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My 1400 litre project!


jasonnz

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  • 2 weeks later...
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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.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

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:

yxjqkfq0.gdm.jpg

Photo from today:

u1ccp1r0.f1a.png

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That is looking great !

I had the same problem with oxygen in my planted tank .

My fish were gasping for air, and all tests showed nothing abnormal.

With the addition of a bubbler they were back to normal within a few hours.

This goes against everything I've read / been told in relation to planted tanks/ oxygen, so I'm quite confused.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

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.

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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.

odmyefxg.25h.png

The entire left hand side of the tank was mossed up.

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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.

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