firestorm

Looks good so far, can't wait to see how it turns out

I have noticed as my amazon sword is growing, that many of the leaves are turning white. The only thing I can possibly find about this is it may be a calcium deficiency. Is this the possible cause for this? If so, how can I supplement my plants to get more calcium? I would have thought in our harder water calcium deficiency would not be an issue. Please let me know, thanks

Well, considering my dwarf frog I had ended up trying to eat one of my otocinclus......let's just say he got his head actually stuck in his mouth and I had to carefully remove him......pygmy cories might even be tried for a snack with the frogs. But depending on the size of the cories, it might just work

I so have to get some babies off you when they grow larger, I have a male of this kind and would love some females for him

Just stick the old filter on the new tank, no need to even put the media in the new filter. With a tank that size if you're not adding too many fish to the tank you should be fine. Just monitor the ammonia and nitrites over the next few weeks just in case you have to do an emergency water change. You should be safe to add the fish after about an hour with the old filter running on the new tank.

Great picture, he is really pretty

Pretty shrimp :thumbs: .......don't worry we all start out that way. It is all about a steady hand and good timing usually. Eventually you will get used to the camera and will take better shots. Remember practice makes perfect

Updated pics, they are doing well and fattening up nicely. I have 7 discus at this time. I will QT these guys and see how they are after 2 weeks. The checkerboard has slight peppering I am hoping goes away eventually.

My checkerboard is eating fine, hopefully yours pulls through. Those are nice ones though You can probably try an anti parasite med if he still doesn't eat.

Just got 2 new beautiful discus from April. I was very pleased with them, great quality and very healthy :thumbs: Here they are Red spot green Checkerboard pigeon

I agree that kenyis will be too large and aggressive for that tank. I have a pair of them in my 90 gallon, and these guys grow huge. I would only stick to a dwarf species of mbuna in a 50. I still say go with a colony of salousi, several people have successfully kept them in tanks around that size. Or I do think you can still get away with 2 small groups of fish, but mbuna do better with more of them in a space, I find not the same fish is always being picked on so i don't have any huge aggression issues. I have about 30 mbuna in my 75.

I found my salvinis to be quite aggressive with one another when they wanted to spawn. If they are getting ready to spawn and the female is ripe, her belly will turn a really deep red. Males don't usually have this feature, but will sometimes fight with the females before spawning. Ya never know, now that the eb is gone maybe they feel more comfortable to do the deed

Yep that's what he is, I have a male exactly like him. Don't know what females look like though, don't have any.

The coralife fixtures are pretty good, and slightly cheaper than the hagens. But I honestly like the hagen glo T5HO light fixtures better, they don't get as hot as the coralifes, and are easier to mount.....they actually come with mounting kits. But you will be spending a little more money on the hagens. Go to Gold's aquariums for lighting fixtures, much cheaper than other places around town. I bought most of my equip from there. I would go with around medium lighting, so you will want at least 100wts of light on your tank. Is your tank a 3ft long? If it is then go for the 36" long light fixtures. It will give you the amount of light you will need, and double bulb can be better if wanting more of medium-high lights.

Riccia doesn't grow that well without medium-high lights, and it needs CO2 to really thrive. And riccia can also melt with excel, so not the best option if going low tech Mosses and ferns are a great plant for starters.

Good to hear that. If I order any plants I will wait till spring. Unless they are coming along with some live fish that will be coming the same day. I don't want to take the chances of them freezing.

I read on aquarium algae blogspot that the blackout period is supposed to work for this bacteria. Clean up as much as you can from the tank first, add lot's of airstones since the dying bacteria will decrease oxygen levels, and cover the tank from top to bottom in garbage bags or something. After the 4 days remove the bags, clean the tank again and see if it killed it all, if not I would cover it back up and do it again. Fish can easily go a week without food, so don't worry about them too much.

I didn't know R/O systems contained waste water. Normally the filters pick up all the stuff in the water to make it pure. And I don't think you want to be using it in any tank, it might be too high of a concentration of minerals. I do 1/4 R/O to 3/4 tap for my shrimp tank.

