sarahny

I have a really bad case of BGA as well... It got so bad that I couldn't even see my poor siamese fighter. It was mostly on my glosso and xmas moss so I chucked the driftwood it was on out into the garden, and after manually removing the rest of the BGA I couldn't find a trace of the glosso...completely disappeared. I had a thick carpet of it all over the bottom of my tank too There's still traces of bga on the substrate and along sides of the glass I can't reach with a brush. I haven't bothered with a blackout as I thought that if it's going to come back anyway, I'm going to try to treat the root cause. I took out my internal filter and tossed out the bio noodles and filter floss. A bit gutted cos I have new tanks I wanted to cycle with the media from this tank. Replaced the internal filter with a brand new sponge filter I had lying around as back up. Hoping this will do some good. I'll let you know how I go...Sorry to impose on your thread! I'm also very interested to get any other tips and/or advice on how to keep BGA under control without having to resort to temporary or chemical means. I'm also worried about contamination, does this now mean any cleaning equipment I used on my affected tank, I can no longer use on other tanks?

Looks fantastic! I love the simplicity.

Thanks for clearing that up Ira. No that's not a photo of my plants.

My tank has been overgrown and I just pruned it quite heavily and now have a bunch of excess plants. How do I get rid of it? I was going to chuck it down the insinkerator, but then thought that might be a bad idea in case it got into streams?? I don't know if that's even possible! Or can I just chuck it in the bin? I live in an apartment so I don't have a garden or compost. Sorry if it's a really silly question! I just wanted to make double sure before I went ahead as I don't want to contribute to the aquatic plant pest problem by accident. Alternatively, I'm happy to give the cuttings away to anyone who wants them?? A good handful of xmas moss, green pine, rotala rotundifolia and another plant I think maybe called babytears? (the plant in the far right of this pic http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cwbt2D65i9k/SXTKBS7j9MI/AAAAAAAACj4/7qbGyx7xNQ4/s1600-h/81337993_101f97c680.jpg). They are sitting in a container of water at the moment so not sure how long they will last for.

Me too!

Beautiful!

That's what I also assumed. I'm not so savvy in the DIY area so I was just wondering if anyone else had tried it. I did find a thread on here from 2005 of someone using 2xT4's so I might try it out too. Thanks!

Yes that's what they are meant for...but will a 6400k T4 bulb work just as well as a T5? what is the difference apart from size? Yes I found the extrnal ballast Arcadia kit but a bit out ofmy price range. Seeing if there were any alternatives. Thanks though.

Hey guys, not sure if there's a topic on this already. Apologies and please point me in the direction if there is! I just got a Juwel Rekord 600 and the single 15W light in there sucks. I've been scouring the net for info on modding the hood to fit another light fixture in there. A lot of people have used starter unit kits and clipped in the tube to a reflector they attached to the hood. I can't find these starter unit kits anywhere (I lie, I found somewhere selling it online in NZ for around 100bucks). Anyway a few hardware places have these: http://www.nzlightingltd.co.nz/shop/Interior+Light+Fittings/Kitchen+Lighting+and+Strip+Lighting/Linkable+Fluorescent+Lighting.html and http://www.nzlightingltd.co.nz/shop/Interior+Light+Fittings/Kitchen+Lighting+and+Strip+Lighting/T5++Fluorescent+Strip+Lighting.html When I checked them out at the store they are small and light enough to just stick onto the inside of the hood with double sided foam tape. Does anyone have any experience with T4 bulbs? The 16W bulb comes in 6400K daylight so I think it will work for plants? I would rather use T4 over T5 because it's much smaller. The T4 will definitely fit, the T5 13W not so sure if it will fit lengthwise. Affordable and easy to set up too, just have to purchase connector cord for it. If you guys have any other ideas please let me know. I don't want to buy another lighting unit at this point.

Say hello to my new little fighter, Banksy! So badass! Thank you to bronze_dragon from here on the boards who was so patient and helpful in finding him for me! I initially tried getting a halfmoon for so long and have never really been a fan of ct's... but after seeing this little guy I fell in love straight away. It's day 3 for him in his new home and he is doing awesome. The first day he hid in the back and squeezed behind the filter most of the time which I expected. I thought he would be uneasy for at least 3 days but his shyness faded pretty quickly. Already on day 2 he was out and about exploring and swimming up to anyone who approaches his tank. The tank is on the kitchen benchtop so he swims to the back to watch anyone doing the dishes and follows you if you walk around to the front. He also eats all the gross little worms I have in my tank! I gave up on trying to control the numbers so when Banksy arrived he had a feast waiting for him. Hardly see any worms now! Plant-wise, my blue hygro is pretty much gone. I've cut most of the stems down to the last of the healthy leaves they have but eventually I'll pull them out. All the rest of the plants are doing pretty well. The moneywort and rotala growing to ropey lengths. Even the glosso which sort of went through a bad patch is slowly coming back. I'm looking for a blue mystery snail now. Does any one know of any in the Wellington region? I found a couple sellers on trademe but would prefer if I could obtain them locally if possible.

