Lighting
Fritz Ludemann
Hi,
I just started a 10 gallon community tank with 2 Black skirt tetras and
3 black neons, i have it at about 75-76 degrees. It
also has a flourescent light. When the light is off, they swin
around happy as "clams", but when its on they migrate to the
bottom or corners and are fairly still, they also dont seem to
feed actively. I just got them yesterday and understand there
is probably an adjustment period but what about the light? Any
advice?
Thanks in advance,
Fritz
curv...@reninet.com
David McLaughlin
Do you have any plants or other stuff for them to hide in? It helps
the fish feel more secure and more likely to come out when they have a
good hiding place close by.
Dave
John
David McLaughlin wrote in message <357ef296...@news.erols.com>...
>On Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:57:16 -0700, Fritz Ludemann
><curv...@reninet.com> wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>I just started a 10 gallon community tank
>Do you have any plants or other stuff for them to hide in
> Dave
But wait until your tank cycles to put the plants in. Otherwise, you'll
need to put fertilizer in your tank and I could be wrong but that could mess
up your cycle. Does anyone know if I'm right on this?
Don't want to mess up Fritz's set-up,
Nancy
Clinton V. Weiss
One week after my tank was setup with fish I added 3 plants with a fertilizer
tablet for each of them. The tank cycled just fine in a few weeks, although I
did have a loss of fish due to high nitrite levels. But I believe that was my
own fault, I replaced a standard no name filter with a Penguin 170. That may
have disrupted the cycle some. In my experience however, I don't believe the
fertilizer affected the cycle at all.
Clinton V. Weiss
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BB
There is no reason to wait for the tank to cycle before adding plants.
Plants actually prefer ammonia to nitrate as food, also they make a good
place for the bacteria to grow.
Barry Barlow
bba...@camcomp.com.com
remove extra .com
John wrote in message <6lpbvb$frk$1...@ink.msen.com>...
Beverly Erlebacher
In article <6lpbvb$frk$1...@ink.msen.com>, John <nu...@dam.bis> wrote:
>
>David McLaughlin wrote in message <357ef296...@news.erols.com>...
>>On Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:57:16 -0700, Fritz Ludemann
>><curv...@reninet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Hi,
>>>I just started a 10 gallon community tank
>
>>Do you have any plants or other stuff for them to hide in
>> Dave
>
>But wait until your tank cycles to put the plants in. Otherwise, you'll
>need to put fertilizer in your tank and I could be wrong but that could mess
>up your cycle. Does anyone know if I'm right on this?
You are wrong again.
>Don't want to mess up Fritz's set-up,
THen don't give him advice about things you are not knowledgable about.
The Leopard Woman
Beverly -
what is the actual answer in regards to fertilizer use during cycling?
I'd like to know more about that myself...
Meg
Beverly Erlebacher
In article <358037...@vt.edu>,
The Leopard Woman <nug...@NOSPAM.vt.edu> wrote:
>Beverly Erlebacher wrote:
>>
>> >>On Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:57:16 -0700, Fritz Ludemann
>> >><curv...@reninet.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>I just started a 10 gallon community tank
>> >
>> >>Do you have any plants or other stuff for them to hide in
>
>I'd like to know more about that myself...
I don't use plant fertilizer - the fish fertilize the plants.
These days people seem to think that having live plants in their aquaria
is a high-tech PhD-level thing, something like reefs. Actually, it's only
if you are trying to get the Dutch aquarium effect that you need high inputs
of light, fertilizer, CO2, etc. In my opinion, you can get 90% of the effect
with 10% of the time, effort and money. To get the 100% you have to drive
the system with high levels of light, which causes the plants to grow faster,
need more nutrients (both fertilizer and CO2) and more trimming and general
fussing around with. Using a moderate amount of light (1-2w/gallon) I have
nice looking plants making a good environment for the fish, and keeping up
the water quality. All my tanks have lots of plants, even though they are
mostly breeding and grow out tanks.
As far as cycling, people sometimes say that planted tanks don't cycle,
which isn't entirely correct. However, I don't 'cycle' a tank. I put in
a sand or gravel substrate, add rocks or wood or whatever, partly fill it
with water siphoned from another tank, plant it and fill it. If I'm not in
a hurry, and am using rooted plants, I may give them a few days to settle
in, or be replanted if they float up, but otherwise, the tank is ready for
fish once the heater is adjusted and the temperature is stable.
I don't usually use filters, mostly just an airstone or sponge filter so
there is some water circulation. If the tank gets crowded, e.g. a grow-out
tank as the fry grow, I do more frequent and larger water changes. I use
the color of the old water as an indicator of whether water changes need
to be stepped up. Using white plastic buckets is helpful for this. Plants
consume ammonia preferentially, and the plant surfaces provide a large area
for bacteria, algae and various protozoans and other pond critters to live.
A clump of Java moss will feed a lot of tiny fry for quite a while.
In the Good Old Days, everybody used live plants, and nobody had ever heard
about cycling a tank. It's only when people started using fish-only tanks
with plastic plants that fish started dying due to "new tank syndrome".
As far as plant fertilizers in general, I've been growing house and garden
plants for decades, and there are some general rules - don't fertilize a
sick plant, or a recently transplanted plant, or a plant that isn't getting
enough light. Only fertilize if it's the lack of nutrients that is causing
undesirably slow growth. For ornamental plants, fast growth is not necessarily
desirable. Big plants can take up too much space.
I usually have some fast-growing floating plants in my tanks to soak up any
excess nutrients. Even duckweed is good for this. As you scoop it off the
surface, you are removing N and P from the tank. This is very high tech
biological filtration, you know, and the fish feel more secure with floating
plants to protect them from fish eating birds!
Anyhow, that's my low-tech approach, which is sort of a emulate-nature-and-
let-nature-do-the-work type approach. However, you have to have some knowledge
and may have to have developed some intuition by experience to make this sort
of thing work. But if you stock lightly, it should work if you just stay calm
and let the biology settle on its own.
Btw, I tried cycling a tank with household ammonia, doing all those tests, etc.
The tank could consume 5ppm of ammonia in 24hrs after less than a week. It had
plants however, so maybe this was cheating. :-)
dwadla
It could be because these are shoaling fish. I have a tank with 8 Neons and
8 Glowlights - they all swim around together and take food from the surface
of the aquarium so they must be fairly happy.
Try introducing some more fish of the same species - you'll probably need 6
of each species to keep them happy.
Fritz Ludemann wrote in message <357EC8FC...@reninet.com>...