Hello!

[sm1ke]

Hi everyone, I'm Mike. I grew up in Winnipeg, but moved to Calgary in September of 2014. I'm not new to the hobby, but I am new to the site.

I used to keep SA cichlids in a 130g, lamprologus ocellatus in a 20g long, and CRS in a very lightly planted (only hornwort) 10g. I left all of that behind in the move, and thought that was the end of the hobby for me.. luckily, I came across a free used 20g high tank with a top - perfect for my first house, which is just a townhome.

The tank was pretty dirty and old, so I resealed the inner silicone bead with some aquarium safe black silicone. Cleaned it up as much as I could with some vinegar and a razor blade and water tested it at full capacity for a few days. Pretty happy with it now. I also ordered an LED strip light off eBay and bought a used AC50 off of kijiji. Heater is on order, along with a back up pump and sponge filter.

While waiting for that stuff to come in, I started on building a stand. I built the frame out of pine 2x4s, a dense melamine base, and a layer of styrofoam, then faced it with stained 1/4" plywood. I'm just putting the final touches on it (some moulding to cover up the seams), and then I can post a finished picture. I also mounted a power bar on the cross brace of the frame of the stand to help keep power cords neat and also create a natural drip loop.

In the meantime, I've attached a pic of the tank and frame. This is the second tank I have resealed and the second stand I have built. First reseal was a breeder's old 110g that I ended up selling because I didn't have the room. First stand was for the 130g.

I plan to do a lightly planted tank, with a male powder blue dwarf gourami as the centerpiece, some schooling fish, and either three corydoras or a bristlenose or other type of small pleco. I'm planning to put down a layer of eco complete or something similar, then layer some black sand over that. For plants I want to use some rotala rotundifolia, red ludwigia, and stargrass. I wanted to try a pair of electric blue German rams, or maybe a pair of Bolivian rams, but my wife really likes the gourami, so of course I had to oblige. As they say, happy wife, happy life. *shrug

Let me know what you think. I also need some ideas for schooling fish, so if anyone has any ideas, I'd appreciate your input.

[ckmullin]

Hello and welcome to AA.

[sm1ke]

Pic of the finished stand:

[Janoch]

Nice looking stand there man! Just throwing my two cents but for your considerations I'd go with a clown pleco for a 20g, a nice piece of driftwood as well as a nice dark nutrient rich substrate. Excellent call with the powder blue gourami, for a schooling fish neon or Cardinal tetra would accentuate him well imo, however I'd be interested to see what you decide, post a pic when it's up!

[sm1ke]

Hi Janoch, thanks for the suggestions.

What do you guys think about a dwarf gourami (now bouncing between powder blue and sunset honey), a pair of german blue rams or bolivian rams, a small school of fish like tetras or rasboras, and a clown or other type of dwarf pleco? I'm mostly worried about the rams and the gourami getting into it, but I've read that a lot of people have kept them successfully in 20g high tanks.

Also a quick update, stopped by ckmullin's place to pick up some substrate, a few starter plants and a bit of driftwood. Hoping to begin adding fish slowly starting next week.

Driftwood isn't in the tank yet, I'm just trying to waterlog it in the sink first.

[Janoch]

Yeah good call, I've been guilty of getting too excited with the driftwood and putting it in before giving it a good proper soak. Hate the look of tanin stained water. Have no experience mixing dwarf gourami and Rams though, good luck man tanks looking good

[elf_poop]

Here's my experience with the above species:

My 20 gal planted started as 20 cardinals+clown pleco+maybe 6-8 corys. This worked well except it was hard to keep the substrate clean and the corys barbels were getting mangled on the sharp rocks (which look like what you have). The clown pleco was very territorial during feeding time and probably caused a few cory to injure themselves (1 died from a gill injury) on the substrate.

Then, took the corys out so they could be put on sand substrate. Put 1.5" female GBR in. Bought a few baby corys. Good set-up but I felt like the clown pleco wasn't getting enough to eat cause GBR are pigs, and if not them then the cardinals would get everything.

Sold cardinals, sold baby corys, put 3" male GBR in for breeding (after the 1.5" male didn't work). Breeding pair GBR and clown pleco now. Pleco definitely not getting enough to eat.

