jasonnz

Hi everyone, Good to be back after a small break. Here is a picture of my tank. As you can see my planting has been unsuccessful. Plants grow fine .. but some of my fish think it's funny to pull them out. I loose alot of plants this way. I was just talking to my wife and explained that I would like to temporarily relocate my fish .. while I have another go at planting the tank - This time I will leave the tank growing for 6 months and only small fish .... I might sell move my larger fish on .... or move them into the reception area into another new tank. I'm still trying to decide. I have invested many thousands and after months of tinkering .. now understand the eco system well enough to make everything work I believe.

I paid $1500 for a tank only slightly larger made from new glass. I think the price is fine to be honest.

Hi Guys, I have a molly. It's an old molly, like 3 or 4 years old. It's the back half of the fish is very thin, like it's been squashed between two books.. and it looks to me like it is struggling to use the back half of it's body. It's still eating, full of like and swimming around. I treat my tank for parasites often and none of the other 200 odd fish are showing any signs of issues. Any ideas?

Good luck with your hairgrass. May I make some suggestions for fish stock in your planted tank: - Any tetra - Rams will be great - Gouramis - Mollies until your tank and plants take hold and are strong - avoid I have 2 larger pleco's in my tank, cory's .. bristle noses siamese algae eaters and flying foxes .. These fish destroy my plants - I have wasted a good amount of money trying to get my plants to grow, and made the wrong choice of fish. It's cost me a huge amount of time and frustration. But .. i love all my fish .. and for now .. they are a little more important. I used alot of JBL product in my tank. If you havent seen my thread, check it out here : viewtopic.php?f=28&t=59027 it has some info about my setup etc. Nice safe choice of plants too. I am very excited to see how your tank is in a few months time.

I don't think the cost's were excessive. I am very happy with the end result. I have been focusing on keeping a healthy tank - and getting the clarity sorted.. Now that I know everything is working - I intend to plant it out some more. I wanted a good substrate that was going to feed any plant. Now that I know it's doing as intended .. I am looking to upgrade to a more technical co2 setup and I am going to re-attempt spome ground cover using dwarf hairgrasss. I must take pictures of this and post for you all.

Oh and Co2 is back on track.

Update : Large Molley is back in main tank. Doing just fine. Little molly literally fell apart - was euthanized. 2 Rams with pop eye - 1 got pinecone. Both Euthanized. Cory - his arm fell off. Was very say. His belly started to literally peel back. Euthanized. 2 tetras - bloat (worse than anything I have ever seen) unable to swim ... euthanized. Everyone else in the tank is just fine. Water levels are sweet.

Well - it's still there - but its certainly not as bad as it was. I do very regular water changes .. 15% 25% and 50% over 2 weeks. I also have carbon in 1 filter and purigen in the other - which certainly helps a lot. The tank has crystal clarity - but the water does turn yellowish/brackish ever so slightly just before the water is due for a change. I expect it to take another 12 months of so yet before the water colour is at a level I am happy with. (although .. before that happens - we might be getting a newer .. bigger tank) >> !

hahahaha ... Valray had spent a long time growing some very amazing moss trees for his own personal tank. I tempted him with some $$$ to part with them. The tree where amazing - but they grew - and grew and I didn't maintain them properly .. so now they are in a new tank.

On the backside of one or 2 sick fish I decided it was time to attack my tank so from 5pm to 8pm I set about removing what has become an ammonia death trap and a downright pain in the backside. Moss. So .... I started by removing my wonderful $120 trees that valray had so reluctantly sold me - and started cleaning and removing all of the moss from the tank. When I say all of it .. I mean an entire bucket (in it's compressed form without water). I found fish I have not seen in months. Hiding about. I also found my Pleco's bathroom .. So around an hour was spent with the vacuum following the removal - and although I now have some bare areas in the tank, I feel like the entire tank is a lot cleaner. Although it looked clean previously - you have to remember that moss acts like a sponge when it is in high concentrations... I was trapping uneaten food and trapping waste from making it's way through the filtration system. I didn't really like the idea of this muddy mucky dark part of my tank where fish were unsuspectingly sitting in there own muck. Here is a picture of when I finished. The entire left hand side of the tank was mossed up.

Updates - So - I have added an additional canister filter to the tank which is an ehiem pro 3 2080 I think. Big tank requires beig filtration and as my fx5 is a silly sack of potatoes (it will go back to my lfs for testing soon) .. I thought of adding MORE filtration. I now have the ehiem - fx5 and a aquaone1200 (which is just mechanical and UV filtering). The tank is a lot clearer than it was - water clarity is almost perfect - however water colour is still brownish. (like a diamond). Levels are all fine. I had a pencilfin die - recently but apart form that the tank is free of deaths> ! yay . I have a hospital tank which is very well utilised at the moment though with 5 patients. 2 x Mollies - 1 has a fungal issues - he is just crazy ugly with all sorts of nasties. We took him and the other remaining molly out of the tank and unfortunately I euthanized the other 2 as they were on last legs. The fish are old - my mollies came from one of my ex employees and he had them for some time before I got them. apart from the fungal issues - which I have tried to remedy - the fish is eating, swimming and playing like nothing is wrong. I think his time has come he just doesn't know it yet. The other molly was taken out of the big tank simply because I didn't want him in the main tank if something was likely to spread.- Diagnosis. not good. 1 x Cory. He is a recent addition - Today we noticed him with a big of cotton like growth. On closer inspection and aware that this is normally a secondary infection we noticed a chunk of his tail missing. Not right down to the end - but he also had some other marks on him. It's likely he was attacked at some stage - or has gone to sleep under the heater. He is not in quarantine and is being treated. Expecting a full recovery. 2 x Rams. 1 Bolivian - 1 Blue. - I had an issue with co2 in the weekend and on Monday these bad boys both developed pop eye. I got them out of the tank earlier this week - and none of the other fish have shown any signs. They both got a bit of bloat as well. Unfortunately .for one of these bad boys he has what looks like pinecone. Neither look like they are distressed. They had a few days/ week show some improvements but if they deteriorate further I will need to think about letting them go. We have a large number of fish - and I think we have been lucky thus far.

