Ch4Rlie's New 3 Foot Tank Journal

[PlumbersMerchant]

Stupid question time Charlie, are you feeding the plants some type of fertiliser ?. I can't seem to make 6 plants live in my 55gal even with ferts. From reading through this journal tonight I noticed in October you said you are gonna add co2 at some point so wondered if there was anything in particular that you used as an alternative ? Also, unless I didn't read it properly, you didn't put any tablets or that powder under the sand to promote plant growth(dunno if you have to, just seen it in a few jounals) Well confused when it comes to the 'plant side' and notice you seem to be like a plant yoda ! Good work tho pal

 

[Ch4rlie]

Stupid question time Charlie, are you feeding the plants some type of fertiliser ?. I can't seem to make 6 plants live in my 55gal even with ferts. From reading through this journal tonight I noticed in October you said you are gonna add co2 at some point so wondered if there was anything in particular that you used as an alternative ? Also, unless I didn't read it properly, you didn't put any tablets or that powder under the sand to promote plant growth(dunno if you have to, just seen it in a few jounals) Well confused when it comes to the 'plant side' and notice you seem to be like a plant yoda ! Good work tho pal

 
No such thing as stupid questions to be perfectly honest.
 
Yes, am feeding the plants some ferts, at the moment using Tropica Premium, a little pricey I know to buy this stuff but it works for now.
 
Also I did add Seachem Flourish root tabs when i started planting these plants, will add more soon to substrate to keep the rooted plants happy

 
I am still planning to set up the Co2 and dosing EI ferts when I get round to it, probably this weekend but has been such a busy few month for me that am actually behind on my plans for this tank

 
BTW am certainly no 'plant yoda'

like you, am learning all the time and finding out through trial and error what works and doesnt work for my tanks.
 
This Journal is well due for a big update, must do this soon.....

 

[Ch4rlie]

Quick update - still no fish /stockign yet, still awaiting to hear from LFS

 
I made a mistake when doing snack doses for bacteria. I thought dosing 3ppm once a week would suffice, found to my cost its not adequate. Some of the bacteria had died off and not quite to colony size for 3ppm amonia processing.
 
So a lesson learned, dose 1ppm or at most 2 ppm every 3 or 4 days to keep the bacteria happy

 
Quick tank pic to show the plant growth and there are a few snails in there which i dont mind btw, fodder for my assassin snails in the 10 gal

 
 

 

[Ninjouzata]

Hopefully that little change will keep the bacteria happy. The tank is looking great so far!

 

[Ch4rlie]

Bit of an update -
 
Tank as it looks now, plants have grown pretty well

 
[sharedmedia=core:attachments:77226]
 
And I now have 12 Celestial Pearl Danios, have found a recommended place that will order my other two stocking choices, so will email these guys first for prices and delivery options.
 
For now, sorry about the pic, these guys are pretty hard to get a decent pic of and this does NOT do them justice really

 

 
For anyone interested, the darker one in middle of pic at back of group is a male, the paler ones are females, THINK i have 4 males with 8 females, which is perfect ratio.
 
But is kinda hard to be sure as these guys keep moving and hiding all the time
 

 

[Ninjouzata]

Tank and fishies are beautiful! :3 Hopefully you can get what you want at this other place and they won't cost too much.

 

[Munroco]

Love these danios, they look like miniature brown trout

 

[Goggy]

Ooooh very nice! i was waiting for this!

 

[AshleyNZ]

Looking fabulous

 

[daizeUK]

Looking beautiful Charlie!  Looking forward to seeing how the cpds settle in

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hmm, seems there may be troubles ahead with my cpd's.
 
Have just notcied there are a few cpd's with their tail fins almost rotted away, and at water surface not doing much.
 
Am thinking this may be Columnaris ( which is sometimes known as Fin and Tail Rot).
 
Going to do a large water change tomorrow at first chanc, as if memory serves, water quaility be a factor even though i do 30 - 50 % water changes every week.
 
I have been look for meds such as Maracyn Plus which I think does pretty well for this sort of thing but very hard to find in UK.
 
If anyone knows of a site or place where i can purchase some of this stuff, that would be great.

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Sorry to hear that. Maracyn plus works for both types of bacteria, I believe, which means using it will destroy your filter bacs, so you might want to save some of the media in a plastic bag/bucket, etc.

Can't help you with sourcing it though.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Sorry to hear that. Maracyn plus works for both types of bacteria, I believe, which means using it will destroy your filter bacs, so you might want to save some of the media in a plastic bag/bucket, etc.

Can't help you with sourcing it though.

 
Excellent tip, I actually forgot about that part about affecting the tank / filter bacteria as well.
 
Good reminder, thanks Eagles.
 
BTW, yeah, i hear Maracyn is pretty easily obtainable in the USA but not in UK, can't figure out why really. Anyway, thanks.

 

[daizeUK]

I think antibiotics are only available on prescription from a vet in the UK.  Probably because they don't trust us to diagnose or dose properly, which is probably a fair point when you look at how easily diseases become resistant to antibiotics when not treated properly... anyway, good luck with treating your CPDs and I hope they get better!

 

[Ninjouzata]

So sorry to hear that I hope you can find the right meds for them soon and that they'll all be alright!