The New 125 Is Finally Set Up!

[Black oranda 0]

It looks like it growed alot since a few days back.

How much did the parrots feather plant cost you?

[DataGuru 0]

Gosh, I'm pooped again. Gotta pull an all nighter to finish a report tonite.

I traded a lady in florida for the parrot's feather, so it cost me about $7 in postage, some najas grass, sunset hygro, wysteria, salvenia, frogbit and snails.

I was bad today. LOL

Even tho everything's growing well, I decided to try and crank the plants into higher gear.

Added a full dose of flourish iron with trace elements.

Added a DIY CO2 generator.

Added some daphnia just in case. LOL

Also, added a HOB with a seasoned filter pad from the goldie tank temporarily to get the nitrIte down. Ammonia's reading 0ppm now and nitrIte's down to .5ppm. I suppose I'll let it run thru the nite and pull it off tomorrow and see what happens.

Yes, I know that patience is a virtue. I'm just not feeling very virtuous! LOL Can't resist tinkering.

[troyjames 0]

Hi DataGuru. It's 3:48 in the A.M. right now and that picture of your complete tank just woke me right up! It looks great!!!

[Rachelm 0]

How's the new tank coming on now? It looks fab there will be some very lucky fishes going in there.

I love the way it is open top with some plants sticking out and the water lillys (or whatever they are) on top.

Can i ask a huge favour? I have a thread in goldfish plants with pics of the plants in my tank and i have no idea what they are, you must know lots about plants so could you have a quick look, i'm sure they are fairly common and not unusual or anything. Thank-you

[DataGuru 0]

The plants are growing like crazy... Ammonia and nitrIte had been at 0ppm for a couple of days so I moved the new goldies to the 125 yesterday. They immediately started foraging in the gravel.. and that stirred up gas bubbles. I'd seen bubbles rising out of the substrate but hadn't smelled anything like rotten eggs. Well, out of curiousity I pressed down on the gravel and bunches of bubbles came up. smelling like just like hydrogen sulfide. Needless to say, I moved the newbies back into the 20 long.

I spent an hour going over the substrate pushing it down to free as many bubbles as possible and that significantly yellowed up the water... so I drained it and am refilling the tank. This is seriously not cool. It should resolve over time I think, as the soil gets used to being submerged. Walstad says it takes a couple of months for the topsoil to get used to being submerged... Suppose we'll see...

Got some new pics today after the water change.

Left side: The new sword and the bronze wendetti have several new leaves. The oval leafed sword has a stalk with two plantlets on it and has put out another stalk.

The plantlets

And it looks like it's not an ovalis. Maybe an Ozelot.

Middle: The sunset hygro has taken off, but the Hygrophila corymbosa "angustifolia" doesn't appear to be doing much.

Right side: The water sprite is taking off.

[touchofsky 0]

Hi Betty,

Your plants look like they are doing very well ... congratulations!

I will be curious to see how long it takes for the topsoil to settle down and if you have any problems with it after the settling in period.

Thanks for the pictures, it is fun to see its progress

[maniacholic 1]

U inspired me to terra form my tank, I feel like this is gonna burn a hole in my wallet

[Queenie 0]

Betty, as usual I am in awe while looking at your pictures. Amazing, just beautiful!

[DataGuru 0]

Check out your local aquarium club. I've been able to get a lot of plants quite cheap that way. Trading stuff via the net has also been fairly cheap. The sunset hygro and najas grass have grown the fastest in my tanks. Wysteria is also good, cuz if a leaf breaks off, it forms roots and becomes a new plant. vvvv is darned proud of their plants. They want $5 a pot. yikes!

This time around, tank was able to clear all 2.5ppm of ammonia in about a day with no nitrItes showing at the end of the 24 hours.... So... I put a BUNCH of Endlers in the 125. Actually I can't believe how many were in the bowfront (and I started with ONLY 9 back in November)! I'll bet I transferred at least 100 of those little buggars into the 125. and there's at least 50 still in the bowfront. Those things are like pretty little cockroaches! LOL I'm glad they can't live out of the water, or they'd take over the world!

I'm sure you'll hear me complaining when I'm trying to get them OUT of the 125! LOL They swarm pretty well when I'm feeding them, so hopfully I'll be able to use that to my advantage.

I'll hafta pretend they're my goldies for now.

[Ranchugirl 17]

Well, enjoy catching those fish back out later on! Its gonna be a looong time, and a few uprooted plants later! I tried for about 45 minutes to get my golden algae eater out of my planted tank....I succeeded, but I had a little minor "repairs" afterwards...

[cupoftea 0]

gorgeous, gorgeous tank, I love it!

bw

cupoftea

[DataGuru 0]

Still too much gas happening in the 125's substrate... so I moved the newbies into the 55 with the big uns for now.

