trodi

After having moved to a new house I realized with the space we wanted to create my 55 g was just not going to fit. the Plan was to downsize to a 30 G.

I built a nice stand to match the furniture in the dining room.

Also with a new house comes many new tasks leaving me less time to tend to my tank. Which had me considering a NPT.

I've had Diana's book for some time and have read it over and have visited many chapters again and again. I liked the idea of the soil and low light, sunlight and nutrient from fish feedings. very natural.
I've had a high tech for the past two years. I've been satisfied at times, frustrated many times and have made friends and enemies with various types of algae. It is jsut too much for me right now.

So I set up my 30 G with organic top soil about 1" about 1.5" of gravel. 10 sagittaria, 1 anubia, 1 java fern, , 3 groupings of crypts, 1 hygrophila, 2 african ferns, 1 ludwigia, 1 group of rotala indica, some various vals and I bought some fourleaf clover because it looked interesting.

The problem is the fish load. I didn't plan in advance and feel i have too many fish for this tank. 4 bosemani, 1 red rainbow(glosso), 1 ornate rainbow, 1 dwarf rainbow, 2 dawrf danios Ive had for years, 2 Columbia tetras, 2 loaches (left over from past snail control experiment), 3 pictus catfish, 1 cory cat and 3 snails.

I just purchased a fluval internal filter U3 (removed the carbon). so far it seems ok. It's a little bigger than I was hoping.

I ran into a problem with my hood design. I was going to set 2 36" 32 watt fluorescent bulbs but they wouldn't fit into the hood. So I temporarily rigged up two clamp shop lights with a 60 watt daylight energy saving bulb (6700K) and a 40 watt soft white bulb.

I'm most concerned right now about the amount of fish and my lighting. I like the look of the open top. I thinking of using those lighs and rigging up something to hang them directly over the tank instead of clamping them in from the side. I get some morning south sun for a couple hours.

Day 1:

Ammonia 0
Nitrates 7
Ph 7.6
Nitrites 0
Phosphates .25
I have very hard tap water as well.

I'll have some pics tomorrow, I have to ge my wife to re-size the pics for me.

I appreciate any comments, thoughts and suggestions. thank you

davemonkey

Trodi,

I think your fish load is okay, plants do a great job at cleaning water.

For the lights, are those the sprial flourescents? Does it say it replaces a 60 or 40 watt bulb and actually only uses 13 or whatever watts? If so, count only the actual wattage of the bulb, not the wattage that it says it replaces (for incandescent lights). In other words, although a 26 watt spiral energy saving bulb will put out the visual light of a 100 watt 'normal' light bulb, it's still just a 26 watt bulb and you should only count the 26 watts.

Otherwise, rock on!

-Dave

Diana K

I think your fish species are the wrong ones for such a small tank.
Most Rainbows are highly active fish are do much better in larger tanks. The 55 that did not fit would have worked just fine. A 30 is not big enough for their activity level.

2 dawrf danios: What species? Smaller Danios like Zebras are fine in a 30, larger ones such as Giants are not. Same problem as with the Rainbows: high level of activity.

2 loaches What species? Anything larger than a zebra Loach is a bit too big.

3 pictus catfish: Another very active species.

If the 30 gallon is the largest that you can handle, and are pushed for time I would return all these, and get a school of smaller fish, a few more Cories, and a few Otocinclus. Nothing over 3", or 2" if it is a highly active fish.
With a small bioload the tank will be easier to manage.

trodi

thanks,
yeah I have the spiral bulbs. I was wondering about that wattage difference so will take that into consideration. I then have actually have less than 30 watts on my tank. I'll have to pick up some different bulbs. thanks for the information.

I'm a bit sad about the fish though. I've had these bosemani for years now and their nice and mature. I also was incorrect about the catsfsh I have 3 ottos not pictus. Big difference.

I realized my dilemma after I set everything up. I was so focused on the look of the stand and the environment for the plants I didn't consider the fish needs. So the sad part is that it's not that I just picked these fish up yesterday I've had them for some time. I agree though. It's the wrong space for them. I'll have to start looking for a home. For the fish.

mudboots

Hey trodi,

you might put a shout-out to folks in your area (within driving distance) and see if you can arrange a trade of sorts for your fish.

dwalstad

In your less-than-ideal situation, I think that your Rainbowfish are extremely lucky to have such a conscientious owner.

Do the best you can. My own Rainbowfish have been very forgiving. I raised 40 of them to maturity in a 33 gal. Give Rainbowfish enough food in a well-planted 30 gal and they'll do just fine.

gr8nguyen1

on the subject of lighting. i just set up my 2nd attempt at a Npt. i think i might've resolved all the problems i had with the first tank. but i've been getting conflicting stories with lighting the tank. heres what i want to do. i want to set the lights on a timer where it goes on at 10 am then shuts of after 5 hours. then it will switch back on at 6 pm for another 4 hours ( for a total of 9 hours daily) the reason i do this is bc. one of my favorite things to do is..after a long day at work. i like to come home and rather than unwind in front of a tv. i like to sit in my recliner and look at the tank at see all the cories chase each other. its really relaxing. it is ok to do this. or should the lights be on 9 hours straight. i've read some posts where others have said to keep the lights on for 12 hours. i want to keep algae under control bc i had a really bad algae problem with my first attempt at NPT

trodi

Thanks for the suggestions. I think I'll monitor the fish to see how they do, they do seem to be a bit less active but they are still adjusting to the new environment. Envisioning 40 fish makes me more hopeful that this will be OK.
If things don't work I could always look for a trade. I'd rather try and make this work though they're nice fish. Thanks for the encouragement.

As for lighting and in response to splitting times I've wondered that myself. I have the lights go on at 12pm and off at 8pm right now, in the past I've had them on until 10 or 11, that way I can eat while looking at the tank. It is relaxing. I only have eight hours now as it's a new set up, I don't know if that matters but I didn't want to overload any one condition right now as it's establishing itself.

Also what about sunlight. I get about one to two hours of somewhat decent light on the tank in the morning. That should be factored into the duration of light as well I would assume.

As I think about it I feel like it would matter to split as the plants may get all kicked into the photosynthetic process and then begin to shut down before starting out again ( if the lights went out after only 5 hours). Although this is just an assumption. I would be interested to know if that occurs because shouldn't then daylight be considered?

DataGuru

Clamplights on my 125 NPT
http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/

My 125 is a joy and really low maintenence. I pull plants once a month, top it off when it needs it, rinse the foam filters when they get stopped up and feed the fish. that's about it as far as regular maintenence.

Most of my NPTs sit by south windows and get 1-2 wpg 6500K light that's on from 9am till midnight. Tho some only get light from the window and do fine.

I don't have a couch, and have 13 tanks, so I don't want to hear about not having the "room" in an entire house for a larger tank. LOL