Sold clown pleco and now just have 2 GBRs.

Personally I would not put 2 GBRs in with a gourami and all of those other fish. In my experience, 2 GBRs need a lot of room. The first pair I had HATED eachother and would chase eachother in the 120 gal they were in (though paid no attention to the gouramis). Once in the 20 gal the female would get torn fins and ich from the stress of the dominant male. From my experience, GBRs need a lot of room, especially if they aren't the right match. I can see 1 gbr and 1 gourami, but not 2.

Also, think about feeding - like my clown pleco was getting out-competed for food. If I fed any more, I would have to up my 2x/wk W/Cs because of the cardinals/GBRs. And now, my corys in the 120 are getting out-competed due to the fast swimmers in the tank.

[sm1ke]

Thanks for posting your experiences elf_poop. I decided against the rams and will stick with a single dwarf gourami. I currently have 10 neon tetras and four corydora sterbais in the tank. So far, no casualties Corys are doing fine, no barbel issues and they are exploring and eating normally.

I know, I should have got more corys, but Gold only had four left by the time I could add them (thanks fishclubgirl for the heads up). Big Al's has a bunch, but they're like $16 a piece, compared to the $4 Gold was selling them. It's gonna be hard to bite that bullet and add a few more.

I have added a Fluval U3 internal filter to the tank to eventually swap from the high flow of the AC50. I also added the driftwood to the tank (which still floats), but I have it weighted down with a piece of dead hard coral from Hawaii. I'll be adding the dwarf gourami at the end of the week, and that will likely be it for stock.

Edited May 24, 2016 by sm1ke

[elf_poop]

In my experience 4 corys are okay. I have not seen a difference in "happiness"/comfort level with 4 vs. 6 as some people say. Although, I think tank mates have a lot to do with comfort and I think what you have set up is good for that as they are basically non-aggressive. And if the corys have lots of cover they'll be fine. I wouldn't worry about adding more unless you want to. 4x the cost is steep and I've had problems with keeping Pisces fish alive before - at least you can get a refund if they die

Edited May 26, 2016 by elf_poop

[sm1ke]

Yeah, the corys seem fine if I leave the tank alone. The explore everywhere and they have a decent number of places to hide. Hopefully as the plants grow, more natural hiding places will develop. That said, if I come near the tank to feed them or just watch them, they kind of freeze up and become skittish at any sudden movements. Apparently that's common with corydora sterbai though.

I haven't been to Pisces yet, I'll probably check them out sometime this weekend.

[sm1ke]

So, little bit of an update. All fish are good and healthy, neons no longer school tightly but that's to be expected as they become comfortable with their surroundings. I have tons of pesky snails but I'm not too worried about them. I used to leave my lights on from 6:30am to around 4:30pm, but over the past couple of weeks I have developed an algae problem (no CO2 or ferts). I'm currently using a T5HO fixture with a 54W 6400k light.

I've cut down the lighting to about six hours a day, and the algae growth seems to have stopped. That said, the algae is still present on some staurogyne repens leaves. My ludwigia repens and alternanthera rosaefolia have suffered (leaves started to brown and small holes have begun to appear). Should I be doing anything different to combat the algae? What's causing the holes in the leaves?

I used to have a bunch of glosso as well, but the gourami I added has been ripping away at them and there's barely any left, lol. I think he's also responsible for ripping some of the ludwigia leaves off.

I'll try to get a picture of the tank later today.

I'm also working on getting a small office tank from SKA, pretty psyched for that!

[sm1ke]

Here are a few pictures.

[SomethingIsFishy]

Are you dosing Seachem Excel in lieu of CO2? I use diluted Metricide 14 that I picked up from a NE Safety store.

[sm1ke]

I actually haven't been dosing anything. I was hoping I could get away with not dosing, but I guess I expected too much with my first dip into planted tanks.

I'm going to do a water change, then post my parameters. Hopefully I can learn from this.

[sm1ke]

Ammonia - 0 ppm

Nitrate - 0 ppm

I did a pretty big water change before this, so I'll continue to monitor parameters over the next couple of days. Unfortunately I don't have a testing kit for other parameters like phosphates.

Edited June 14, 2016 by sm1ke