New 38 Gallon Set Up!

[attibones]

As some of you may know, I've been looking into tanks for angelfish. However, I've decided not to go that route and instead use the 38 gallon (36"x12"x18") for peacock gudgeons and P. Gertrudae. I've got MiracleGro organic choice potting mix, black gravel (most of it relatively fine, but my wonderful dog spilled two-thirds of the 25 lbs bag onto the floor), and a mix of plants.

I'm running
1x Tetra Ex75
1x 200 watt adjustable heater
1x 20 in (t8? I haven't looked into the hood yet since I've bought it) bulb, unsure of wattage, may end up changing hoods

I was going to run an Aqueon 30 on this one too, but one of the filters on my 20 gallon crapped out so I've put the media in it to run alongside the other filter on the 20.

I have amazon swords, amazon compacta, several species of anubias, water wisteria (currently tied to the branches of my Manzanita pieces so my filter doesn't suck them right up), bacopa, what I think may be cabomba, and what is possibly a melon sword, as well as some cryptocoryne, and some longish grass type plant (the name eludes me). Oh, I think some jungle val too? I got a box with a variety of plants off aquabid, so I'm not sure what all I got and what all I was supposed to get.

Anyway, my stocking will be as follows:
6xpeacock gudgeons (3m:3f)
10x emperor tetra
10-12 P. gertrudae
3x albino BN pleco (all juvies, unsure of sexes right now, no bristles yet)
1x male guppy who needs to get away from the other guppy in another tank
~3 nerite snails

The rest of my peacock gudgeons have been ordered and will be at the LFS at Noon on Thursday. I already have two. They also ordered ten more cherry shrimp for me.

Oh, I've been monitoring the water parameters, ammonia is around 2, nitrite is super dark (off the charts, I presume) and I have not yet tested for nitrate. Pictures will follow briefly.

 

[attibones]

The tank the other day



And the tank now! I'm rather pleased with it, but I'll need a few more plants, I believe.

 

[Ninjouzata]

It's looking awesome! A big improvement from the other day too. Going to be difficult to clean you think?

 

[attibones]

Cleaning may be difficult but this is a Walstad tank so gravel vacs won't be necessary. I shouldn't have much algae either. Accessing my filter intake will be kind of hard though, especially since I need to get some sponge over the intake.

Next thing I need is some cholla sticks, as the Manzanita might not be the best for the plecos to rasp.

The new wood slime has really started up now. I'm hoping that it will clear up quickly.

 

[Demeter32]

I just adore planted tanks and yours looks wonderful!! Keep up the good work

 

[attibones]

Why, thank you! I'm rather enjoying this tank too.

Checked the stats again and today the ammonia is down to something like .50 to 1.0 and nitrite is still high. Got some nitrate too, but not much.

PH seems to have dropped way down, 6.4, it looks like. I'm going to retest and see what it looks like tomorrow. My tap water is around 7.4-7.6 so this is kind of strange.

 

[attibones]

Dosed an ammonia snack last night. Purchased 10 cherry shrimp for the twenty gallon (right now they are in a separate tank until the 38 is ready for friends) and I got two more pairs of gudgeons! Wooohoo! Two of the males were arguing over a particular piece of driftwood in the twenty, while another male was showing off to two females. The smaller lady looked unimpressed, but the larger one seemed quite taken. This behavior started within an hour of all the newcomers being introduced to the tank. I'm hoping that I'll have a good group of breeding gudgeons soon. Looks like the tank will be cycled soon. I'm going to do a water change in an attempt to get my pH back to its usual level, and then add more ammonia and we shall see where that takes the tank's cycle. I'm anticipating that I will add fish on Tuesday.
 
Pictures will come soon. I've only got two terrible pictures of the displaying male on my phone, but I'm going to try to get better pics tonight.

 

[attibones]

Sorry for the lack of updates. Finally got the tank all worked out. I've got some planaria in the tank, but I did a large water change today (ammonia and nitrite dropped to zero in less than twelve hours!) and added my six peacocks, who were not pleased with me, and the three plecos. 
 
I picked up three pieces of Cholla wood from my local Hobby Lobby (2.99 each) and the gudgeons and the plecos both enjoy them. Two of them have water logged. I also moved over two of my nerite snails to help with the ever present wood slime.
 
