I’ll start by saying that this 54G aquarium is giving me more trouble than just about any aquarium I’ve setup before. It’s not the aquarium itself, but I just can’t seem to get the darn thing balanced and happy without ending up with beautiful views like the one below. I am using a few things that I don’t usually use in this aquarium. It’s my first time using a metal halide pendant, so I’m still figuring out the best light duration. Additionally, I’m using leftover parts for my CO2 system, and not the filter I’d prefer to use. So, those are my excuses.

Now, what I’m trying to do about it. At least according to my test kits, my nitrate is at 10ppm and phosphate 1ppm, which is exactly where I want them. Nevertheless, I’m not sure I can trust those values because the plants aren’t looking like they’re that happy, although the algae is. I also decided to rearrange the rockscape that I did have in this tank, adding a large rock with much more character than the previous one. This allowed me to add a bit more height to the rockscape than I had before. Before repositioning, I pulled all of the rock out, and scrubbed them to get as much of the black-brush-algae as I could. I’m sure it’s a matter of time for it to return, but hopefully I can get my water parameters inline before then.

I may be forced to bend a few rules for this tank if I can’t rectify the situation entirely through water/light/CO2 adjustments. Unfortunately, there are no native plecos (or other suitable suckerfish) to Maryland, and grass shrimp are just quick treats for the bluespotted sunfish. If I have to add some bristlenosed plecos, it probably wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I’m going to try and avoid that for the time being. Comments welcome!

I got some new rocks from a friend in GWAPA, and wanted to try them out in a tank. Unfortunately, the only free aquarium at the moment was my 20L, which was used primarily as a quarantine tank and place to hold some extra low-light plants. My friend is lucky enough to have these rocks buried in his yard. They seem to be a composite of quartz and slate, with some having very attractive orange bands through them. Overall, they have a fair amount of character up close.

20L - Click picture for larger view

The aquascape isn’t tremendous, but  I think it could have some potential if I paid much attention to it. This tank has previously been a major farm of cladophora algae, but after moving about 20 Amano Shrimp from my 40G into here, they’ve really done a tremendous job of getting it under control. If they can keep it that way, I may very well enjoy maintaining a small scape in this aquarium. I just have to make sure I can easily fish out any quarantine fish! Comments welcome.

After doing my last 2.5G aquascape with Riccia fluitans, I decided to try it again with some leftover Riccia, but this time, also use Blyxa japonica as a grassy background plant. Please ignore the unnaturally white patch in the front-center as some of this Riccia had been sitting in a container away from light for a week or two. Opps!

I’m really enjoying some of this slate that I found last month with a couple of GWAPA members. We found some pieces with pretty good character, which make it perfect for a small tank like this. In any case, in scape with just two plants, there’s not much to say. What do you think? Comments/critiques welcome!

I wanted to provide an update for my 54G native fish and plant aquarium. I have, however, broken my own rules for this aquarium to help it mature a little bit. I added some non-native floating plants to the surface temporarily, to help soak up some of the excess nitrate from the aquasoil. In doing so, the algae on the hairgrass and the rest of the plants is almost entirely gone. As you can see, that’s not quite the case for the rocks though.

The rocks are completely covered in black brush algae, but I have increased the CO2 output and have refined my dosing routine, so I’m confident that it’s just a matter of time before I’m able to get rid of it. I will likely end up manually scrubbing the rocks at the next water change, and then let my adjustments do the rest.

The fish are all doing very well, kept happy with a healthy diet of blackworms, and a few extra pellets when they’ll accept them. I still haven’t seen any spawning behavior, but I don’t really expect to see much of that since I didn’t chill these fish over the winter. They’re probably wondering why their summer has lasted 9 months!

All in all, I’m very pleased with the direction of this tank. I will soon be able to collect some more native plants to fill out the background. After that, I’ll focus a little bit more of the aquascape itself. Comments welcome!

After looking at the last aquascape, and sleeping on it overnight, I decided to change a few of the rocks in front. Let me know what you think…

GWAPA’s 2.5G aquascaping contest is well underway, and I wanted to try my hand at a riccia rockscape as it would be quick to put together, and would hopefully get me used to working inside this small of an aquarium. So, I looked through my “rock box” for some smallish pieces of rock, built up a slope, and then covered the whole substrate with Riccia fluitans, which I had been growing out for months in my 75G for this very purpose.

