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My first ever aquarium. Juwel Rio 180l

RolyMo said:
Hi Ady
Yes I omitted to add that part to my journal earlier. I have for the last week been adding a half dose/day of Tropica Premium Fertiliser. So a press of the pump roughly every day.

I guess leave for a couple more weeks before having another attempt at getting some fish or shrimp. Keen to get the clean up crew in there, but get mixed messages about how sensitive Shrimp can be. Turn CO2 off before adding the shrimp and keep off for a day?
R
Click to expand...
Hi again,
good to hear your now adding water column ferts, id also be inclined to get the tropica specialised plant food also which has the macro nutrients too as these are important in a high energy tank, you could start by adding the premium one day and the specialised the next etc etc, however long term id be aiming for only using the specialised as this contains everything your plants will need and you can up your dosing accordingly as plant mass increases etc.
As for the shrimp, they are sensitive to water chemistry changes and c02, so its definitely best to turn off the c02 on the day of introduction and drip acclimate them over the course of 3-4 hours. Heres a link to my recent drip acclimatising rig cobbled together but did the trick: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=21455&start=150

RolyMo said:
Thanks Alastair.
Need to think about boosting the lights then! 🙁
Cheers
R
Click to expand...
You certainly dont need more light, what you have is more than enough and as already suggested the general rule used is watts per gallon (WPG), not watts per litre, and 2 wpg of t5 lighting is in most cases enough to grow any plant. Try to focus more on optimising c02 . C02 9 times out of 10 is the limiting factor to plant health as people tend to over light and under provide for c02. Light drives the plants hunger for both ferts and c02, so more light = more c02 and ferts are needed.
Hope this helps, and by the way, your plants seem to be coming along very nicely indeed :thumbup:
Cheerio,
Ady
 
Thanks Ady
As this is my first time with a planted tank let alone fish there is so much to learn and keep an eye on. But I believe if I have a healthy tank of plants and maintenance regieme it should reap rewards no end.

Was keen to get plants growing in the tank see what happens to them and watch how they grow and how they should be pruned before trying the more artistic Aquascaping stuff. Small steps etc....

The lighting news is a relief. Having forked out for the starter tank and the LFS telling me that it should keep me going for a while, the last thing I wanted to do was buy new lights etc. And your comment about more light = more CO2 and ferts is of course common sense.

Appreciate the tips and pointers they are very much welcomed.
Thank you
R
 
Week 6 - Confidence is building

Its funny how I spend a lot of time thinking about my tank and wondering what is going on with the plants and the fish. Watching for small changes that give clues as to what is going on.

I have also learned a lot with the help of people on this forum to get to where I am with the tank. I am not a mega aquascapist, I am not a gardener. So having my first planted tank and indeed my first time with fish, I feel pretty good that 6 weeks in, things appear to be going ok.

One observation I find funny is that I keep reading on the forum is if something is wrong everyone asks what is the tank doing i.e. what is the levels of chemicals in the water column. But having read the previous posts from ceg4048 saying that kits give you an illusion of what is going on, how do you answer those questions honestly and with precision?

Ceg4048 will be pleased to know I have not bought a kit. I have watched the tank every day and watched what is going on with the plants. I did not take the fish back as suggested, rather I decided that I wanted to watch what happens with the whole environment and see what the fish did. But at the same time I promised to do very regular and largish up to 40-50% water changes to try and minimise the impact to the fish. So far, so good.

The plants have stayed alive (this is good for me). Some of grown really fast and had to be trimmed back, others have grown slowly, and others have eventually started to do their carpeting thing. I am watching to see what the impact of the Tropica Premium Ferts does. I have also managed to balance out and not have too much algae at all. All the plants seem to be pearling and releasing a constant stream of oxygen(?) into the water column. So I am guessing the CO2 at approx 2-3 bubbles/sec and 6-8hrs of light is working ok.

More Fauna
This extended weekend saw me do 2 experiments.
1. Added 10 Amano shrimp from the Aquatic Design Centre (London), thought they would look good, but also to help with cleaning up. These were introduced using a modified drip method over a 2hr period and CO2 was turned off 15hrs beforehand. All good, and they immediately started to do their clean up act very proficiently. Which surprised me. CO2 not added for 36hr period. Was concerned too many too soon.
2. I bought 6 Diamond Head Neon Tetra's a couple of days later. Again these were slowly introduced over a 90min period gradually being acclimatised to the water before being added to the tank. After a 35% water change. CO2 off for 24hrs.

