Crud. Algae in the Biocube 29...

shoggoth43

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Well, I had switched to a new tank not that long ago. After bleach dipping all the plants (!) to ensure no snails made it in I finally noticed some green tinge on the walls. There's also some brownish spots on the leaves and sides of the tank.

I started the tank ~a month ago with a fairly decent amount of plants and I've got one of those ammonia cards from Seachem in the tank. There's usually very little to nothing measurable based on the card. I'm guessing that's not really the whole story on that though since I have no idea how accurate it is. I see a small spike after a water change but I suspect that's a result of Prime dealing with the chloramine in the tap water.

I started the tank running EI dosing for a 20-40 gallon tank. Overall it's been running about a month. CO2 was injected from the beginning and I finally managed to get a drop checker on it. The solution in it is somewhere between 4 and 5 degrees KH I think. It shows green towards the end of the day. Distribution in the tank is from running the CO2 into the pump intake so there's a fairly decent amount of fine bubbles floating around during the day.

I still don't see much/any pearling, but the overall flow in the tank is far higher than I had in the other tank, so that may be the reason. I also suspect the plants haven't completely recovered from the bleach dip, but all plants are growing new leaves.

Other than the algae things seem to be doing fine. I did not experience any sort of major algae or major ammonia spike on the tank. Most/all of the shrimp appear to be doing fine. One seems to have been a victim of predation with most of his legs missing. I can honestly say the water parameters are decent since the German Blues are busy defending a nest from the cories so I'm apparently doing something right. Overall there's six panda cories, two German blues, 13 cardinal tetras, and something like 10 Amano and 10 ghost shrimp in there.

I suspect I might not have enough of the micro ferts. The red myriofillium ( I can't spell it - sorry ) is growing, but the tips are definitely pink and not red. I was using EI dosing, but I had the Kent Plant food liquid. I'm going to be using Flourish when that runs out. Should I be dosing that with the small teaspoon measurements per the EI scheme, or does that dosage apply more to the liquid plantex stuff? I definitely plan on getting Tom's stuff when it becomes available.

Lighting is the stock lighting but I'm only using one of the 36 watt tubes so I don't overdo it on the tank. Eventually this will get replaced with LED lighting for a more efficient lighting solution.

Any ideas or thoughts on what I can try for the algae? I can try to get some photos but my camera sucks at the moment and I still need to get photos from the other biocube for the LED retro I did on it.

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shoggoth43

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I may have discovered a couple of bits on the algae front...

My fleet of shrimp seems to have dwindled a bit. I'm going to point the finger at the Rams in this case. I saw the male dismembering a shrimp carcass. I don't know if it was past the warranty date and keeled over or if he helped it along in expiring but I've lost most of the ghost shrimp at this point. There's quite a few Amano's left, but they may not be able to keep up on the cleaning side. I also added three Ottos to help a bit. So far the leaves seem clean and the front glass is clear after a quick swipe or two with a newly purchased mag cleaner. I may need to get more ghost shrimp and a few more ottos.

Most of the plants seem to be coming along nicely. There are still some odd curled leaves here and there and a hole or two in some. These are older leaves and are likely due to damage from the bleach dip as my largest sword essentially disintegrated in the tank. It has since thrown out several new leaves and I expect it to recover quite well. I'm also seeing new immersed foliage on most of the other new plant additions. The new leaves are distinctly different from the old ones.

The red myrio seems to be growing ok. Pinkish tips, but not the dramatic reds I was hoping for. The cabomba just seems to be doing OK, but not great. I've never really been able to get cabomba to grow reliably well but it's possible I still need to tweak the CO2 in the tank. It may still be recovering from the dip as well. I wasn't happy about dipping everything as I couldn't find the Potassium Permanganate I was looking for. Still, I'm happy enough with the results to wait a bit for things to recover. Circulation still seems to be OK.

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None of the eggs for the Rams survived. The corys just ran amok through the nest.
 

shoggoth43

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I finally got some photos, now I just need to upload them. Is there a preferred method people use?

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shoggoth43

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I lost the female ram the other day. She was eating fine the night before and then was on the substrate breathing heavy when I got home the next day. Not sure what happened. I added some carbon in case there was some chemical issue. I found the remains the next morning being picked over. None of the other occupants seem affected. I'm going to have to chalk it up to something she ate, maybe one of the larger shrimp legs got stuck going down or something... Literally none of the other fish or shrimp seemed to have any issues.

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