Tex Gal

So sorry the hear about your plecos. Who would have thought it. Thanks for sharing so we don't have the same thing happen. You know I think I did treat with that once. I guess I'm lucky that my plecos survived. Do you still have the babies?

SAE's are notorious for eating BBA when they are younger and growing fat and lazy when they are older. I wonder if your's has crossed over.

You plants are looking great. I've only seen 2 blooms on my anubias. Your's look great.

Have you thought about spot dosing your BBA. It will be gone in no time.

I just got a gobie from Invertzfactory.com. They are rather big, about the same size as your SAE. They eat BBA. I had a few patches. I put them (2) in last night and the BBA is gone. AMAZING! I'll have to make sure I have zuchini and such for them to eat so they don't starve after they do their work!

Glad your tank is recovering.

Andy Ritter

Here's the last "get-caught-up" post. After this, hopefully (I know, I said this before, too) I will do a better job at not letting my journal get behind.

Here are a few more pictures. I was playing around with the camera after reading a little bit here on APC about taking pictures. I'm still not really happy with them, but maybe they're a little better. These were taken on September 10th, so there really isn't that much different from the last ones, other than the camera settings.



This photo shows on the left side several of the Dwarf Chain Loaches schooling. I love these guys ! If you look closely you can see the remaining Bristlenose Pleco on the piece of wood.



Just a shot of the center section of the tank. Nothing special.



Check out the SAE chilling .



Here's the right side of the tank taken at an angle looking back towards the center.



I really like how this picture shows a stream of bubbles coming from one of the Crypt. pont. leaves. If you look closely, you can also see all of the BBA on the piece of wood behind the Ech. hormani .

On September 15th, I started fertilizing with a macro solution with only 25% of the normal PPS pro amount of KNO3 (as I mentioned before, you can check out the thread on long term usage of PPS pro to see the details). So far, this seems to be keeping the NO3 at a more normal level (has been around 23 ppm since the 20th). I'm curious as to what other issues, if any, this causes.

On September 21st, I did some light trimming, and while doing so, I noticed that another one of the Dwarf Chain Loaches had gotten stuck in the intake for the circulation pump . I know, I know, I should have done something to cover the intakes after I found the last one dead. As I said before though, I just thought that it was a freak accident and that I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. They were just so tiny when they arrived, but have been eating and getting bigger, so they won't fit now. I actually had noticed that I couldn't find more than seven at one time anymore, but just kind of wrote it off to the fact that they are so fast and constantly going everywhere in the tank, that I just wasn't seeing them all at the same time. All of them have been doing fine since then, so I think I'm in the clear now. Live and learn (although it really hurts me anytime I lose a fish; these are my pets, you know).

Okay, that gets the journal updated to the present. I guess now I need to take some current photos. That will have to wait until next time.

Andy

Andy Ritter

Well, I spent so much time updating my journal that I let the trimming get a little behind. The Cabomba caroliniana grew to the surface and then made it all the way to the front glass, shading everything below it pretty badly. However, a plus to that is that it started blooming!

This picture was taken on September 30th:



And this one on October 2nd:




I did a waterchange and trimming yesterday, so I thought that I should take some more pictures.

Here are some taken today:

Overall front view


Left side view - notice how the Hygrophila polysperma is slowly making a comeback


Right side view - check out the two flower stalks on the Echinodorus cordifolius


I'll do another posting with some more pictures next.

Andy

Andy Ritter

And some more pictures taken today:

Left front


Middle front - the Elatine orientalis seems to be doing better, but the Hygro. corymbosa hasn't really done too much


Right front - finally had to trim off some of the Ech. cordifolius leaves that had BBA on them


Anubias with new flower - note the other Anubias with old flower in the background on the left


Anubias flower with Dwarf Chain Loach hanging out


I decided to make the first change to the pH controller since I first set the aquarium back up in November. It had been set to keep the pH between approximately 6.7 and 6.9, which had kept the drop checker light green. However, I am still unhappy with the BBA, and even though it isn't as bad as it once was, I won't be happy until it is gone. Therefore, I decided to drop a tenth on each setting to 6.6 and 6.8. I'll keep an eye on the drop checker and the fish behavior to see if it will be okay. Hopefully having more CO2 will deliver the knockout punch to this awful stuff .

Otherwise, the aquarium seems to be doing pretty good. All of the fish appear healthy, so I'm pleased.

Andy

travis

Very nice Andy. I can't believe all of the flowering species you've got. Great work.

I hope your BBA problems are going away. Increasing the CO2 is a good idea if you have any doubts. As long as the fish are showing no signs of distress you're probably OK. Getting more water and oxygen circulating in the areas affected by the BBA will also help. And of course dosing with Excel will also work well on BBA.

Hope things are going well

Andy Ritter

Wow travis, thanks so much for the kind words! I've admired the pictures of the tanks that you have posted here on APC, and when I see them I want to just rip everything in my tank out and put in some plastic plants, a shipwreck, and a bubbling diver. As they said in Wayne's World, I'm not worthy !! Seriously though, it's tanks like yours that inspire me to keep pushing forward because it proves to me that it can be done. Just for you, here's a picture taken today of the Elatine orientalis that I bought from you:



It is doing better, but nowhere near as good as it appears in your tank. I suspect that I would need to increase my light for that, but I don't really want to push the tank too much right now (earlier in the journal I mentioned that I used to have twice as much light as I do now, and had lots of problems). Hopefully it will continue to improve and just look decent.