Had a slight panic that I would be adding too much over these 3 days, but the shrimp have not displayed any abnormal behaviour, gone white or turned over dead. The Diamond head neon tetras also seem very happy doing their thing.

Today I have monitored them all carefully and everything is good. Which indicates to me that levels are good? Frustrating not know. Trial and error I guess.

How the hell do I feed them all? i.e. the cheeky Platy's would eat everything if they could. Had to stick my hand in to try and keep the Paty's away from the food dropped in for the Tetra's. Guessing the shrimp are cool with the detritus and leftovers.

Snail explosion. Crap I now have 20 odd little snails, some fornicating infront of my 2 your girls. At what point would you get some snail assassins?
R
Will provide photos when I get the big camera out as the tetra's move too fast for the phone camera.
R
 
RolyMo said:
One observation I find funny is that I keep reading on the forum is if something is wrong everyone asks what is the tank doing i.e. what is the levels of chemicals in the water column. But having read the previous posts from ceg4048 saying that kits give you an illusion of what is going on, how do you answer those questions honestly and with precision?
Click to expand...
Hi,
Glad things are working out for you so far. What you have to consider is that the people who are asking about the level of chemicals are under the same illusion as the person who posted the question. There is neither precision nor honesty in the test kit, and so it's better not to hypnotize yourself into thinking that they can tell you anything. After you learn a bit more about plants, water and fish, and are more grounded in the chemical forces at work, then you may, if you wish, play with the kits just for entertainment value, but by then you will be immune to their hypnotic effect, and you will be able to assess for yourself their powers of illusion without being sucked in by those powers. The test kit which are the least inaccurate are those that measure parameters such as pH, KH (alkalinity) and GH (General Hardness). These numbers are nice to know, and can be used to troubleshoot or to indicate basic values. A dropchecker, for example, is a pH test kit and it helps us to determine the basic levels of CO2 in the water column.

For now, I reckon you'd be well served by reading other posts and seeing photos of what problems look like and what is done to prevent or resolve issues that may arise. Understanding cause and effect is much more important than measuring chemicals. Have a look for example at JamesC's Algae Guide and study the information there. Ask questions if anything is unclear.

RolyMo said:
Ceg4048 will be pleased to know I have not bought a kit. I have watched the tank every day and watched what is going on with the plants. I did not take the fish back as suggested, rather I decided that I wanted to watch what happens with the whole environment and see what the fish did. But at the same time I promised to do very regular and largish up to 40-50% water changes to try and minimise the impact to the fish. So far, so good.
Click to expand...
Well as far as I can see from what you've reported, you've confirmed the redundancy of Nitrogen test kits and have avoided a dependency on them. By proactively replacing large volumes of water you are cleaning the tank and avoiding a buildup of toxic Nitrogen products as well as cleaning the tank of organic waste that causes toxic Nitrogen product buildup. If you're fixing the cause of toxicity before it happens then there is no need to test for it.

Have a look at page 4 of the thread http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f= ... 6&start=30 which gives you a clue of what to look for in your fish which would indicate Nitrogen toxicity. If you observe this behavior then you know that there is a toxic buildup of nitrogen products in the water. You avoid the panic typically caused by reading false numbers on a test kit. Again, proactively performing large and frequent water changes avoids all of these troubles so that it would require something catastrophic to occur in the tank in order to produce this level of toxicity.

So the idea is to read more and to get smart so that you can recognize the beginning of problems instead of becoming dependent on testing.

Some other threads you might find useful:
http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=4869
http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17286
http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=16092
http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=14774


Cheers,
 
Day 56 - Increased Ferts and added Assassin Snails

Very pleased.

Nothing has died. Neither Fauna or Flora which I am pleased about.

The one fish that appears to hang out away from the other fish at either the top of the tank next to the filter inlet or at the bottom under the filter I wonder is he is blind as I drop food in front and he clearly does not see it. Very weird.

Anyway introduced and increased the Tropica Specialist Fertiliser as well as the Premium.

Also introduced 4 Assassin snails to the tank as the what looks like pond snails do seem to and exploded a bit too much. However they have all buried themselves bar one, which I understand is normal behaviour.

Will be doing a 40-50% water change today as well as the usual white sponge replacement and a blue sponge (first time). Will also be trimming back some of the plants and maybe doing some cuttings. A busy evening it seems.

Still have the bug and still watch the tank in awe. Looking from the far side of the room the tank looks like a lit up a piece of scenic photographic art. Of course not aquascaped to perfection like most examples I see on the forum. But none the less it does stimulate the brain somewhat.
 
