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The Beginning Of My New Planted Tank


Phil

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Phil took some duckweed and hornwart home last night and I think he's going to try different tubes, with a better spectrum. Pea soup is one of the most frustrating problems I ever had with tanks. It's pretty hard for the plants to grow when there's not enough light getting into the water because of the algae, too. If all else fails Phil, you might need to try filtering through a phosphate sponge.

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I went and got one of those phosphate remover baggy type things today and put it in the filter. It says it helps get rid of green water so hopefully it will work. Also says it removes nitrate and ammonia so that is a plus ;) Also added 1.5kg of Ceramisub to the filter. It is a highly porus biological media, like a gravel type thing. That level/basket just had a fine layer of carbon in it so i thought that this would be more useful. AND.. Lisa will be happy i got a background for the tank.

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Hey Phil,

I had the same thing happen to my 3ft tank. Was going well for a week or two and then a massive algal bloom. Visibility was down to about 3 inches :eek:

Tried some algal treatment stuff and water changes every 2-3 days, even taking water out and putting it through an improvised cotton wool/fine gravel filter. Did this for 3 weeks.

Finally got on top of it by only having the lights on for 2hrs a day, using Algaefix and putting in a large corner filter full of cotton wool. This caught a lot of the dying algae and stuff in the water column. Just changed the cotton wool every 2 days. After about six days went back to the normal lighting regime, the plants were suffering a little but they all bounced back. The water was still a little green but it just got clearer and clearer over the next few days.

Algae_progress.jpg

It's been stable for the last 6 weeks or so now :) and I've added heaps more fish and plants. Was such a relief, I was getting to the point where I thought I'd give up.

Away, that's my two cents :)

Best of luck :) Keep at it.

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Clear, The waters are CLEAR!!

Cant believe it. It must be the phosphate remover that Lilli reccomended. I put it in on sunday and all the algae has dissapeared in just 4 days.

Might be worth trying one Ezza, i got mine for $3.95 but abbey said that she paid around $20 for one so it might pay to look around.

Thanks Lilli :):)

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well i did some re aranging tonight and added 2 big rocks, and i think its looking much better. I need a big piece of thin driftwood to put through the centre and plan to randomly plant some thin val aroud, the corkscrew val is starting to look brilliant and then i want to put a low groundcover type plant across the front.

I added 8 huge male congo tetras today that look magnificent in there!! They school around with the 15 small congo tetras i have in there and are give a nice effect.

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Well there is another massive chage today too :)

I got some driftwood and vallis. I wanted a thin in the water type effect with the driftwood. Unfortunaly the piece i wanted to be the top one was too big to fit in upside down so had to become the bottom piece.

Also added a red sword plant in the centre to be a centrepiece plant

Added one more fish today, a female powder blue dwarf gourami. Its amazing how the 4 boys i have in there have started friendly flaring at eachother and their colours are twice as bright :)

plantedtankwithwood.jpg

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Hey Phil love the tank...SUPERB!!

You have inspired me to have a shot at it...now all I need is another tank and all the stuff to go with it :fish:

Did you use soil underneath the sand and how do you clean the poop off the bottom?

Also I really like that plant with the delicate and coloured foliage....what is him called?

I have a gourami(Shiny Shiny Thad) in my community tank with seven betta girls (Peaches, Lilli, Marilyn, Baby boo, Lil blue, Kylie and Lucinda) and a gorgeous little bristlenose(snuffy). I've got some pics and the will to share....but I'm still quite the newb and don't know how to post pics. :wub:

Nic

:censor:

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hey Phil love the piece of wood looks great

suggestion: Maybe move the wood back a bit and place some of your plants around the wood, as you have some great plants and it would look more natural. i know it would be a pain but i think it would be worth the hasels to play with the design a little

glad to see you got over the pea soup looks so much better :P

Ray

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