Memnoch's 4 ft tank

[Memnoch]

Qian Hu...

Hmmm... but the tank looks empty somewhat... think apart from the rummys, the rest of the fish love to hide quite abit...

what about 20 cardinals, 2 helicopters, a agazzi pair, forget about the headstanders.. i note that the shrimp population will never burst out of control given that i have a few hunters in the cichlids...

[PeterGwee]

Rather than thinking of adding more critters to the tank, you should add more plants. The tank is still low in plant mass even after the outing. Why didn't you get more plants? If you focus on the plant growth, the bacteria and critters would do well since they would produce a large amount of O2 for breaking down of waste and respiration. The other thing I notice is you are not having much surface movement. (You need the movement at the surface in order to bring in the O2 in case the plants are not doing well and when the plants don't produce any at night.).

Note: Your critters probably died of lack of O2 / NH4 poisoning or both. Do not wait for the plants to grow in. Add lots of plants as if its an established tank like you see in pictures. Is there a diffuser in there or is it an airstone?

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Memnoch]

Actually there's no more space left in the middle and background of the tank... As for the foreground, i did initially start off with Glosso but they didnt quite grow, it now has about 2 pots of tenellus dispersed about...

The death of the Rams was probably caused by ammonia poisioning due to inadequate cycling, definately not co2 poisoning coz i didnt turn on the co2 at that time, further i had my airpump running at full...

The rams were also fighting at that time as they paired up, the weaker males were often so badly chased around that they become very blur, when i found out and quarantined them,it was often too late. I also tried to alleviate the ammonia/inadequate cycling problem by adding plants and changing water, the 50 percent water change probably also gave them a ph shock...
it was a holocaust... a painful lesson...

What i will do for now, is to stop buying fishes until the foreground is filled up, then think about my other fishes.

Oh i did add more plants... narrow leaves and bolbitis

[Memnoch]

Some pics after a minor rescape... Maybe its coz i am using swords and the onion plants at the back, they tend to take abit more ground space... but there really isnt much space at the back to grow... in fact i now have loose plants lying in my shrimp 3ft that i dont know what to do with

[PeterGwee]

You have space, way too much space. I'm not sure if you know what is heavy planting but a picture from Takashi Amano's old setup should give you an idea.




Images from Walter's Discus Page

Are you running the airstone along with CO2 addition?

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Memnoch]

Urgh, that tank looks messy... its precisely what i am trying to avoid... mayhaps i should plant more but more planning before planting... still checking Ammonia every other day...

I run the airstone on high at night, and when lights not off, when lights are on, co2 is on at abt 2-3 bubble per sec in a reactor... airstone is reduce to a trickle... As i have cameroon shrimps inside, i am v afraid they die... so i rather aerate lightly and waste some co2...

If i eventually plant more thickly, maybe another 5 pots of tenellus/ glosso + long grasslike background plant... (i was hoping to use aponogeton crisptus, but i think they melted away)

My midground is really cramp, the tiger lily, rubin sword, and round leaf reddish coloured speckled sword are too near each other i fear their growth will be interfered by each other...

My initial theory is that these plants once taken root will grow sideways (swords open up and take up quite abit of space ya?) once they reach a certain height i can plant more low requirement plants below them...

so can i add em fishes if i add more plants?

[PeterGwee]

You need to learn how to grow plants if you want to have a nice planted tank. Going with the fish-only tank concept would not work. I can only give you the advice, its up to you to listen or not. I just hope you don't kill things anymore.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Memnoch]

I do appreciate your advice over there... In fact, soliciting advice is the whole point of this post... I'm definately trying to grow the plants and am definately not doing a fish only tank or trying to kill things...

As you may be aware, a planted tank is definately not an easy task... Besides dumping in a whole lot of plants, we also want it to look nice... That's why i am taking the time to consider what plants to get and where to place them...

Why dont you suggest what plants i should grow in those empty space? At the same time, perhaps you can give me your thoughts on the use of the airpump and diffuser... and how one quantifies the number of fishes one should have in a 4ft tank

[PeterGwee]

As you may be aware, a planted tank is definately not an easy task... Besides dumping in a whole lot of plants, we also want it to look nice... That's why i am taking the time to consider what plants to get and where to place them...

The whole deal of heavy planting is to deal with the NH4 from critters and rotting stuff. A few plants would not use much NH4 but a whole lot of them even if it is a slowing growing plant would use much more NH4. It only takes a bit of NH4 which an NH3/NH4 test kit might not detect to trigger an algae outbreak.

Why dont you suggest what plants i should grow in those empty space? At the same time, perhaps you can give me your thoughts on the use of the airpump and diffuser... and how one quantifies the number of fishes one should have in a 4ft tank

Add more of your current type of plants such that it would fill up to the "picture" you have in mind. You do not want to wait for things to fill in.

An airpump is not necessary in a planted tank since plants supply pure O2 to the tank if they are growing well. The other point is to have some surface movement (not a lot but enough to move say a flake food around pretty fast) so that O2 can get into the water via gas exchange at the surface. CO2 needs to be supplied up to 30ppm via pH/KH test measurements but needs to be tweak as and when necessary.

Seriously speaking, why are you asking now when you should have done some research before starting the tank? Why didn't you talk to the folks when you attended the outing and find out more? You can learn faster that way with examples around during the outing.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Memnoch]

I have been reading every post in the forum for quite a while before i attempted this tank... Applying everything i have read... substrate, base fert, co2, cycling (via commercia bact), lights, heavy planting (how does one define heavy?), scaping, studying the characteristics of individual plants(height, requirements, nutrients), planning the fauna (big fish will eat small fish, etc), algae fighting, scaping... (there were a few scapes in which the plants were planted in two groups at the side, leaving a bare space in the centre... another one where glosso was planted in spaced intervals like a palm plantation and grow them out...I counted the fishes in those scapes too...

What i did was the result of putting together all that i have read... but i guess nothing beats your own experience.. BTW, when i told the man at Teo's that i was buying plants for a 4ft, he remarked that i was overbuying too... sigh

I trust the above clarifies... hope we dont have to go further into the ex post facto... and look forward...