again. 
 

Before trim:

Behold, my army of snails!

after trim:

And a cute little kuhli coming out ready for food!😃

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/29/2023 at 10:55 PM, Crow said:

Might have to order them online.

the small size from Aquahuna might be the go-to.  You get a good amount, fair price, affordable shipping, and the co-op discount code helps out!

I got some otos/amanos from them.

[Crow]

On 10/30/2023 at 2:36 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

the small size from Aquahuna might be the go-to.  You get a good amount, fair price, affordable shipping, and the co-op discount code helps out!

I got some otos/amanos from them.

They seem pretty great, but I can’t order from aqua huna because I live in the east side of wa state 🫠

——-
Although I did do a thing this morning and ordered a shrimp starter kit from a different vendor! I didn’t get amano, but I got other shrimp I’ve been wanting for awhile. Paid less for the actual shrimp than if I bought them at the closest actual fish store and shipping was less than a tank of gas & lunch and dinner. It’s about a 5-6 hour round trip if I’m not in a hurry.

[Crow]

So about a month or so ago I noticed ONE blue with spots ramshorn snail in my small army of brown ramshorn snails. I pulled it out and tossed it in my other low tech tank. It wasn’t long before it got busy laying eggs and almost all of them have been blue! So now I have a tank full of blue ramshorns! Every once in awhile I see a brown one,  and I just pull it out and toss it back in the cube.

All that to say earlier today while I was trimming the blue snail tank I noticed a ramshorn with a very red body and a white shell. And in my other two tanks I managed to find three more of the same colored snails. So I set up a jar, pulled all four, and got them set up with some plants and wafers. Hopefully I’ll have a similar situation with these guys as with the blues and I can get another little colony going! I’ve been wanting red/pink ramshorns for a couple years now so I’m pretty excited.

This will also be a great opportunity to see just how much I can abuse pearlweed haha. The jar is only getting spill-over light from my emmersed plant experiment and ambient light from the kitchen window.

 

These guys also glow under the blue light, so I thought that was pretty cool.

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/30/2023 at 10:52 PM, Crow said:

They seem pretty great, but I can’t order from aqua huna because I live in the east side of wa state 🫠

——-
Although I did do a thing this morning and ordered a shrimp starter kit from a different vendor! I didn’t get amano, but I got other shrimp I’ve been wanting for awhile. Paid less for the actual shrimp than if I bought them at the closest actual fish store and shipping was less than a tank of gas & lunch and dinner. It’s about a 5-6 hour round trip if I’m not in a hurry.

Bentley has a person he's used and recommends. I can look it up. I am not sure if they have amano though. Local store have them, maybe the co-op is close enough?

Edited October 31, 2023 by nabokovfan87