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Progress

3 Gallon Pico

Overall the tank is doing great, it currently looks great, and that’s the point, right? There are a few things that have happened that I thought I would detail.

• Filterless to Filter – The tank was getting messy, no amount of water changes could keep it clean. I ended up giving up and getting a little nano sponge filter. It has helped dramatically. Cleaning the sponge every few weeks seems to be enough to keep everything crystal clear. I think making sure I don’t keep the light on for 4 days straight helps, too.
• The Cichlid Massacre – I picked up 6 victorian cichlids and put them into the tank. After doing a water change, I poured in the replacement water too fast and it stirred up the sandbed more than I wanted. As a result lots of detrius got pumped into the water column. All but one of them died. So there is just one tiny yellow cichlid in my tank now, but I like it like that. I think I will keep him alone for awhile.
• Scum – I still get a lot of this oil slick on the surface of the water, I cure it with water changes that include using a plastic cup and ’skimming’ the surface of the water.

12 Gallon Nano

My 12 Gallon planted tank has not been doing so well. I have this invasive (carnivorous, im told) hitchhiker plant that grows like crazy and looks nasty. Additionally, the algae growing on the glass grows at an unacceptable rate. Last night I turned off the light and plan to leave it off for a few days to help kill off the algae. Additionally, I lowered the lighting period from 12 hours to 7. Hopefully this will help.

I almost never touch this tank, and want to try to keep it this way. I am going to seriously need to figure out how to get rid of this hitchhiker. It seems to be very invasive so I am not optimistic about it. I may have to resort to ’starting over’. I am not looking forward to that.

Little picture to satisfy the fanboys.

Over time, my little 3 gallon pico tank became overgrown. The Ritola Green was seriously taking up ALL of the space in the tank. I trimmed back about half of the growth in the tank and filled up 2 dixie cups worth of clippings. Revealing the substrate revealed an interesting suprise, there was film of detrius all over the bottom of the tank.

I wanted to get rid of this, so I took a little air-powered filter and stirred up the tank, after a few hours the tank was cleared of the detrius and had a good dosing of fresh carbon. Not having a filter in the tank for 6 months I can’t say that I am surprised at all of the detrius settling. I am going to leave the little filter on for a day, and stir everything up a few more times to get as much detritus out of the tank as possible.

So I wanted to post some quick shots of the progress on my Planted tanks over the past 2 months:

3 Gallon Pico

From a few months ago

January 19th 2008

12 Gallon Nano

A few months ago

January 19th 2008