Argh I found more worms in my tank! They are different from the nematodes because they stay on the glass. These ones I only noticed when I put my face reeeaaally close to the glass. They are 2mm long, white and thin. Maybe baby planaria? They don't have that arrowhead shape, I can't tell cos they are so small. Anyway I turned off the filter, scrubbed the glass and did a 50% water change. Ammonia and nitrite 0, nitrate at 5ppm. I'm confused because everything I read about worms say they are harmless etc and are from overfeeding. But I don't even have any fish! And they seem to be multiplying because there certainly weren't this many a week ago

I did cut the light at the end for a while but it didn't do much so I thought I'd try cutting at midday when there was a lot of light from the sun as well. If all else fails I will cut them off (I've done that with a few other plants) but it's not so bad at the moment so I'll see how it goes.

Oh ok, will it go away by itself? Cool, how long did you have to soak it for? Had to hunt around for some interesting pieces, most were boring straight ones despite the beach being covered in DW.

Also, went for a drive up kapiti ways in the weekend. Collected a couple bagfuls of rocks and driftwood. Is the driftwood from the beach useable? I didn't pick the soft ones, mostly the darker brown harder pieces. Anyone collected from there?

Plants have been growing! I've done a trim on half of the hair grass hoping to get a nice lawn to grow out. Only cut half just in case the cut part all died and I had none left. But they are all alive and starting to grow again already. The un-cut half has grown so tall, almost water level now! Also had to trim the glosso. It started growing upwards so I snipped these and replanted, hoping to force it to grow horizontally. Looks promising so far, but may have to wait another week to see if it's actually going to cooperate. Zealandia micro sword has pretty much all melted bar a few stalks here and there. Twisted val is still going surprisingly but not very green and parts of it are breaking off. The rest (hygro, moneywort & rotala) are all growing like crazy – pretty much water level now. Xmas moss has got furry chocolate brown algae growing on it (on both DW and rocks). I'm guessing from too much light? I've set a timer to switch off the lighting for an hour at midday to see if that makes a difference. Have pics to upload once I get round to it. In other news, I just ordered a betta fish this morning! Hopefully he will arrive this Friday :happy1: Oh and won a tank off trademe yesterday. I have properly been bit by the aquarium bug.. I plan to make this one planted tank only at first. Keeping it really simple..maybe only rocks and hair grass (I love the look of HG) iwagumi inspired perhaps? Maybe...we'll save that for another post for when I actually get it!

I went for a drive up kapiti ways in the weekend and kept an eye out for pet shops but only saw Pet House. Has anyone else been in there lately? Their tanks looked awful, there were so many fish with ich and the tanks looked so grotty. I felt so sad for the fish

amtiskaw, I'm not sure. I don't have anything to test it. Joe, thanks wow that is such a simple solution but I never even thought of doing that. I have a 2-way valve but that didn't stop the liquid going through after I decided to shake the bottle to see what would happen. It's a big learning curve and a bit of trial and error for me which is all part of the fun I guess! I tried jiggling the diffuser and shaking the water out but it's impossible to get it all out of the tiny hole. It will just have to stay there I think, doesn't seem to be doing any harm. It's so annoying not being able to get it all out tho!

Day 11 Spotted the creepy worm/nematode thing and caught it with a little cup and dumped the water outside. Yay! There's probably more of them, but I haven't seen any yet. I changed the layout of the tank yet again. This is THE LAST TIME for a while (I will try really really hard not to move it around again). A bit sad because I liked the DW on it's side. I had to stand it back up because there wasn't enough room to lay down the rocks I wanted to cover with moss. Planted glosso (omg it took so long), tied down christmas moss, and planted a couple other random stem plants I received free with the moss. Here is the tank now. It looks like a messy jungle, but it looks less messy in real life. Can see the cotton I used to tie moss. Didn't have enough dark coloured thread...oh well. I used my dslr which saturated the colours (can't be bothered colour grading pics) so it looks like the plants are jumbled into one green blob. Must play around more with WB settings next time. The freshly planted (yesterday) glosso...please grow across and not upwards! Photo of the back of the tank, blue hygros. Glass diffuser.. it fascinates me. I love watching the tiny bubbles stream out. It's so soothing...anyone else think so too? Christmas moss meshed onto rocks. Questions: • A bit of yeasty water got in my diffuser..is that bad? I can't get it out. • Tiny snails were in the moss I got, I was expecting this and don't mind it. Will they grow big or will they stay tiny? They are about the size of 2 grains of sand. • The pH of my water keeps fluctuating from 7.4 to 6.5 to 7.0 etc... I assumed this was because of WC's but it changed even when I didn't change the water. Is this normal? • What is that hairy stem plant on the right of the DW?

I looked up planaria, it's definitely not that. In another forum someone suggested it is a nematode...I think that's what it is. I feel a bit sick from googling nematodes now. :sick: especially this pic http://www.stanford.edu/class/humbio103/ParaSites2006/Loiasis/Index.html aaaagh!!!!! Don't click if you're squeemish.

