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Trilineatus posted:So this is my 55G setup, and I'm kinda bored with the aquascaping. Because the top is closed off with 2 openings I can't fit any good sized pieces of driftwood in it. Originally I was trying to achieve some kind of dutch style aquascape but none of the plants ever grew successfully enough. I recently upgraded the lighting to a ray II LED setup. Does anyone have suggestions for a rescape that is a bit more eye catching? I need to keep the rock on the left hand size somewhere because of the ottos and rope fish want to hide, but other than that i'm open to suggestions. Maybe look for some long, relatively narrow pieces of wood and orient them vertically? You could try to create the effect of a tree's roots protruding past a riverbank and down into the water, can be a really neat effect if it's done reasonably well. Don't be afraid to build a big "piece of driftwood" out of several smaller pieces. A little silicone or superglue and a few strategically placed zipties can go a long way. Also, probably the best advice I can give is add color. Some favorites: Crypt Wendtii 'bronze' is one of my favorite plants because it can take pretty much any light condition, works well in the foreground since it stays relatively short, and has a unique color that can add interest. It's also easy as balls to find in shops or online. The ozelot sword is also nice, marbled red and green leaves, not terribly demanding light-wise, good in the middle ground (grows ~12" tall), doesn't grow too huge. Anubias coffefolia, a darker shade of green than most, with neat ruffled leaves, grows slow but pretty much indestructible. With somewhat higher light levels, alternanthera reineckii, aka scarlet hygro, is easy to grow and can be absolutely stunning, from a deep red to pink on the undersides of the leaves and stems. Wisteria and Watersprite both have interesting leaf shapes while being relatively easy to grow. Bolbitis heudelotii, aka African water fern, is a mid-to high light plant with amazing dark-green leaves, grows similarly to a java fern. Corkscrew vals are another easy one that can add some interest, with it's nifty twists and ability to curtain the rear wall of a tank (note: if you have ultra-soft water, you'll have problems with vals, they need some calcium to grow well. I can't grow them at all in the water I've got right now.). Mix up shades and shapes; put a light green stem next to a dark green stem, fluffy plant next to a broad-leaved plant like giant hygro, stick a swordplant in front of the 'seam' between two groups of stems, etc. Really the biggest problem with dutch-style scaping is the sheer density of plants. You've really got to have good light, co2, and regular fertilization to have a 'good' dutch style tank, and of course when you finally get all that done and balanced and growing good you wind up pruning the drat thing weekly. They're a ton of work. e: here's a quick mspaint chop-up of your picture with some suggestions:  sadly, 55's are a bitch to scape, because the 12" front-to-back depth doesn't give you a lot of room to work from tall background plants to short foreground plants, but with a little determination and some good planning you can make anything work 
kaosAG fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Jun 23, 2013 |
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Jun 23, 2013 02:57
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cheese posted:I just called an LFS and they said their water is 7.6ph and they run all their tanks at that, except for the very specific soft water ones (like south american dwarf cichlids)... You could probably seal them somehow if you really don't want to find some rocks that will do what you need them to. I'd give it a week or so and see what it does. If you're keeping platys in the pond then they'll be just fine at 7.8, they tend to do a bit better in more alkaline/harder water anyhow.
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Jun 23, 2013 23:20
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Malalol posted:What other fish would you keep with goldfish? IMO, nothing. If you want variety in a goldfish tank, well, there's plenty of different varieties and color combinations of fancy goldfish. Realistically speaking, any cold-water fish would do just fine, so long as they're not small enough to end up in goldfish stomachs (white clouds are that small, if you take care of your goldies). I've known people to raise bluegill and yellow-bellied perch in tanks with goldfish (not the fancy types, more like adult comets). It'd be just fine, so long as you allow proper tank volume per goldfish (i.e. plan on at least 20g of tank per adult goldfish, and more than that eventually), and stick to fish that are non-aggressive and unlikely to out-compete the goldfish for food, presuming you're keeping fancy goldfish, which are dumb, slow, and delicate.
