My Dream Aquarium- 55 Gallon - Plans
- Thread starter MuddyWaters
- Start date
noahm
Falun Dafa Hao!
Looks fantastic. Lots of happy fish.
This forum and all I learned from you all is 80% of what I know. Much appreciated!
Update on the tank. I cut back the jungle and have had to cut back the lighting to fight the ensuing algae, but it's about there now. More room for the fishies. I want to get rid of some of the kribensis- they bred like crazy- but they are SO hard to catch
Here is my tank just over 2 years on. I love it! Some interesting tidbits:
I filter with FX4 and an AC110 HOB
I used to overfeed ALL THE TIME, but have finally gotten down to Wednesday, Friday and Sunday- mixture of dry, frozen and live (flightless fruit flies)
PH stays at 6.5 (have a regulator tied to the CO2- comes on when the PH goes up)
temp - 78/25.5
- - I started with 6 kribensis- put 2 caves in there for them to breed in (thinking other fish would eat the babies), now have 15-20. I sold some at the club, but they're hard to catch. I removed the caves, though- they all get along, amazingly
- The mollies are all children of a pair I had for about 3.5 years (the pair was in another tank and I moved them to this one). I used to have tons of pearl weed on top of the log- the fry hid in there until they got big enough not to eat. I later removed the pearl weed (from the log- it's still carpeting the bottom) and no more surviving fry
- The kribensis on top of the log is part of a pair who constantly lay eggs under that rock and "protect" them, but they don't notice the snails getting in there and chowing down
- I have a lot more variety in there than appears- the plants just keep taking over- I cut them back, determined to make it less of a jungle, but everything grows and I end up liking it LOL
- otocinclus
- Venezuelan orange cories
- glowlight tetras
- neon tetras
- cardinal tetras
- rummynose tetras
- blue cochu tetras
- ember tetras
- black mollies
- San Marcos Redtail Splitfin (males & females)
- silver hatchet fish
- kribensis
- angel fish pair - they are not doing well and hide in the back- I put one in a hospital tank w epsom salt and moved her back when she got better, but not sure they're going to make it- they were some of the first fish I put in here
- super red bushynose pleco
- malaysian trumpet snails
- mystery snails
- almost forgot- pencil fish! love them
- Oh! green glofish pristellas
- I keep having to edit! 1 spotted raphael catfish- he never comes out, but there's a hollow log turned on its side that he hides in so I can see him- he's fat and happy
- I've had tons of different plants. I've tried the difficult ones, but because it's overstocked and my (previous) bad habit of overfeeding I haven't had success with them, but the ones in there now do great
- crypt of some kind (big ones on the left)
- tiger lotus (all over the dang place- I constantly have to prune and just pull out new plants)
- pearl weed (in the front)
- limnophilla aromatica (to the right of the log)
- anubias nana (hidden in the limnophilla aromatica)
- Amazon sword (in the back right- it's 4 years+- pulled it from another tank)
- Alternanthera Reineckii (sp?)
- water weed (elodea)
- ...I think that's it...
- forgot rotalla something or other
I filter with FX4 and an AC110 HOB
I used to overfeed ALL THE TIME, but have finally gotten down to Wednesday, Friday and Sunday- mixture of dry, frozen and live (flightless fruit flies)
PH stays at 6.5 (have a regulator tied to the CO2- comes on when the PH goes up)
temp - 78/25.5
Last edited:
I will say that about kribs - while they were interesting fishes when I kept them they are among the best parents and have the muscles to be great parents. I seperated the pairs and gave the bunch to the pet shop:
Before i knew better i mixed new and old cichild fishes - never again (though in truth it mostly worked until it didn't).
Gotta say they keep a very close eyes on those frys.
Before i knew better i mixed new and old cichild fishes - never again (though in truth it mostly worked until it didn't).
Gotta say they keep a very close eyes on those frys.
they sure do- I was very surprised at how many lived - I had heard they were prolific breeders, but dadgum! Rabbits don't hold a candle to them
Update on my 75 gallon tank- I've added a NilocG CO2 reactor (I posted about this earlier) and have also added Aquavitro's Sentia doser.
I go into it in the video (see below). I am not sure I would have purchased the Sentia doser if I knew what it really is. The guy at the LFS told me it asks questions like what kind of algae you have and stuff like that to figure out the dosing. I have been working a lot with AI lately (basically trying to use it to do my job LOL) so I figured it was some kind of basic AI. NOPE.
The thing will figure out how much it should add if you use the Seachem products, but it only does it based on the amount of water in your tank. It doesn't even ask about your hardscape, depth of substrate, and stuff like that which in my opinion, would give a better estimate on how much to add.
Well, the bottom line is that it has worked anyway. My problem was consistency. I was using NIlogG powdered fertilizer (great stuff and way cheaper than Seachem), but switched to get the benefit of it figuring out the dose for me. It is working like gangbusters- I only have to change my water once per week (30 gallons- it's about 50%) whereas before I was doing it twice per week. The nitrate is manageable also.
NITRATE: Y'all, it has taken me a few years to finally stop overfeeding my fish. Those fish have a psychological hold on me- for the longest time I just couldn't help but feed them 2 - 3 times a day- I just lived with the required water changes that forced me to deal with. NOW I only feed my tanks on Sunday (frozen food), Wednesday and Friday. That's it (except for the tank with German Ram fry). It is MUCH better and is a big part of why the above is working at all.
I'm slow to learn, but am happy to offset it with spending too much money and harder work
.
I go into it in the video (see below). I am not sure I would have purchased the Sentia doser if I knew what it really is. The guy at the LFS told me it asks questions like what kind of algae you have and stuff like that to figure out the dosing. I have been working a lot with AI lately (basically trying to use it to do my job LOL) so I figured it was some kind of basic AI. NOPE.
The thing will figure out how much it should add if you use the Seachem products, but it only does it based on the amount of water in your tank. It doesn't even ask about your hardscape, depth of substrate, and stuff like that which in my opinion, would give a better estimate on how much to add.
Well, the bottom line is that it has worked anyway. My problem was consistency. I was using NIlogG powdered fertilizer (great stuff and way cheaper than Seachem), but switched to get the benefit of it figuring out the dose for me. It is working like gangbusters- I only have to change my water once per week (30 gallons- it's about 50%) whereas before I was doing it twice per week. The nitrate is manageable also.
NITRATE: Y'all, it has taken me a few years to finally stop overfeeding my fish. Those fish have a psychological hold on me- for the longest time I just couldn't help but feed them 2 - 3 times a day- I just lived with the required water changes that forced me to deal with. NOW I only feed my tanks on Sunday (frozen food), Wednesday and Friday. That's it (except for the tank with German Ram fry). It is MUCH better and is a big part of why the above is working at all.
I'm slow to learn, but am happy to offset it with spending too much money and harder work
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