75g Mbuna Journal

[darrel69]

My fish spend the whole day either begging me to feed them or eating algae, what a hard life.

LOL my fish only have to notice a slight movement in my room and they race to the top thinking they're gunna get fed

Dont think its cruel not to feed them when they beg... thats the worst you could do. From what ive learned, they will gauge themselves silly all day on prepared cichlid foods like flakes, pellets and what'not...

 

[wslinky]

I got 6 Kenyi last night, they are all about 1", so far everyone seems to be getting along. Hopefully at least 3 of the Kenyi are female, I will sell all except 1 male. 1 of the Acei has a white section around its eye, picture and description here I still haven't decided what other species I am going to add, I keep finding fish I like but they all seem too be aggressive.

Here are some pictures of all the fish including the new ones.

The Kenyi

Rest of the fish

I like the way the Acei and Labs look together, the Labs are almost the same color as the tail and dorsal of the acei

 

[darrel69]

Nice pics... look at all the algae thats grown on the rocks in the seventh pic down !! Bet they love gracing on that ... do you promote algae growth ??

 

[wslinky]

Nice pics... look at all the algae thats grown on the rocks in the seventh pic down !! Bet they love gracing on that

The fish do love it, if they aren't begging to be fed flake they are grazing.

do you promote algae growth ??

Not on purpose, I am trying to get the plants to take off so the algae slows down. The back of my tank is now green, and I have to use the magnet cleaner everyday so I can see in the tank. I have started adding fertilizers for the plants because there is a theory that algae growth comes from lack of certain nutrients. I have also started adding CO2 which seams to have gotten rid of 1 algae but now a bright green one is forming. I came home the other day and the tank was pretty much Neon Green.

 

[kj23502]

Great fish!!! They look awesome!

About the algea...I looked back to page 1 to look at your rocks. The rocks seem a "rusty" color. I was thinking about adding some river rock to mix with my slate(much cheaper for free rock) and I asked tanks a lot about gathering rock (i didn't want any weird stuff getting into my tank) and said to stay away from rocks that appear rusty b/c they may leach iron into the water and cause an algea problem. Here's the conversation.

Hi, i was checking out member tanks and saw you have some rocks from a river....I was thinking of gather some myself. Can you give me any advice about picking and cleaning them? I don't want to put any "nasties"(parasitic junk or bad minerals etc) in my tank.

It depends on the source of the stones. If the stones are free from algae, lichen, moss etc.. and the water source if not contaminated from industrial waste then all you will have to do is give them a good scrub with a nail brush, scrubbing brush or even better a high pressure hose. If the only stones you can get are dirty with weed, then you will have to boil them and this take ages if you have a large amount of rocks. My best suggestion would be to avoid boiling and only collect stones from the actual river banks (dried stones) and where the quality of the water is good.

Hope this is some help

Regards

Denis

We did find some rocks, but some of them had "rust" on them. What do you think about that going into the tank....we can scrub them of course but what bothers me is what made'em rust in the first place? and will it leach undesirable minerals into my fish water?

If the rocks are showing a rusty discolouration then I would give them a miss. If the rocks leech a lot of iron (Fe) into the tank then you can end up with massive algae problems.

 

[darrel69]

Not on purpose, I am trying to get the plants to take off so the algae slows down. The back of my tank is now green, and I have to use the magnet cleaner everyday so I can see in the tank. I have started adding fertilizers for the plants because there is a theory that algae growth comes from lack of certain nutrients. I have also started adding CO2 which seams to have gotten rid of 1 algae but now a bright green one is forming. I came home the other day and the tank was pretty much Neon Green.

Sounds like its near enougth trying to take over !! Im not too sure what could be causing it... i though algae growth comes from too many nutrients ?? ... I dont really have a problem with algae, but i did when i first started... My tank's water turned green with all the algae, i thought it was a bacterial bloom but it didn't seem to be getting any better. So i looked into it and bought a UV sterilizer for 20'odd quid... My water literally turned crystal over night, and not a spot of algae was to be seen anywere. I only kept it in for about 2 or 3 days and its been the same ever since... Just an idea if your stuggleing with it

Hey Kj, if your unsure about rocks... if you collect what you like, take some pics of it and its detail, and ask The-Wolf to take a look, he'll tell you if its ok or not. He knows his rocks. I asked him about a rock that i was unsure about, he's very helpful.