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Jun 25, 2013 04:35
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Lacrosse posted:That rock in the center seems out of place. I think it would look better off to the left near the tall plants. Yep, it's a pretty well-accepted tenet of aquascaping to put something like that off-center. If it does well, it'll carpet out from wherever the rock is, and it can look really, really neat if it's happy enough to do so, even before it manages to cover the entire substrate. Overall, it looks like you're moving in the right direction. The hardest part now is forcing yourself to be patient and let it grow in a little to see if you really like it how it is when it's grown in.
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Jun 30, 2013 03:59
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Zarthalan posted:got a good 9 gallon tank to setup, any fish reccomendations? otherwise I plan to have it as a planted tank with cherry shrimp celestial pearl danios, dwarf cories, otos. Or just the cories. Dwarf cories are awesome, like all cories, only smaller and awesomer.
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Sep 15, 2013 05:17
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Eifert Posting posted:Here's the new tank. Using your second photo as a reference, the red stuff in the back looks like alteranthera reineckii. Short foreground stuff looks like probably dwarf hairgrass. Anubias Barteri on the wood, Java ferns front right (you knew those, I'm sure). Green stem plant behind the ferns looks like a hygrophilia of some sort. Swordplant looks like a plain 'ol amazon sword.
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Nov 4, 2013 19:51
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Whale Cancer posted:Anyone here have experience with dwarf pike? I just ordered two Crenicichla Regani from Jeff Rapps. I'm pretty excited. They are awesome fish. They are also completely unpredictable behavior-wise. I had one pair that lived together for three years quite happily, through multiple spawns, then, one day out of the blue the female decided that she didn't like daddy anymore and killed the poo poo out of him. My second pair had to be separated at all times save for spawning. The female would tolerate the male when she was ready to make some babies, then as soon as the fry got to a certain size, the tank changed from nursery to thunderdome overnight. The good news is they never really bothered any other tank inhabitants. Just be aware that they'll eat anything they can fit into their mouth, and that their mouths are bigger than you think. In regards to your second post, don't bother looking for additional java moss. You'll have more than you ever wanted soon enough. Similarly, if you want more ferns, an easy way to do that is to clip a leaf (preferably an old one) off the plant and leave it floating in the tank. Soon enough it'll pop out tons of baby plants. As far as other plants in a low-tech setup, you can't go wrong with crypt. wendtii, any of the anubias, watersprite, maybe bolbitis (african fern) depending on how much light your fixture throws out. Basically, if you want to run without co2, try and stick to slower growing root-feeding plants. The fast growing stem/bunch plants are where you wind up really needing co2 injection to make them happy.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:35
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Slugworth posted:Need some advice on a filtration issue. I've got a 165 gallon pre-formed pond liner that I am turning into an indoor pond. The issue is, it's going to be sitting directly on the concrete floor, and it's only 18" tall. This means that a canister filter would be sitting next to the pond rather than under it, and they would even be approximately the same height. The internet seems to be split 50/50 on whether or not a canister *needs* to be beneath a tank. So that is iffy. The only real reason to have a canister set below the tank is so that if you have a power outage or whatever, the canister doesn't drain into the tank and overflow it. Sure, the siphon effect probably has a little something to do with it, but that's going to be offset by the complete lack of head pressure against the pump anyhow. I'm with Whale Cancer, you can't go wrong with eheim canisters, especially the classic series.
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Nov 20, 2013 06:50
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Whale Cancer posted:Wish my tank was big enough to keep Jags. SA cichlids are my favorite. One day I'll have a tank big enough to keep Jags and Dovii and Umbee. To nitpick a little bit, none of the above are actually SA cichlids, they're all Central American. It's really hilarious when you run into someone who things oscars are totally  aggro monsters and introduce them to the psychopathic violence that is life as CA cichlids know it. I mean, even a 4" convict is more than a match for a full-grown oscar.
