2ft planted Journal

**hc rotala** · 20th Feb 2008, 22:13

What can i say, nice master piece.
Has been a lot of hard work thought. Expecting your update!

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 11th Mar 2008, 14:42

Originally Posted by hc rotala

What can i say, nice master piece.
Has been a lot of hard work thought. Expecting your update!

Thanks. But the algae's spoiling everything.

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 11th Mar 2008, 18:14

Alright bros, some update for my tank. As you willl see, my tank is currently infested with algae. Already dosed Amtra Algae Master, Will probably take some time for it to work, since it claims it impedes the metabolism of the algae.

Anyway, the pictures are shot with a normal digital camera. No SLR, no flash, no zoom. Only photoshop.

Please bear with it.

Nana petite, plus lots of algae on Mini Taiwan Moss.

Nana not so petite

Can anyone help ID these two fishes?

Stupid camera prefers to focus on the background. Refuses to focus on my beauuuuutiful ram.

The lone GAE. A very nice contrast in the green tank. Ambivalent as to whether I should take it out.

Lily Pipe, with long strands of hair algae attached to it.

Just love them.

My lights. Solite 2X 24W T5HO (10 000K x2) and Hopar 2X 24W T5HO (10 000k and 6500 k)

The back right corner has three bunches of stem plants which I just trimmed heavily. That's why there seems to be nothing there.

Please do drop some comments!

**illumnae** · 11th Mar 2008, 23:03

the fish you want to id are commonly known as threadfin rainbowfish (Iriatherina werneri)

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 11th Mar 2008, 23:09

thanks bro.

**Jervis** · 11th Mar 2008, 23:24

Originally Posted by illumnae

the fish you want to id are commonly known as threadfin rainbowfish (Iriatherina werneri)

It's very very beautiful!!! Love it!

**Jervis** · 11th Mar 2008, 23:25

Seems like you are fighting with algae... what's ur action plan?

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 11th Mar 2008, 23:55

Yeah. Beautiful fish. It caught my eye when I saw one spread its fins at a lfs.
As for the algae, I've tried everything from cutting down light intensity to painstakingly plucking out the algae strands from every single leaf and throwing aqay unsavageable leaves. Now I've just turned to chemical. Hope the Amtra Algae Master does what it claims to do - messes up the metabolism of the algae and let the algae slowly die away.

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 22nd Mar 2008, 21:06

Alright. Updates again. Algae are mostly gone after 1 week of Amtra Algenmaster, followed by double dosage of seachem excel and removal of algae infested leaves and plants. These plants included all my HC patches. Decided to go with glosso instead. Also planted some crypts wendtii green and green gecko in place of a row of blyxa japonica.

Used a cannon digital camera instead. Looks better, but didn't manage to take a whole lot of pictures today. Will update again soon I hope.

Yamato and Ram

My pair of rams. The female at the back looks sick. She's dull coloured and her ventral fins are not extended. Wonder what's wrong with her.

Newly bought Zebra Nerite. Let me know if I'm wrong!

Another shot. Love their shells.

Another shot. Purposely left side walls unscrubbed for them to feed.

New Otos from Colourful. They're huge!

Wendtii Green gecko from Colourful. They sure are expensive. More than twice the price of wendtii green.

From the side. Replaced all algaey taiwan moss with java moss from colorful. $5 for one huge bunch!

SAE from NA.

That's all for now.

**fireblade** · 22nd Mar 2008, 22:17

hi,
to combat hair algea, you can try rosy barb... can really see them pull out the algea.. :>

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 22nd Mar 2008, 23:17

Thanks, but the algae are almost gone now.

**Sunflower** · 23rd Mar 2008, 01:04

Originally Posted by valice

It depends on your budget.But $150 seems reasonable. If you are concerned about safety, go for the steel tanks rather than aluminum tanks. According to the workshops that does refilling for fire extinguishers, they always recommend steel because of the risk of the head valve blowing off when the pressure injected during refill is too great.

Using Benny's photo, the small valve above the black "box", which is the solenoid, is the needle valve. Its main purpose is for you to make minute adjustment of the amount of CO2 is introduced.

I don't use an external reactor, so can't help you with that.

A Lily Pipe was introduced first by ADA Japan, before replicas start making their rounds in the market.

The original design philosophy is to have beautiful glass equipment which would not spoil the beauty of the aquascape created in the tank. And from the technical point, it is to make use of the hydrodynamic flow of the water coming out of the outlet to draw in CO2 bubbles on the surface of the water back into the water column. In the process, the protein layer is also minimized because they are also drawn downwards by the vortex spiral which Lily pipes will naturally create.

If you want to clear up every particle of protein on the water surface, it will be needed. As for aesthetics, my answer to question 4 provides an alternative.

Personally, I have given up on EI as it becomes a chore to dose dry ferts every morning. I am on the system where the nitrates are created by the biological filteration and in the substrate. And I am still getting as good growth as I used to when I was on EI.

Hi bro Valice if I were to get a co2 tank with a regulator but not a solenoid, does it means that i have to manually shut off the co2 supply if i do not want to have it on for 24hrs. Please advise.

**bryan** · 23rd Mar 2008, 01:44

Originally Posted by fireblade

hi,
to combat hair algea, you can try rosy barb... can really see them pull out the algea.. :>

Yes but they are greedy buggers and will soon forgo the algae for fishfood which they are always first in line!

**torque6** · 23rd Mar 2008, 05:11

Nice tank, though we are beginning to observe fishes getting sick and the initial algae infection. Yup, that snail is a zebra nerite, though we have rarely seen them in LFS nowadays. You managed to order them from colorful ?

**PlAnTaNoOb** · 23rd Mar 2008, 09:56

Originally Posted by torque6

Nice tank, though we are beginning to observe fishes getting sick and the initial algae infection. Yup, that snail is a zebra nerite, though we have rarely seen them in LFS nowadays. You managed to order them from colorful ?

Thanks bro. Fishes sick? You mean the white spots on the tetras? It's probably due to stress caused by my rearranging of the scape not long ago. I guess it'll probably go away. If not, i'll dose some med. As for the female ram. I have no idea why its so dull in colour as compared to the male.

The males so vibrant and all fins are always extended. I'm dosing mq-4 now. Hope that helps. You happen to know what happened to the female ram?

As for algae, I hope its not the initial algae infection, but rather the end stages of alge infection. The algae problem was horrible two weeks ago. I dosed Amtra algenmaster for a week. Quite a lot of BBA turned white, but there was the thread algae problem. Unwilling to wait for the med to take its effect on them, I did a 50% as per normal, and dosed a double dose of excel, and removed all leaves with algae. It's been a week, and there isn't much algae. But sadly, my java moss isn't growing. I suspect its the excel overdose.

Anyway, i've returned to normal dosage of excel. I'll probably stop dosing it next week and see what happens.

As for the zebra nerite. I didn't order. They were there in Richard's tank of snails! They seem pretty old as compared to the other inhabitants. Maybe ppl don't ask, thats why the nerites were left neglected. Go check them out before others do.

**sfk7** · 25th Mar 2008, 11:03

Richard as in the boss of CA?

**valice** · 25th Mar 2008, 11:41

Originally Posted by Sunflower

Hi bro Valice if I were to get a co2 tank with a regulator but not a solenoid, does it means that i have to manually shut off the co2 supply if i do not want to have it on for 24hrs. Please advise.

yup. without the solenoid, you will need to manually turn off the CO2 supply.