58g Planted w/overflow and sump

[myswtsins]

Thanks Nancy. Hoping it is an adjustment thing, no one looks worse, some look better, found another big molt and no more deaths so still hopeful! It is a koi/goldfish medicated food (anti bacterial). I am feeding it to the goldfish and figured what the heck, can't hurt nothing.

I know you stock lightly, I bet you don't over feed and if you use high quality foods too there could be a chance you need phosphates. But if your plants seem fine I wouldn't worry about it. I believe phosphate deficiency is seen in older leaves mostly with discolored leaves, re-absorption and quick loss of leaves.

Sounds like a good trip! I love long road trips! Have fun and be safe!

Garage is built but nothing to do with fish, except the money part. lol Right now it is serving as a fantastic place to work on our Halloween decorations though! Sounds like you are trying to get me to talk you into turning your garage into a fish room!! I can do this if you like.

 

[fishorama]

Is Light still getting better? I hope she heals soon & you can re-acclimate her before really cold weather hits. You don't have to bring them in for winter where you are, do you?

A craft room addition! Ya know, we've had a garage at each house over 30 years & a car has been in them a total of 3 weeks, lol. No, my garage is a fish equipment storage area not someplace I want to hang out to see my fish. I have room in my house if I want to take care of more tanks but not just now.

As for the phosphates, I don't overfeed, but my husband has a heavier hand & is often the feeder while I cook for us. My very oldest leaves get BBA, plants like jungle val, anubias & bolbitus but not crypts (ever) or stems (too much trimming?). Mosses, meh, not bba but hair algae & crud. SOME algae is fine with me & many of my fish.

I probably won't be around too much the next 2-3 weeks but hopefully I'm not the only 1 still following along ...I maybe the only 1 commenting of late, but we enjoy your tank sagas

I want to see your new Amanos looking good & for the melting plants to STOP IT!

 

[myswtsins]

Light is doing better everyday. Just the smallest patch of fungus left now and no redness so hopefully she can go back into the pond in the next few days (before my big weekend craziness!). Thanks for asking! Yes, they stay out year round here.

I wish I had room in the house for more/bigger tanks. I have them squeezed in everywhere. lol

Thanks for keeping me company thus far!

No more melt since the flow increase melting. Which I actually turned down a bit cause it seemed too strong for the shrimp. Amanos keeping looking better everyday too, less white, more brown, active and eating constantly.

Had to open up my knee wall storage to get some Halloween decorations and found my other dosing container so I can set that up soon. Probably won't do anything this week though as I am super busy.

 

[fishorama]

Good to hear, Jen. I'll be watching your progress! I'm on board, but quietly, my tablet is a PITA to type on.

 

[myswtsins]

I have my first algae! Tanks grow up so fast. I've been waiting for some sort of algae to show up and as algae goes this brown dust type algae on the glass is the best I could hope for! I always get the horrible kinda algae outbreaks with new tanks. Like this!

I've gotten that type of algae on several start-ups. Let's hope it doesn't show up here!! Cause that is just 3 days of growth, that stuff is horrible.

Amanos still showing improvement. Wish it was more/faster though.

New leaves popping up on all the crypts. The balansae has a TON of new leaves, more than double the amount it came with. The buce on the one stick has lost almost every single leaf. Death seems to have stopped on the other buces though.

All of these things may be attributted to the fact that I have not dosed since getting the shrimp. At first it was for their sake, then I just got too busy and forgot to do it. lol *Looks over at brand new doser* Hmm, that might help!

 

[myswtsins]

Crazy week is over, back to work! It's been rainy out so today I decided to give the tank a cloudy day. Love these lights! Haven't added any ferts in 1.5 weeks, then the first algae shows up and spread rapidly, coincidence? Hard for me to wrap my head around that completely cause there are still nutrients in the water, some even increased naturally. Best guess that the daily metricide doses were keeping any algae in check.

Cloudy - dirty


Sunny - Dirty


Pre-WC
pH - 8.2
KH - 9
GH - 9 (up 2)
Phos - 1.5
0-0-20 (up 10)
Temp - 74

So anyway, cleaned up the glass and did a water change. Vacuumed the gravel in the plant-less spots for the first time too, DIRTY! Gonna get my dosers setup soon but in the mean time I will start dosing again tomorrow and we will see if there is a change in algae growth.