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Nov 28, 2013 00:39
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Bait and Swatch posted:Can anyone provide an inexpensive, yet effective substrate they've had success with? I am planning out a 120 gallon tank, but would like to avoid using the amazonia aqua-soil I have in my 30 gallon. It worked well, but the expense of filling the 120 with it is somewhat daunting. I'm aiming for a PH of 7.0. I used 50lbs of flourite and 50 lbs of plain old gravel of a similar color in my 90 for years, worked great. Really depends what you want to do, though...you don't really need any of the fancy substrates to grow good plants, just an awareness of where and how to fertilize. Use root tabs under your root-feeding plants, make sure you've got plenty of nutrients in the water column, and whatever the plants stick into doesn't really matter.
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Dec 16, 2013 15:45
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Martytoof posted:What's a good effective way to clean algae from the silicone on the inside of a tank? Bleach is fine for cleaning, just let it sit out in the sun for a couple days after doing so; I also like to fill the tank and give it a double dose of dechlorinator, then drain, refill, and run carbon in the filter for the couple weeks it takes to run a fishless cycle, just to be sure everything is ok before I commit to putting living things in it. You really don't want to pull up silicone unless it's leaking and needs to be resealed (and that'd probably be more work than you'd be willing to do). Dantu posted:This is getting ridiculous. My pet firemouth tank idea is failing miserably. I haven't seen him outside of the PVC pipe since I got him, and I think we are going on three or four months now. Multiple hiding places, some plants (real or fake) for cover, and perhaps a school of smaller (but not bite-size to an adult firemouth) tetras or something can all make your fish feel more comfortable/safe/secure, and thus more willing to venture out of his cave.
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May 24, 2014 20:53
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GreyPowerVan posted:I'll try to break this up and make it a little more readable.So I posted a few months ago about maybe starting my tank, but that got pushed back a bit due to financial issues over the summer, but now I think I'm ready. I am getting a 20gallon Long tank, and I have a few questions. Low-light plants like anubias, moss, and java ferns aren't any more difficult than fakes, imo. You really don't need anything special light-wise for those plants, though a double-bulb fluorescent fixture would be good if you can find one. Pool filter sand is indeed the cheap substrate you'd be looking for. Tiger barbs in a 20L is risky, since you need a pretty large group to minimize their aggression well enough to keep things happy. Cherries, while much more peaceful, probably grow a bit too big to have a decent school of them plus a decent school of cories. I'd probably go with something like black neon or glowlight tetras, I'm also fond of rummynoses. Another good option would be harlequin rasboras. I've never had a problem with cories and shrimp, so I wouldn't worry about that. I never had problems with cories and shrimp.
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Sep 9, 2014 00:03
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"[ts posted:xenophobe" post="434624298"] I've always done like 10% weekly on all my tanks, no matter the size (light on volume of water changes because I've kept heavily planted tanks forever), usually the day after I topped the tank off. Basically, top-off water doesn't matter in regards to water changes, just top off as necessary and change whatever percentage of the full tank volume you prefer to do.
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Sep 9, 2014 04:32
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Knifegrab posted:I appreciate it none the less. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't being thick. I had one heavily planted tank that I ran as much as 3 months between changes (in a 180 gallon tank, mind you)...the plants eat up the nitrates from fish poop/excess food/etc, but there are still things that build up over time, or are used up and need to be replenished (largely micronutrients for the plants). I'd do a water change, clean out the filters (dual canisters), and then ignore it for another quarter-year...kinda. The thing is, however efficiently the tank is set up, there's always work to be done...if you've got plants to eat up nitrates, they'll need pruning and probably fertilizing, if you don't have so many plants, then there's water changes. There's always some degree of cleaning necessary. As I said above, I do 10% weekly changes, usually monthly filter maintainance, after 20+ years of aquariums, it's kinda just become part of my life's routine, doing bi-weekly or monthly changes works just fine, as long as you're changing out the right volume each time...and of course, stocking levels and variety of "working" critters, be they fish or shrimp or whatever makes a big difference. It's really just a matter of finding a balance between the amount of work you're willing to do, and what you want to have going on in the tank.