Bugsy, Lumpy and a newby

Coco, a newby and Stripe

Follow the leader

[touchofsky 0]

Great pictures! The newbies are enjoying life in the 55

BTW, are you using CO2 in the 55? How about ferts? Your tank looks so lush and free of algae

[DataGuru 0]

Yea. It looks like they're doing fine. They used to compete with each other for food... as in jostle and bump each other. It'll be interesting to see how much that happens now. Need to name them!

Nope... No CO2 or ferts. Just topsoil in the potted plants. Since the plant filter is running on a opposite light schedule, I think it and the tank may be supplying each other with CO2 to some degree. I just replumbed it with a new 400 gph pump, so the water is really circulating between the two now. I'm thinking about losing the bubble wand and moving the heater into the plant filter since there's enough water flow going on now.

The sunset hygro is going nuts. I haven't pruned it in at least a month and it's taken over like a quarter of the tank. That's probably good cuz I stole most of the other potted plants for the new 125. I've added some new potted plants on the left side that are just getting established. Here's the left end. Any idea what the plant in the far left back corner is? I think it may be ambulla.

There is a little staghorn algae on some of the older hygro leaves. A little hair algae up in the top corner by the compact fluorescent light. and there's some kind of algae that looks like a brownish/green film that I have to scrape off the glass every week.

I'm not sure how much light I have. I have two 40 watt fluorescent tubes (5000K and wide-spectrum grow light). and two of the compact fluorescent screw in type bulbs (a 5000 and a 6500K) that say they use 20 watts of electricity but put out 75 watts of light. Someone on another board was saying that they only count for 20 watts not 75. If that's the case (which I don't think it is...) there's only 120 watts of light over the 55. Best case scenario is that there's 230 watts. Gotta do some research on that.

I hope the substrate in the 125 settles down soon! If it weren't for the extra water in the plant filter, I'd be in deep doo with 2 more goldies in the 55.

[touchofsky 0]

Hi Betty,

Yes, you are right that the plant sump is probably providing extra CO2 to the tank. What is your ph and kh? Just curious, cause that could tell us what the CO2 level in the tank is.

I can't see the plant in the left corner really well, but maybe limnophila?

BTW, that white ryukin is one drop dead gorgeous fish

[PodgyGoldy 0]

Nice i love that choco oranda

[DataGuru 0]

After a large partial water change yesterday, pH is 7.2 and KH is 4dh, so CO2 is around 8ppm.

[Rachelm 0]

Lovely fish The newbies look so little next to your other fish, hope they have big personalities to make up for it

Also hope your new tank settles down soon, it will be lovely when you can put fish in it.

Have you got any pictures of your plant filter? Does that reduce the nitrates or is it instead of an ordinary filter? Sorry, never seen/heard of one before but sounds like a great idea.

Thanks,

Rachel

[DataGuru 0]

I hope so too!! The endlers are cool, but I want my goldies in their new home!

Here are some pics of the plant filter.

I added it to add water volume and to help suck up nitrAtes (and ammonia). It's just plants. I harvest duckweed, salvenia and frogbit from the plant filter to feed the goldies.

[DataGuru 0]

When I first put them in, Coco and Stripe came over to see what was going on and the little ones scurried away.

Now, the newbies are at home. They've been doing their bumping and jostling thing with Stripe and Coco. It's so funny to watch. Like hey... get out of my way... that's mine! LOL Too funny.

[toothless 4]

Great job, Betty!

So, how do you like the new pump? The one way valve adds quite a nice touch. I'll have to keep that one in mind........

By they way, I see you wound up with a bloom with the peace lilies!

[maniacholic 1]

I made a posting on the black moor's color change and a link to photos of my land scaped tank that you inspired me to create

here:Please leave a word

[Rachelm 0]

Thanks for the link Betty, thats really interesting. Has it made a big difference to the nitrates?

[Mariocrazy's Mum 0]

I love your chocolate fishy The new ones look so cute and little compared to the others

[DataGuru 0]

Paul: I ended up getting the Visaqua 1800. 6 ft head, pumps 480 gallons per hour. The new plumbing is MUCH better and the pump was doing a great job. I say was, cuz I had to move all the plants out of the goldie tank and salt it, cuz Bugsy (and maybe Stripe and Coco) has costia! Gotta finish bringing the tank up to .3% salt this morning.

maniacholic: Very cool on the aquascaping! Also, it'll be interesting to see how your moor turns out. I think a blue moor would be awsome! When stripe lost his color, the color on the center of each scale was the last to go.

Rachelm: I dunno. It's not keeping nitrAte below 40ppm.