As far as the BBA, I definitely still have it. I can't tell that the increase in CO2 has helped all that much, and my drop checker is now very light green to almost yellow. The fish haven't shown any signs of distress, but for now I think that I will leave the CO2 setting where it is. I used to use Excel, but after reading some disturbing posts about it, I decided to quit. Plus, the BBA is all over the place. Squirting small amounts of it onto every section where the BBA is would probably end up requiring a whole lot of it. I have lots of water flow (two Fluval 403 canisters and a MagDrive 12 just for circulation), although I guess that there might be a few places that don't have as much as others, but I really don't think that is the issue . Instead, I have ordered three Styphodon ornatus (Black line sand gobies) from Invertzfactory and they should be here later this week. I am hoping that they show up hungry and ready to eradicate my tank of this horrible stuff. If they don't, then I guess that I will have no other choice than to try the Excel again.

Here are some pictures of how the tank is covered with the BBA now just for reference.

View from the right side. Note how the BBA is all over the surface extractor, water returns and intakes, wood, and plants.




Large piece of wood.




Small piece of wood. Also note the water returns. The one in the top center of the photo (to the left of that white hose) is coming from the CO2 reactor!




Lower left hand corner (not that great of a picture, but you should be able to get the idea).




As I said before, thanks so much for the kind words. I'm hoping that the next pictures show much less BBA and three fat and happy Gobies!!

Andy

Andy Ritter

Oh yeah, and I also wanted to post another picture showing the progress of the Hygrophila polysperma.



I think that something still isn't quite right with the ferts, but it is getting better. I'm going to continue to experiment to try and get the ratios right for my tank.

Also, in case anyone is interested, the ambient temperature here has gotten colder, so the house temperature has dropped as well. The temperature in the room with the tank is now around 69-71 degrees. This caused the tank temperature to drop to around 76-77 degrees, so I turned off the fans blowing air across the water cooler. Now the temp is back up to around 79-80.

Andy

Andy Ritter

Today I added some Mayaca fluviatilis per a recommendation from Cavan. He suggested that it would be good for monitoring iron levels. I used to have some of this back when I had the tank set up in the nineties and it did pretty good for me, so hopefully it will again. One difference is that I had twice as much light then. However, I think I have a better handle on the fertilization now. Time will tell. I planted it in the back where the Hygro corymbosa was before. I left enough room so if I can get the Hygro to recover I can plant it beside the Mayaca.





When I squatted down to take the pictures of the Mayaca, I noticed that my SAE happened to be hanging out on one of the Ech. cordifolius leaves. Fortunately he hung around long enough for me to snap his picture (usually he is very skittish).



Andy

Bunnie1978

I have some of the Mayaca in my tank too. I love it. It's such a nice light green, but not limey. You know what I mean? It's almost silver. Except when there's algae all over it. It does grow pretty fast.

Andy Ritter

Time for another update. The tank has now been set up for one year. Overall, I'm pleased with my progress.

Quite a bit has happened in the last month.

On October 30th I added the 3 Styphodon ornatus that I previously mentioned, as well as 10 Marbled Hatchetfish. One of the Hatchets didn't seem to handle the trip too well and immediately just floated on the surface. The next day I found it dead. On November 5th I found another one dead. All of the other fish seemed to be fine.

On November 7th I found a dead Dwarf Chain Loach. I had recently started feeding some frozen foods that the LFS had recommended for a finicky Dwarf Chain Loach that wasn't eating the dry food. One of the frozen foods was brine shrimp. The dead Loach looked like it might have had a brine shrimp hanging out of it's mouth (which I had fed the night before). I don't know for sure, but I am wondering if it might have choked to death . I have since been really careful when feeding the frozen foods to watch the fish carefully and to not feed too much or too quickly.

On November 11th I found a dead Lemon Tetra. It appeared perfectly normal, and hadn't been acting strange at all the day before.

On November 16th I performed tank maintenance and scraped/pulled/removed as much BBA as I could. The Gobies seemed to have been eating it, but not quickly enough for me. I decided that maybe there was just way too much for them to be able to handle on their own, so I helped them out some. I also found another dead Hatchetfish. This time it was sucked into one of the tubes for the surface extractor. I had Hatchetfish in the past, although they were larger ones than these, and never had any problems with any of them getting sucked into the surface extractor. However, I decided it was better to be safe than sorry, and rigged up some mesh to cover the tubes so no more could end up this way. I also happened to notice that one of the Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia plants had what appeared to be a spathe! I posted it here with pictures if you're interested in checking it out:

http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/f...tml#post506820

I returned from a week in Grand Cayman SCUBA diving on November 27th to discover that there were now only 4 Hatchetfish remaining. I have no idea where the missing ones are. I have mesh stretched across the entire back of the tank to keep any of them that decide to jump from making it out of the tank, so I find it highly unlikely that any of them ended up on the floor.

On November 30th I added 2 Corydoras agassizi so the sterbais would have some company.

Now the tank occupants are:

1 adult female Bristlenose Plecostomus
4 Lemon Tetras
8 Rummynose Tetras
6 Dwarf Chain Loaches
1 Siamese Algae Eater
4 Marbled Hatchetfish
3 Corydorus sterbai
2 Corydorus agassizi
3 Black Line Sand Gobies

I wish that I wasn't having such a hard time with fish deaths . Does everyone else have these types of problems, too? I haven't read too much about others losing fish like me. I hope that I'm not alone, but hope that I will have better luck in the future. I feel so ultimately responsible for these guys, and feel terrible when any of them die. They don't have the option to leave if conditions aren't just right, so it's up to me to do better.

Here are some updated photos taken on November 30th.

Left side view:


Left front view:


Middle front view:


Right front view:


Right side view:


All of these were taken after having been gone for a week on vacation. It has been since November 16th since any trimming or maintenance was done, except for the removal of four Echinodorus cordifolius plantlets that had been growing on the two flower stalks that was done on November 30th. I'm happy with the overall stability of the tank and how relatively easy the it has been to take care of. I have been enjoying the challenge to get everything set up to where it looks good and isn't too much work.

Andy