Most rocks are safe anyway, alsong as they're not collected from old mines or contain any type of metal, rust, iron ect and cleaned properly... Some people may not reccomend some rocks because they contain minerals, but obviously that dont apply to us...

 

[wslinky]

Great fish!!! They look awesome!

About the algea...I looked back to page 1 to look at your rocks. The rocks seem a "rusty" color. I was thinking about adding some river rock to mix with my slate(much cheaper for free rock) and I asked tanks a lot about gathering rock (i didn't want any weird stuff getting into my tank) and said to stay away from rocks that appear rusty b/c they may leach iron into the water and cause an algea problem. Here's the conversation.

Hi, i was checking out member tanks and saw you have some rocks from a river....I was thinking of gather some myself. Can you give me any advice about picking and cleaning them? I don't want to put any "nasties"(parasitic junk or bad minerals etc) in my tank.

It depends on the source of the stones. If the stones are free from algae, lichen, moss etc.. and the water source if not contaminated from industrial waste then all you will have to do is give them a good scrub with a nail brush, scrubbing brush or even better a high pressure hose. If the only stones you can get are dirty with weed, then you will have to boil them and this take ages if you have a large amount of rocks. My best suggestion would be to avoid boiling and only collect stones from the actual river banks (dried stones) and where the quality of the water is good.

Hope this is some help

Regards

Denis

We did find some rocks, but some of them had "rust" on them. What do you think about that going into the tank....we can scrub them of course but what bothers me is what made'em rust in the first place? and will it leach undesirable minerals into my fish water?

If the rocks are showing a rusty discolouration then I would give them a miss. If the rocks leech a lot of iron (Fe) into the tank then you can end up with massive algae problems.

I have read that before as well, but didn't really pay much attention to it, since one of the fertilizers I use adds many different metals including Fe.

Sounds like its near enougth trying to take over !! Im not too sure what could be causing it... i though algae growth comes from too many nutrients ?? ... I dont really have a problem with algae, but i did when i first started... My tank's water turned green with all the algae, i thought it was a bacterial bloom but it didn't seem to be getting any better. So i looked into it and bought a UV sterilizer for 20'odd quid... My water literally turned crystal over night, and not a spot of algae was to be seen anywere. I only kept it in for about 2 or 3 days and its been the same ever since... Just an idea if your stuggleing with it good.gif

You don't seem to be the only one struggling with this theory, the theory is that by adding excess of all nutrients there isn't going to be a lack of any one nutrient that will prevent the plant from using everything it can. This is pretty much the theory the EI method of fertilizing is based on. With this method the large weekly water changes are essential to keep the fertilizers that aren't being used from reaching toxic levels.

Since I have high light, I am going to try and continue to does this way and see if I can get the algae to go away. I was advised that it will take longer for the algae to go away then it did for it to show up, hopefully in the next 7-10 days I will at least see some sort of change.

 

[calderfisher]

Just read your journal and what a great looking tank and fish you have. I've been experimenting with a planted tank which just happens to be exactly the same size as yours. From what I've read 3wpg is too high a light output without about 75% of the tank covered in madly growing plants along with Co2.
With all the rock I reckon you could drop down to 1.5wpg and still get good plant growth. Hope this helps.
Keep up the good work.

Regards
CraigM

 

[kj23502]

Oh ok. I don't really know that much about growing plants. I just got my first live plants at the end of last year...LOL! Good Luck..I hope it works for ya.

 

[wslinky]

Just read your journal and what a great looking tank and fish you have. I've been experimenting with a planted tank which just happens to be exactly the same size as yours. From what I've read 3wpg is too high a light output without about 75% of the tank covered in madly growing plants along with Co2.
With all the rock I reckon you could drop down to 1.5wpg and still get good plant growth. Hope this helps.
Keep up the good work.

Regards
CraigM

The amount of plants really has no determination on the WPG needed. Different plants have different needs as far as light goes, ie Crypts can survive in 1wpg, while many of your carpeting plants need a much higher WPG. A good rule of thumb is the darker green plants are ok with low light, while the red and bright green need higher light (Red plants will usually turn green in low light). This Site has a listing of plants by what their light requirement are.

Also when you get above 2-2.5 WPG you must start adding CO2 and other ferts in order for the plants to be able to use all the nutrients so algae doesn't start growing to use the left over nutrients.

If this doesn't make sense let me know I can try to explain it more

MODS if this link is not appropriate please delete. Thanks

 

[kj23502]

Hi again!!