The brown algae is normal in newer set ups. Once your plants establish themselves that algae should go away. It is very easy to remove though, just take your finger and wipe it off. I don't know if excel affects shrimp, I was reading an article in Tom Barrs forum and he was saying that the ferts have never been bad for his shrimp, or at least he never saw any signs that it affected them in a bad way. I have found that shrimp do better in well established tanks, which is one reason I lost so many crystals to begin with, they were put in a new set up. Hopefully the rest pull through for you. I also have dosed with iron and excel about the same time, never had any issues.

And here is an updated pic with the lights on the tank. I might add some fast growing stem plants for now as well to prevent having an algae outbreak.

Thanks guys, I am actually getting more dwarf hairgrass today from April, so I will also add that in. I have about 8 mths for it to fully grow in so I am not entirely worried about it. Have to get more rocks to stack up, placed the sponge filter behind the rock as well as a heater, worked out perfect and I couldn't have found a better rock....got them at BA's. Next I have to photoshop a picture from one of my hiking trips of the mountains, and use that as a background. I really wanted to find some small species of flowering plants, because as most know the fields on top of the mountains are covered with grass and pretty flowers, but I don't know of any species that will do the trick. I might go onto the entries for last year and look through photos and see if I can find anything. I have the light resting on a piece of glass on the top of the tank for now, have to find something I can use to mount the light above it, or I will get a different type of fixture that will clamp on. To get a rimless tank, just remove the black trim from the top, I was thinking about removing the bottom one as well, but decided against it. I wouldn't suggest doing it for larger tanks though since the black trim helps with support a bit. Snowball shrimp don't really glow when they are carrying eggs, they have saddles which is where they produce their eggs, and they turn a solid white when the eggs are forming. It is easy to sex snowballs because the females only have the white saddle, and since their shells are almost clear it's easy to see the saddle. I guess you could say they are glowing

This journal is a step by step process of my 5 gallon planted tank I will be hoping to enter into the 2009 international aquascaping contest. I did most of it today, have a few more details to add in but you can see for now each step I took Size: 5.5 gallon Tanks inhabitants: will be 6 galaxy rasboras, looking for 3 pygmy cories and maybe i'll transfer my snowball shrimp as well. Theme: A day in the mountains Plants used:Eleocharis acicularis (dwarf hairgrass), trying to get some fire moss or christmas moss to use on the rocks Lighting: Coralife 9" mini freshwater aqualight 2x6700K 9W which gives me a total of 18 watts so about 3 1/2wpg. CO2 source: 4L DIY canister using yeast method Ferts: dosing by the EI using KNO3, P2SO4, KH2PO4, iron, chilate (trace) Substrate: Seachem fluorite black sand, about 2" deep Tank before Cutting the silicon Cleaned and ready to go Added substrate and water Hairgrass Placed in the tank Rocks added, but going to get a bit more rocks for stacking

Sounds almost like a bug you would find in a house plant. An interesting article here, might help a bit http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Tank_critters2.shtml. Can you decribe in better detail what these worms look like? length, color, etc. It might be easier to figure it out. http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Tank_critters.shtml, http://www.townoflakelure.com/aquatic_worms.htm, honestly that is a mystery to me. Whats your temp at? maybe you can increase it to 82 for now, and that might help kill off the worms. Or you can try treating the aquarium with an anti worm medication or copper. What about adding salt? I know the plants might suffer, but it sounds like they are suffering more now than if you tried a few things. Also register for http://www.barrreport.com/, or www.plantedtank.net. There are more plant experts who might have seen or heard of these things before. It's worth a try I say

That's right, it's the 29th? I can't remember :P

Harold even has mixed lakes, and so do I. I think it works to some degree depending on the fish you do keep and how big the tank is. Peacocks and haps tend to stick more in the middle to top section of a tank, lelupi and brichardi they like to stick near the bottom. I would provide the tangs with alot of caves and rock formations all along the bottom of the tank. Did you know that with brichardi in the wild, they hang out in schools? They usually pair off to mate, and typically keep that mate for the rest of their lives. Once they claim a spot in the rocks that is their cave and they can always find it. All the brichardis that don't have mates have a very important job being the look out fish, they watch for predators. Guess I would hate to be one of the single's lol, you would be the first to get eaten. The single brichardi's are able to hide in any of the caves the pairs have claimed when predators are near, but they don't have an actual claimed territory. Yes I have been doing a bit of reading from Ad Konings book on tangs lol. Be careful though, if you happen to have 2 males, the dom male will kill the sub dom. I used to have 3, but my dom killed the sub dom and I am left with a pair