Hi,
You need to reduce your feeding. That might be why you have a snail problem. Excess food causes pollution whether it is eaten or not. If a fish does not eat well and if it is behaving as you describe then you should suspect either a pathogen or an issue with CO2 or water quality. Does the fish gasp at the surface, or does it's gill movement see more rapid? If so this could be a CO2 issue for that particular fish. How does it respond to a water change? Is the behavior the same at night when the lights and CO2 are off? Look for lesions or spots on the skin, near the gills or tail/fins. How does the fish swim? Snakelike or regularly? Normally, only solitary type fish will stay by themselves. Schooling fish that remain on their own are typically in some kind of discomfort.

You should also try to feed live foods such as brine shrimp, daphnia and even mosquito larvae which you can cultivate outside in a corner bucket. You can even get into microworm or whiteworm cultures which are interesting side hobbies on their own.

Cheers,
 
Thanks Ceg4048
I was coming to the conclusion to reduce the food a little (currently once every other day and approx 15 granules). I thought I was quite sparing. Using Tetra Prima granules to feed the fish.

The fish with the solitary behaviour in question is a Platy. I have looked for some of the things you have suggested for a while.

No gasping, No lesions or spots, same behaviour before and after a water change. Did a 40% water change last night.

Will occasionally catch him swimming around, but he does seem very separated from the other 3 platy's.

The behaviour has been going on since after a couple of days of getting the platy's. So good 4 weeks at least now. But he is still alive.

The behaviour is to hang either at the surface (not gasping) near the filter inlet (almost looks like he is going to be sucked in) staying very still albeit slight stabilising fin movement. Cannot see the gills breathing much. Fins all appear to work and he can swim very well when he does. When coming close to one particular Platy the other does do a bump and scare him off. So I am curious if there is a bullying thing going on? The other 3 a school together fine.

Even the Diamond Head Neon Tetra's seem to school the majority of the time, which someone told me in the LFS they only really school when you have lots.

The other platy's, Tetra's and shrimp are all fine and behaving normally and so not exhibit any CO2 issues from my very limited knowledge.

Having observed the fish and reduced and as an experiment stopped CO2 there is not difference in behaviour in the lone Platy. CO2 is back on. The experiment was done a week ago for 1-2 days.

I shall go get some brine shrimp as I think feed my daughters Sea Monkeys to the fish is not going to go down well. I will read up on the worm stuff. Would you alternate between the foods then?
 
You may well not need to replace the sponges, just squeeze them out I old tank water then put them back in - the only one you may want to actually change is any fine mesh/wool type pad, as this is generally used for fine filtering and the other sponges will handle the biological filtration.

Changing sponges is usually something advised by filter makers who wish to milk a little more money from owners 🙂
 
Yeah, I second nry's assessment. There is no need to buy more sponges if they are still intact. Just wash them. Remember that there are nitrifying bacteria in the sponges so every time you replace them it takes another 4-6 weeks to build bacterial population in the new sponge.

There are different feeding regimens. I like to feed predominantly live food and then only occasionally supplement dry food. The moving prey stimulates fish that are reluctant to feed and is healthier as long as it is kept clean. Cost is higher though, so you feed less but get better bang for buck. Also look into frozen foods like bloodworms and so forth, as well as freeze dried foods like tubifex. Get a good variety and you'll find that the fish are healthier and will be more willing to breed (not that this is a problem for most livebearers like platies and guppies).

Cheers,
 
First road bump

Sunday just gone saw me purchase some brine shrimp to mix up the feeding regime. I also bought 6 Cardinal Tetra's.

Water change was done on Friday.

Added the Cardinal Tetra's in the aclamatising method of bag in water for 30 mins and then slowly added water to the bag over 1hr period before gently releasing them.

All good. Observed them for a while. Still all good. They seem to mix well with the Diamond Head Tetra's too and swim as a uniform shoal. Cool.

Feed them the brine shrimp Sunday night. All the fish loved it. Did it after 5yr old daughter had gone to bed so she did not get upset about seeing relations of her pet Sea Monkeys (in another little tank) being gobbled up.

Fast forward to tonight - Observing all the fish after a feed of dried granules at tea time and I notice that 1 definitely and potentially 2 Cardinal Tetras are opening and closing their mouths quite quickly maybe 1-2 times per second. However they are not gasping at the top of the tank. No other fish in the tank is doing it or have done since I have owned the tank and the fish. All other fish are swimming around fine and appear to be healthy. No lesions. No snake like movement.

