Low-Tech Planted Tank

[biodives]

Two new additions. First off, I finally found the dwarf salt&pepper cory, Corydoras habrosus, at Big Al's and bought a dozen. Here is a picture of a pair hanging out on the Myriophyllum mattogrossense, which is now so large that it completely hides the pump and heater.

The next development is that the big sword plant, Echinodorus bleheri, has started to make a reproductive stalk. So far it is only the stalk but the adventitious plantlets can't be far off. Perhaps I will have some plants to put up for sale on the next ACE auction.

The number of Apistogramma babies has gone down to 20-30, with some being snatched up by the red phantoms despite mom's best efforts to protect them. Dad is the only fish that is allowed to get close to the babies and he does not eat them but he isn't really helping out either. Mom has to do all the work. I have started adding some freshly hatched brine shrimp nauplii with a turkey baster and mom doesn't seem to mind too much. The babies are eating some but not as well as I had hoped. Hopefully they will get the hang of it soon as I find them a bit skinny. However, they are growing and have a bit more color/patterning than before, in particular the white dashed on the caudal peduncle.

[biodives]

Time for an update, starting with the plants as this in the "planted tank section". Let's start with an overview picture.

As you can see the plants have really taken off. The Brazilian milfoil that was initially struggling along the left has taken over the entire left corner and now perfectly hides the pump and heater. It also partially hides the giant hairgrass, which is unfortunate and it looks like I have to move the hairgrass a bit to the right and more in front of the pump outlet so it gets blown horizontally. Toppings of the milfoil have been planted to the center right and started a new bush that is already approaching the surface.

The amazon sword plant is still creating 2 new leaves a week and hasn't lost any. So it has become quite a massive central feature and the favourite hangout place for the red phantoms. Recently it has started to form a first reproductive stalk which is forming pairs of new plantlets on three nodes and the tip has now emerged and with some luck may form white flowers. The dwarf sword plant (tenellus) has taken over the foreground of the left half of the tank and the pepper & salt corys (C. habrosus) love to search for scraps under the leaves of this "carpet". The micro sword plant (Lillaeopsis braziliensis) was and still is the slowest grower but it is healthy and creating a few runners that have grown about 4 inch by now.

Since the last post I have replaced the old low-power internal filter. I never vacuum the substrate and there are a lot of small particulates kicked up as the corys and, in particular, apistos search for food in the mulm. The old filter couldn't get rid of these very small particulates. The new filter is a Marineland Magnum Polishing internal filter. I may write a post on it elsewhere as I really like it for the "polishing" part. Maybe not that good when you need biological or chemical filtration. The new filter also gives a much stronger flow which I have directed upwards to give constant agitation of the surface. In conjunction with the LED lighting this gives a nice shimmering effect. The filter also completely prevents the formation of an organic film on the water surface. Previously I needed to remove this film every other day or so. Finally, the current is so strong that mulm in the open sandy areas has been blown off and taken out by the filter. Fortunately, mulm still remains around drift wood and in the tenellus carpet because I like having some of it. However, if you like squeaky clean than that is another reason to consider this filter.

The pump current is directed so that all floating plants accumulate along the right end of the tank where they don't cast a shadow over light-demanding plants. Only the hornwort is partly shaded by them and not nearly growing as fast as before, which may be a good thing. Also, as the milfoil forrest expands I am removing the hornwort so in a while all of it may be gone. The one new addition, purchased yesterday from Aquarium Central, is Mayaca fluviatilis. A soft-acidic water preferring plant so I hope it will feel right at home. I still have to plant it but it will probably go in between foreground and background somewhere.

On the fish front, the male macmasteri dwarf cichlid stopped eating shortly after spawning and developed white/translucent feces, normally a sign of intestinal parasites. I tried treating him in a quarantine tank but couldn't find the right medication quickly enough. Some dwarf cichlid experts also say that Apistogrammas are hard to treat and the best strategy is prevention. In this case it is not clear what triggered the disease as the mating suggests he was in good condition. Perhaps the mating itself, which I did not observe, was too stressful. A replacement male seemed perfectly happy and showing off for the female. Unfortunately, after 4 days I woke up to find it dead on the bottom of the tank. I took a water sample to the LFS and it tested just fine. They thought the transition from hard/alkaline store water to my soft/neutral tank probably did him in, but offered me to pick a new one for free. I ended up picking a new male as well as a second female as further reading indicated that A. macmasteri, like many apistos, likes to form a harem. This time I put them in quarantine for a week to slowly replace treated tap water with tank water. A week later I transferred them to the main tank where everyone, especially the two females, needed some time to stake out their territories. Everything has settled down with the biggest "old" female claiming the right 2/3rd of the tank, and the newcomer occupying the left third. The male is wooing both females so I hope to have new spawn(s) in the near future.

The original spawn has about 25 survivors left out of 40-50 hatchlings. Twenty are in a 10 gallon tank raised on nauplii and the remaining ones are left in the main tank to fend for themselves. Mom has lost her yellow breeding colours this week suggesting they are really on their own now with mom preparing for a second spawn. The babies are starting to get the caudal peduncle spot and vertical bar patterns typical for apistos. I have even seen some "tail swiping" between babies as if they are starting to claim a territory, but more likely they are just practising this tactic.

As of yesterday I have two new tanks. A 20 gallon long and an 80 gallon 48x24x16 inch "frag tank". The intention is to get some wild-caught South American fish in there, including Laetacara dorsigera and Apistogramma agassizii. But I will report on those projects elsewhere.

[pipejax]

Very nice biodives. I regret not dirting my tank at the get go the plants look great. I have found that the iron in my tank is very low on city water. Do you have to dose xtra iron to the water?

David

[biodives]

Hi David,

I only add some Flourish (micro-nutrients) when I did big water changes early on or, this weekend, as I was withdrawing lots of water from the tank to fill new 20G long and 48x24x16 tanks. Apart from that they only get pure RO water with 6 ppm TDS. I am actually amazed that there is no limitation for iron or trace elements. Given how well the first tank worked I've used the same trick digging out some dirt from the same little pond in the river valley. It was blacker and with more of a sulphur smell than before but nothing too offensive. If it works well again then I would say it is not a one-off lucky event. This time I got very fine playground sand from Canar in Edmonton (about $7 for bag and 2 cubic feet of sand). Apistogramma and other fish that like to bite in the dirt should be very happy with it.

Perhaps the problem is not that iron is low in city water, it should be a lot higher than in my RO water, but that it is not bioavailable. Plants use reduced Fe2+ and not the oxidized Fe3+ form, which is what you would have under aerobic conditions. I believe iron chelators combined with light form Fe2+ and that is probably in the commercial plant fertilizers. I expect that deeper down my substrate is sufficiently anaerobic that bacteria in absence of oxygen reduce the iron for the plants.