thedarkstar

I just read somewhere that the pitbulls like to be in groups. and with the pygmies, do you know what their 'normal' behaviour is? and the tank is planted... how big do ottos get?

Pygmy cories are a schooling type of fish, they don't necessarily dig in the sand like other cories.

Mine has pot scrubbers - foam - that filter stuffing stuff to clean up the water - a second foam

Looking forward to your progress.

Now, how about those pictures of your planted we talked about? :hey:

In time... I'm a student :tongue: (granted you are too :shifty: )

But I have today freeeeee!

Goals for today...

#1 - get my lava rock and wood in the tank

#2 - get my filter set up (CO2 to come later)

#3 - put in my plants

You'll probalby only need 1 filter. Go with the one that is powerhead-driven. The airstone will only drive off all of your CO2. If you do a slight mod to your riser tube, and drill a hole right below the powerhead intake that is just big enough to get the CO2 line in, you'll have an automatic CO2 dispersion.

That's exactly how I planned to set that up.

The powerhead intakes that came with it weren't big enough to fit the filter foam I'm getting from Paul, so I went to Rona and purchased some plastic tubing ~ 6 inches long which will hold the filter like a sock. In that tubing I'll punch two more holes just big enough to feed the air hose through so the CO2 will go right into the powerhead. I'll post some pictures later in the evening or tomorrow.

Looking great! what ideas do you have for plants?

Already have most in my tank, some reds...Alternanthera lilacina, as well as some Hygrophila polysperma "rosanervig"

potentially some browns... Crypto. wendtii brown

As well as some green... Other crypt species, echinodorus tellenus/quadricostatus (not sure which it is), as well as a few other plants.

Looking for some nice forground plants... Marsilea hirsuta and HC.

As for rocks/wood, I have a nice piece of stripped apple tree I'll be using for the wood and then my lava rock barricade will also add decoration.

May as well add a little more info to the thread...

Lighting = between 3-4 WPG, coming from 2-3 desk lamps with daylight CFL bulbs.

CO2 = Looking at probably 2 pop-bottle setups offset by a week with media replacement every 2 weeks.

Filtration = Looking at 2 sponge filters, 1 driven by airstone, 1 driven by a powerhead along with a modified HMF made out of lava rock.

So either way the heater shall be hidden by plants, it just changes my layout plans.

Could very well be, I have no experience other than pictures lol

The tank was then moved to my nice clean desk.

Where I added a layered substrate (pardon the water stains...) of Sil-9 I believe on the bottom/top mixed with the aquasoil mentioned in Kayen's thread from Rona.

Now for issue #1, heater placement, I'm still unsure as to whether or not I should keep the heater on the side like it is shown in the pictures or moved horizontally across the bottom of the back of the tank?

I figured I'd start this journal of mine off with something brand new for me.

I started by cleaning off my desk, really embarrassingly dirty so I ditched the pictures, and am slowly planning/working on a new planted sorority Betta tank.

So I started off with a plain 10 gal tank, which I've had kicking around in the garage for quite some time.

Then decided the best place to start was with the background.

Now, I wasn't feeling all too crafty so, I grabbed my dollar store paint.

And covered one side and the back of the tank.

Which gives me a nice solid black background.

My theory was... "never seen one burrow before, odd" lol

Well from what I've seen in pictures, never seen one burrowed, often they hide in caves and such or are attached to driftwood.

Nice job Ryan. I can't believe you where losing that much water from the sumps while they where somewhat enclosed within the stand. I must admit I am a little intimated with the construction of a sump, seems like a lot of "fine-tuning" and not as cut and paste as I thought.

The burrowing of a whiptail like that seems to me like some sort of stress mechanism to a lack of hiding spots?

Try throwing a clay plant pot or something in there maybe or maybe I'm out to lunch on this one

Definitely looking nice there.

I almost purchased that same tank a few days ago

Have you been putting some algae wafers for them? They need that(I learned the hard way!!).

If they're Otocinclus like mine, you need to feed Zuccinni or something cause mine never touch the wafers lol

dry fert will be my next step as well.

Got a nice high-lighting 10 gal coming soon

Depending on the growth rate of the plants in your tanks...

I've read stirring and snails aren't always required, the roots can do it sometimes aswell

shouldn't be any reason who you couldn't...

sand is essentially sand to a plant it seems, its only when you get into the more expensive "sand" that there's added nutrients to it.

I think its Seachem who makes the stuff I use... Flourish.

Has a bit of everything in it...

MTS, malaysian trumpet snails, are the ones whole stir sand, but with that little fish... use your finger or a stick lol

I didn't fertilize either until I realized the reason my Echinodorus ozelot leaves were disintegrating was due to a lack of iron lol

From the picture it looks like the brown is growing on the leaf...

If it is just a brown leaf, then you may need to fertilize more...

now that you know... you can take one and smith me an aluminum sword :shifty:

Plants look to me like they're covered in algae...

Just curiuos, but wouldn't it be much easier to just go with the BLog as mentioned before? That way, if people want to start one then they just go ahead and start one, and you guys (Moderators) don't have to bother with spending large amounts of time setting people up, creating forums, etc.

Dunno, I just found it easier on my old site to run a BLog and the membership could use it if they wanted to. On a site like AA I think it would probably be a pretty popular feature.

I'm a big fan of the way it is...

Alot more interaction between posters on a forum.

Posts won't get lost like they tend to in blogs (atleast for me).

And as a subforum, they show up under "new posts" so you can follow the threads as they're added to.

Might be a little bit of work, but we have quality people willing to help to make it easier on the mods.

The neatest design, I think I found on that site was an angled tank to make a downstream section of a river.

And apparently Danios act like salmon lol