Hi total beginner here - Questions regarding new low tech/low maint. tank setup

[erwinx]

Hi Wongce, I've just started reading your blog, the easy to grow beginner's plants you mention, do you have any for sale? If I go to LFS with your list of plants, I doubt that I know how to choose or identify correctly the correct ones...... would be easier if I can purchase a selection of easy plants from a more experience forummer. I plan to keep a small tank 2ft indoors in living room and hope to be able to use a basic lightset (vs those high power ones).

[wongce]

Hi erwinx, i do not have plants for sale at the moment. Even if i do, delivery will be more expensive thab the plant if i deliver it to Australia.

You can follow the list,google for pictures and compare the pictures with plants you want to buy at LFS

Alternatively, ask your LFS for the catalogue of plants they have, normally lfs which sells aquatic plants will have a catalogue with pictures with them for ordering plants. Use the catalogue to order.

Last resort is order online through online websites which i think is more expensive than LFS.

Well, you can leave a comment for any question in my blog, asking a question in other people's thread might not be appropriate.

Dear mod, i apologize on behalf of erwinx.sorry for hijacking this thread.

[felix_fx2]

Oh I see thanks Wongce
I'll continue monitoring my plants and trying to remove cobwebs manually when I see them haha.
Question regarding malayan shrimp, I read some posts and understand that they are usually sold in bulk, any idea where I can get them in smaller quantities?
Thanks!

N.A Nature. Sells them smaller quantities. But of course cost more.
Btw, having minimum algae count is good. As when plants grow well, you'll find algae is naturally having very limited growth and might be only in zones which the water flow is not good.

Dear mod, i apologize on behalf of erwinx.sorry for hijacking this thread.

He can always google for locations depending on which part he lives in. Even better if he happen to live near a certain Mr Barr

[Lulu]

Thanks Felix for the info!
Hmm ok, will not mess too much with the tank then except trying to pull out whatever big clumps of algae I can see
Another question, will common pond snails eat algae or more likely to eat my plants? I think I accidentally introduced a few hitchhikers on my plants.
So far have been removing all those that I see.
I've also found (dead) fat white segmented worms that look like caterpillars (???) or something in my tank. Which I've removed already.
Any idea what are those? I'll provide a photo if I see them again. Was too grossed out to take photos of those when I saw them haha.

[Lulu]

Hi guys, just wanted to thank everyone for their help with setting up my first tank
After a month of cycling I decided it was safe enough to add livestock and purchased 7 Danios Margaritatus and 16 red rili shrimp.
Fish were acclimatised over 2 hours, adding tank water every 15 minutes. My shrimps were drip acclimatised via airline for 3 hours.
2 days later, 1 fish died mysteriously but luckily did not affect my water parameters. Its now been a week since I've added livestock and no new casualties have been found.
I've been checking if my fish harass the shrimp but so far they seem to ignore them.
Fish are fed crushed Hikari Micro Pellets and Hikari First Bites (somehow the micro pellets are too big for my fishes mouths! )
Shrimps are being fed Borneowild Grow and Red Ruby, supplemented with Stout weekly.

Something interesting thats happened in my tank is that pH has gone up from 6.4 to 7 somehow! Surprised that its so high because I'm using ADA Amazonia 2 with a large piece of driftwood inside as well. But I read that my fishes prefer higher pH and Neocaridina Heteropoda doesn't mind pH 7 so I decided against meddling with it.
Also realised that I have only 1 male Danios Margaritatus out of 6 of them and its always hiding when it sees me. The females are braver and always schooling. Not sure if this is any cause for concern regarding my male fish being stressed?

Anyway, here's a short video of my fish and shrimp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v-QjqzEF2j6w0

[Urban Aquaria]

The tank looks great.

Fish are fed crushed Hikari Micro Pellets and Hikari First Bites (somehow the micro pellets are too big for my fishes mouths!)

I feed my CPDs both hikari micro pellets and micro wafers and they relish eating them (they even bite chunks off the larger hikari carnivore pellets too).

Your fishes are probably still getting used to the new commercial food. Just continue feeding them some pellets and they will eventually take to the larger foods.

Something interesting thats happened in my tank is that pH has gone up from 6.4 to 7 somehow! Surprised that its so high because I'm using ADA Amazonia 2 with a large piece of driftwood inside as well. But I read that my fishes prefer higher pH and Neocaridina Heteropoda doesn't mind pH 7 so I decided against meddling with it.

The rocks in your tank are most likely raising the pH... i had similar rocks in one of my tanks too and the pH rose from 6.4 to 8.0+ after a while, after a few months it seemed to stabilize at around 7.8 (most probably slightly buffered by the ada soil, wood and organic wastes).

I remember the LFS which sold me the rocks kept saying it was inert, seems they also have zero idea and just anyhow guess.

Do keep your water conditions as clean as possible, as ammonia has greater toxic effect at higher pH levels. If you find that the pH is getting too high, just remove the rocks and do gradual water changes to revert the pH back to the lower values.

Also realised that I have only 1 male Danios Margaritatus out of 6 of them and its always hiding when it sees me. The females are braver and always schooling. Not sure if this is any cause for concern regarding my male fish being stressed?

Your CPD male to female ratio seems okay, more females to males is usually better as the males tend to be the aggressive ones. When mixed together, the males will usually fight with each other and chase after the females, so if there are more of the females, the stress is spread out.

Maybe your male CPD is still abit intimidated by the larger females in the new environment, i guess he will start to become more brave after a while.

In my case, when i picked my CPDs, i specifically chose the ones with the strongest colors (i guess most people tend to do that), and ended up with a batch of 90% males and only 10% females... turned out to be bad idea, over the course of a week, i could see the males constantly fighting and chasing the few females until they either jumped out of the tank or got nipped into one corner until they died.

Now my tank only has all males and somehow they stopped fighting. Looks like with no females to fight over and chase, they reverted to back to their peaceful nature again. I guess if i were to add more CPDs, it'll either have to be more males only, or re-balance the numbers to a higher female ratio.

[Lulu]

Thanks Urban Noted about the food haha I'll keep a close eye though to make sure they don't starve.

The rocks in your tank are most likely raising the pH... i had similar rocks in one of my tanks too and the pH rose from 6.4 to 8.0+ after a while, after a few months it seemed to stabilize at around 7.8 (most probably slightly buffered by the ada soil, wood and organic wastes).

I remember the LFS which sold me the rocks kept saying it was inert, seems they also have zero idea and just anyhow guess.

Haha the rocks were sold to me as inert rocks suitable for shrimp tanks too. It suits my livestock though so I guess I'm okay with it. Will keep track of the ammonia like you suggested

Your CPD male to female ratio seems okay, more females to males is usually better as the males tend to be the aggressive ones. When mixed together, the males will usually fight with each other and chase after the females, so if there are more of the females, the stress is spread out.

Maybe your male CPD is still abit intimidated by the larger females in the new environment, i guess he will start to become more brave after a while.

That's good to know When I got my CPD they were all pale looking so I couldn't tell the gender of the fish, just netted those I felt looked healthy. I actually ended up with 2 males and 5 females, but the larger male died The surviving smaller male does look quite intimidated by the females. He looks like the smallest fish I have at the moment and is very twitchy. There were a few times I saw it shoot up towards the surface when I peered into the tank. Luckily I have quite a lot of floating plants, otherwise he might have ended up flopping on the floor lol.

Anyways I think my video link isn't working.
Trying to embed it again

[Lulu]

Update:



First berried shrimp