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'The Full Monty' Has Left The Building last photos

Decided it was time for a few new photographs so everyone can see how things are progressing since I set the water column back to zero. Still haven't added any EI Ferts, just sticking to the half dose liquid Tropica fertiliser once a week.

Nitrate less than 12mg/liter
Nitrite zero
Ammonia zero
GH up to 6DGH
KH up to 4DKH
PH 6.66
TDS 125
Water Temp 28 degrees

Here are some photos from today. (some cheeky discus getting in the way)

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Excuse the white dots it O2 from the plants!

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Cheers everyone,

And if I am not back on here before, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and an Algae free New Year!🙂🙂
 
Hi all,

Sorry there has been no updates for a while. As probably everyone else its been back to work this week and been mad busy. Quiet over Christmas and New Year.

Just got back after being away with work for the best part of a week and left the missus in charge of looking after things for the first time, feeding etc.. Sadly the first thing I noticed was 1 x dead discus floating at the top of the tank. By the look of it, it looked like it had been dead for a day or two, it could have even have even happened on the day I left. When I fished it out it absolutely stank, and yet it had not affected the water parameters, i.e. Nitrate etc. and all the other fish seemed perfectly fine. My wife was pretty cut up about it because she hadn't noticed it. I explained to her that it wasn't her fault and it could just have easily happened if I had been home.

So from an original starting point of ten discus in total, I now have six, three Blue Diamonds and three Red Curipea. They are all doing really well and the Blue Diamonds have virtually doubled in size since I bought them.

The question now is do I stick with six or add any more. I have seen two fantastic Blue Leopard Skin Discus at the branch of Maidenhead Aquatics in Chester which are the same size as the fish that I have got now so I am tempted to get them.

Generally the rest of the tank is doing well, absolutely no algae problems whatsoever and the plants are doing really well now. This is probably something to do with the fact that I have turned the reflectors so that not as much light is going in to the tank and I have reduced the lighting period to five and a half hours, so they come on with a timer at 3pm and go off at 8.30pm.

The Twinstar Super S is working perfectly and seems to be doing a real good job in oxygenating the water, so all in all things are not too bad.

I will try and take a few photos this weekend and post them up when I get time.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
Sorry to hear about the discus Steve. But great to hear the algae issues you've been having seem to be resolved and your plants are doing good. 🙂

Daniel
 
Cheers Daniel,

The algae issues are something that everyone gets and not everyone is lucky enough to be able to get rid of them. Persistence and more persistence combined with shed loads of determination got there in the end. No matter how experienced we think we are, if you take your eye off the ball the algae takes advantage. At least everyone can learn form our experiences.

Steve.
 
Very sadly I lost 4 in six months. Scroll back through the journal to see the photos and what happened. In retrospect I bought them too small and had a hard time getting them to take any other food as they had been reared on exclusively beef heart. The good thing now is the six that I have got take anything I put in the tank, and I mean everything, i.e. Sera San Flake Food, Tetra Discus Granules, Freeze dried bloodworm, Freeze dried Californian Blackworm, New Era Discus Pellets, the New Era Plec pellets. I use Vitazin Vitamin liquid on all the dry food. Once a week I give them a treat of the Discus Essentials Beef Heart which is really good quality.

This means that if I did decide to put any other discus in with them they would go for the food by learning from the discus I have now. Eventually they are going to be large enough to start pairing off. I am sort of hoping that one of the Blue Diamonds will pair off with one of the Red Curipea at which point I will probably sell off the remaining discus and just keep the pair.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
Hi All,

Sorry only just got around to uploading some new photos to Photobucket. Not sure if there is much difference between these and the ones posted up last time. The only way to see is to compare them, so here goes.

The full Tank shot.
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A closer shot of the middle section. The Twinstar Super S has kicked in and there is O2 flowing all around the tank in most of these pictures so I apologise for the white dots on most of the pictures.