CO2 is on at about 1 bubble/2 sec. Plants are pearling and releasing lots of oxygen bubbles. Lights are on for 7.5hrs.
Drop Checker is looking lime green (This is the only test thing I have so I cannot provide any other test stats)

Firstly I am not panicing and have not made any radical changes

Is it a CO2 thing? Should I drop that down to 1 bubble/3 sec?
Do I need to do a water change?

Picture of tank from yesterday. Not showing anything in particular other than its another picture
img97932.jpg

Any help/guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
R
 
Hi,
You should always do an immediate massive water change when you observe distress. If the fish in question is suffering hypercapnia (excessive bloodstream CO2 concentration level) then it takes about 24 hours for them to adjust to the higher levels and then they are fine afterwards. The normal behavior of the other fish means that your injection rate is not excessive but that the fish in question may simply be weaker than the other inmates.

If they do not make the adjustment after a few days, and if they continue rapid breathing then this suggests gill damage, which reduces the efficiency of the gills to extract oxygen from the water. Gill damage is usually due to short term exposure to high levels of ammonia or nitrite, and most probably would have occurred previously either during shipping or even in the bag while you are equalizing the temperature if you had opened the bag while floating it.

You should prune the plants to prevent overgrowth and unruliness. Either replant the pruned sections if there is space or remove the bottom sections and plant the pruned section in it's place.
Start thinking about and experimenting with the geometric patterns you want to see, in exactly the same way as you would think about a garden, otherwise you just have a chaotic and tangled mess. The Cabombas, for example could be shaved to form a round bulb shaped hedge. Try to create and maintain different heights with each group or type of plant. This gives the tank a more three dimensional appearance rather than a wall of leaves. When you prune the stem side shoots grow out near the site of the cut making the plant bushier, which is more pleasant to look at than tall, scraggly growth. Start thinking about colors, shapes and textures, and don't be afraid to uproot and rearrange plants that would be better placed in a different location.

Cheers,
 
Ceg4048
Thank you again for coming to the rescue.
I did a large water change and had turned the CO2 down and reduced the photo period to 6-7hrs.

I will check when I get home, but all fish seem ok. Noted one still breathing rapidly but still swimming normally.

Appreciate the tips on the plants. Not being green fingered in the garden my first priority was see if I could actually keep the plants alive. Which I have proved beyond doubt. Perhaps it was too easy.

As you say now I could start to think about being a bit more thoughtful and put together more of an aquascape. Slight concern that uprooting plants pulls substrate up through the sand and thus makes the sand messy.

But will have a think about how to work with what I have got.
Thank you
R


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Day 71 - Prune and additions

This weekend I went about my maintenance.
Clean glass of minor algae patches near substrate, removed 6 spots of the green algae off the glass. 50% water change, filter pad change, little hoover of sand.

Ferts
I am doing one squirt of the Tropica Premium, and one squirt of the Tropica Specialist fertiliser/day

Pruning - I have started to cut back the fast growing plants both width ways and height wise. I am starting to see some brownness in the microsorum leaves, which is not algae, so I am guessing certain leaves are lacking in nutrients, CO2 or flow. The grass type plants are increasingly spreading out, and hopefully I will see less clumpy bits and will become more even. Now I have proved to myself I can actually grow plants, I might think about proper aquascaping.

CO2
Is currently around the 1bubble/2-3sec mark and I leave it that way 24/7 as on my cheap setup it is a devil to get the right flow by turning the knob on the reg. Turning by 1mm can cause quite an unwanted increase. But from what I understand the plants take the CO2 during the day and at night time the CO2 dissipates out of the tank.

Snails
The Assassin snails seem to be doing their job, slowly but surely. Each morning they seem to hibernate but about on the sand are the opaque empty shells with no sign of their inhabitants. The snail population is much less. Dont know if this a combo of being much more strict with the feeding regime or the Assassin snails. Either way they have decreased.

See picture of one devouring a normal snail.
20120824173129.jpg

New Additions
With all the fish and shrimps surviving and looking healthy I felt it might be time to add some additional fish. So I took my 2 daughters (5yrs and 8yrs old) to the LFS and attempted to agree on 4 new fish that could be identified and have names and not be just one of the shoal of tetra's etc. I tried to agree on the Red dwarf Gourami's as they look a reasonable size, dont grow massive and throw the size balance of flora and forna off (smallish fish and large landscape), but we had a disagreement. So in the end we got 2 Red Dwarf Gourami's and 2 Guppy's. All got the slow treatment of being added to the tank with no light. All seemed to have settled in and then I fed the whole tank some live red blood worms as a treat. And the names? Merida (guess who went to the cinema recently) and Sunshine for the guppy's.

