New Site Link

Woops, I just re-visited this blog and realized we forgot to mention we were moving our blog to a new site url: http://www.fishtanknewbies.com/

see you there!

Indian Dwarf Puffers + Cherries

They get along and the puffers eat up all the snails :-)

no more tiny snail outbursts!

The 13.5 Full with plants

The fixture is 55watts, so I get about 4w/gallon @ 6700K. Co2 is coming from a pressurized system with about 1 bubble every 2 seconds. The plants in this tank are: green rotalas, Ludwigia inclinata var. CUBA, dwarf baby tears, hairgrass, anubias nana, japonica, rotala arcuata, stargrass, Bolbitis heudelotii & java moss tied to the wood.

3.5 Gallon in April

We decided to finally introduce new plants to this tank: Myriophyllum simulans/foxtail (the soft feathery green one), Myriophyllum tuberculatum/red foxtail (the brown/red thin long needles), and the one that sort of looks like rotala indica, but looks more exotic: Didiplis diandra.

55 Gallon Update

Hair grass in full force, baby tears in a close second. We've discovered staghorn algae, so we've since trimmed the grass and added some Do! Aqua clearing agent... supposedly gets rid of excess phosphates. We've since added a couple flag fish and a couple of flying foxs to deal with the thread algae. My guess is I'm adding to much liquid fertilizer? Used to add 6 drops a day, now 3 drops a day. Usually 15 drops on a 50% water change. The thread algae blossomed first before the stag. We used blow-out combs to comb the alage out, then for some reason I read somewhere that phosphate pads are bad for planted aquaiums so I removed the one I had going form the canister and then 1 week later the tank was infested with staghorn. ARGHH!! phosphates good? or phosphates bad? how much is ok and how much is not ok? Also anyone know of a safe dechlorinizer for tap water... i read potentially my conditioner drops could be adding crazy amounts of phosphates.

and a new 13.5G!

We found an amazing store in Santa Monica called Nature Aquarium (2836 Santa Monica Blvd.) and it turns out to be an amazing store for planted aquarium enthusiasts!!! They had a giant ADA sticker on the window in the front and pretty much after that, we walked out with a new tank set up kit (not Amano's ADA stuff, but the store carries really good gear for a good price, along with the ADA products.) We did get to use ADA power sand and lake soil for our substrate,
woop woop!

3.5 Gallon Update

This tank will be one year old in May. The dwarf baby tears have grown really thick in this tank, and the micro chain swords interweave through the baby tears making a net that anchors them down into the substrate. Just have been adding a little bit of excel liquid co2 every other day and once every week or two weeks a water change and the plants have been doing great.

New 55 Gallon Set up

New tank set up!!!

The substrate is a base layer of coarse regular sized black gravel to give it height, then we added a 2-inch layer on top that is a finer soil/gravel mixture that comes with water in it as well - the idea is to have organic matter brewing already in the substrate so starting a tank takes much less time.

There are 33 glolight tetras that look unbelievable when they school together!
6 Head & Tail Light Tetras
10 ghost shrimp

waiting for a shipment of: 40 black forest shrimp
6 emerald green shrimp
6 orange shrimp
8 zebra nerite snails

For plants, we planted pieces of dwarf baby tears along the edges, it should spread into a thick ground cover. Then there is dwarf potted hair grass, the purple plant is a bunch-pogostemon stellata, and next to it is going to be a tall leafed plant - Cyperus Helferi, and the ruffled edged plant in the middle is a Crinium Calamistratum.

eee

3.5 gallon mini update

first time blogging!

So....i know this post has been a long time coming but finally i have learnt the ropes of the blog world (hopefully i do this properly) and I AM READY!

Here is a retrospective of my journey with starting the tricky art of fish tanking in the last two years. I've moved houses 3 times and each time I've gotten a bigger tank :)

It started out pretty well because Alex showed me everything. The first tank had some great riccia which then died...and then there have been some dark times...very dark times, which are pretty funny/sad looking back, but its gotten better and better.






I now have Alex's tank and am trying to keep it going and looking well. 

i just got a red tiger lotus which is growing bigger everyday and i love the colour with all the green. Also I have a new aquafrog...no pictures (he likes his privacy) but he's AWESOME!

So now that I've finally uploaded these images I will start sharing pictures regularly because I want Alex to know that he's left his tank in good hands and also because I will need some pointers from ......THE FISHNERDS! (there was dramatic music there)