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The 90 gallon tank was set up about 3 years ago,
after being set into a framed cut-out in my living room wall. Tank
access is from the rear (the tank body is situated in the laundry
room). The outside rear and side walls of the tank are painted flat
black to give the illusion of depth.
I had little experience with freshwater so I joined HDAS and started
learning much about fish and plants from a number of the senior
aquarists. I found them always willing to inform and answer my
questions at monthly meetings.
I had my eye on Cardinal Tetras for a long time and put 10 of them
and a couple of plants in the aquarium. A large hang-on biological
filter and four 40 watt fluorescent lights completed the
installation.
In place at the time of the basic installation was a Plenum System
with a 3” layer of 1 to 3 mm quartz coarse sand. This no-maintenance
Plenum de-Nitrifier ensured that the fish inhabitants would not be
exposed to any level of Nitrate in their habitat and allowed me to
enjoy the fish without the constant chore of regular water changes.
All electric power to the aquarium is fed through a Ground Fault
Interrupter (GFI). This is primarily for my safety as I have
experienced too many powerheads that have had the potting compound
crack which caused the tank water to be electrified at 115VAC! I
have also heard of people putting their hands into tanks to rescue
broken glass submersible heaters that were still plugged in!!
Also in use is a Titanium Ground Probe to ground out any induced
voltages from fields produced by powerheads, heaters, lights, etc.
The fish are very happy not to be “stimulated” by AC voltages that
can commonly be 20-50 volts. I, too, am happy that, by using a
Ground Probe, I do not have to be part of the ground return path to
cause the GFI to trip. With the Ground Probe, power is cut off
before I touch the aquarium.
For the first 2 years, I had little success with both fish and
plants. Despite the 4 fluorescent bulbs placed 3” above the water
surface, the 24” depth kept even ‘easy-to-grow’ plants from
thriving. The Cardinals fared even worse with bouts of die-offs that
would appear unexplainably from time to time. I eventually came to
learn from club members that the fish were likely suffering from
“Neon Tetra Disease”. The fish would develop a hump back, the fins
would melt away and slowly the fish would waste away. Once started,
this disease has no known cure!
About two years ago, I was out of the country for 6 months and had
my brother ‘take care’ of the tank. Most of the plants died and the
fish population declined during this period. Algae growth was
pronounced. Upon returning home, I decided to get serious and make
some major changes to improve conditions. I changed all the water. I
removed the fluorescents and replaced them with a 250w quartz iodine
hydroponic light fixture with an inexpensive, industrial lamp with a
low colour temperature (4300K) bulb.
I decided to try to stop the Neon Tetra Disease in its tracks before
it starts by installing a 30 watt U.V. Sterilizer to kill bacteria
that might initiate the disease. I used a powerhead to get flow
through the Sterilizer. The pump and the Sterilizer were connected
to the same 14hr/day timer as the main light.
At about the same time, I considered adding CO2 injection to
encourage plant growth. At first, I considered buying/making a
product that uses electrolysis with a massive carbon electrode to
generate CO2. After considering the routine replacement cost of the
carbon electrode, I abandoned this approach. I adopted, instead, a
more conventional CO2 bottle (10#) and inexpensive welding
regulator/dual gauge unit and an aquarium bubble counter. The output
was then fed into the drilled out tit on the siphon inlet of an
Aquaclear 300. The pump impeller efficiently allowed the CO2 to be
dissolved.
With these changes, success started to come to this tank. There was
no algae bloom. I have not had a re-occurrence of the dreaded Neon
Tetra Disease…. Thank goodness!! The plants now started to grow like
crazy.
Now, I had to re-think the type of plants, their location, and
decorations to set up a respectable looking aquarium. I removed lots
of flora and put larger, long leaf plants along the rear and two
sides. Two 15” log decorations were added for interest and a front
lawn of mat grass was added by putting a few strands in several
spaces.
This configuration worked well for a while with plants having to be
trimmed back several times and the mat grass spreading well. A
visitor fortunately mentioned when viewing the tank that the plants
were not as dark green as they should be. He suggested the addition
of an iron supplement. Adding chelated iron quickly gave new life to
the plants. Monthly additions of iron have now become routine.
With the growth of the plants, the little algae that would appear
previously on the front glass has all but disappeared as the plants
out compete the algae for nutrients.A small flow-thru bag of
Phosphate Remover is always kept in the Aquaclear. Reverse Osmosis (R.O.)
water is used for all top ups to further minimize algae food
sources.
At Christmas last year, my buddy suggested I add about a dozen
Rummynose Tetra and, after some prodding, I picked up 6 cultured
fish during Boxing Week from one dealer and 6 wild caught from
another. The 6 wild caught died within weeks and were replaced with
more cultured stock. They are very active swimmers, continuously
roaming from one side of the tank to the other across the front
glass. Quite often the Cardinals will join the parade.
Four Amano shrimp were also added to the tank. I have only seen a
maximum of 3 at any one time since and lately I have seen only one
every couple of weeks. I cannot see where they are hiding most of
the time. I have also read that they are very susceptible to
elevated levels of CO2; so I will lower my CO2 bubble rate in the
summer before adding more shrimp.
I have tried for the longest time to reduce slowly the pH closer to
6.0 by increasing CO2 injection levels but have not been successful
in getting the tank below 6.6 pH. I even tried adding peat water
(which made the water coloured like tea) but to no avail. Hardness
during this time was 80 ppm which is considered soft.
During several occasions with HDAS members, the subject of
conductivity (<20uS) of Reverse Osmosis water stuck in my mind. I
had purchased a conductivity meter over 10 years ago and suspected
the probe would be of little use after long term storage. After
digging deep in the basement to locate it, I quickly realized it was
in good working condition. I also realized the R.O. water that I was
using faithfully to top up the tank was essentially tap water
(conductivity > 150uS). The tank water conductivity was up at 200uS;
so a slow water exchange using a replacement R.O. membrane is
planned. Once this is done, I should be able to easily lower the pH
(with less CO2 consumption) to encourage the Cardinals to breed
(Would I ever love to have this happen!).
Since the contest, I have added 3 very small Albino Plecos to try to
have them remove algae on the wood decoration. Now, if I could only
get them to focus on these wood pieces….
No tank changes are planned for the future, except for the setting
up of a small breeding tank and the addition of 6 Amano shrimp.
Happy fish keeping... |
