Shidohari's Tank Journals

[Shidohari]

Now that i actually was able to complete the school of 6 today i can tell you what i chose for the bedroom tank.

I chose Flame Tetras...They're the next step up from the Ember tetras (which have been hard for me to get), and i have researched online that a school of six is fine in a ten gallon tank. Their maximum size at maturity is 1.5 inches.

I am waiting on some nerites to come in from another vendor and will be placing two in the ten gallon with the flame tetras, and possibly one or two in the ten gallon tank in the living room with the minnows...I won't be getting shrimp for either tank as i don't have enough cover for them (even if my tank is planted) the plants are too new...

I will post something video or picture of the ten gallon in the bedroom in the near future.

[Shidohari]

Here is the bedroom ten gallon tank with the Ember tetras. It's a planted tank.

The B. Carolinia (totally spelled that wrong but I know you all know what the plant is) is doing very well. It's a slow to medium grower, but in addition to the root tabs which have already dissolved into the substrate, I now inject using a medicine dropper the flourish liquid fertilizer into the gravel near the plants once a week. It seems to help alot.

Please click on the image to go to the video.



I was going to try to post a vid of my 'Candy Cane' Tetras in the living room planted ten gallon tonight as well, but they're not making 'movie magic'. I stopped because i felt any further attempt to film them would stress them out way too much. Will try again tomorrow for their vid.

Enjoy.

[Shidohari]

I have been very hesitant to post anything in this journal again due to the fact of how alot of people don't like the way I have been handling my fish tanks...and feedback has been quite Critical, and to some extent hurtful.

The reason I don't take offense to any of these comments is because you've all been at it way longer than I have. You have experience that I, in most cases don't. Only time that I do have experience is relaying what you all have taught me to others.

I have started daily dosing of flourish excel (the carbon suppliment) to my tanks. Each of the two ten gallon tanks gets 10 drops (using a medicine eyedropper i purchased which makes dosing easy). The four gallon tank gets 5 drops of carbon.

The Narrowleaf Java Fern plants in both ten gallon tanks i've been able to clip part of a parent leaf off that has produced leaves and replant it in another section of the tank that it came from. I'm really proud of them. I only take rhyzomes from plants that have leaves i can easily get to. I don't want to take a leaf with a rhyzome that is too hard to get to for fear of clipping off a leaf i don't want to cut.

Be that as it may, the since the time I purchased my Ornate Tetras aka the Candy Cane tetras, two of them died. One died from cloud eye, and the other died for a reason unknown to me. Due to those two fish dying, I have merged the remaining four into the 10 gallon tank in the bedroom with the 6 Flame Tetras. Because of the increased bioload, I have increased the water changes in this tank to a 50% WC twice a week, one of those two WC always has a gravel vacuum session involved. The water wisteria in the tetra tank has been flourishing and today i was able to cut off two sections that had grown roots and plant them in two additional parts of the tank. This left the main plant with one leaf, but i'm confident it will be returning with more leaves. The additional occupants of this tank are 1 nerite snail and 1 mystery snail for clean up duty and the plants as i said are flourishing. However the Moss ball (forgot the name of it) died so there is no longer one in the bedroom tank.

The living room tank now houses 1 nerite snail, 1 mystery snail, and 1 powder blue dwarf gourami. I love the little guy. I have named him Blurr (yes after the powder blue Transformer from the 80's movie). The little guy is fast and is fed flakes and occasionally the odd freeze dried bloodworm or three. This tank gets changed once a week and at that time i also vacuum the gravel a bit. The tank is fully planted and while the B. Carolinia has had issues in the bedroom tank, it's thriving in this one.

The desk tank still has my male Betta Rose in it and yes i've gotten a snail to survive in the tank. It was a lack of oxygen that caused all my snails to die in there. So the assassin snail from one of the ten gallons was rehomed to my desk tank, and i now keep the 'feeding hole' at the top (it's rectangular shaped) open so that more oxygen can get in. Rose has never tried to escape and even the plants in the tank are flourishing with the extra oxygen.

Anyhow that's the short update.

Feel free to leave a comment.

And to those in the northeast who have or are currently getting snowed on right now, i wish your fish the best and hope they all come out of the storm with no power outages. Good luck.

[fishmommie]

sounds like you've got everything under control! Good job.
you'll have to post a photo of Blur and your other tank when you have time.

[~firefly~]

I think the critical comments have only been pointing out obvious mistakes you have been making. At least, from the ones I have seen anyway. You do seem to care about your fish - but even I have thought you've made some odd decisions in terms of cycling (or not cycling), mis-dosing tanks etc.

How does opening the lid increase the oxygen in the water? I'm not convinced this is true (or scientific). Please don't take offence - I do enjoy your journals...but you do need guidance from this community, who, on the whole, mean well.

[Shidohari]

Firefly this is only on the 4 gallon tank which used to have a large issue with diotope algae. But i have found that it also helps get oxygen into the tank as it's the smallest tank. Especially as it's planted with B. Carolinia, which could use the extra air flow. When i started to treating the four gallon tank with phosguard, it was recommended that one of the reasons i had so much of that occuring is one of three things...1. overfeeding (only fed him lightly once or twice a week so that wasn't the reason), 2. high nitrates (my betta never produced that much nitrates and i always changed the water weekly so that wasn't the reason.) or 3. Low oxygen circulation (so i opened the slot that i describe the measurements of below) and it helped paired with the phosguard by Seachem. It's almost all burned off now.

There is a small rectangular hole in the center of the lid which is supposed to be used to feed the fish. It's ten inches wide by 3 inches tall. That is the only part that is open on the four gallon tank.

My plants have flourished since i've left it open. And that was even before i started dosing with Flourish Excel. So i don't mind leaving that small part open in the lid. So as stated i think it was a lack of oxygen in my 4 gallon tank.

Hope that answers your question.

[~firefly~]

Ok. (but I will stand firm on the point that opening the lid won't increase oxygen in the water!) Look at the science rather than assume things - I think you're seeing cause and effect in coincidences. I'm happy for anyone else to argue to this point if I'm wrong.

Fish don't produce nitrates either. Just to clarify (they produce ammonia as waste).

I'd feed your fish daily (rather than once or twice a week).

[Shidohari]

Don't know if I'll put any tank mates with him other than the snails due to the size of my tank, but I probably won't as he's still zooming around the tank (hence the other reason I named him Blurr.

As promised, here are the pictures.

[Shidohari]

Also guys here are pictures of the new tetra tank.

This remember is the tank with 6 Flame Tetras and the remaining 4 Ornate Tetras aka Candy Cane Tetras in this tank.

Enjoy...





And yes i realize that i left my fluval plant scissors just sitting here. Oops?

[Shidohari]

Beware the sleeping Cat, for when it wakes, it's vengeance shall be swift....

Below...behold, the terror that is my cat Cinnamon.