29 Gallon Upgrade

[sharkweek178]

That's not a proper aquarium light. I just taped a little flashlight to a bottle so I could get a picture of the tank without the entire room being reflected in the front.

 

[Byron]

You are correct in leveling the tank/stand. I have read that depending upon the degree of unevenness it can eventually cause the seal to break on the side where the weight is more against the glass. Better safe than sorry.

 

[sharkweek178]

Found a side hustle to help fund this. I just ordered some Hygger lights. I'll get a Fluval heater next. I think I'm going to go with a HOB filter. I'm having a really hard time with the flow control on this internal and I realized that I like how customizable an HOB filter is. So I'll get an Aquaclear. I'm going to make some floating plant corrals out of airline tubing and once I get some fertilizer and root tabs, I'll be ready to add the plants.

 

[sharkweek178]

OK. I have all my gear. Here's what I got.

Aqueon 29 gallon tank with black poster board backing
Aqueon glass lid
Quikrete play sand
Hygger Aquarium Programmable LED Light
Fluval M150 Submersible Heater
Aquaclear 50 HOB Filter
off brand sponge filter
A couple of off brand digital thermometers
AquaMiracle Lithium battery powered pump.
some mopani driftwood and spider wood
A few random rocks I bought in fish stores
Flourish root tabs and Seachem Flourish Comprehensive Supplement

Added some almond leaves, I made some floating plant corrals, and I'll get some plants in the next week or two. The bio film looks pretty bad on the spider wood but the snails ought to take care of that.

For the filter media, I have (in order) 1. coarse foam, 2. bio floss and 3. some bio beads that came with the filter. Since I'm doing a silent cycle with fast growing plants, are the bio beads even necessary? Should I just add another layer of mechanical filtration?

 

[Slaphppy7]

Thread title changed, per OP request.

 

[sharkweek178]

OK so I sidetracked my battle with algae in this thread. https://www.fishforums.net/threads/plants-turning-brown-in-new-planted-tank.485151/
I cut back on the lighting and nutrients. I also added some fast growing floating plants. So far the plants I have are...

Jungle Vallisneria (Vallisneria Americana)
Water Wisteria (Hygrophila difformis)
Moneywort (Bacopa monnieri)
Java Fern (Microsorum pteropus)
Anubias Nana Petite (Anubias barteri var. nana)

Up top I have floating some...
Water Spangles (Salvinia Minima)
Amazon Frogbit (Limnobium laevigatum)
Anacharis (Egeria Densa)
Water Wisteria (Hygrophila difformis)
Water Sprite (Ceratopteris thalictroides)

I cleaned off the algae as best I could and trimmed the brown blades of vallisneria. This is what I have so far...

I wanted to vary the color of the plants a little so I have a Cryptocoryne Usteriana on order and I'll add a second once I see how well the first one fits. I have an ornament with some java moss on it and then maybe some pennywort, crypt parva or a buce. But I want to make sure the corys have plenty of space to dig around. Once I get all the plants added, I'll wait a month, make sure they're growing well, then test it out before adding livestock.

 

[sharkweek178]

@Byron, based on something you said in another thread I noticed how shiny and reflecting the background was. It's a heavy duty stock posterboard. So I removed it and spray painted it with a flat black paint and I think it looks much better now.

 

[sharkweek178]

Can someone identify these snails for me?

 

[connorlindeman]

Can someone identify these snails for me?

View attachment 306302View attachment 306301View attachment 306300

Ramshorn snail.

 

[sharkweek178]

Ramshorn snail.

I've discovered an entertaining behavior of theirs. They sometimes float. I looked it up and that's just how they feed on microfilm on the surface. It was a little surprising to look over and see a snail rising to the top of the tank.

 

[sharkweek178]

Still working on the algae issue. I've been messing with the lights and I have a custom time and intensity set. They start at 20%, then work up to 50% for a couple hours, then they spend a few hours at 80% before going back to 50% and then 20% again. It looks like the leaves of the water wisteria are melting a little. The anubias and java ferns look fine. I'm guessing that since the wisteria are faster growing, this means they need a little more fertilizer. I've only been adding about half the instructions amount so I can bump it up some.

 

[connorlindeman]

I've discovered an entertaining behavior of theirs. They sometimes float. I looked it up and that's just how they feed on microfilm on the surface. It was a little surprising to look over and see a snail rising to the top of the tank.

I have seen that before. If you give them a little push, they will sink back to the bottom.

 

[sharkweek178]

Still working on the algae issue. I've been messing with the lights and I have a custom time and intensity set. They start at 20%, then work up to 50% for a couple hours, then they spend a few hours at 80% before going back to 50% and then 20% again. It looks like the leaves of the water wisteria are melting a little. The anubias and java ferns look fine. I'm guessing that since the wisteria are faster growing, this means they need a little more fertilizer. I've only been adding about half the instructions amount so I can bump it up some.

It appears that the water wisteria has stopped growing. The leaves still aren't looking too good either. It might also be that I'm not giving them enough light as well. So, I'll try raising the light intensity a little. Maybe the same sequence I described here only 20, 60, 80, 60, 20.

 

[sharkweek178]

This water wisteria is still really struggling. I did a water change over the weekend and removed most of the melting leaves. And cut some of the stems that were rotting. Within a day or two, more leaves are melting. This started after I added the floating plants. The salvinia mimina is doing fine. It's propagating pretty rapidly. I'm starting to have to take some out of the tank. The frogbit is doing ok too. The roots are developing on those. The anacharis is fine too. My jungle vallisneria, java fern and anubias plants are also doing ok. The moneywort isn't really growing but it's not melting. I got two crypt usteriana. One is going through the usual crypt melt. Not sweating that. The other one I got was more mature and that's not melting. Which is fine with me.
Since the slower growing plants are still ok and since the problems with the wisteria started soon after I added the salvinia and the frogbit, maybe those two are sucking up the nutrients and the wisteria can't get enough. Especially after I increased the lighting a little.
I'm using Seachem Comprehensive. The directions say 5ml for 60 gallons so I dose half that for a 29 gallon. Then I add 1 ml mid week. I'm going to try upping the mid week dose of the fertilizer to 2. I'll keep an eye out for excessive algae and see how it goes. If that doesn't work, I'm ready to replace the water wisteria with more vallisneria.

 

[sharkweek178]

I might replace the wisteria and moneywort anyways. I'm not too happy with the way it looks. I can put in more vallisneria and a sword.