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Sep 11, 2014 22:02
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Chichevache posted:I just added some micro sword to my tank to get a middle ground plant for shrimp to hide in. I also trimmed the red ludwigia a bit since it is loving huge. Easily tripled in size this month. Once the dust settles I will take some photographs of my plants and my betta, Riddick. I used flourite for a dozen years or so in multiple tanks with cories and no issues whatsoever.
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Sep 13, 2014 00:48
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w00tmonger posted:My big tank is far from any faucets. Any others? Go out and buy as much extra hose as you need? It's ludicrously easy to add length to a python/similar waterchanging device thingies.
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Sep 18, 2014 01:04
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Plavski posted:I'm also looking at the Tetra EasyBalance Plus. Anyone got any experience with these sorts of products? Waste of money. Basically, don't put anything into your aquarium that you don't have to. There's all sorts of useless poo poo out there that companies sell to uneducated aquarium owners, and most of it is completely useless, and some actively harmful.
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Oct 8, 2014 21:45
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Inevitable posted:I've got 3 black tetras, 3 cories and a dwarf gourami, so I don't think I can add any more fish. Even if they are of the snail-eating variety. I'm considering With pond snails, chances are they'll never run out. I do believe assassin snails will happily survive on fish food in the absence of "traditional" prey, though.
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Apr 11, 2015 21:00
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Inevitable posted:So, I'm fixated on the idea of keeping Bolivian Rams in my new 29 gallon tank, but PH is a mystery to me. I figure putting in some driftwood would help, but a worker at the fish store pointed out that lowering ph would pretty much only be temporary until the next water change. Feeling at a bit of a loss. So, two questions: how does one lower PH and keep it down through water changes OR does anyone have suggestions for fish similar to bolivian rams that might be more forgiving for a n00b with high ph tap water? What is your pH? Bolivian rams are pretty forgiving in that regard, much more so than 'german' rams, at least. To keep pH down, you can run a bag of peat in your filter, or toss some (clean!) oak leaves in the tank. Both will discolor the water to some degree, but I like the effect, myself. If you've got hard, alkaline water out of the tap, there's probably not much you can do, save buying RO water and mixing it with tap to get a hardness you're happy with so the peat can work. Alternately, if you do have hard, alkaline water, take a look at shelldwelling cichlids from lake tanganyika. Some of them are really neat looking, and they're a hoot to watch.
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May 1, 2015 02:25
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McStephenson posted:It's a 40 gallon tank with about 5 pieces of rock/wood cover and 6 hard to kill plants. I'm hoping the tank is big enough to accommodate them! I had a betta with 3 dwarf gouramis, a pearl, a couple three-spot/opalines, and a moonlight in a planted 55 and never had a problem. As long as there's cover to break sight-lines, it'll be fine.
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Jun 7, 2015 06:30
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McStephenson posted:So... I found my last addition to my tank. (when it is ready: i'm still in stabilize-and-be-safe mode) Harlequin rasboras have been around in the hobby forever. They're great, super-peaceful kinda-schooling fish (i.e. they prefer groups like tetras or danios, but don't really run around together all that much). I love 'em; they're awesome, pretty fish that can be trusted with pretty much anything, and don't get too large for anything but the smallest tanks.
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Jun 19, 2015 15:50
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re: plants, the floating bunch looks like moneywort, you can stick the base of the bunch down in the gravel if you don't want it floating. It's pretty undemanding for a stem plant. The big mass of stuff in the gravel is cryptocoryne wendtii, which is a great easy, attractive plant. I wouldn't mess with any special algae treatments, just get rid of the koi and feed less (the fish probably only really need half of what you think they do), and let the plants eat up the nutrients that are allowing the algae to grow. As for algae-eating/cleanup fish, the go-to is the bristlenose pleco, they stay at a moderate size and eat the hell out of algae. The rams look like bolivians, so they should be alright with the slightly lower temperatures that the rest of the tank will be happy at. e: also, if you really want to change out the substrate, be aware that the cryptocoryne will likely melt, which is to say lose all of it's leaves and look dead. Leave it there, it'll regrow just fine...best to just try not to disturb the substrate around it though, that's a huge old plant. kaosAG fucked around with this message at 07:36 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 07:33
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ShaneB posted:Check. I would leave whatever is stuck in the roots and just cover it with the new stuff...actually, I'd leave the old gravel around the plants on the right side of the tank, period. Just add to a deeper depth than the current stuff and cover it up. Like I said above, disturbing that plant is probably gonna make it melt (not the end of the world), and it's so big and awesome I'd just leave it alone as much as possible.