What do you think of the result? It really couldn’t be any easier of an “instant-scape,” as the look is virtually complete immediately after planting. Now only that, but Riccia is a floating plant, so it’s unlikely that all pieces will stay down on the substrate forever, making this a very short-term aquascape.

While others have used hairnets, fishing line, string, and other implements to keep the Riccia inplace, I started with large mats of Riccia, so all I needed to do was hold down the center with strategitically placed rocks. That’s the benefit of growing it as floating mats in another tank first, before trying to use it as a foreground plant — the mats are already tightly interlocked. Comments/critiques welcome!

It’s been roughly two months since I converted my 54G aquarium into a native plants/fish tank, and thus far it’s been a bit of a bumpy road, with a few bright spots here and there. I’ve been having some algae issues due to very high nitrate levels leeching out from the ADA Aquasoil. I’ve never had problems like this before with Aquasoil, so I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for now.

Despite having a bit of algae, the hairgrass is really starting to carpet the aquarium. The rocks are pretty well coated in fuzz algae, but I’ve recently started dosing more macros (N/P), and it has improved a little bit. Right now, I’m seeing better plant growth than I’ve seen in awhile, so I’m confident that given a little more time, I’ll be algae free.

All of the bluespotted sunfish and banded killifish are in the aquarium now. They’re an interesting group of fish. Sometimes, I’ll look in the tank and it’ll look like an overcrowded zoo. Other times, I’ll look and not a single fish is visible, as they’ve blended themselves in-between rocks or in the hairgrass. I don’t see anyone getting beat up, so I think I’m okay in terms of fish load.

The killifish seem to especially like to dart in and out of the hairgrass. They’re also the fish that are more likely to accept commercial pellets, whereas the sunfish are hit or miss with anything but live blackworms. (About half of the sunfish will eat pellets, but not vigorously like commercially raised fish.)

Overall, I’m happy with the direction of this aquascape, but I am looking forward to warmer weather so that I can go out and collect a few of the plants I ultimately want to feature in this tank. Comments/critiques welcome!

I was sitting and enjoying my 75G aquarium this week, when I noticed a tiny little pleco sitting on one of my Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia leaves. Back when I converted my 54G aquarium to a native-themed aquarium, I moved all of the Ancistrus sp. ‘L279’ plecos from there into my 75G, where I already had a few. I had been hoping that they would breed for a couple years, but I guess the new mix of fish finally produced what I was after.

After spotting the one, I looked extra closely throughout the tank, and found at least 3 seperate individuals. They must have been in there for a little while because they’re all about the size of an Otocinclus right now, and actually look quite similar to one since their bristles haven’t yet started to grow on their faces. I hope all of these fry will grow up and start a little colony, as the L279 plecos are fairly hard to come by.

It’s really these little discoveries that make the aquarium hobby worthwhile for me. I spend so much time planted, trimming, feeding the fish, cleaning the tank, etc, that every once in awhile it is nice to find something come about that I wasn’t expecting.

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!

My 75G aquascape is now roughly two and a half months old and is doing great! The Glossostigma elatinoides is starting to spread across the foreground, albeit, slower than usual since it’s fairly shaded there. The Staurogyne sp. (Hygrophila sp. ‘Low Grow’) needs a trim in the front left foreground, as does the Ludwigia repens x arculata in the left-middle background, but otherwise, this is quickly becoming one of my favorite tanks to just sit and look at.

I’ve trimmed back the Hygrophila sp. ‘Guinea’ (feathery green on left below), and am hoping that it reacts well to the trimming, as I love this plant. I think the red of the Ludwigia arculata is a great contrast to the H. sp. ‘Guinea’ as well.

I’ve added a few more Ancistrus sp. ‘L279’ to this tank that I previously had in my 54G aquarium before I changed that to a native aquarium. From that same tank, I also added the remaining Goo Obo Gudgeon that I have. I’d love to obtain more of that particular fish so that I could try to breed them.

Overall, I’m really pleased with this aquarium. Once the glosso finishes covering the substrate, and with a few trims, I’m looking forward to trying to get some better photographs of it. Comments/critiques welcome!