Have you thought about maybe adding a bristlenose pleco.

I found this info from planet catfish.
"Although they are vegetarian, they do not feed on water plants either naturally or in the aquarium, and your treasured collection of cryptocorynes will not only remain uneaten, but the Bristlenose will carefully and gently graze each leaf, removing any covering of algae that may form."

Just an idea! I think I'm going to have a couple bristlenoses along with some synos.

 

[wslinky]

Hi again!!

Have you thought about maybe adding a bristlenose pleco.

I found this info from planet catfish.
"Although they are vegetarian, they do not feed on water plants either naturally or in the aquarium, and your treasured collection of cryptocorynes will not only remain uneaten, but the Bristlenose will carefully and gently graze each leaf, removing any covering of algae that may form."

Just an idea! I think I'm going to have a couple bristlenoses along with some synos.

I may add one, will see what the algae is like once the tank has been running for a while. It seams that in the last week since I started adding ferts the algae has slowed a bit, I haven't scraped the glass in 3 days. Once it is at a constant level and the cichlids get their share I will decided if there is enough for the pleco.

 

[wslinky]

Sorry for the delay in the updates, life has gotten busy.

Nothing much has changed with the tank, but here is what has happened.

2 of the Acai have died. 1st was just dead one day not sure why, the 2nd was the one that had Pop Eye, these are the fish I got at Petsmart so I wouldn't be amazed if they had some disease. So far no one else seems to have come down with anything and everyone is still doing well.

The biggest of the Yellow Labs was holding, not sure how since all the rest are only about an inch long. From when I noticed it she only held for about 4 days, not sure what she did with them.

So far all the fish are getting along great, they are too busy with algae cleanup to worry about each other. Only once in a while do I see them chase each other.

The algae has started to go away, it may because of one of the light bulbs went out and I haven's sat down to order a new one yet. But it seams to be clearing up on both sides of the tank.

Some of the plants seam to be doing really well, one of the Anubias and one of the Crypts have almost doubled in size. I think the Crypt is Bronze and it looks really cool. Of coarse the Hydro Wisteria is doing awesome, and the Ludwigia(sp?) has almost doubled its height, wish I had some more of it, soon enough I will be able to start cutting and propagating these two to hopefully complete the background look.

The fish tank stocking is on hold for now, got some other thing to take care of, hopefully in the next few months I can get the rest of the fish I want.

I will try and get some pictures later and get them posted so everyone can see the changes in the last 3 weeks.

 

[darrel69]

2 of the Acai have died. 1st was just dead one day not sure why, the 2nd was the one that had Pop Eye, these are the fish I got at Petsmart so I wouldn't be amazed if they had some disease. So far no one else seems to have come down with anything and everyone is still doing well.

Sorry to hear that ...

The biggest of the Yellow Labs was holding, not sure how since all the rest are only about an inch long. From when I noticed it she only held for about 4 days, not sure what she did with them.

LOL .. ive seen juvies in my tank 'at it' also. They usually fail during their first time anyway, or simply just eat them. Maybe she couldn't stand the hunger strike LOL.

The algae has started to go away, it may because of one of the light bulbs went out and I haven's sat down to order a new one yet. But it seams to be clearing up on both sides of the tank.

Some of the plants seam to be doing really well, one of the Anubias and one of the Crypts have almost doubled in size. I think the Crypt is Bronze and it looks really cool. Of coarse the Hydro Wisteria is doing awesome, and the Ludwigia(sp?) has almost doubled its height, wish I had some more of it, soon enough I will be able to start cutting and propagating these two to hopefully complete the background look.

Great !! ... Im thinging since the plants are doing well and doubleing in size that they may be the cause of your algae loss maybe ...

 

[wslinky]

Here is the 3 week update,

Cleaned the fluval 304 for the 1st time last week, the flow was down really low. When I set it back up I started trying to organize inside the stand, after a few minutes I noticed there was water in the stand. When I moved the filter I noticed that was the source of the water, it was slowly leaking from where the clamps are. I ordered a new O Ring, and re setup the filter today and that seams to have fixed the problem. I kinda figured it was going to be soon that I needed to replace the o ring since it has been sitting in a storage shed dry for at least 2 years.

2 of the Kenyis have started turning yellow hopefully that is all so I will have 4F-1M, I am waiting to see which one of the males ends up being the meanest then I will sell him back to the LFS.

Thats all for now...