Thanks Squirt. Ew they're so wriggly and gross. I don't like the thought of sticking my hands in there with worms in my tank. I know it's so small but I'm squeemish! My apartment practically has no shade... I live on the top floor of the building with pretty much 270º floor to ceiling windows. I placed it in the middle of the room (sort of) so it's not in direct sunlight, it's the ambient room temp that's the issue. The people at the pet store said a betta will be ok because it lives in hot countries. Once the background plants grow higher it will create more depth. I'm going to resist the urge this time and not move anything around until it all grows in. This hobby is really teaching me to be patient!

Day 8 I decided to move a few things around. I know...probably not a good idea to uproot at this stage. But I figured that if the plants are in shock from transplanting anyway, might as well move it around now. I wasn't entirely happy with the driftwood standing up in the back corner on top of the rocks. I don't know why...it just seemed too "forced". Also, it didn't seem like there would be enough room for the plants to grow out behind it. So I removed all the rocks and tipped the driftwood on to it's side, so it looks like it "fell" naturally. The hygro I planted yesterday were already poking out of the water so I trimmed the ends of a couple of them and replanted those stalks (hence they everything looks a lot shorter now). I want the hygro to grow bushy, rather than skinny and stalk-ey. I did the same with the moneywort. There were some nice long bits of val behind at the back which I replanted in the midground. I also moved most of the foreground HG into the midground to make room for the glosso I plan to plant. When I did this, I accidentally pulled up some little zealandia sword and dwarf sag runners! Yay! Reassurance that they are doing ok. Questions: • Tonight after leaving the tank in the dark for a while, then switching the light on I saw a worm. It's about...3mm, white and really skinny. What is it? I saw a couple in the water I was using to rinse the plants in when I first got them so I'm guessing that's where it's from. Is it harmful? It gives me the heebie jeebies. • My flat gets super hot during the day, hottest I saw it was 30º. Will this be bad for a betta? It's only going to get worse when summer rolls around. • What do you think of the new layout?? In the pictures, the old layout looks better now, but I think the new one will grow out much nicer.

Thanks Shell, those references are amazing! I am bookmarking all of them.

Thanks Sophia. Oh really? What does "low tech" technically mean? I thought because I wasn't using super fancy expensive pressurised Co2 that it would be considered low tech..

Shell, do you know of any good example pictures? These are the ones I found (also recording here for my own reference) http://temp2.fotop.net/albums3/justinlaw/justinlaw01/IMG_2486.jpg http://media.photobucket.com/image/glosso%20and%20hairgrass/mattymcscoopitup/DSC_0308.jpg http://media.photobucket.com/image/glosso%20and%20hairgrass/mattymcscoopitup/DSC_0307.jpg http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/440/pict0322zh1.jpg/sr=1 http://www.aquaticquotient.com/gallery/files/9/3/8/IMG_0550.jpg http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b9dc00b3127ccec63ecedcabf500000040O00GYtWbhm0ZA9vPgw/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D720/ry%3D480/

I decided to start a journal of my tank. This is my first ever tropical tank (a wee little 16L) and I'm not quite sure which is the best thread for it. I plan to get a betta once my tank is cycled, so at the moment it only has plants. I've been so amazed at some of the aquascaping I've discovered online so I've lost interest in the fish and have been more occupied with the plants! oO SKIPPY Oo was kind enough to reply to my intro post, and along with some established filter media he also gave me some dwarf sags and twisted val and aquasoil to go underneath my gravel. Day 3 Here they are 3 days after planting, along with a piece of driftwood I had boiled the heck out of to leech out the tannins. It's sitting on three rocks from Red Rocks. Day 5 I wanted the substrate to be deeper so I added some more gravel. I got some lilaeopsis mauritius and zealandia sword off trademe and planted that in the mid ground. Dwarf sag and val not doing that well, they started to go transparent and yellow so I trimmed off those leaves. Added DIY Co2. Day 7 Animates had 2 for 1 plants so I got some moneywort and blue hygrophila which I planted in the background behind the driftwood. I wasn't planning on it, but I got some hairgrass as well and planted that in the foreground and scattered a few bunches around the driftwood. A close up of my DIY Co2 bubble capture glass. It captures 10-15 bubbles before they merge into one big bubble and rising to the surface. I have some christmas moss and glosso arriving next week. I plan to cover some smooth round pebbles/rocks with the moss (possibly also part of the driftwood), and the glosso I want to carpet in the bottom right corner where the glass is. I have read that hairgrass and glosso looks really messy planted together and purists prefer one or the other. But I'm going for the natural look (plus this is trial and error right?) so I don't mind so much. I'm hoping the HG will thicken out, then I could use small pebbles to create a "barrier" between the glosso and HG so they don't grow into each other too much. Will this work? I would love to know what you think of my first planted tank. Any feedback is welcome! I'm going for a pretty low tech set up so any other DIY tips would be awesome. I'm not even sure if I'm doing the bubble capture thing right (it's temporary, I have a glass diffuser arriving in a few days). Thanks! Sarah