The Precipice

[Jen]

After a long hiatus, I decided to get back into the world of fish keeping. I purchased a 55 gal tank this week and have decided to plant some low light plants and make the tank more about the fish than then plants, but we'll see what happens

Specs
55 gal tank - 48" x 13" x 20". Nice and long, but not too tall or deep.
2 x 17 watt bulbs. .6 wpg. not as much as I would have liked, but it's what came in the kit, so for now they will do.
Tetra Whisper EX70 filter

The plan for plants is all low light - crypts, java fern and moss, anubias and swords. I do have some val in there right now which I know probably wont last, but I needed something in there for the fish.

I have started off with harlquin rasboras and a few corys, and will eventually get some angels. What I want is a very large school of the rasboras (30+) with the angels as the show piece, but again, we will see what happens over time.

I will post a picture later on when the lights are on full and the fish are a little more acclimatized.

 

[Biulu]

Your plant choice sounds good for the light you have. If you combine it with bogwood, I am sure you can come up with a stunning aqualandscape. A large shoal of harlequin rasboras must look very impressive as these are such great shoaling fish!

What about the picture you promised us? Anything happened in the 2 weeks gone by?

 

[Jen]

Jen's not so Low Tech tank update.

I've been having a bit of a hard time with plants. Amazons would not do anything, val wouldn't gain any height, sideways sprouts, but no upwards growth. Crypts melted, but did come back... but that was pretty much it. So today I caved and upped my lights. I picked up a HO T5, 2 54watt bulbs, which brings me from .6 to 2 wpg, so I am anticipating an algae bloom in the next few weeks I did pick up a bunch of new plants to try to thwart that a bit if I can.

So I have some Melon sword, Sag. Platyphylla, Rotalla Indica to add to the multitude of crypts (spiralis, undulata, wendti and one other one that I can't find the paperwork to)

I also added some Gara's to the tank, which so far are doing a great job on the algae that started on my val and the wood in there.

Sorry for the delay in pictures... it hasn't been worth photographing lately with all the dying plants. I will need to work on how to take pictures with this much light... it's not the greatest, but here's the start!

Please feel free to make any suggestions!

 

[lljdma06]

Oh Jen... No... You caved!

Sigh...I would have told you to up the filtration first. Especially on a tank that large.

So, when are you going to upgrade to pressurized CO2 and dry ferts? What is your photo period?

llj

 

[Jen]

I learned the hard way not to add a package of fluorite to the tank without rinsing...

 

[Jen]

No dry ferts. No CO2. I can't go down that road again... especially since I basically gave it all away 2 years ago.

Lights are on for 13 hours right now, but I'm thinking of going down two hours. I'm hoping I don't need more filtration... I really can't afford more equipment right now. Maybe for Christmas. We'll see how the tank is looking in a month or so

 

[Jen]

Well, I can honestly say I have no idea what the tank looks like right now. I did a 50% water change, moved the fluorite around (which kicked up a ton more dust) and decided to re-scape while I was in there. All I can say is that the bushy side and the grassy nook switched ends, and I moved the wood around. I think I am going to try to make the style with dense ends and a 'path' down the middle. I think someone here (well probably several someones actually) has something like it. I know there is a name for the style, but it has slipped my mind.

In the mean time, I'm going to do small water only changes every couple of days until things clear up a bit more, and see what I did in there!

 

[SuperColey1]

13 hours is far too long for a planted tank. 11 hours is too.

While it is starting up you should be trying to keep it down to 6 hours or so and gradually build up to a final photoperiod of between 8 and 10 hours.

On the lights front I think you should have been a little more patient. It would've come in eventually. Younow have some really hefty lighting for a 55USG. 2WPG of T5HO is not going to be easy to manage without CO2 and ferts!!!!

I think you may be struggling even more with only 40-50% planted (judging by the pictures)

I wish you well though and hope you prove me wrong.

Good luck

AC

 

[lljdma06]

13 hours is far too long for a planted tank. 11 hours is too.

While it is starting up you should be trying to keep it down to 6 hours or so and gradually build up to a final photoperiod of between 8 and 10 hours.

On the lights front I think you should have been a little more patient. It would've come in eventually. Younow have some really hefty lighting for a 55USG. 2WPG of T5HO is not going to be easy to manage without CO2 and ferts!!!!

I think you may be struggling even more with only 40-50% planted (judging by the pictures)

I wish you well though and hope you prove me wrong.

Good luck

AC

I agree. This is going to be tough to maintain without CO2 or ferts. I've gone as high ast 3WPG, but that was very poor PC lighting, a smaller tank, and if you recall, that tank was almost 100% covered with fastgrowing stems. Also had 3 filters. I really think filtration makes a big difference in setups now.

