Gio's Planted tank journey

Lots of people don't like snails, but I also like to have them in all my tanks... It helps while cycling to have a living creature or 2 in the tank also.
Another great thing about snails besides the fact that they are pretty good cleaners of wasted food etc is they can be an indicator as to weather or not you are over feeding or not keeping up with maintenance... if there is a population explosion you may be over feeding etc. Plus I feed them to the puffers so there is that

 

Your scape looks really nice BTW

 

Thanks, yes it's small and surprisingly fast for a little snail so phone photos are not that easy. I have no qualms about adding snails was just concerned about the size and possibility of a population explosion. I have 2 nerite snails waiting in another tank which I intend on adding to this setup once grown in a bit more (as I don't think there is much food for them at the moment) I also intend on slowly stocking the tank and seeding with something like Seachem stability once the plants have grown in a bit. I also have the option of using some of the existing floss in another tank to help the process, but am concerned about bringing along some nasties that I was unaware of in the existing tank. (would a dip in paraGuard assist in this?)

I'm hopefully receiving some monte-carlo for the carpet in the next day or two so looking forward to getting that going

 

2 week update for anyone interested. Starting to see some growth in the plants and some algae on the wood and glass. Progress I'd say. Looks like the pH is sitting somewhere around 6 to 6.5, but I'll take the water in for more thorough testing this weekend. Still only the single bladder snail onboard, but for a few small white worms.

 

Quick update on my tank.

Been battling algae (What looks like hair algae mainly in the moss) for the last couple of weeks and included 6 otos, 4 Nerite snails and 7 Amano shrimp, things seem to have stabilised somewhat since an I have no major growth since my last water change (I'm Still doing 30% Midweek and 50% on Sundays) I've offered blanched Zucchini to the tank every other day which is totally ignored, so I think there is enough algae going around to keep the crew happy.

This is the current state of the scape a couple of days after my first trim and replant



This morning I also noticed a new smiley kid on the block - I'm assuming another oto? It's about 3-4 mm in length. (hopefully the amano don't eat it)

 

Great looking tank, and bonus to have a baby oto! I'd love mine to breed.

Even though I have plenty algae for my 4 x amanos (in a 60cm tank), a knife fight breaks out between them when I add a small hikari algae wafer, especially now the two females are berried.
More a concern when keeping other shrimp with them, but might apply to the baby oto/s - just FYI to make sure they don't go to hungry.
First time keeping Amanos and I'm amazed how boisterous they are. Mine arrived pretty huge though, close to fully grown I'd imagine.

 

Thanks, I've popped in a pleco spirulina wafer. They seem a little interested in it, but generally move on to the moss soon after. It's my first time keeping shrimp too, five of the seven have moulted in the week that they have been in the tank and generally seem healthy to me.

I really did not expect to have fry at this stage, scratch that, at all! I've spotted another 3 on the glass, have no idea how many more may be in the tank. They are so tiny I can't imagine that odds of survival are that good. I've turned off the surface skimmer and have a sponge over the main intake, however am petrified of water changes going forward!

 

Really nicely setup. Would love to see the plant growth fill it up....you should then not have algae issues easily.

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Thanks @Lord Vader by the looks of things the plants are starting to grow quite quickly and the amount of algae has drastically decreased.

You can see the last week's growth below:



I am away for a week at the end of this week, and will have a mate stopping in a couple of times to top up the water and drop in a some pre-prepared veggies.
I was kinda counting on having a bit more algae to keep the fish and shrimp better fed!

Although there is a bit of a different type of green algae growing on some of the driftwood, so far the oto's and shrimp seem to be staying away from it so I'm not sure if it's not to their liking, I can see some green hairs starting to form on it so I don't think it's green spot algae, maybe I'm mistaken?



Anyway, will be interesting to see the tank after a week away.

In other news I have now counted 6 oto fry all of which have evaded the siphon during the last water change

 

Nice to see some growth. I think that some more growth is needed before you do your first trim. Is your CO2 active, and if so, how many bubbles per second? As for dosing, I normally just stick with an all-in-one daily doser to make my life easier...I'd go nuts if I should try the EI method .

I think it might be hair algae as well. What's your photo period?
I can suggest you try and dose your tank with a liquid carbon (eg Flourish Excel)...I've managed to kick algae's butt most of the time using that. Also with a new setup, algae of some sorts is normal as the tank needs to find its balance still.
With the setup being new'ish, maybe dose ferts a bit less as the substrate is releasing nutrients into the water column. Adding the ferts might be giving the tank an oversupply of nutrients which could be causing your algae problem.
Just keep an eye on the wood though...I've experienced white ooze coming out of the wood before and I fixed that by boiling the wood properly and then reinserting it.
Also, look into only doing 1 water change per week. Maybe just a 50% per week...I suspect (and I can be wrong here) that your tank's balance never kicks in with so much water being displaced per week.
But, let's not jump the gun, keep up the water changes and see how the tank responds. The more plant mass you have, the less of a prayer the algae will have.

PS - Stem plant at the back-left...is that a type of Myriophyllum? Maybe Myriophyllum Aquaticum?

 

Active CO2 running at about 3 bubbles p/s. indicator is lime green on the opposite side of the tank so I think it's correct. I've just increased the photo-period from 7 to 7.5 hrs daily.
Am also attempting EI, with the apsa calculator (I see they've been offline for a few weeks now)

I'll keep an eye on that algae growth, but don't mind the odd bit here and there, but will take your suggestion on the carbon dosing if it increases and the crew continues to ignore it. I've had a drastic decrease in algae over the last 2 weeks (literally had hair strands spanning across the tank), so I'll see how it goes.

I think you are referring to the Proserpinaca palustris or mermaids weed?

 

That seems all good. If you've got the algae under the knee somewhat, then keep doing what you're doing...you know the saying, if it's not broken, don't fix it

APSA's been dead for a while already...I hail from there from many years ago. Met quite a good couple of friends on there who I am still in contact with till this day.

Thanks for the plant ID, really nice looking plant.

 

Wow, that's amazing growth for just one week!
And 6 baby otos - that's just awesome!

 

Another Happy find this morning - it seems the more I look at the tank, the more pops up.
Not sure where it came from or how it evaded the amanos but found this little thing today (about 6mm long - I initially thought it was a worm). So far I haven't spotted any others so I think it's the only one

 

Another month on and I think I'm getting closer to the time for a trim to neaten things up.

Had a couple of issues with algae since my overconfidence in the last post.

Experienced staghorn, hair and some cyanobacteria for about 3 weeks. Cut down on light hours and spot treated flourish excel to no effect (that I could see anyway) ended up fixing the problems by adding a wave maker and increasing some of the ferts, can only think my original balance was wrong. Lighting is now back to pre algae levels.

This all happened after I cut back quite a bit too much on the plants come to think of it, so I'm sure that didn't help.

Here's my most recent before and after:


As I say I now need to start looking at trimming to neaten things up and create a bit more of a defined shape to the background and separation to the mid ground plants.

Livestock now includes some chili Rasbora and 24k shrimp. Next is to locate and add some CDP and more shrimp. And buce, hard to find these days it seems?

Looking for some criticism for what you think is not working in the tank or any comments on where I could improve it?

 

I think it's looking great.