Loaches Online Forum

.ChefKeith that looks awesome. I had one of these die and killed my whole tank once though and took out my 3 plate sized Full Blue Discus at 7 years old or so when I used to keep a 70 upstairs in my living room.I am adding a huge piece of wood to one of my 7' tanks when I find the right piece and hope to end up looking like this. I keep seeing Java fern on the wood though in my head but this is as beautiful.Your low hours of light no doubt help this algea it seems. Low-Tech by default is a great comment. I think low-tech is much safer and steadier through the years as your time and energy ebb and flow.
You said

It's dangerous to fish when you do a water change to the tank

This is an in-complete quote but absolutely correct, I keep the water flowing into my sump tank 24/7 from the city for my change as this minimizes the changes in the water chemistry.I just adjust the in-flow speed based on fish color and behaviors

ferts don't have to be expensive.

For the most part, the usual fertilizers, (phospate, potassium, and nitrate) are all cheaply bought. You can find things like potassium nitrate on the internet for almost nothing, especially when you compare it to the cost of "aquarium fertilizers." Your trace fertilizers may need to be purchased from a LFS though.

This is an article on using these and where you can buy them.
http://www.fishforums.net/Jamescand39s- ... 04737.html

CO2 can also be set up pretty cheaply with a do-it-yourself yeast system. I not sure the DIY systems work all that well on large tanks though. It just becomes cumbersome with 4+ 2 liter bottles.

It is a decent amount of extra "work" though, and you need to have good lighting for the dosing to really do anything. It seems pretty common for the stock tank lights to put out pretty low light ~1 watt per gallon, when 2 WPG seems more ideal for lush/rapid growth.

At 1 wpg the few plants that survived really did not grow well. Trace amounts of fertilizer (Potassium and Iron) whenever I felt like it were all they needed to stay green, grow a little.
Now that I am up to 2 watts per gallon I can grow more plants, they grow faster, but they do need carbon (I use Flourish Excel) and more regular dosing. I use fertilizers from www.aquariumfertilizes.com (Alan, the owner, bought the fertilizer portion of Greg Waston's business)

Tinman-
Nice water change system. It sounds similiar to mine.

What was it that died and killed your discus?

I'll backpeddle some.
I do think plants are nice. I'm not opposed to them. Everyone will have their own experiences with them. If you want a more natural looking tank, a few plants will help get that done. Algae can be good or bad depending on how it's treated.

Very devastating for me, Just about quit over it . It was a combination of things but the accumulation of fish crap under my rocks and wood in my substrate caused a crash that killed my algea which blasted my natural filtration and changed the tank so that I had sick and dying fish all in about 72 hours. That pretty much explains my total removal of all substrate from my tanks and I have been somewhat sucsessful since. The real reason was MY in-attentivness to cleanliness but it was caused because there was a place for this to accumulate. Now everything that contacts the bottom of any tank is very minimal and in a current to keep it clean whether I am lazy or not.


How many watts of light for how long a day on your wood and algea tank you pasted here?

Thanks Ded1,Diana and Total package and everyone else . I have read your links and helpful tips,I am impressed and appreciate all the input. I am pondering now what to do.Baby steps........ Tinman

I guess it all depends on the quality of lighting you have. I use only 55w of cp lights for about 10 hours per day in that tank (which is 85 gallons). The CP light kits I have reflect light very good, about 2.5x better than most set-ups.

I' got all my lighting from-
http://www.ahsupply.com/index.html

Really, I'm not as low tech as I said I was. Maybe I'd be growing terrible algae if I didn't have such great lighting. I don't know. I can't say what works for me will work for anybody else.

Yes very nice light . I will put this on my list. , No you are not low-tech ChefKeith ,not at all.How many low-tech fish skyways are there?