My First Planted Tank : 4'x2'x2.5' (LxWxH)

[ethan2008]

Day 9 Updates:
Added a school of fishes into the tank... can you see them?



Here's the closer look, so far feeding well with blood worms, hopefully these babies would adapt well to a planted environment...

[ethan2008]

Algae!! Arghhhhh....
Any bro can help ID them? Quite thin and long, have removed them using tooth-brush. Now my ottos are working on the remains

[rayade76]

Day 9 Updates:
Added a school of fishes into the tank... can you see them?



Here's the closer look, so far feeding well with blood worms, hopefully these babies would adapt well to a planted environment...

Bro, well done juv living well good PH and env.

do post more to update . like to see the juv bigger in your tank

[ZANE]

Looks like hair algea. Juvenile Siamese algea eaters do a good job controlling them. I would have also recommended 50 malaysian shrimp - but considering your discus, they would have been eaten as quickly by the discus (if not more so) while they eat the algea. LOL.

ZANE.

Algae!! Arghhhhh....
Any bro can help ID them? Quite thin and long, have removed them using tooth-brush. Now my ottos are working on the remains

[ethan2008]

Looks like hair algea. Juvenile Siamese algea eaters do a good job controlling them. I would have also recommended 50 malaysian shrimp - but considering your discus, they would have been eaten as quickly by the discus (if not more so) while they eat the algea. LOL.

ZANE.

Thanks bro, but SAE when grown up quite aggressive right? That's what I read from AQ, hence I have only ottos and nothing else. Malayan shrimp looks like a good idea but then again my discus will be even happier To keep them from over-weight I'd better not to that. Will observe the situation and see if ottos can do the job.

[StanChung]

Congratulations on you new additions Ethan.

Small farm bred discus like that would not eat your yamato/malayan shrimps. SAE's would eat stringy stuff more than otos but having a few otos is ok although they like to attack larger discus for their slime.

What's the temperature like? Discus, especially juveniles need warm 28-30C to have good appetite or else they will fall sick easily.

[ethan2008]

Congratulations on you new additions Ethan.
What's the temperature like? Discus, especially juveniles need warm 28-30C to have good appetite or else they will fall sick easily.

Thanks bro StanChung. After so many years finally I have discus in my tank again (used to keep ~30 discus in my schooling days)

Tank temp hovering ard 28-29.5C (using fan only), expect to be slightly higher during middle of the year, year end typically is not that hot and hence the slightly lower temp. With this temperature range I am a bit worry about algae control though...

[ethan2008]

Bought 50 Malayan shrimps and 3 SAE, hopefully they will keep the algae at bay (at least the hair algae). Also have some staghorn algae and BBA, this is gonna be a long struggle...

[ethan2008]

Wondering what should be CO2 bps like for my tank size, been running like 5bps but my JBL CO2 drop checker still in light blue color (using 4dKH solution). Any bro has any idea?

[Loopy]

Sweet looking tank duder! I like the low lying plants around the center.

And woah! you electricals are super sexay! My next project is to pimp da kabinet just like you. I am interested in the Tubby. Very interesting. Because my PH is 8.5~8.6 I'd rather "prepare" my water ahead of time.

I sometimes wonder what it is like to have a plant-sump-tank.

[subxero]

Sweet looking tank duder! I like the low lying plants around the center.

And woah! you electricals are super sexay! My next project is to pimp da kabinet just like you. I am interested in the Tubby. Very interesting. Because my PH is 8.5~8.6 I'd rather "prepare" my water ahead of time.

I sometimes wonder what it is like to have a plant-sump-tank.

Your pH is rather high. Even higher than a marine tank...

[Loopy]

Sorry I assumed that my other thread was read about my home tap PH.

My PH is 6.80. What I meant to say is that the PH from my Tap is 8 + + and requires me to bring it down before adding it. Every water change brings my PH up. So I have to mess with the water before adding it. It is very problematic.

For the Algae I dose 3 drops of the Azoo anti algae solution every other day. It is heaps lower than the dosage prescribed.

