In October, my Pelvicachromis pulcher ‘Super Red’ spawned and I had a whole swarm of little Krib fry swimming around in my 40G farm tank. After only a couple months of paying extra special attention to feeding them, I now have a group of decent sized fish. The largest ones are about 1.5 inches long, with the smallest being about an inch.

The parents have left them to fend for themselves, although so far they are getting along just fine with the parents. I don’t completely know how many young fish I have, however, because they have dispersed throughout the tank, and the only time I ever seen a number of them together is when I’m feeding them. At those times, I’ve counted 7-8 together, but it wouldn’t surprise me to have double that number hiding in the overgrown farm tank.

They have yet to get the brilliant colors that the parents display, but you can definitely tell that they’re kribs now. Small patches of color are starting to show up around the gills and fins. They have the distinctive squat (or maybe pear shaped) body where the belly seems a little bit too big in comparison to the rest of the fish. I’m not able to sex them yet, but I’m never great at that anyways with most fish.

I’m really pleased with how easy these fish have been to keep and raise. The only thing I’m worried about is if the parents spawn again, and decide they don’t want their previous brood around anymore. If I see signs of spawning though, I may pull the parents out to their own tank to do their business.

Before I went to Seattle, the 40G had started to show signs of something going wrong. This is the aquarium with worm casting underneath the substrate, but also the aquarium that I moved from another part of my house a few months back. Really, ever since that move, I’ve been dealing with a ton of particles coating a lot of the plants. I thought I could make it go away with regular water changes and extra vacuuming, but that didn’t seem to work. Compounding the situation, I suspected that the Bluespotted Sunfish or Banded Killifish that were in the tank might have been doing a little bit of digging around.

I think the problem stemmed from not rinsing out the top-layer of the substrate when I moved the tank. Anyone who’s ever used ADA Aquasoil before knows that after awhile, parts of the substrate can degrade into mud. I should have washed away this mud when I did the move. Instead, the mud kept getting uprooted into the water column, coating the plants, and causing algae.

So, in effect, that’s what I spent several hours yesterday doing. I removed nearly all of the plants from the tank. Moved the fish into my new 54G native-themed aquarium, and proceeded to empty and fill the aquarium several times in order to vacuum all of the substrate.

I can only hope that now I’m all set to continue getting great growth from this tank. The other benefit of me doing this is that I was able to rearrange all of the plants in the tank, thin some of them out, and free up a lot of room for more plants. Collectoritis here I come!

I just wanted to share a picture of my completely non-aquascaped 40G farm tank. This is the aquarium where I grow out plants for use in future aquascapes, or hang onto plants that I don’t want in one of my current aquascapes, but don’t want to get rid of either. This is the 40G aquarium that has earthworm castings underneath a top layer of ADA Amazonia Aquasoil. I dose Flourish and Flourish Iron daily, adding Potassium every once in awhile, but otherwise it does pretty well on it’s own.

One of the benefits of keeping an aquarium like this, as opposed to an emersed tank, is that plants grown in here are immediately ready to go into another aquarium when needed. When plants grow too large in this tank, I just trim them out, and take them to club auctions or sell online. Farm tanks also let you truly use only the plants you want in an aquascape, without feeling the need to cram a plant into the aquarium just so you don’t lose it. I have no idea how many different species of plants are crammed into this tank. I’m convinced that if I had a 1000 gallon aquarium, I’d somehow find a way to fill it with plant mass. The biggest challenge is ensuring that no single group of plants shade out others, as it’s easy to lose track of what’s growing where. Nevertheless, I highly recommend keeping a farm tank of some size as a way of improving the aquascapes in your other aquariums.

A few days ago, I finally committed the time to completely tear down my 40G aquarium, and move it from the second floor down to my basement. I had long worried that the weight on the second floor, plus the risk of serious water damage if the tank/equipment ever leaked, was too much of a risk. So, I completely tore down the tank, removing all of the plants, fish, and hardscape. I knew the earthworm casting substrate would be problematic to move, so I did my best to scrape off the top layer of ADA Amazonia, but kept the bottommost worm-poop in the tank.

It’s amazing how something that I can describe in a few sentences above can take so long to implement. It was basically an all-day project, and a two-person job to actually move the tank. Then, after I got it setup, the Amazonia that I scraped off the top was so muddy that it turned the water into something resembling milk. After countless water changes, the water is finally clear, but there’s no aquascape in place. I’m going to use this tank as more of a farming tank to hold my extra plants. The blue-spotted sunfish and killies are still enjoying it as their home, however. I’ll post some picture of the tank itself after I’ve had a chance to fully plant and clean it up a little bit.

After the catfish convention auction, I came home and started acclimating the new bristlenose plecos that I got. I putting them in a 20L quarantine tank, and when I turned around I noticed that none of the sunfish or killies that usually swarm the front of the tank were there. Eventually, I spotted a few of the sunnies dug into the Ranalisma rostrata, and a few others swimming awkwardly at the water surface.