In roughly two weeks, I'm going to be upgrading my light fixture. I'm going for shop lights to save myself a bit of money. I will also be making a Python for myself because jeeze these water changes are difficult. All my siphons are too short to get the water out the window without making a mess. I'm too short to clean the tank and keep the siphon where it needs to go. And those buckets get heavy really quickly. I also have plans for a few PVC caves for the gudgeons to inspire a certain mood.
 
Sometime next month there will also be a very large amount of plants going into this tank. I need to get new lights first. The one I'm using now is pathetic.

 

[Ninjouzata]

Very exciting! Be sure to post pics soon
 
I'm sure they'll love the new wood and the PVC pipes when you get around to adding them.

 

[attibones]

I'm going to attempt to get pictures today. The peacocks lost a lot of their color last night as I was moving them, but they seemed to recover fairly quickly so I'm sure they'll not be too shy today. I'll also be asking for a bit of help with sexing my BNs. Two are much smaller than one. The smallest doesn't seem to have grown at all since I got the group in April. One of them has very quickly gotten very chunky, but none of them have any bristles yet. They still may be too young. They may all be female.

 

[attibones]

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys! My life has been insane. This weekend I will be ordering some plants, working on my new light fixture, and ordering the rest of my fish! I'll also be adding the PVC caves which I hope to cover with java moss or whatever moss I can find with the free shipping on aquabid.

I'll be getting three more types of floating plants, more helferi, some val species, and more crypts, as well as some more java ferns, anubias, and some sword species. I will also be adding a few things to my other tanks. Once I get the lights fixed, some of my existing plants should come back to life. It doesn't look nice right now because I had some major plant die off. However, my wisteria is actually doing really well. This is the firs time I've gotten it to grow. I think the difference is from tying the plant to the top branches of my wood to allow for some strong root growth.

Do any of you guys have any plant suggestions? I'm hoping to avoid CO2.

The gudgeons have been flirting, but I wouldn't say we've been full on courting. I'm hoping with more plants and extra caves that the group will start to pair up. I'm also considering adding another two females. Would that be too many? Right now they are at a 1:1 ratio.

 

[attibones]

While I'm out of town, I decided to go ahead and browse aquabid for some late night plant deals. I just ordered a golf ball size portion of java moss, 6 starter dwarf lettuce, 1/2 cup of duckweed, 1/2 cup of water spangle, 25 Vallisneria americana, 100 sag sublata, 50 ludwigia repens, 50 pennywort, and 50 water wisteria, not to mention 30 cherry shrimp for the twenty gallon. I only paid shipping for the shrimp. 

 
Also picked up a new light system. It is actually an under cabinet lighting thing, but I think it will actually work for my purposes. It's a t5. I got a daylight bulb for it, but it still won't be the wattage I want, so I'll probably just buy a second one. Or I could return it and spend ten dollars more to get one system from the LFS, which is what I may end up doing if I can't find a cheaper solution. This tank is just not a good length for what I'm trying to do. 

 

[attibones]

My peacock gudgeons are courting!!! One of my ladies has made herself at home against a leaf of one of my amazon compactas. This particular leaf has kind of rolled into a tube shape. She's been resting on this spot for a while tonight. then I noticed, during feeding, that one of my males is shooing away the other fish and rubbing against her. I don't believe they've got eggs yet, as the female is still hanging out of this leaf and the male is still coming towards her and then protecting the leaf. I'm super excited!!! 
 
Also, my pH is leveling out again. It's between 7.4-7.8 on the high pH scale. Much closer to normal now. I'll likely not be getting any fish for the twenty gallon. I'll just keep my shrimp colony and maybe some baby gudgeons!  

 

[attibones]

Just made it home with four more females and five emperor tetras! Woohoo! I plan on doubling the tetras in a couple of weeks, but I bought all they had in stock. Both species are acclimating in the QT right now. These four females are smaller than my current gudgies, but I think mine were only slightly bigger when I got them. These guys will all stay in QT for about two or three weeks, then I'll finish the tetra school, and then I'll see about getting my rainbows.

I've got some blurry pics of the older gudgeons on my phone, but I did snag one good picture of my more dominant male. I'm uploading it to photobucket now. You'll also get a pic of the tank as it is right now.

 

[attibones]

This one was hanging out in the favorite corner of the tank. That's usually where I feed them. I believe he is one of the courting males.