Or what I sometimes do is load up a syringe with 5ML and mix it with another 55ML of water. And shoot directly at the algae. Does the trick every time.

Your pH is rather high. Even higher than a marine tank...

[ethan2008]

Did some rescape last Saturday, removed the fast growing plant on the front left corner (me not good at plant names )

This is how my tank look after the rescape (day 14)



Still battling algae, seems like I made a mistake in adding KH3PO4 in the last one week and overdosed a lot!! Did a 50% water change after the rescape and bumps up my CO2 (now close to 5-6 bps). Now I am having all sort of algae and my oto and SAE are all fat fat

Hopefully the situation will improves slowly. Have total of 6 SAEs and will likely add more Malayan shrimp to help keep the hair algae in check.

[ethan2008]

Sweet looking tank duder! I like the low lying plants around the center.

And woah! you electricals are super sexay! My next project is to pimp da kabinet just like you. I am interested in the Tubby. Very interesting. Because my PH is 8.5~8.6 I'd rather "prepare" my water ahead of time.

I sometimes wonder what it is like to have a plant-sump-tank.

Thanks bro. Actually the two MHs are only turned on 5 hrs/day at the moment (coz my set-up has no chiller). The reason why I have MH is due to the height of my tank (2.5 ft) yet wanted to have a glosso lawn so to play safe I'd rather start with MH instead of T5 then later need to upgrade.

Having a sump tank make the main tank look "clean" without all the equipment (only the return pipe is visible), but the downside is the lost of CO2 due to overflow agitation. Well there's always trade off huh?

[ethan2008]

Day 17
Seeing some significant growth from the newly added plant in the back ground. One of the stem grew more than 1 ft in 3 days!!

Before (Day 14)


After (Day 17)

[ethan2008]

Update: Day 26
Still battling algae, have hair algae, staghon, spot algae on glass



Photo of the juv LSS (as requested by the bro who sold them to me)
Two of them developed some white spot on their dorsal fins, added salt (40 tsp for 500L of water), off the fan (hence temperature raised to ~30C), feed BW soaked in Seachem Garlic Guard. White spots cleared within 2 days, not too bad huh? Will feed them with soaked BW from now on to enhance their immunity, hopefully can minimize holes in the head in future ... finger cross



Closer view, start to develop color on the fins aready

[StanChung]

Put in a few more SAE to eat the hairy algae. You'd have to take them out once they keep it under control. I'd put some Seachem Excel to soften up the algae.

Spot algae you can scrape.

29-30c for long periods will not be good for the plants. Aim for ~27.5C as compromise.

[JadeIceGreen]

A discus tank with such cute discus! This is like my dream come true.. Nice work bro! Looking forward to more updates.

[ethan2008]

Put in a few more SAE to eat the hairy algae. You'd have to take them out once they keep it under control. I'd put some Seachem Excel to soften up the algae.

3 more SAEs added.. now have 6 of them in the tank. Thanks bro.

I'd put some Seachem Excel to soften up the algae.

That's a good idea. Should i direct the excel to the infected area?

[Loopy]

Dang! We cannot let the algae have the upper hand on this beautiful tank! Holy cow dude, 2.5FT in Height, that takes balls man.

I had the same problem as you when it came to algae. My mind was stuck in Riccia-mode cause I have a (in my mind) successful pearling Riccia tank at work. Massive lighting, pearling and all those cool things we like.

Enter big tank. I tried to recreate it with X6 54W 10K Tubes. I think I had every known algae to worry about

Here is what I did:

1.) 6 SAE's
2.) 2 GAE's (Golden) (These thing grow big, but wow do they work like crazy)
3.) 11 OTTO's
4.) 1 PLECO (It's White, that's all I know)
5.) SYRINGE BLASTING!
5A.) AZOO ANTI ALGAE
5B.) EXCEL
6.) Brought down the photoperiod, you are doing 5 hours. I would not even know if 3 hours is advisable - What does everyone think?
7.) Oh and I chucked in plants like crazy

I hope you win man. A tank so beautiful, we cannot lose!