Immediately, I knew what had happened; the CO2 tank ran out, and dumped a ton of CO2 into the aquarium all at once. Right away, I pulled out my Python hose, and did a 50% water change. I also borrowed an air pump from another tank, and threw an airstone into the 40G. At that point, all I could do is wait and hope that I wasn’t too late.

I’m happy to report that despite some really dire looking fish, nearly all of the fish survived as of today. I only have one sunfish confirmed dead, and all killies are accounted for. I was lucky.

So, now the question is what can I do to prevent this from happening again? Well, two things come to mind:

1. I could add a pH controller to control the solenoid on my CO2 tank. If the tank suddenly started dumping, the pH controller would shut off the flow of CO2 once the pH dropped below a certain level. Unfortunately, this is not the cheapest solution.

2. I could attach a low-pressure regulator to the regulator I currently have. This would detect the low pressure that causes a CO2 dump, and vent that gas to the room, instead of the aquarium. The downside to this is that I already have a 3-way manifold on my regulator, which is pretty heavy. I’m not confident that the low-pressure regulator could support that weight.

So, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. At this point, I should have at least 6 months to decide before this could happen again. It’s not even a guarantee that it will happen again. That said, I don’t want to take any chances. Does anyone else have any alternative suggestions for what I could do to prevent this from happening in the future?

It’s been almost three months since I tore down my 40G aquarium, and restarted it with a substrate based on earthworm castings produced from my kitchen scraps. From the beginning I experienced great growth, but I also had a huge outbreak of hair algae. I’m still not sure whether this was leftover algae that came in from the previous setup, or whether it was spurred along by the earthworm castings. Either way, it’s gone now, and the tank it doing great.

40G - Click picture for larger view.

The aquascape has changed a fair amount, as I’ve pulled out a significant amount of the hardscape I originally placed, largely to find room for a smattering of new plants that I needed to house. The Ranalisma rostrata has just about filled in the foreground. The right side of the tank is basically just a growing out space for various stems including Ludwigia sp. ‘Araguaia‘, Rotala sp. ‘Araguaia’, Blyxa alternifolius, Rotala sp. ‘Mini Type I’, and a Limnophila species. Due to all of these plants, I don’t envision this tank ever becoming a cohesive aquascape unless I’m able to setup a farm tank to transfer some of these out. The main thing, is that I’m quite impressed by the substrate sustained growth, with zero dosing. Comments welcome!

About a month ago, I tore down my 40G aquarium’s aquascape, and redid the entire thing using earthworm castings as a base substrate, with previously used ADA Amazonia as the top layer. Below, you can see how the tank has progressed over the period of 1 month.

40G - Setup for about 1 month using earthworm castings.

Since setting it up, I have been doing weekly water changes, removing about 30-40% of the water during each change. I have been doing this because the tank has been having a terrible bout with hair algae. In addition, over the last week, I’ve been treating the tank with hydrogen perioxide, both to combat the algae, and as a preventative measure in case any of the fish I recently collected have any parasites. I’ve noticed a significant reduction in algae, although the problem continues. Despite the algae, I have witnessed fantastic plant growth over the last month. In particular, Ludwigia inclinata var. verticillata ‘Cuba’ has been particularly prolific. I trimmed right before this picture, otherwise it would be occupying the entire back right of the photo. Additionally, the Hygrophila sp. ‘Porto Velho’ and Ranalisma rostrata has been starting to fill across the foreground. I think I’m going to remove the Blyxa japonica from the right front entirely, as it looks out of place. Comments welcome!

After my previous soil vs. earthworm casting experiment, I decided that it was time to really give one of the methods a chance in a “real” setup. For this, I decided to tear down my ailing 40G aquascape, and start anew, using an earthworm castings mixture as the base for this substrate. Following a mixture of Vladimir Simoes’ method and the soil substrate method used by many GWAPA members, I setup the tank.

Earthworm castings, Sand, 1 lb Clay

Vladimir Simoes’ method is basically just a mixture of earthworm castings and sand in a 50/50 ratio. As I did more research, I found that several of the past successful aquascapers that used this method, also used a clay source with a high CEC ratio. For this, I decided to follow much of the soil method by liquifying a pound of clay into the EC and sand mixture.

Dolomite, Potash, and Traces on bottom. Aquasoil around edges.

Also borrowing from the soil substrate method, I added a handful of dolomite, potash, and CSM+B traces to the bottom of the tank prior to adding the earthworm castings mixture. The purpose of these minerals is to provide a nutrient source while the neccessary bacterial colony builds up in the substrate to make these same nutrients available to the roots longterm. Additionally, my final modification is to reuse the spent ADA Aquasoil that was in my 40G previously as the top layer of the substrate. For aethestics, I used aquasoil exclusively around the visible borders of the tank.