Watching the Guppy's they certainly like to hit the outflow pipe and ride the flow. Hopefully giving them some exercise. Will read up on their normal behaviour to make sure it is nothing out of the ordinary.

The Gourami's seem a little hesitant in coming to the foreground but appear to be settling in. 😀
R
 
Great Journal (and well written!) and a very strong step into the world of planted tanks and fish keeping!

This level of journal is what makes UKAPs so strong, keep up the good work!
 
Thanks Andy for the comments.
I just want to get as much advise and constructive criticism as possible to help me understand this new hobbie and most of all, ensure that there is no suffering in the tank.

The great thing about UKAPS is that everyone does not hesitate to help no matter how many times the same question gets asked.

For me the water column science bit has been a revelation and very interesting to understand and get right. Especially by just observation and not relying on test kits.
R
 
Slight Panic and quick massive water change

Hmmmm Came back on Monday evening to find the new guppies whizzing around the outlet pipe and gasping a bit. CO2 was not massively over the top still 1bubble/2-3 sec's. So I decide to do the appropriate thing and do a massive water change for safety reasons.

Did that and the fish seemed to calm down and chill out and swim gentle and smoothly at the front of the tank.

I did uproot a plant or two and wondered if that could have released some trapped gases that would have got dissolved into the water column and thus started to impact the fish.

Monitored all evening and everyone seemed fine.

Drop checker although not instantly reliable seemed to stay lime green. Not that it can be trusted. Are those Cal Aqua reference drop checkers worth getting?

Woke up this morning and could not see any of the Amano shrimp where I normally see a good 3-4 at the front of the tank. However none. Worked from home and monitored and still could not see the shrimp. Its only been until now that I have spotted 7 of the 10 that are supposed to be in the tank.

All fish appear to be well. However did not like reading the posts on this forum about the Dwarf Gourami's contract nasty diseases very easily. Wondered if I made the right purchasing choice.

Is there an online resource for fish behaviour of individual breeds of fish or even a book anyone can point me to?
Cheers
R
 
Hello,
Uprooting plants releases ammonia trapped in the sediment. The same biological process that occur in filter also occur in the sediment, except that the sediment sees a lot more ammonia because feces and other organic material falls directly into the sediment. It is not a good idea to do a lot of uprooting unless it is immediately followed by a large (50% or more) water change. Moving the odd plant around is not a big deal, but major construction work should always be followed by a water change. Sometimes, the sudden ammonia release can trigger a green water algae bloom.

I don't know why so many are attracted to the double dropchecker. Having another orb with a color dye in it does not change the way in which CO2 works and will not tell you any more than you already know. Small variations in the DC does not mean much, assuming it is filled with 4dKH water. If the color went from lime green to a deep yellow there might be cause for alarm as this would indicate a large CO2 increase, but otherwise the fish have a wide tolerance for CO2 concentration levels. Those using organic CO2 generators may have issues since the CO2 production in the bottles can increase/decrease rapidly, but for gas cylinders the delivery is usually stable unless the cylinder content is low and if the regulator allows the last surge of gas to escape unregulated. Keep an eye on the cylinder gauge to make sure you are not in the red. If so then refill/replace the cylinder.

The DC will normally stay green in a covered tank because of the trapped gas under the hood. Open topped tanks tend to dissipate the gas more quickly. What you can do is to measure the pH of the tank water directly using the same reagent that you put in the DC. Take measurements at various times during the day and the night and it will give you an image of how the CO2 is behaving in the tank.

Cheers,
 
Thanks again ceg4048 for your sterling advice.

The uprooting info confirms what I was thinking. So my weekly routine, should be uprrot any plants that need doing, scrape off any small bits of algae on the glass, trimming, then white pad change, and then major water change.

I agree on the coloured orb comment. Even I am sitting there trying to talk myself out of spending the money on the double DC's. A gimmick.

I think its when I introduce new fish I have a nervousness as to whether the water column is going to be ok for them, and I watch constantly (much to my wife's annoyance) watching for issues, hence a question about understanding normal fish behaviour so I can spot anything abnormal.

But so far so good, and the family are still enjoying the tank.
R
 
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