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Stats and Maintenance
My water temperature is kept at 80F, with carbonate hardness kept at 2-3 degrees and pH at 6.1 with RO water. I dose KNO3 and KH2PO4 on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Plantex CSM+B and Excel Flourish on Monday, Wenesday and Friday. On Saturday I take a break and rest up for the 50% water change on Sunday.
Flora
Plant species are varying at this point although blyxa japonica is currently the dominant plant. I have no real aquascape at this point because I've reverted to trying to get the tank healthy.
Photos
An illustrated history of the tank can be found here in my photo gallery -- I try to put up a new picture every Saturday or Sunday evening. Ones that represent major milestones for the aquarium are linked below:
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11-Jan-2006: My first aquascaping attempt here was a lot better than on my 29, if you remember back that far. The one quibble I have is the sword in the left hand side of the tank doesn't seem to fit in.
I plan to replace that in the coming weeks with a complementing rock formation in that area. I'm not doing it now since the baby discus seem to use that as a retreat and I don't want to mess with their acclimation.
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22-Jan-2006: The discus seem happy and are growing at a nice clip. At this rate, they'll be pretty filled out in a couple of months. It's very cool to see them develop.
I've had my first major algae outbreak, mainly diatoms, GSP and hair. I've been running a polishing filter and it's helped some. I've also backed off the light to 216 watts for a couple of days to see if that helps.
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12-Feb-2006: Things haven't been so great lately. The algae had almost overtaken the tank to the point where I had to pull out nearly 50% of the plant mass.
It's looking better now, but I'm still on 2/3 light and I had to reintroduce some stems to hopefully assist with keeping the algae at bay.
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19-Feb-2006:What a difference a week makes! Algae seems to be just about licked. I added some stems, but I also made some major changes in my CO2 reactor. I think both alterations had a positive impact.
With any luck, I'll be able to up my lighting soon. Replanting all my glosso in the foreground is also on the to-do list.
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31-March-2006:It's been quite a battle lately. Just when I thought things were going along well, my CO2 bottle ran out. The same day, I started getting greenwater. I ran out and got the CO2 replaced, but the damage was seemingly done.
I've added a bunch of new plants in hopes of getting things under control and adding some more color.
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5-July-2006: You may have noticed there have been no updates for months. That's because the tank sucks. Hard. I've tried to stave things off by raising the CO2, replacing the substrate, and paying close attention to dosing.
We'll see if it can turn the corner this time. You'll note I've removed all diseased plants and peroxide dipped the remainder. Only thing I can think of at this point.
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Links
After you're done here, check out some of these other cool planted tank places on the internet:
Back to sheldongang.org
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