Basalt and African bogwood

After adding the earthworm casting mixture, and topping it with the Aquasoil, it setup my hardscape. I’ve never really attempted a “mound” style aquascape before, so I decided to give it a try. I used a combination of the porous mossy rock (basalt) and African bogwood for my hardscape. I left plenty of space behind the hardscape to plant my background plants.

Finally, the planted scape is above. At this point, I’m not entirely pleased with the result. I need the plants to grow in a bit more, and I need the background plants to fully crest over top of the mound. I suspect that I may have placed the mound too far to the front of the tank, but am willing to let things play out for awhile to see how it looks. I basically just reused the plants that I had in this tank previously, but I did add some Echinodorus angustifolius ‘Vesuvius’, Pogostemon stellatus, and Ludwigia sp. ‘Cuba’ to the tank, removing Rotala rotundifolia and Eriocaulon sp. ‘Type 2.‘ My goal for this tank is to have a successful aqauscape while having the earthworm casting substrate provide all of the minerals needed so that I do not have to add supplemental fertilization. Comments welcome!

Admittedly, I’ve been milking my Nova Scotia pictures for all the blog posts I can get out of them. Let me fill you in on why that is. Exhibit A (for algae), see below:

Apparently, it was a bad decision for my to hang some house plants above my tank. At the time, I figured that they would help with high humidity levels, and add a nice accent to the room. Well, what I didn’t realize is that the hanging baskets leaked. I instructed my “tank watcher” to water the plants while I was away in Nova Scotia. Well, apparently, much of that water dripped through the fertilizer laden pots, and straight into my 40G tank.

Multiply that by 2 weeks worth of time, lots of light and additional dosing, and I came home to algae soup. I literally filled a quart container with just algae. I did a huge water change, and am still pulling quite a bit of algae from the tank. I’ll probably end up just tearing the whole thing down, and redoing it. It’s time for a new aquascape anyways! At least the fish don’t seem to be affected by the algae bloom.

In my last post, I explained how I tested for two weeks to determine the proper amount of fertilizers my 40G tank needed to sustain healthy plant growth, and eliminate algae. With that knowledge in hand, I have now automated my dosing routine on this tank using a few readily available items to build a DIY auto-doser. I cannot take credit for this innovation, as I was following Jeff Ucciardo’s design, who adapted it himself from various designs posted on Aquatic Plant Central.

Building an auto-doser is really quite easy. You only need a container, a powerhead to move the solution from the container to the tank, some airline tubing, a check valve, and a digital timer that is accurate to the minute. You’ll also need some sort of a syringe or pipette to convert the output of the powerhead down to the size of the airline tubing.

For the container, I bought a clear container from the kitchen department of IKEA. A container that is taller will be better than one that is short and fat, as the tall and skinny containers will allow you to more easily differentiate how many days worth of solution it can hold — more on that later.

The powerhead you use has a few basic requirements — it needs to fit in the container, is best to draw water from the bottom so that it will run even partially emerged, and should be strong enough to pump from wherever you plan on storing the unit into the tank. I used the 606 Mini-Jet from Aquarium Systems, and have it set to the lowest setting.

To attach the airline tubing to the powerhead, I found that a pipette from Seachem’s fertilizer bottles fits perfectly over the powerhead output if you saw off the large end.

As in any case where you have tubing running into your tank, you definitely want to install a check-valve in the airline tubing to prevent a siphon from forming, and overflowing your aquarium out onto your floor — always a bad thing! I used an inexpensive check-valve from Tetra.

All said and done, I spent $2.99 for the container, $16.99 for the powerhead, $1.99 for the check-valve, and $9.99 for the Intermatic digital timer. I had extra tubing and pipettes on hand, but figure about $35 to build one of these.

Once you have all of your basic components assembled, you need to establish how much solution your powerhead moves every minute, thus figuring out how many total days worth of solution your container will hold. To do this, fill the container with water, and set it exactly where you want it to be next to the tank. This is important because the powerhead will pump different amounts of water depending on the height/distance it is pumping. Now, run the powerhead at 1 minute intervals, using a marker to mark the water level on the container at each interval. Once deplete of water, count the number of marks — that’s how many days you can automate your dosing with a full container. For me, it worked out to exactly 14 days — how convenient!

Now, armed with the previously knowledge of how much I should dose over the same period, I calculated my solution amounts. I put in 100mL of Seachem N and K, and 50mL Seachem Flourish, Iron, and Excel. It’s important not to mix P with Iron in the same container as they interact, so for now, I will have to dose Phosphate separately. Also, for the first time, err on the side of caution, and dose slightly less than what you’d expect. You can always increase it later.

It’s been running for 4 days flawlessly so far, so I’m hoping that this will further help me keep my nutrient levels exactly where they need to be in this tank. I’ll continue to do a few tests to confirm that it’s on target, but I’m looking forward to not having to worry about dosing except for once every two weeks.