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Sep 24, 2015 00:52
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Desert Bus, your pink and green plant is likely sunset hygro, aka hygrophilia polysperma v. "sunset". Iron won't really make it pinker, that's more a reaction to higher light levels. The stuff I had in my 90 would pink up nicely on leaves near the top of the (24" deep) tank, but the lower reaches always stayed green, despite pretty high light levels. Of course, if you're successfully growing red cabomba, you've probably got plenty of light for whatever. I vote for more rasboras, I love harlequins and their various lookalikes, and more numbers in schools/shoals is always more better.  The rainbow cichlids are awesome too, it's always neat to see someone keeping cichlids that aren't OMG africans OMG or special snowflake ultra-rare cichlidus neverheardofitii. Not that there's anything wrong with africans or rare stuff, of course...god knows I've kept my share of both.
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Feb 5, 2016 06:29
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Azuth0667 posted:I'm not really sure why but, I suspect over feeding has caused my water parameters in my freshwater tank to go off. I have a betta and 3 remaining of 10 cherry shrimp. I feed the fish once a day but, the roommates I have might have been feeding the tank as well, they won't admit it when I ask. The tank probably about half planted and I'm trying to figure out how to fix the chemistry so I can keep the rest of my shrimp. However the betta seems to be fine he's active, regularly eats and plays with the little mirror toy in his tank. Get another test kit, or better yet, take a water sample in to your LFS and have them test it for you, if able. Your kit will still read the ammonia even after prime, as prime just binds the stuff up into a non-toxic form, it doesn't remove it. That said, I'd at least do a 25% water change immediately; it can't hurt if the tests are reading wrong, and if they're actually correct, doing so will get some of that ammonia and nitrite out of the tank before it starts doing damage. Re: koi... price/value is largely determined by patterns and coloration, though given the same "value" of pattern/color, bigger fish are going to be worth more $$$, simply because it takes time to get them big. Large (20"+) show koi can easily go for $1k+.
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Mar 25, 2016 22:02
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I would get new ammonia and nitrite test kits. It sounds like the ones you have are just bad, especially if your LFS tested the same water your kits tested at 1ppm and 5ppm and got 0/0. Personally, I've never used API tests, but they don't have the best reputation for accuracy. It's important to remember that test kits do expire as well...from what I've found, there should be a bottling date printed on the bottles somewhere, expiration is ~3 years beyond that date. Sadly, all of the really good test kits (i.e. LaMotte, Hach) are also really, really expensive.
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Mar 30, 2016 06:40
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Mak0rz posted:Does anyone know that's wrong with our plants? They're losing their color but their lighting conditions haven't changed at all and we're treating the water with Fluorish Excel, as we always have. That rotala in the top picture is coloring up the way it is because it's really happy and getting lots of light. The crypts (I think that's what they are?) in the lower picture may well be melting. They'll come back, that behavior is a mechanism the plants have for dealing with rapid changes in their environment. For what it's worth, your lighting conditions *have* changed quite a bit in the past couple months, given the window right behind the tank. Re: your plant only tank, I found it's helpful to drop a little pinch of fish food in every now and then...with fish, your plants get their nitrogen from decomposing waste, without that you've got no source of nutrients. Lack of pearling (bubbles on leaves) doesn't mean that the plants aren't photosynthesizing, it just means that the tank does not have sufficient amounts of dissolved oxygen in the water for the plants' production to immediately bubble out of the tank.
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Jun 12, 2018 00:31
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