Crypts - All look great and have new growth. Quite happy with them! Really happy, I love crypts!


Randoms. I am now able to ID some of them and should move them with their groups

Buce - The ones that were glued to the stick have lost nearly all it's leaves and some rhizome. The other stick with the twist tied ones lost several laves but seemed to stop and is doing ok right now. The bigger variety is doing good now after only losing a few leaves. Could the super gel have hurt the buce? Others say no, but there is a clear difference in the 2 sticks.
Hard to see in the picture cause of how I arranged the sticks but the bad stick is behind the better front stick. I'll have to get better pictures since I intentionally hid the bad one lol.

Hardscape - That one piece of wood keeps falling over so I will have to attach a base to it. Stuck a rock behind it for now, maybe that's all I'll do actually. Shrimp have cleaned up most if not all of the wood fungus.
Shrimp - Most have cleared up, most of the way anyways and colored up. Many molts around the tank. Some of the biggest guys have molted and gotten even bigger, they're little monsters! No other deaths besides one that jumped ship. I might put some sort of jump guard around the edges of the tank to stop future jumpers. So this is one situation where cloudy shrimp did not = dead shrimp as is usually the case you will find if you research it. While I was changing water the shrimp with the half missing tail was snacking on my hand, wish I could have reached the camera! They have pretty strong little claws, didn't hurt at all of course but I felt it more than I thought I would.


So a lot of head scratching, make you think kind of situations here. For now, just gonna keep moving forward and learning what I can along the way. And enjoy my 2 new shrimp tanks! Since fishorama is busy any other comments? Even a like to let me know you are following along so I know I'm not talking to myself would be great!

 

[myswtsins]

I've been thinking the Balansae has really grown a lot so I looked through pictures for a comparison.

This is 9/22, 2.5 weeks ago (1.5 of that time had no ferts either)



And today



Much taller, healthier and twice as many leaves! It's not my imagination! lol Getting better at taking pictures of this tank too!

 

[myswtsins]

Dosed
2.25ml Metricide
1/2 tsp GH booster (just to ensure complete hardness)
1/8 tsp KNO3
1/32 tsp KH2PO4
1/32 tsp K2SO4 (seems people don't bother with this anymore?)
1/32 tsp Micros

This is EI dosing for a 10-20g high light/tech tank and it is every other day with macros and micros normally but I like to add everything after a water change. Of course my tank is ~60g medium light/tech tank so I am starting at the bottom, testing and adjusting.

I got a head count of 7 out of 9 shrimp this morning, not bad.

 

[fishorama]

I'm back! So now you won't have to post to yourself. Great news about the shrimp & crypts. A guy in my plant club grows balansae like I grow jungle val, ha.

A little algae is ok by me, except BBA. I'm betting the metrocide kept it in check too, it'll be ok. It may be more noticeable since you have slower growing plants too. No stems to suck up the nutrients fast, right?

I'm wondering about the super glue & bucies too. I've never done it. Might be better attachment with ties than glue? Same kind of wood, same soaking, same buces, same amount of roots? I had 1 kind of anubias (1 of the arrowhead types) that never grew a new leaf in almost 3 years. The old leaves never died but were a bit ratty, no root growth either that I could see. Give it a lot of time, ya never know.

 

[myswtsins]

Welcome back! I like not talking to myself.

Yeah, all slow growers ATM. I'm really enjoying it though and thinking I might not add anything else plant wise. And if things keep going as well as they are I might not add CO2 either! Tonight I noticed some of the new Affinis leaves are quite red. Surprised me since my lighting is not very high and I expected them to lose red not gain.

It's my first time using super glue myself and the difference in the 2 sticks (all the same as you asked) is extreme. The twist tie was easy to use and less noticeable than the glue so for buce I will stick with that for now.

Shrimp continue to do well, eating and molting away. I called Petco to get a refund on the 2 that died (and the one that jump even!) and they offered replace or refund (without proof and she thought I needed all 12 replaced!) so I took a replacement. Maybe not the right choice though cause that's more new shrimp to introduce. Oh well! It was a good price so I'd rather get a few shrimp than the few bucks back. And I still have some time left on the original 30 days so if they don't make it I can still get my money back.