If it's too short notice - being a long weekend and all .. we can always schedule something for in a few weeks ! If there is enough interest I'll even put on a proper morning tea.

That's going to be a nice sized tank.... What's the plan for planting style etc?

Hi Guys/Gals .. As many know I am new to fishkeeping and have built a 1400 litre tank. It is now well up and running however there are bound to be things I am not doing correctly .. could be doing differently I wanted to float the idea of opening my office for an hour or so this weekend for some of you to come along and visit my large tank - take a look at the setup and make some suggestions - recommend changes - look at the fish !!! Just talk fish! I thought I might provide some morning tea .. Perhaps Saturday morning ... this will give me the rest of the weekend to implement any useful suggestions! I am in Penrose, Auckland - so if you might be keen - feel free to drop me a message and if there is enough interest - I might be keen. I would be grateful for any assistance. Anyone interested in planted tanks or large tropical freshwater setups may be interested!

silly Godly3vil .... : :sml2: I could never get rid of my angels .. they are the feature of the tank... the colour is amazing .. 2 of the best angels I have ever seen.

picture from last night

Hi all - I feel like you have been left out of all the fun. So so much to report - and when I have a free evening .. I will write it all up. Essentially - riccia grew amazingly - except the fish kept pulling it out and it ended up floating around the tank .. took about a month to get rid of it all. - Wood was not pre soaked .. even though I was told it was - so it's ended up leaking into the water for a the last few months .... been a real chore to keep the tank looking clean. - Filtration has been absolutely let down by an underperforming Fx5 filter. - this pumps around 300 litres per hour - needs to go back to the shop for a checkover. - Just last Tuesday I added an Ehiem pro 3 2080 filter to assist in this tank. It has made a huge difference. (this has some media - polishing pads and purigen in it). - fish count has been good - I have around 75 harlequin rasboras - which look really cool. - Tetra's seem to do well in this tank .. but are most likely to be found dead in the tank. So far we have lost 1 cory, around 20 assorted tetras - and a couple of rasbora's .. normally around 3 fish a week. (which is good considering there is over 200 fish in the tank). - had one small outbreak of whitespot .. caught it early and treated the entire tank .. hasn't returned since the treatment over a month ago. - Pleco's are doing extremely well. - Had an issue with Co2 in the tank. Someone made a comment early on that I didn't need air bubblers - because the surface movement would oxygenate the water .. well this wasn't the case .. and after a few weeks of adding co2 .. a lot of the fish were not coping very well. Added a very large bubbler which now runs all day .. and this has sorted the issues. fish are very happy. - Still need to finish the planting - got now letting everything grow .. this weekend we plan to pull some plants out and replant them. - Cabinet needs some new hinges. - lights still need to be hung - would like to replace all the inlet/ outlet plumbing with super clear acrylic pipes. - planning to add a lot more hairgrass. - glosso stigma is going nuts .. fantastic cover .. but will take a few months - mollys are old now - they have been moved to a hospital tank .. - heathers have performed really well - got a 1000w from valray off trademe and used it in conjunction with a 300w jager .. Temperature sits at 26 - 27 all the time. - still need to learn abit more about feeding .. I would like to get a little more creative with foods for the sake of the fish. Anyway .. photo from after planting: Photo from today:

I know I know. I'm just waiting for the tank to grow. Everything has been going really well. No issues thus far and the fish/water is all happy. Amazing changes - absolutely mind boggling. 2 things I'm working on, algae control and becuase of the HUGE amount of dark wood - I have some tanent leakage. but other than that things are good.

Yes - loads of updates.. I will post sometime between tonight and the end of the weekend. Lot's has happened - plenty to discuss.

I can sell you a new pc ..

I have been growing some additional riccia which I plan to re-attach to the tiles this weekend. Yes - we are all very excited about what it is going to look like once full of plants.

Can you post a picture? I had the same issue with my 1400 litre tank. and resolved it using wood wedges (from the hardware store) and selleys no more nails. Worked a treat. What you may find is that there is a small bow in the wood that is causing it to sit funny while empty. Have you check with a level?

The tank this morning

The discolouration has decreased slightly following a water change and the addition of purigen to my filtration system. The riccia is no more damaged than it was last night - so very happy about that. I will be dosing some additional ferts today again ! Only the second time so far that I am putting liquid ferts into the tank. Everything seems to be growing as intended.