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I replaced almost all of the Eleocharis hair grass with Echinodorus tennellus which sems to be doing much better.
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There are quite a few Crypts growing now some sprouting up where I didn't plant them by spreading their roots.
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One of the three remaining Blue Diamonds out and about. The mark on the head as been there since I bought it so nothing to worry about.
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End shot of the tank from the left.
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Blue Diamond foraging for food as usual. They eat anything I put in the tank now!
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Bit dissappointed that the Staurgyrene is not doing well.
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Still doing the big water changes and only using half dose of the Tropica Liquid Fertiliser. I don't think I will be going back to using EI again in a hurry, but if i do I will be either reducing the quantities in the solution I mix up, or cutting down the days it gets dosed. I got it badly wrong last time and I won't make the same mistake again.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
Hi all,
A quick update. Plants seem to be going ballistic at the moment with a real growth surge. I am wondering how much of this is down to the Twinstar Super S and the superb oxygenation it gives to the water. Co2 levels are stable at 6.25 and nice green colour on the drop checkers. Just waiting for timers to switch the lights on and take a few photos

Cheers Steve
 
I took these photos today just as the lights came on to catch the tank and the plants in a different light which I think the red colours really stand out. At least that's what it looked like looking at them close up, I'm not sure if this shows in the photos though.

Thanks,

Steve.

A full tank shot waiting for the lights to come on. Sorry about the reflections!

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A couple of full tank shots after the first set of lights have been on for about five minutes.

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A few close ups from different angles.

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Here you can see the Twinstar Super S Kicking in.

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Can't stop the Corys from rummaging around amongst the Altananthera Reinecki Mini and kicking the Amazonia Soil to the front of the tank. This causes the plants to lift sometimes and I finish up having to re-plant them.

Some shots of the discus thinking they are about to be fed, they come right out when ever I walk in the room and they eat out of my hand.

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The Blue Diamonds are always out first, the Red Curipea are a little more cautious so I am going to have to sit in front of the tank with the camera ready to get some shots of them, but it will be worth it because they are really colouring up nicely now. There are some shrimp in this tank somewhere but the only time I ever see them is while I am doing a water change and then they are out and about.

Issawlgettinabitjungly but the Discus seem to like it.

Cheers,

Steve.
 
Hi all,
Just done my weekly 50% water change using the HMA Filetr straight from the tap with the water on the combi boiler turned down to 30 degrees. Still not gone back to EI yet, just a half dose of Tropica Liquid fertiliser. Did some pruning of leaves etc. While doing this I noticed some strange critturs crawling about on the leaves of the floating plants and also on the broad leaves of the emersed Amazon Sword plants.

They sort of looked like blackfly aphids but smaller. I've no idea where they came from or how they manged to introduce themselves into my tank. I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions on what they might be. I couldn't take any photos with my camera worth posting they were that small.

Anyway needless to say I washed as many as I could off the floating plants, trimmed back the emersed leaves on the sword plants and then gave them a really good spraying with some DEET Flykiller and some other pesticide I found in the shed, I think it was DDT or something like that just to make sure.:facepalm:

:stop:

Only joking! I spread the guey stuff from some old flypapers onto the leaves instead.😀

I have put some photos up taken just before the water change, in a day or two I will post some more when the discus are out and about. Still trying to get some good shots of the Red Curipea but no luck yet.

Cheers,

Steve.

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REDSTEVEO said:
While doing this I noticed some strange critturs crawling about on the leaves of the floating plants and also on the broad leaves of the emersed Amazon Sword plants.

They sort of looked like blackfly aphids but smaller. I've no idea where they came from or how they manged to introduce themselves into my tank. I don't suppose anyone has any suggestions on what they might be. I couldn't take any photos with my camera worth posting they were that small.
Click to expand...

Almost certainly springtails Steve (Collembola spp.). They're just about the most numerous and widespread order of animals on earth (more so than insects), yet hardly anyone has ever heard of them. You get long termite-looking ones and little round blob-shaped ones. Harmless fish food 🙂

Here's a photo I took of one of the larger termite-looking ones under a scanning electron microscope with it's 'spring' (furcata) extended. They use these to bounce out of danger when disturbed -

6e73ede9eb42e987d6abd39ea2407c7f.jpg

And one of the blob shaped ones (photo from Wiki commons) -

Sminthuridae_sp_01.jpg
 
Look like a white



nicky minage.
 
Greenfinger2 said:
Hi Red, Looks stunning:thumbup:
Click to expand...

Thanks Greenfinger, to be honest the photos don't really do it justice, its much better close up. I have even got my own chair next to it so I can chillax in front of it.
If anyone is ever passing by this way feel free to drop in and have shufty, just let me know before you come.
Cheers,

Steve.
 
BigTom said:
And one of the blob shaped ones (photo form Wiki commons) -
Click to expand...

Thanks ever so much Big Tom,

They definitely look like the ones in the second picture only a greyish black colour, not yellow or white.

They don't swim very well and I haven't seen the fish eating them. Any idea how they got there in the first place?

Cheers,

Steve.
 
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