Hate flourite and feel your pain. I used is once, hated it, then promptly chucked the lot of it. Dirty mess, and I washed it thoroughly before I put it in.

For now, see where the photo period reduction and increasing your plant mass takes you. Hope you have better luck. There are a lot of successful low-tech journals here. Have a look at them.

llj

 

[Jen]

Thanks for the tips guys. I have always kept the lights on this long since the first time I set up a tank; 9 am to 10pm. Working shifts (7-3, and 3-11) it was the only way I would ever get to see my tank. Now I am in a job that is only days, so I could probably move it back to noon - 10pm.

I think I am going to need a new filter. The one I have really only moves half the tank around, and even with repositioning my power head, I'm not getting much surface movement.

As much as I miss my jungle and can see this tank looking like that, I just can't do the cost of co2 and ferts. Plus I am away much more often, so needing something that doesn't require daily care is a must. I am definitely looking to get some more stems in there, and some more crypts for the foreground. I don't know if it would work, but I can try taking out one bulb should I notice that it's too much.

I've also been thinking about fish again. Angels were always top on the list, but after going back and looking at my old thread I thought about kribs. It was actually your idea Llj . I quite liked them in my old tank. A bit more research is in order.

 

[Biulu]

I also have my lights on just in the afternoon/evening to be able to enjoy my tank more. CO2 is not a must, and if you can make your own fertilizer mix, cost lowers substantially. Another possibility would be to put garden soil under your substrate. Especially crypts and other root feeder would benefit from this, and again is a low cost solution.

A much used index is the EI which for your tank would come to: 40-60 Gallon Aquariums
+/- 1/2 tsp KN03 3x a week
+/- 1/8 tsp KH2P04 3x a week
+/- 1/8 (10ml) Trace Elements 3x a week
50% weekly water change

It might be a bit too cumbersome for you though... I don't know but it would be a much cheaper way to fertilise as you can buy these products mostly at your pharmacist.

 

[Jen]

I've done EI in the past, and really enjoyed the result. In all honesty, the 50% water changes were killing me. It was on a 90 us Gal tank, and I would end up spending 3-4 hours every sunday draining the water, fiddling with the plants, cleaning, filling, mixing up the weeks worth of ferts, testing the water... It was ok back then, my personal situation was different then.

Doing it would be easy, and i would get into the swing of things very easily, but there are times when I will leave work and head out of town to my boyfriends house on a Friday and not return to the city until time for work Monday morning. 3 days without care wouldn't work. If I could do it, silk plants would be in there... as I said, this tank is to be more about the fish than the plants. But there is no way I am ever doing artificial plants. If things get out of hand I will definitely re-evaluate my plans and make adjustments where I can.

Anywho. The dust has settled, I'm not very happy with the wood placement, or where i have some of the plants, but I'm going to wait until my next water change to mess things up again, as I'm sure more dust will be kicked up. I just can't envision what I am going for yet. I still have some thinking to do, especially if I am thinking of Kribs instead of angels...

 

[Jen]

More plants, new fish, and clearer water!

I picked up some val and some cardamine, moved things around a bit more. I'm starting to get things more in the direction I'm thinking right now.

I picked up 6 more Rasboras, and 3 kribs. I was really close to picking up 3 wild angels, but $55 (cad) was just too much, when I've never had luck with them. That, and my water stats aren't ideal for them right now. So the 3 kribs are looking great in there, and I might get 3 more. Then if I am happy with them over angles, I might get some rams to add some other colours in there. We'll see how things are going in another few weeks. But my rasbora school is looking awesome. I've got 21 in there now, and they are quite an attractive group to watch, especially now that they are using more of the tank, rather than just the back wall.

So as of today, here's what we are looking at. A little bit of brown algae on the back glass and on the filter. I did have a little bit of hair algae in there over the weekend, but it looks like my gara's made a quick meal of that.

 

[Biulu]

Yeah, that definitively improved a lot with the new plants in! I like it too. Can't give you any advice as it looks perfect to me...

 

[Jen]

I think my fish must hate me. lol I've gone in there yet again and changed things around again. I picked up some slate and made a few caves to give a few more hiding spots and possibly give the kribs a spawning site should that happen.

A few more plants - Roseafolia and some Crypt Miy Oya (according to the store).

I am not happy with the sword in the left corner. It's too sparse, mostly due to the shape of the leaves, and the fact that it is so tall and there are so few leaves. I don't know if it will fill out more or always look like this, if it will, then I will most likely take it out and either opt for a amazon sword, or another very bushy plant.