Freshwater for the Kids! Build

[AHP]

So the eggs are no longer on the DW as of this morning and I could not find both of the GBR's. I am hopping that I have wigglers and not other fish eatting the eggs.
I will check it out tonight as see what has happened. fingers crossed!

[Apyrase]

Sorry for your experience :/

I did use a very low dosage of salt. Around one teaspoon per 5 gallons of water. My tank is fully planted as well.

Anyway your tank looks amazing! Makes me wish I had gone for GBR's myself.

[AHP]

I have tried using salt once and it didn't go so well it almost killed every plant I had.

[Apyrase]

I've used aquarium salt for treating ick on my cardinals in my 20L twice. As long as you don't use the salt regularly and only reserve it for treatments, I think they'll be fine. Salt has much less impact on a fish's health than methyl blue or malachite green anyway and I can't use those as I have cherry shrimp.
After I treated it and cranked the temperature all the way to 85 (over a period of two days), the ick was gone in about a week and I only saw it again when I introduced new fish. My cardinals are now my fattest and healthiest fish now haha.

[AHP]

So here is my first of the year update to the tank. Everything seems to be doing ok... I still have some ick going on 2-3 weeks.


I am trying to focus on growing a carpet of Dwarf Sag (left), Vals (middle) & Crypt parva (right). So far the Crypt parva is doing very well and starting to fill out a bit more. Might take another year to get thick and spread out but I am not putting any hope into that.
Vals not doing so well right now as they are starting to melt away. I have DIY root tabs under them at the moment and hopping they pull through.
Dwarf Sag melted away and is slowly coming back, yes they have root tabs under them as well. I am thinking that the root tabs helped produce the new ones showing up and maybe with some luck they will spread.


My favorite news is my GBR's are breeding again and have laid some eggs as of light night or early this morning. But there is a catch I have ick in the tank and I am treating it with Quick Cure. I am not sure if I should stop the drops for a couple of days to see if the fry hatch. I would gladly take some help on this as I am sure the eggs are sensitive to anything right now.

Kids are doing great and loving the tank. My son has named the angle fish "Pancake"! On some Sat mornings I will wake up and he will be standing at the tank talking to Pancake.

[AHP]

Ok.
Yea they are staying very low for me as well and kind of thinning out a bit. Right now I have some root tabs under them and seeing some small growth but not as much as I expected.

I am still dealing with Ick going on almost 2 weeks now using quick cure 3x a day with water changes and no carbon (I never use).

What I really like are the Rotala, they are growing fast and still holding leaves down at the bottom.
I also want to see if Dwarf Sag would work as a foreground plant, so if anyone has some I would be happy to try out and see if it works.

[Roshan8768]

Pretty sure that it's just regular vals. They've stayed pretty short for me though and, you can mow them down to the height that you want

[AHP]

Ok... Maybe I didn't treat long enought. So I will be using Quick Cure for 6 weeks and I started on the 20th, lets hope that works and if not I will go longer.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. I did a trimming over the last couple of days and took out some plants to put the cutting in. I will try to take a couple of pictures.

O yea Roshan what were the plants that you gave me as a foreground/carpeting plant?
Did you say dwarf vals or dwarf sag?

[Roshan8768]

Cool, as I mentioned above- inorder to give yourself a chance of completely removing ich from your system you would probably have to treat for atleast 4-6 weeks for the ich. However, this is probably a bit over the top unless you quarantine and medicate all new fish for a month. I would focus more on reducing the stressors... most people have some amount of the parasite in their systems, it just doesn't become an issue because of how healthy they're fish are.




Hydrogen peroxide treatment is usually a pretty failsafe method of fixing algae issues... you can look into that. I think your tank just needs some more time and a larger volume of plants before it becomes stable. Until then you'll probably have to deal with these occasional bouts with algae

[AHP]

I did find the Mazanita wood for some sick prices, I just haven't pulled the trigger on it yet.
As for the last ick treatment, I followed the directions and used it for 2 weeks (a week longer than the direction suggested). But it came back and I am treating it right now with Quick Cure. I just hope I dont lose any more fish.

The clippings are doing great! I think you gave me a dwarf tiger lily and the reds really look great. I also am dealing with green hair algae so I have been black out for the last 3 days.

Treatments:
Ick First then onto Green Hair algae.

[Roshan8768]

Maybe you need to add some more driftwood to have more hiding places? Fish that can easily find places to hide are usually more secure and less likely to succumb to ich. Did you end up finding any of that manzanita wood you were looking for? I thought you treated the display tank for 6-8 weeks right? It should be completely out of your system. How are those plant clippings doing for you?

[AHP]

Crap... I moved the scape around because the flow of the tank was getting some dead spots. On Friday I noticed Ick again!
I keep stressing my fish out.
Agggrrr

[troy tucker]

I don't remember what you have in the tank with them but Rams are very protective.

[AHP]

After reading a bit about GBR's and breeding. It seems like like to find one spot and make that the nesting area. Do you think that if I laided a flat rock on or near the driftwood where the spawned last they would choose the rock instead of driftwood. Seeing how it would be easier to remove the rock rather than driftwood. OR should I leave it as is and hope they protect their fry when the times comes?

[Roshan8768]

Cool!! They will probably take a couple of trys before they figure out what they're doing. I have at least one species of fish spawning most any day of the week. My Harlequins spawn 2-3 times a week in the morning, and both neon tetras about 1-2x a week closer to dusk. The cherry barbs spawn for a week straight after any water change, and the Goldfish spawn during the Spring when the temperature starts to rise. Would be cool to remove all my adult fish and kill the filtration for a couple of days and see what happens